Lessons from My Uncle James: Beyond Skin Color to the Content of Our Character

by Ward Connerly

Book Overview

Fiercely committed to the ideal of a color-blind America, Ward Connerly has successfully campaigned to ban racial preferences in state institutions in California, Washington and Michigan. Yet, in Lessons from Uncle James, Connerly argues that even after we move beyond the color of our skin, we must still address the content of our character. With this Connerly extols the traditional virtues of personal accountability as a ballast to race industry's...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1594032211
• ISBN13: 9781594032219
• Release Date: September 2008
• Publisher: Encounter Books
• Length: 350 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Book review from IntellectualConservative.com

By Rachel Alexander Ward Connerly, best known for taking on preferential treatment on the basis of race, gender, and ethnicity beginning in 1996 with California's Proposition 209, recently came out with a second book. Lessons from My Uncle James: Beyond Skin Color to the Content of Our Character is about the most influential person in his life, his Uncle James who raised him as his own son. It was Uncle James's parenting that planted the seeds in Ward which ultimately led to his crusade against affirmative action. Uncle James's no-nonsense, no-complaining allowed upbringing, combining love with hard work, instilled within Ward a highly disciplined work ethic that went counter to the affirmative action mentality of blaming someone else for your situation. The short book is beautifully written in the same elegant and powerful speaking style Ward is known for, pulling the reader in for a quick read that flows more like easy-to-read fiction than nonfiction. There are fascinating parallels to My Grandfather's Son, by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who was raised by his strict grandfather. Although both Ward and Justice Thomas were not raised by their paternal fathers, they were fortunate enough to have a relative step in to provide that important father role sadly missing in many black families today. Deserted by his father at a young age, Ward lost his mother soon afterwards to a stroke. His Uncle James (the husband of his aunt Bert) took him in, and he spent the rest of his childhood living with Uncle James and Bert or his grandma. Uncle James never saw people in terms of color. Yet some of Ward's own family members spoke disparagingly of Uncle James behind his back because he was darker-skinned than they were. Observing this unjust cruelty taught Ward very early on that any kind of racial discrimination was wrong. Uncle James had an uncompromising moral code and work ethic. Even though he worked in manual labor his entire life, due to a third grade education, he never felt the "stress" associated today with strenuous work. He thought that the coffee break was the worst invention since it allowed people employed in government bureaucracies paid by his hard-earned money to "sit on their fat a*** smoking cigarettes." When he'd see someone sitting on the side of a street with a sign, "will work for food," he'd mutter, "Well then, just put down the d*** sign and go get yourself a job." Uncle James taught Ward that if you didn't neglect the small things in life, the big things would fall into place. He carried a gun to protect himself, because a "mane has got to defend himself and his family, else he ain't no mane at all!" (his pronunciation of man) Ward frequently jokes that due to his lack of education Uncle James wouldn't have known the difference between the Second Amendment and the Third Amendment, he had a grounded inner sense of what was right. Uncle James was selfless. He never talked about himself and treated everyone as friends, n

A moving autobiography

Ward Connerly is a great American whose leadership in ensuring equal opportunity for all is well known. The book provides insight on Connerly's formative years and the critical moral and practical lessons he learned from his Uncle James. Concise, touching, and elevating, this volume is very strongly recommended.

Very Good

Mr. Connerly introduces us to his Uncle James and it is a very heartwarming experience. I enjoyed getting to know a man whose independence and drive epitomizes all that is truly American. As a southerner, I only regret that he had to go to California to find the freedom he needed to live as only a man like he must live.

A Brave Guy Who Gets It

Ward Connerly is an amazing guy who totally "gets it." His critical thinking, demonstrated time and time again in this book, places him on absolute par with Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams, two of the countries other amazing African American thinkers, authors and professors of fair play for all! Connerly's book should be required reading in all California schools just to counter the slanted view of "quotas by race, gender and ethnicity" foisted on the public for decades, quotas which have almost destroyed the fabric of my state! Hear, Hear, for Ward Connerly, a guy who not only gets it, but a guy who has and is doing something about it! His book speaks volumes regarding honesty, fairness and a way out of the incredible mess that political correctness has created!