Synopses & Reviews
A generation removed from the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Power explosion of the 1960s, the pursuit of racial equality and social justice for African-Americans seems more elusive than ever. The realities of contemporary black America capture the nature of the crisis: life expectancy for black males is now below retirement age; median black income is less than 60 per cent that of whites; over 600,000 African-Americans are incarcerated in the US penal system; 23 per cent of all black males between the ages of eighteen and 29 are either in jail, on probation or parole, or awaiting trial. At the same time, affirmative action programs and civil rights reforms are being challenged by white conservatism.
Confronted with a renascent right and the continuing burden of grotesque inequality, Manning Marable argues that the black struggle must move beyond previous strategies for social change. The politics of black nationalism, which advocates the building of separate black institutions, is an insufficient response. The politics of integration, characterized by traditional middle-class organizations like the NAACP and Urban League, seeks only representation without genuine power. Instead, a transformationist approach is required, one that can embrace the unique cultural identity of African-Americans while restructuring power and privilege in American society. Only a strategy of radical democracy can ultimately deconstruct race as a social force.
Beyond Black and White brilliantly dissects the politics of race and class in the US of the 1990s. Topics include: the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill controversy; the factors behind the rise and fall of Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition: Benjamin Chavis and the conflicts within the NAAPC; and the national debate over affirmative action. Marable outlines the current debates in the black community between liberals, ‘Afrocentrists’, and the advocates of social transformation. He advances a political vision capable of drawing together minorities into a majority which can throw open the portals of power and govern in its own name.
Synopsis
Despite the recent surge of interest in the notion of a 'post-racial America,' the pursuit of racial equality and social justice for African-Americans seems more elusive than ever. In this new paperback edition, Manning Marable updates his classic work with a substantial new introduction encompassing his views on recent African-American politics and struggles against racism. In doing so, he brings new significance to his claim for the necessity of a 'transformationist' approach for moving 'beyond black and white.'
Synopsis
Many in the US, including Barack Obama, have called for a 'post-racial' politics: yet race still divides the country politically, economically and socially.
In this expanded new edition of a highly acclaimed work, Manning Marable rejects both liberal inclusionist strategies and the separatist politics of the likes of Louis Farrakhan, arguing powerfully for a new 'transformationist' strategy, which retains a distinctive black cultural identity but draws together all the poor and exploited in a united struggle against oppression. In a substantial new introduction, Marable looks back at the last ten years of African-American politics and the fight against racism, outlining a trenchant analysis of the 'New Racial Domain' that must be uprooted.
Synopsis
America's foremost radical black intellectual dissects the 'new racism.'
About the Author
Manning Marableis Professor of History at Columbia University where he founded and directs the Institute for Research in African-American Studies. He has published widely, and is politically active in a variety of progressive causes. His previous books include Race, Reform and Rebellion, How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America, Black Liberation in Conservative America, Black Leadership, Speaking Truth to Power, The Great Wells of Democracy, Black American Politics and African and Caribbean Politics. He is currently completing a major new biography of Malcolm X. Marable was recently elected Chair of Movement for a Democratic Society (MDS), the incorporated non-profit arm of Students for a Democratic Society. He sits on the Board of Directors for the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network (HSAN), a non-profit coalition of prominent public figures dedicated to utilizing hip hop as an agent for social change.