A Question of Racism

To the Editors:

I was pleased that Andrew Hacker reviewed my book Racial Attitudes in America: Trends and Interpretations [NYR, March 3], and that he believes it to be a significant contribution. However, there is one sentence in his review which seems to quote the authors as asserting that responses to surveys are a “veneer that conceals continued profound racism on the part of most or all white Americans.” These words in the book are posed as a question, not as an assertion, and the authors then go on to explain why the question cannot be answered yes or no in any simple way.

Howard Schuman
Institute for Social Research
The University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, Michigan