Author of controversial book on racism speaks at Vanderbilt

Returning to first principles, said author Dinesh D'Souza, led him to examine two basic goals in the course of writing his recently published, controversial book, "The End of Racism: Principles for a Multiracial Society."

"Equality of rights for individuals and equality of results for groups are fundamentally in conflict," said D'Souza, who spoke to about 75 people Sept. 29 as part of Project Dialogue.

"One assumption is now proven to be false, and that is equal rights for individuals will lead to equality of results for groups. Martin Luther King believed racism was a form of imposed group inequality. Simply make it illegal and group equality will follow. That has not happened," he said.

Racism will end in America when blacks can compete with everyone else, D'Souza said. "So much effort is in fighting racism, we need to use that energy to confront other problems, like why blacks score lower on standardized tests. Putting aside verbal sections, look at math scores. An equation is race blind, but the gaps remain large," he said.

Equality of rights will require new strategies and new principles in a multicultural society. "We need a public policy that states that race is neutral. We need a race strategy." D'Souza told the audience, "If our problems are genetic, then we can't solve them."

Blacks need to "triumph over circumstances." It will be blacks themselves who will discredit racism by showing that they can compete by achieving economic, political and social aspirations, he said.

"The liberals' answer is to use affirmative action. My answer is go to the root problem. Don't change by rigging the results," he said.