"Can We All Get Along?"

Rodney King framed an eternal question of American politics when he asked: "Can we all get along?” The second edition of this widely acclaimed text was expanded to reflect the latest scholarship and the most recent events in America’s ongoing struggle with racial issues; the new version of the second edition has been fully updated to include results and analysis from the 1998 mid-term elections. Here, Paula McClain and Joseph Stewart combine traditional elements of political science analysis--history, Constitutional theory, institutions, political behavior, and policy actors--with a thoroughgoing survey of the political status of four major groups: African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, and American Indians. They show similarities and differences in these groups’ political action and experience, and point the way toward coalition, competition, and consensus-building in the face of ongoing conflict. Two dilemmas shape the book: How do we as a nation reconcile a commitment to equality with persistent inequality and discrimination? And what can we do about it--from the perspective of ethnic and racial minorities as well as within the dominant culture?