The End of Blackness? We Can All At The Least Hope For Enlightenment
Debra Dickerson's new book, The End of Blackness, must be worth the read, if only to see for yourself if the negative comments from the crab-in-the-barrel black folks on the Amazon.com reader review section of her book entry are upset because of seeing themselves in the mirror the book provides or if the book is poorly written.
I'd be inclined toward the former, simply due to the type of rhetoric there — the same type of brow-beating and carping that I see regularly in my own hatemail.
"Look at Dickerson's white fan club below! Including the one from Los Angeles POSING as a black person (January 19). And TWENTY-ONE white friends in his white club really LOVED it too! (Don't you guys think that you made yourself a little too heavy-handed and obvious, spamming positive book review votes for Dickerson? And, negatively, counterspamming book review votes against black reveiwers, some very well written or incisively pithy.)"Anybody notice that in the minds of many of the Soul Patrol that all conservative blacks are coded "neo-cons" in order to dehumanize us and make it easier to make personal insults?
"Dickerson (and her supporters here) would have us drop "counterproductive" liberal efforts that "haven't worked." Like what? The resoundingly successful Head Start, breakfast programs, health screening, and the like? They also oppose "counterintuitive" liberal ideas — quality schools with resources equal to the best white public schools, small classrooms with well-paid teachers, urban neighborhoods as well-maintained by cities as white neighborhoods, and police who actually live in and care about the urban communities they serve in. Why? All of those things (which have never been properly tried, thanks to opposition by conservatives) would cost money, when it's obvious that our national priority is funneling all of our resources into war and military spending — and enriching the few and the well-connected. Better to blame Blacks for their own plight, then, and offer more "pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps" solutions that haven't led anywhere."
"Do we really need another black neo-conservative to tell us how hypocritical black America is?"
And to answer that last person's question, obviously, America does. The hypocrites in black America continue to blame everyone outside themselves for their problems. They continue to insist (as the whining scribe just before notes) that self-empowerment doesn't work.
Dickerson's earlier book, An American Story, engendered similar accusations of self-hatred and selling out. It too, is one that I'm going to see about looking at. I'd rather read the reasoned thoughts of someone who has taken the time for self-examination as opposed to attacking others simply for having views that are outside of the mainstream.
Article comments
1 - Mac Diva
I blogged a review of Debra's new book here.
I get the feeling you have not kept up with Debra. As someone who has corresponded with her, it seems to me that she is growing and changing. To characterize her as a 'black conservative' doesn't strike me as really accurate anymore. Moderate maybe. Skeptic, perhaps.
Also, in the new book, she has tried to write a very long analytical/personal essay. It is bound to appear to contradict itself at times because a thinking person's ideas change.
Anymore can post a review to Amazon. So, they often are a hodgepodge of information and bullsh!t.
I do believe Debra is providing a service by exploring the dilemma of the very bright, self-directing person of color in a way no one has really done since Du Bois, and, maybe, James Baldwin.
A technical note: Drop the red text. It is harder to read and has an unpleasant optical impact.
2 - Eric Olsen
Thanks Michael, though the racial past of America is reprehensible, and prejudices remain, I agree that personal responsibility is the only logical course of behavior for anyone at this point.