"White liberals once marched arm-in-arm with black activists during the civil rights era. Since the 1970s, however, cooperation has dwindled. Why? Paul Griffin believes it is because some Northern white liberals still carry the seeds of racism. His book examines how pious New England Puritans sought to explain the different stations of the races as God's arrangement.

One of the many consequences today, for example, is that white liberals and feminists may support affirmative action, but only because they believe that African Americans (and other minorities) are inferior."--BOOK JACKET.