Can We Talk About Race?

April 1, 2007
Ten years ago, Tatums book asked the question, Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? Her latest book follows up with a broader question about the nations readiness to talk honestly about the forces that continue to make race such a thorny issue. In separate essays, Tatum probes the impact of continued segregation in public schoolsmostly the result of segregated neighborhoodson classroom achievement; the difficulty of developing and sustaining interracial relationships in a society that practices silence on race; and the longer-term implications of continued segregation on a changing democracy with a growing nonwhite population. Tatum blends policy analysis and personal recollections as an educator and self-described integration baby, born just after the momentous Brown v. Board of Education decision, into a cogent look at the forces that continue to separate the races and the urgent need to begin an honest dialogue. Tatums analysis is a probing and ambitious start of a series of books to prod national discussion on issues of race, education, and democracy.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)