Black Faces in White Places

PART I

LEARNING THE GAME

Whatever you choose to do, you will end up playing in one game or another. You may play a corporate game, you may play an education game, you may play a health game. You can play any game, but if you want to be successful, you need to understand the rules and the subtleties of that game. Take it seriously. It’s a serious game.

—Bruce Gordon

America is commonly described as the “land of the free,” “home of the brave,” and “the Land of Opportunity.” America has also been described by a series of alternative phrases that speak to its orientation toward race. Expressions such as “segregated” and “integrated,” “multicultural” and “multiethnic,” “pluralist” and “post-racial”—are a reflection of America’s prevailing, yet evolving, ...