Book summary

Law professor Richard Thompson Ford examines the ways that race and charges of discrimination are, in his view, used--or overused--in American life. Ford questions whether the drumbeat of discrimination is being used by opportunists to advance their own agendas, and whether it promotes a culture of victims. He also wonders how such freewheeling use of the term in situations in which it does not apply may actually serve to undermine legitimate concerns about discrimination. Ford applies both law and common sense to everyday examples, and his questions will provoke as well as intrigue readers. Selected by the New York Times Book Review as a Notable Book of 2008.

Media reviews

"[A] sharp, tightly argued and delightfully contentious work....[A] vigorous and long-overdue shake-up of the nation's stale discourse on race."