What do you think?
Rate this book
Shared Values: African Americans and Republicans
Richard Rosenfield brilliantly exposes how Democrats often say the right things while doing the opposite. Shared Values is a great eye-opener.
—Lloyd Marcus, author of Confessions of a Black Conservative: How the Left has Shattered the Dreams of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Black America
In Shared Values, African Americans say that giving almost all of their votes to Democrats causes them to be taken for granted by both parties. They suggest voting for candidates of both parties.
African Americans and Republicans speak in favor of the wholesome, conservative values of self-reliance, marriage, school choice, and economic growth to create jobs and prosperity. They speak against crime and drugs.
Democrats oppose the values that African Americans and Republicans share such as giving minority children scholarships to private schools.
—Lloyd Marcus, author of Confessions of a Black Conservative: How the Left has Shattered the Dreams of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Black America
In Shared Values, African Americans say that giving almost all of their votes to Democrats causes them to be taken for granted by both parties. They suggest voting for candidates of both parties.
African Americans and Republicans speak in favor of the wholesome, conservative values of self-reliance, marriage, school choice, and economic growth to create jobs and prosperity. They speak against crime and drugs.
Democrats oppose the values that African Americans and Republicans share such as giving minority children scholarships to private schools.
276 pages, Paperback
Published October 14, 2016
111 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 25, 2020
I'm not even going to be polite. This book is some bullshit. Imagine someone's "the civil war was about states rights, not slavery," Trump-loving, Fox news quoting, Brietbart reading, conveniently forgets the political parties swapped positions uncle, who likes to say things like "I'm not racist, but..." and then go on a racist tirade wrote a book. This would be that book. And this man, this white man, Richard M. Rosenfield thinks he is the man to represent Black American voters' values. (He's also written a book called African American Core Values: A Guide for Everyone. How oblivious does a white man have to be to think it's his place to write that?)
I would like to cite a paragraph from the preface (basically the only part of the book that is actually written by Rosenfield):
The opinon pages, not the actual Wall Street Journal or New York Post. This is not a book seeking to be truly informative. It is instead a reference book for people who want to be able to topically search the writings of historical heavy-weights to legitimize their own arguments, without having to make the effort to read or learn from the original texts.
What's worse, the book is unreadable. The format is literally 90% contextless quotes. He literally gives a sentence or two at the beginning of a 'chapter' and then follows it with 20 or so pages of "name, quote, hard return; name, quote, hard return; name, quote." There is no active engagement or attempt to support or contextualize these quotes. Further, even in the brief introduction sentences he liters his writing with likelies. "It's likely that..." No, you don't get to do that. If you are bothering to write a book on a subject find the research, don't cop out with it's likely.
I did not finish this book. I challenge anyone to read 157 pages of contextless quotes without going crosseyed. But I read as much as I could tolerate. I asked my husband, in a discussion of this book, "Who can really sit down and read pages and pages of quotes?" And he answered people who read Bible verses. And I realized he's right. This isn't a book meant to inform people. It's a book seeking to give people of similar political opinions quotable ammunition in the same way religious extremists memorize select bible verses to lob at detractors, ignoring any contradictory verses. Rosenfield says in his introduction:
This is Rosenfield telling readers explicitly that he isn't concerned with the provenance of quotes or if they represent a speaker's/writer's true beliefs, simply that they fit the bill. He is telling us his bias right out in the open.
It's bad people. And not just because it doesn't represent my personal political leanings. It's just bad. At this point, I have to legitimately question if Rosenfield has actually read all the texts he cites, or if he's just particularly adept at collecting Google quotes. Lazy is as lazy does, after all.
I would like to cite a paragraph from the preface (basically the only part of the book that is actually written by Rosenfield):
Some readers may find that the information in this book contradicts their beliefs about race and politics. Many have been misinformed by the liberal bias of our schools, colleges, news media, search engines, social media news reports, movies, and television programs. Open-minded individuals can correct that misinformation by accessing black literature and sources such as Fox News, Drudge Report, Independent Journal Review, National Review, Breitbart, The Blaze, World News Daily, Commentary magazine, and the opinion pages in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post.
The opinon pages, not the actual Wall Street Journal or New York Post. This is not a book seeking to be truly informative. It is instead a reference book for people who want to be able to topically search the writings of historical heavy-weights to legitimize their own arguments, without having to make the effort to read or learn from the original texts.
What's worse, the book is unreadable. The format is literally 90% contextless quotes. He literally gives a sentence or two at the beginning of a 'chapter' and then follows it with 20 or so pages of "name, quote, hard return; name, quote, hard return; name, quote." There is no active engagement or attempt to support or contextualize these quotes. Further, even in the brief introduction sentences he liters his writing with likelies. "It's likely that..." No, you don't get to do that. If you are bothering to write a book on a subject find the research, don't cop out with it's likely.
I did not finish this book. I challenge anyone to read 157 pages of contextless quotes without going crosseyed. But I read as much as I could tolerate. I asked my husband, in a discussion of this book, "Who can really sit down and read pages and pages of quotes?" And he answered people who read Bible verses. And I realized he's right. This isn't a book meant to inform people. It's a book seeking to give people of similar political opinions quotable ammunition in the same way religious extremists memorize select bible verses to lob at detractors, ignoring any contradictory verses. Rosenfield says in his introduction:
Statements were not chosen to represent anyone's body of writing. If someone often wrote against marriage, for instance, and then had an insight and wrote persuasively for marriage, I included the latter statement. My goal was to highlight the values that black and political literature taught me are wholesome, not to represent anyone's total viewpoint."
This is Rosenfield telling readers explicitly that he isn't concerned with the provenance of quotes or if they represent a speaker's/writer's true beliefs, simply that they fit the bill. He is telling us his bias right out in the open.
It's bad people. And not just because it doesn't represent my personal political leanings. It's just bad. At this point, I have to legitimately question if Rosenfield has actually read all the texts he cites, or if he's just particularly adept at collecting Google quotes. Lazy is as lazy does, after all.
October 22, 2017
Full disclosure I'm a left leaner and I won this book in the giveaways. That being said Rosenfield drew typical comparisons to "Republican values" and what he feels the African American community value as well. Very typical stuff and none of it came as a surprise but I admittedly only made it through about half or 3/4's of the way through because it was so cliche and typical of a political book to just draw comparisons no matter how slight.
Read
September 19, 2019I won a copy of this book during a Goodreads giveaway. I am under no obligation to leave a review or rating and do so voluntarily. I am paying it forward by passing this book along to a family member who I think will enjoy it too.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews