James J. Kilpatrick (1920–2010)

Kilpatrick makes a plausible case, at least to my ignorant eye, for Brown v Board as judicial overreach, but the more important point is that, unlike Roe v Wade, interest in challenging the decision effectively disappeared over time. His cultural and “anthropological” arguments in the chapter entitled “Evidence” are racist tripe. I gather he disavowed the book, at least publicly, later in his career.

Yes, it's the Point-Counterpoint guy, trying to make a reasoned, well-written argument for segregation! I can make a case for segregation--let's segregate racist Republicans, including the dead ones, from decent thinking people. I didn't read all of it, so as is my practice, I won't give it a rating--but I'll let you imagine what I would give it.

I love this book. I try to read it once a year. Or at least pick it up from time to time and thumb through the chapters. I taught writing at the university for awhile, and I used pieces and parts of this book in almost every class. I particularly like the two chapters "This we ought to be [and ought not to be] doing." What a gem of a book.

In these days of spell checkers, this book is needed. I am always surprised when people do not realize that electronics will not catch errors like "calling the role" or "It didn't phase her." The text is arranged alphabetically form accede/exceed to yoke/yolk. It has amusing examples of misuse (such as "a team that bares watching," "the cat has been spade," and "jazz is a(n)...American-bread contribution"). Cute cartoons are interspersed with sage advice about word usage.