New White Racial Anxieties?

Poor white America in the century of diversity.

The race drums are beating in this country again. The loudest ones right now, from the right, and the white.

The NAACP called out “racist elements” in the Tea Party. Conservatives shouted back loud. A black USDA official is out. The Justice Department is under fire. Pundits charging “reverse racism.”

Now, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat is asking if poor whites are being excluded from top universities.

This Hour, On Point: Douthat, Barbara Ehrenreich, Nell Irvin Painter and more, on whites, race, and advantage in the age of diversity.

Guests:

Ross Douthat, columnist for the New York Times. His column "The Roots Of White Anxiety" appeared in the July 19, 2010 edition. Read his follow-up blog "A More Diverse Diversity." He is co-author of ""Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream" - you can hear his On Point interview about the book.

Thomas Espenshade, professor of sociology at Princeton University. He's author of "No Longer Separate, Not Yet Equal: Race and Class in Elite College Admission and Campus Life."

Joe Bageant, author of "Deer Hunting With Jesus: Dispatches from America’s Class War." 

Nell Irvin Painter, professor emerita of American history at Princeton University and author of "The History of White People."

Barbara Ehrenreich, journalist and author of several books, among them “Nickel and Dimed,” “Bait and Switch," and “Bright-sided.” Hear her On Point interview last year about the poor in America.