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Democracy in Black

How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul

ebook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available
A powerful polemic on the state of black America that savages the idea of a post-racial society.
 
America’s great promise of equality has always rung hollow in the ears of African Americans. But today the situation has grown even more dire. From the murders of black youth by the police, to the dismantling of the Voting Rights Act, to the disaster visited upon poor and middle-class black families by the Great Recession, it is clear that black America faces an emergency—at the very moment the election of the first black president has prompted many to believe we’ve solved America’s race problem.
 
Democracy in Black is Eddie S. Glaude Jr.'s impassioned response. Part manifesto, part history, part memoir, it argues that we live in a country founded on a “value gap”—with white lives valued more than others—that still distorts our politics today. Whether discussing why all Americans have racial habits that reinforce inequality, why black politics based on the civil-rights era have reached a dead end, or why only remaking democracy from the ground up can bring real change, Glaude crystallizes the untenable position of black America—and offers thoughts on a better way forward. Forceful in ideas and unsettling in its candor, Democracy In Black is a landmark book on race in America, one that promises to spark wide discussion as we move toward the end of our first black presidency.
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    • Library Journal

      August 1, 2015

      The recent shootings in South Carolina (among so many others). The gutting of the Voting Rights Act. Financial losses incurred during the Great Recession, which sent a disproportionate number of African Americans tumbling down the social ladder. No, we're not in a postracial society, and black Americans still experience discrimination. Chair of the Center for African-American studies at Princeton, Glaude blends historical account, personal experience, and careful observation to move the conversation about race in America to the next stage.

      Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

    • Booklist

      Starred review from November 15, 2015
      It has been more than 70 years since Gunnar Myrdal, in An American Dilemma, probed our racial consciousness by showing the gap between promise and performance. It has been only a few months since Ta-Nehisi Coates struck the American nerve, in Between the World and Me, by pointing out that our racial history is more deeply ingrained in racism than Myrdal suggested. Here Princeton scholar Glaude adds to that debate by equating our racist history to a basic gap in values, the notion that black lives matter less in this country and always have. He proves his point cogently, perhaps with less passion than Coates but with more than enough documentation to move the argument along this new and painful track. His ending is unsatisfactory because the problems he pinpoints are so intractable, soas he demonstratesinextricable from American history, that their solution is necessarily utopian and, so, very unlikely. This is every bit as important a book as Coates' more personal account. Essential reading.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)

    • Library Journal

      November 15, 2015

      Glaude (William S. Tod Professor of Religion and African American Studies and chair, Ctr. for African American Studies; Princeton Univ.; In a Shade of Blue) breaks down the structures surrounding racism, beginning with the threats that exist simply for having black skin. Next, fear and politics become the primary focus of what Glaude maintains are the racial and socioeconomic discrepancies in American social history. Where he may lose readers is his discussion of blacks living in two worlds. Duality has been a topic of black intellectual thought since the late 1800s, when living in both the white world and the black world were part of the daily struggle. Now, these worlds seem to be blending as African Americans belong to all economic classes and have the social space to finally identify as individuals. The progress that the civil rights era begat is evident; class is an ongoing issue in the black community as individuality can be expressed as something outside of the collectively perceived image of blackness. In the midst of this progress, Glaude reminds us that progress won't continue if we don't remain united. The onus falls on everyone to defend equality in the same way as generations before us. VERDICT Glaude's well-organized, thoughtful, and succinct manifesto will inspire healthy debate and further inform people's perspective of how race affects African Americans today. [See Prepub Alert, 8/1/15.]--Cicely Douglas, Palm Beach Cty. Lib. Syst., FL

      Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

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