The book questions matters of economics and politics, as well as ethical issues and spirituality, and also addresses the crisis in black American leadership.

In order, these essays are: Michiko Kakutani praised Race Matters, writing in The New York Times "one can only applaud the ferocious moral vision and astute intellect on display in these pages", though she criticized his proposed solutions to racial problems as 'vague and sentimentally utopian'.

[1] A positive review in The Washington Post stated that "there are parts of this book that are as moving as any of the sermons of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., as profound as W.E.B.

Du Bois' The Souls of Black Folk, as exhilarating in their offering of liberation as James Baldwin's early essays".

[2] Race Matters received a negative review in Commentary which stated that 'despite the artful packaging, West's ultimate message is neither new nor courageous' and singled out the chapter on the relationship between black people and Jews as 'deeply flawed, evasive, and less than honest'.