Reflecting Black: African-American Cultural Criticism, Vol. 9
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AcknowledgmentsIntroduction. Beyond Essentialism: Expanding African-American Cultural Criticism1The Culture of Hip-Hop32Rap Music and Black Culture: An Interview163Spike Lee's Neonationalist Vision23Improvisation. On African-American Oral Culture314Michael Jackson's Postmodern Spirituality35Improvisation. Luther Vandross, Anita Baker, and the State of Soul605Be Like Mike?: Michael Jordan and The Pedagogy of Desire64Improvisation. The Media and American Culture756Bill Cosby and the Politics of RaceImprovisation. Gordon Parks: Prometheus in Motion887Between Apocalypse and Redemption: John Singleton's Boyz N the Hood90Improvisation. On the Mo' Money Soundtrack1108Probing a Divided Metaphor: Malcolm X and His Readers115Improvisation. On Contemporary Black Nationalism: A Response to Gary Peller1299The Liberal Theory of Race132Improvisation. The Two Racisms14310Racism and Race Theory in the Nineties146Improvisation. Affirmative Action and the Courts15411Leonard Jeffries and the Struggle for the Black Mind157Improvisation. Columbus Redux: An African-American Perspective16312Sex, Race, and Class: Two Cases167Improvisation. Toni Morrison's Vision17913The Plight of Black Men182Improvisation. Remembering Emmett Till19414Black Grass-Roots Leaders199Improvisation. The Invisible Lives of Working-Class Black Men20615Reflections on the 1988 Presidential Campaign210Improvisation. Looking Back on the Eighties21616Mixed Blessings: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Lessons of an Ambiguous Heroism221Improvisation. Martin's Death, and Ours?24617Martin and Malcolm250Improvisation. King: A Metaphor for the Sixties26418For Jonathan's Sake: The Morality of Memory - a Sermon267Improvisation. James Forbes and Riverside Church27419Rap Culture, the Church, and American Society276Improvisation. Cornel West's Prophetic Criticism28120"God Almighty Has Spoken from Washington, D.C.": American Society and Christian Faith286Improvisation. Political Correctness and the Seminary31921The Promise and Perils of Contemporary Gospel Music322Improvisation. A Skeptic's View of Southern Baptists327Index331Permissions345
\ Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly\ Dyson, who teaches African American studies at Brown University, has collected here an often impressive group of essays and reviews. He argues forcefully for a black criticism that rejects racial essentialism while recognizing the interweaving of cultural and political expression in African American culture. He proposes a quest for a criticism that would celebrate the virtues of black culture without ignoring its failings. Whether writing on Michael Jackson or Michael Jordan, Jesse Jackson or Martin Luther King, he offers a balanced vision that explicates the strengths of his subjects while it excoriates their theoretical lapses, whether sexism or a narrowly reductionist reading of racial politics. The final third of the book, focusing on the role of religion in black culture, features the strongest material, including an incisive analysis of the heroic stature of Dr. King. On the other hand, too many of the book's shorter ``occasional'' pieces seem included more as filler than as contributions to the theoretical or practical grounding of Dyson's work. However, when he draws on personal experience to convey the impact of racism--as when he recalls a humiliating incident at a bank in Princeton, N.J.--he is a powerful writer indeed. (May)\ \
