Word: criticize
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Affirmative action has produced another, less conspicuous but perhaps more pernicious, consequence. Leonard Fein, a social critic, described this unintentional legacy of affirmative action in an historical context: "James Baldwin wrote that one of the tragedies of being Black in America is never knowing why you failed. The modern corollary, [ironically enough] is that with affirmative action, you never know why you succeeded." Although the latter is admittedly less tragic, we have created a culture in which "few Blacks are sufficiently confident of themselves or their achievements." In so doing, we have undermined one of the purposes of the program...
...Daylight (Simon & Schuster; 252 pages; $23) and Paul West's A Stroke of Genius (Viking; 181 pages; $21.95) are similar medical memoirs, kind of Blue Cross specials in which the writers recount their tussles with diseases and the imperfect professionals who treat them. Sheed is a novelist, essayist and critic with few equals in the styling of buoyant observations on the decline and fall of just about everything. Prolific only begins to describe West, whose 14 novels, nine works of nonfiction and two volumes of poetry exhibit a range of imagination and richness of expression that were greatly appreciated before...
...Midwestern agricultural college where professors are funded by "Mid-America Pork By-Products," an inventor moos after suffering a "brain attack" and secretaries sell Amway products by telephone. "As jaunty and straightforward as its title, 'Moo' allows Smiley to turn literary and stylistic cartwheels all around the gym," saysTIME critic Pico Iyer. "It is rather like one of those comic novels in which John Updike gives himself a holiday from more draining work...
...beats the blues. That's why many young musicians are adding a blue tint to new albums such as British-born screecher PJ Harvey's "To Bring You My Love," Houston native Chris Whitley's "Din of Ecstasy" and Louisianan Chris Thomas' "21st Century Blues From Da Hood."TIME critic Christopher John Farleysays Harvey's music lacks "subtlety or grace," while Whitley's album is "painfully, almost uncomfortably honest." But it's not all bad. Farley says Thomas' work features a "crunching beat, brash guitars and howling harmonica solos...
Senate majority leader Bob Dole--once a defender and now critic of affirmative action--continued to be tripped up by the apparent contradictions of his record. In the mid-1980s, Dole tried to help a black former aide benefit from a small-business affirmative-action program that he now wants to scrap. Dole's office explained that the Senator tries to make sure "constituents are treated fairly while working to change the system...