This readable book is interesting on several grounds.
First, it is a compendium. Coleman Hughes’ book concerning colorblindness as the antidote to neoracism – defined as “racism in anti-racist clothing” (p. 154) -- organizes within two covers some major events of what John McWhorter previously has identified as the “woke racism” of recent decades. Personally I have read, from a sense of duty, more of the literature on this topic (including Loury, Steele, Chatterton Williams, Reed, Fields & Fields, and Sowell) than the likes of myself might have if just left to his own devices. Even so, I found a few events discussed here (e.g., a psychiatrist holding forth at Yale on “The Psychopathic Problem of the White Mind,” pp. 74-75; e.g., pandemic relief for farmers and restaurant owners explicitly excluding whites, pp. 68-72; e.g., a dauntingly rigorous process for selecting and retaining air traffic controllers replaced by a biographical questionnaire, in the interests of increasing minority figures among that workforce, pp. 118-119) that surprised me. Key statistics are marshalled (for example, the common perception, including among les bien-pensants, that American police killings of Blacks run into four digits annually when in fact the figure is barely into two digits, p. 98). Taken together, the result is a big picture, and specifically one that otherwise might be less well in focus, even by people knowledgeable on the topic. I found this aspect very useful.
Second, it is full of analysis. The author cuts through a lot of fog to hone in, in short order, on the core claims of neoracists like DiAngelo, Kendi, Crenshaw, Coates, and Hannah-Jones. In particular, ch. 5, “The Neoracist Narrative,” works through a table of current fallacies. The central claim of Hughes’ analysis is that old racism has shot its bolt; post-racism is neither feasible nor desirable; what passes for “anti-racism” turns out to be neoracism; but there remains a choice between neoracism and colorblindness. Having tried to dismantle the intellectual credibility of neoracism in chs. 1-5, he goes on in ch. 6 to contemplate a colorblind way forward. (Colorblind would mean “class-based rather than race-based policies;” p. 154.)
Third, it is a model of argumentation. For one thing (and most glaringly) Hughes offers arguments, where his neoracist foils tend to settle for assertion ex cathedra. For another, he pays attention to what conditions would be required to sustain argument (for example, the need to show that racial disparities 1] are malignant not benign and that 2] any malignant ones can only be attributable to racism; p. 108ff). In addition, Hughes makes deft use of analogy to puncture cant and deflate sophistry and special pleading. (Does talking more about race help eliminate racism? Would making baseball central to the curriculum decrease or increase animosities between Yankee and Sox fans? pp. 98-100; Or: suppose your friend Tom calls himself an atheist; but everything he does believe turns out coincidentally to align literally with the King James Version. Is Tom believable? pp 23-24.)
One could argue with Hughes’ arguments. (For example, I wonder if those who hold to what he calls “The Myth of No Progress” [i.e., after slavery, Jim Crow or the Civil Rights movement] would rest content with his examples like the [uncatastrophizing] fact that the KKK is about the same size as the Flat Earth Society, or that the Blacksonian museum on the Mall has had to turn away overflow crowds [pp. 127ff], rather than push back with examples about Red state legislatures wishing to ban Critical Race Theory.) But opponents are free to seek refutation because he does make arguments. In any case he does play a lot of Devil’s Advocate in anticipating counter-arguments.
For this reason, apart from being a book on its particular topic, I could see this being assigned not only in logic class but also in speech and rhetoric. It is an exemplar.
Nit-picking little quibble (and it is merely rhetorical): spot on to highlight the “racism” in “neoracism.” “Reverse racism,” pp. 59-60, undermines this. (As if racism were heritably white, such that neoracism is illegitimately a kind of cultural appropriation?) Otherwise, a very fine book, a good read, and a welcome addition.
Ibram X. Kendi has refused to debate Hughes on the grounds that 1) he has not been awarded a doctorate and 2) he does not hold a professorship. Hughes recently earned a BA in Philosophy at Columbia. I invite the potential reader to judge whether or not this book goes to show what a rigorous undergraduate liberal education can do for a person, compared with the puffery and credentialism of Dr Kendi & co.

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The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America