ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the people must expand their vision of reconciliation beyond the issues of race, gender, ethnicity, and sexual discrimination to include a demand for broader economic and social justice as well as the freedom to speak and act freely. Although most conservative opponents of federal welfare programs sought to avoid explicit racial justifications for their view, the powerful association of welfare with a vast black urban anti-social and criminal underclass inevitably gave a boost to the notion that vast amounts of money are being spent on the undeserving poor. Explicit racism may have declined in American life, but similarities between old-style racism and new cultural essentialism are more important than the differences. Still, as the overt racism of an earlier generation declines, and a broader African American and Hispanic middle class emerges, the way is paved for whites to see "good blacks", "our kind of folks", as proof that we live in a society free of discrimination.
