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Beyond Black and White: Rethinking Race in American Politics and Society
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 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 the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill controversy; the factors behind the rise and fall of Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Benjamin Chavis and the conflicts within the NAACP; 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.
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 the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill controversy; the factors behind the rise and fall of Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Benjamin Chavis and the conflicts within the NAACP; 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.
254 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1995
About the author
Manning Marable
99 books201 followersManning Marable was an American professor of public affairs, history and African-American Studies at Columbia University. He founded and directed the Institute for Research in African-American Studies. He authored several texts and was active in progressive political causes. At the time of his death, he had completed a biography of human rights activist Malcolm X, entitled Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
February 14, 2016
An erudite and passionate call for a politics of democracy and economics that transcends the social construction of race, and asks Americans to instead recognise that it is an odious and predatory system of economic exploitation that must be fought. Professor Marable demonstrates that throughout the last Century a central feature of conservative politics in the US has been to pursue policies that pit Americans of different backgrounds against each other, the natural consequence of which has been the establishment of a system of exploitation and subjugation of Black Americans by White Americans. Marable by no means dismisses racism as irrelavent; instead he argues that we must look beynod the prism of 'black and white', and encourage people to recognise that they have more in common as victims of capitalism than they do with the individuals who exploit us, who happen to have the same skin colour as we do.
June 18, 2026
A COLLECTION OF HIS POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ESSAYS FROM 1991-1995
William Manning Marable (1950-2011) was a professor of history and African-American Studies at Columbia University; he also taught at Smith College, Tuskegee Institute, the University of San Francisco, Cornell University, Fisk University, Colgate University, Purdue University, Ohio State University and the University of Colorado at Boulder. He was also an activist and organizer, who participated in a wide variety of organizations. He also received a Pulitzer Prize in History posthumously in 2012, for his biography of Malcolm X.
He wrote in the Preface to this 1995 book, “[This book] was written largely in the four years between 1991 and 1995… Because the volume is a collection of political and social essays, written at different times and in response to various events… there is a certain amount of repetition and restatement of political ideas. As the book was being written, I was forced to reassess many of my older ideas about the character and permanence of ‘race,’ and its impact within American politics. But despite the diversity of topics considered within these essays, there is a conjunctural and theoretical unity expressed within the work as a whole.
“The main thesis of the book is that ‘race’ as it has been understood within American society is being rapidly redefined, along with the basic structure of the economy, with profound political consequences for all sectors and classes. The massive flood of both legal and undocumented workers from Third World countries seeking low-wage employment, for example, has sharply transformed the ethnic, cultural and social composition and character of thousands of urban working-class neighborhood and communities. Against this changing social background, our notions of the social categories which covey the day-to-day meaning of ‘black’ and ‘white’ have also begun to change, especially within the major cities of the USA…
“Because this social transformation is occurring at a political conjuncture dominated by conservative ideology and a retreat from welfare state policies, race relations and racial discourse are reflected within an altered debate about the character of discrimination, the nature of prejudice, and invented notions about who the ‘real victims’ or inequality are. A new generation of white Americans, born largely after the civil rights movement, felt little or no responsibility or social guilt for being the beneficiaries of institutional racism. Racism was described increasingly in the media as a problem of the historical past, not a contemporary problem of inequality with practical consequences for he oppressed…
“This book is also about the transformation of African-American leadership since the civil rights movement. In the 1960s, when young African-Americans were asked the question, ‘What do you want?’ we frequently replied, ‘A black face in a high place.’ What we meant by this was that the goal of the civil rights movement should be the expansion of African-Americans in positions of authority, power and privilege within the established social order… This model of symbolic representation clearly broke down in the 1980s. Blacks were elected… who aggressively pursued policies, such as increasing sales tax on the public and reducing taxes on corporations, which directly went against the best interests of black working-class communities. The elevation of Clarence Thomas to the US Supreme Court dramatically revealed the inherent … limitations of simplistic, racial-identity politics.” (Pg. xi-xii)
Later, he adds, “At the heart of this work is also a personal journey, sparked by a chronic illness which has given greater urgency to my life and research… Everyone must eventually face their own mortality…. Understanding the living reality of race, and the collective struggle to overcome the burden of discrimination, is at the heart of the entire corpus of my work. And it was from this vantage point that I began to ask harder, more searching questions of myself and of my historical and political analysis… In this process, I became convinced, more than ever before, in the power of political ideas as a social force.” (Pg. xvi)
In the first essay, he explains, “Race constantly represents itself to black people as an apparently unending series of moments of inequality, which constantly challenge us, sapping and draining our physical, mental and moral resources. Perhaps this is what most white Americans have never fully comprehended about ‘race’: that racism is not just social discrimination…. At its essential core, racism is most keenly felt in its smallest manifestations: the white merchant who drops change on the sales counter, rather than touch the hand of a black person… the white woman who wraps the strap of her purse several times tightly around her arm, just before walking past a black man… We witness clear, unambiguous changes of behavior … by whites toward us in public… and we code or interpret such changes as ‘racial.’ These minor actions reflect a structure of power, privilege and violence which most blacks can never forget.” (Pg. 6-7)
He notes that “Professor Cornel West … describes the contemporary spiritual crisis as a ‘profound sense of psychological depression, personal worthlessness, and social despair… widespread in black America.’ West recognizes that ‘black people have always been in America’s wilderness in search of a promised land. Yet many black folk now reside in a jungle with a cutthroat morality devoid of any faith in deliverance or hope for freedom.” (Pg. 19-20)
He states, “Black American still sees itself as the litmus test of the viability and reality of American democracy. Indeed, the African-American striving for freedom and human rights embodies the country’s best examples of sacrifice and struggle for the realization of democracy’s highest ideals… It is precisely here, at the juncture of faith and political ambition, of spirit and struggle, that the black freedom movement must revive itself, casting aside the parochial chains of chauvinism and isolation.” (Pg. 24-25)
He observes, “most white Americans have made a clear break from the overtly racist Jim Crow legislation segregationist policies of a generation ago… However, there is a severe erosion of white support for affirmative action when the focus is more narrowly on specific steps or remedies addressing discrimination… On the issue of implementing government-supported initiatives for social equality, most black and white Americans still live in two distinct racial universes.” (Pg. 85)
He reports, “Clarence Thomas’s climb to power is directly related to his abandonment of the principles of the black freedom struggle… He secured a position at Yale Law School due to its aggressive affirmative-action program, which had set aside .. 10% of all paces … to racial minorities… when seeking reappointment to the EEOC from a Democratic-controlled Congress, Thomas solemnly promised that he would reinstate affirmative-action measures inside the office… Thomas attacked the welfare programs … by focusing his negative remarks on his own sister… ‘She gets mad when the mailman is late with her welfare check…’ Thomas didn’t mention that his sister… had assumed the responsibility for caring for their mother, and had taken two part-time jobs to get off welfare.” (Pg. 93-96)
He suggests about black support for Clarence Thomas, “There were at least three reasons for this curious response. The first factor was due to the growth of black ‘neo-accommodation’… The second factor contributing to black support for Thomas was the ideology of ‘liberal integrationism’ that permeated the strategic and tactical vision of the entire black middle class… A third factor… can be attributed to the quasi-black-nationalist sentiment among millions of African-American working-class people and elements of the black middle class that were radicalized during the 1960s… some black nationalists could support him on the grounds that Bush would simply appoint a white reactionary… if Thomas was rejected by the Senate.” (Pg. 99-105)
He states, “Because America’s mainstream ideology of inclusion doesn’t value or respect blackness, Afrocentrism provides the framework for an alternative world-view and oppositional consciousness. The contradictions and weaknesses of Afrocentrism are just as striking… in many respects Afrocentrism is theoretically and programatically at odds with the larger trend toward pluralism and educational diversity.” (Pg. 121-122)
He reports, “Adolph Reed’s controversial essay … ‘The Current Crisis of the Black Intellectual’… was aimed at Cornel West… and Henry Louis Gates… Reed’s … argument was that these scholars presented themselves as ‘authentically black’ spokespersons, yet actually lacked viable constituencies … within the African-American community… for good measure, Reed … add[ed] a series of mean-spirited criticisms against those characterized as ‘the children of Booker T. Washington.’” (Pg. 167-168)
He suggests, “Although virtually all civil-rights leaders and African-American elected officials … oppose violent acts… the Los Angeles uprising [over the Rodney King verdict] may easily trigger a series of massive urban conflagrations over the next decade.” (Pg. 183)
He states, “The basic problem confronting both inclusionism and black nationalism is that the distinct social structure … has been radically transformed… Many people from divergent ethnic backgrounds … now share a common experience of inequality in the USA.” (Pg. 220-221)
This book will be of keen interest to those studying contemporary ethnic/racial issues.
William Manning Marable (1950-2011) was a professor of history and African-American Studies at Columbia University; he also taught at Smith College, Tuskegee Institute, the University of San Francisco, Cornell University, Fisk University, Colgate University, Purdue University, Ohio State University and the University of Colorado at Boulder. He was also an activist and organizer, who participated in a wide variety of organizations. He also received a Pulitzer Prize in History posthumously in 2012, for his biography of Malcolm X.
He wrote in the Preface to this 1995 book, “[This book] was written largely in the four years between 1991 and 1995… Because the volume is a collection of political and social essays, written at different times and in response to various events… there is a certain amount of repetition and restatement of political ideas. As the book was being written, I was forced to reassess many of my older ideas about the character and permanence of ‘race,’ and its impact within American politics. But despite the diversity of topics considered within these essays, there is a conjunctural and theoretical unity expressed within the work as a whole.
“The main thesis of the book is that ‘race’ as it has been understood within American society is being rapidly redefined, along with the basic structure of the economy, with profound political consequences for all sectors and classes. The massive flood of both legal and undocumented workers from Third World countries seeking low-wage employment, for example, has sharply transformed the ethnic, cultural and social composition and character of thousands of urban working-class neighborhood and communities. Against this changing social background, our notions of the social categories which covey the day-to-day meaning of ‘black’ and ‘white’ have also begun to change, especially within the major cities of the USA…
“Because this social transformation is occurring at a political conjuncture dominated by conservative ideology and a retreat from welfare state policies, race relations and racial discourse are reflected within an altered debate about the character of discrimination, the nature of prejudice, and invented notions about who the ‘real victims’ or inequality are. A new generation of white Americans, born largely after the civil rights movement, felt little or no responsibility or social guilt for being the beneficiaries of institutional racism. Racism was described increasingly in the media as a problem of the historical past, not a contemporary problem of inequality with practical consequences for he oppressed…
“This book is also about the transformation of African-American leadership since the civil rights movement. In the 1960s, when young African-Americans were asked the question, ‘What do you want?’ we frequently replied, ‘A black face in a high place.’ What we meant by this was that the goal of the civil rights movement should be the expansion of African-Americans in positions of authority, power and privilege within the established social order… This model of symbolic representation clearly broke down in the 1980s. Blacks were elected… who aggressively pursued policies, such as increasing sales tax on the public and reducing taxes on corporations, which directly went against the best interests of black working-class communities. The elevation of Clarence Thomas to the US Supreme Court dramatically revealed the inherent … limitations of simplistic, racial-identity politics.” (Pg. xi-xii)
Later, he adds, “At the heart of this work is also a personal journey, sparked by a chronic illness which has given greater urgency to my life and research… Everyone must eventually face their own mortality…. Understanding the living reality of race, and the collective struggle to overcome the burden of discrimination, is at the heart of the entire corpus of my work. And it was from this vantage point that I began to ask harder, more searching questions of myself and of my historical and political analysis… In this process, I became convinced, more than ever before, in the power of political ideas as a social force.” (Pg. xvi)
In the first essay, he explains, “Race constantly represents itself to black people as an apparently unending series of moments of inequality, which constantly challenge us, sapping and draining our physical, mental and moral resources. Perhaps this is what most white Americans have never fully comprehended about ‘race’: that racism is not just social discrimination…. At its essential core, racism is most keenly felt in its smallest manifestations: the white merchant who drops change on the sales counter, rather than touch the hand of a black person… the white woman who wraps the strap of her purse several times tightly around her arm, just before walking past a black man… We witness clear, unambiguous changes of behavior … by whites toward us in public… and we code or interpret such changes as ‘racial.’ These minor actions reflect a structure of power, privilege and violence which most blacks can never forget.” (Pg. 6-7)
He notes that “Professor Cornel West … describes the contemporary spiritual crisis as a ‘profound sense of psychological depression, personal worthlessness, and social despair… widespread in black America.’ West recognizes that ‘black people have always been in America’s wilderness in search of a promised land. Yet many black folk now reside in a jungle with a cutthroat morality devoid of any faith in deliverance or hope for freedom.” (Pg. 19-20)
He states, “Black American still sees itself as the litmus test of the viability and reality of American democracy. Indeed, the African-American striving for freedom and human rights embodies the country’s best examples of sacrifice and struggle for the realization of democracy’s highest ideals… It is precisely here, at the juncture of faith and political ambition, of spirit and struggle, that the black freedom movement must revive itself, casting aside the parochial chains of chauvinism and isolation.” (Pg. 24-25)
He observes, “most white Americans have made a clear break from the overtly racist Jim Crow legislation segregationist policies of a generation ago… However, there is a severe erosion of white support for affirmative action when the focus is more narrowly on specific steps or remedies addressing discrimination… On the issue of implementing government-supported initiatives for social equality, most black and white Americans still live in two distinct racial universes.” (Pg. 85)
He reports, “Clarence Thomas’s climb to power is directly related to his abandonment of the principles of the black freedom struggle… He secured a position at Yale Law School due to its aggressive affirmative-action program, which had set aside .. 10% of all paces … to racial minorities… when seeking reappointment to the EEOC from a Democratic-controlled Congress, Thomas solemnly promised that he would reinstate affirmative-action measures inside the office… Thomas attacked the welfare programs … by focusing his negative remarks on his own sister… ‘She gets mad when the mailman is late with her welfare check…’ Thomas didn’t mention that his sister… had assumed the responsibility for caring for their mother, and had taken two part-time jobs to get off welfare.” (Pg. 93-96)
He suggests about black support for Clarence Thomas, “There were at least three reasons for this curious response. The first factor was due to the growth of black ‘neo-accommodation’… The second factor contributing to black support for Thomas was the ideology of ‘liberal integrationism’ that permeated the strategic and tactical vision of the entire black middle class… A third factor… can be attributed to the quasi-black-nationalist sentiment among millions of African-American working-class people and elements of the black middle class that were radicalized during the 1960s… some black nationalists could support him on the grounds that Bush would simply appoint a white reactionary… if Thomas was rejected by the Senate.” (Pg. 99-105)
He states, “Because America’s mainstream ideology of inclusion doesn’t value or respect blackness, Afrocentrism provides the framework for an alternative world-view and oppositional consciousness. The contradictions and weaknesses of Afrocentrism are just as striking… in many respects Afrocentrism is theoretically and programatically at odds with the larger trend toward pluralism and educational diversity.” (Pg. 121-122)
He reports, “Adolph Reed’s controversial essay … ‘The Current Crisis of the Black Intellectual’… was aimed at Cornel West… and Henry Louis Gates… Reed’s … argument was that these scholars presented themselves as ‘authentically black’ spokespersons, yet actually lacked viable constituencies … within the African-American community… for good measure, Reed … add[ed] a series of mean-spirited criticisms against those characterized as ‘the children of Booker T. Washington.’” (Pg. 167-168)
He suggests, “Although virtually all civil-rights leaders and African-American elected officials … oppose violent acts… the Los Angeles uprising [over the Rodney King verdict] may easily trigger a series of massive urban conflagrations over the next decade.” (Pg. 183)
He states, “The basic problem confronting both inclusionism and black nationalism is that the distinct social structure … has been radically transformed… Many people from divergent ethnic backgrounds … now share a common experience of inequality in the USA.” (Pg. 220-221)
This book will be of keen interest to those studying contemporary ethnic/racial issues.
December 11, 2019
I feel inadequate to really review this work, but it struck me deeply all the same. Its encyclopedic coverage of the history and development of African American political activity, the growth of academic study of the African Diaspora, and analysis of blackness in American politics is fascinating, but I feel that this edition, which stops at the election of Barack Obama, is sadly outdated.
The final essay ends with a look at how an Obama presidency could be a starting point for greater social change, and multicultural unity to help counter the Neoliberal capitalistic word order, but we see now that the potential there was never realized.
It's almost sad to end there, where some hope was seen, when we know now how much worse things were going to get. But perhaps the author's passing in 2011 was a kind of blessing, since he was spared the sight of the racist backlash that lead to our current administration.
I see this as an invaluable resource in understanding the history of American politics and its impact on the lives of black Americans, especially as an examination from a Marxist understanding of class struggle.
The final essay ends with a look at how an Obama presidency could be a starting point for greater social change, and multicultural unity to help counter the Neoliberal capitalistic word order, but we see now that the potential there was never realized.
It's almost sad to end there, where some hope was seen, when we know now how much worse things were going to get. But perhaps the author's passing in 2011 was a kind of blessing, since he was spared the sight of the racist backlash that lead to our current administration.
I see this as an invaluable resource in understanding the history of American politics and its impact on the lives of black Americans, especially as an examination from a Marxist understanding of class struggle.
September 22, 2020
I was born in 1993 so the essays discuss politics just as I was born and it’s good to get this insight. He’s a little optimistic. But does portray well where the conservative movement is / was headed in America.
July 23, 2020
A consistently excellent collection of 25 (!!) essays that span a remarkable three decades of race, politics, and black radicalism.
September 26, 2020
Manning Marable was a professor of history and African-American studies who tragically died at 60 years old in 2011. His scholarly career was spent trying to analyze race, class, and other issues in a way that was of use to building popular movements. He was a scholar-activist who cared deeply about creating a better world, while also looking at things in scholarly and realistic way. This book, primarily composed during the 90s, is a collection of essays about current events at the time of their writing. It is a book worthy of the author.
The essays deal with a variety of topics, but all of them are related in some way to blackness and most of them further related to some combination of class struggle, the struggle of other communities of color, building popular movements, and the role of academia. I'm heavily biased in evaluating this material because I share Marable's general worldview- what could be called multiracial/intersectional democratic socialism- but the scholarly merit and clear-eyed way of conceptualizing things really stood out to me here. There are other writers whom I agree with, but none have struck me the way Marable has.
The essays in this collection clearly weren't made with the thought of being put into a collection. Not because they don't gel well together, they do, but because a few times things can get a bit repetitive. It's the closest thing I have to a complaint about this book, but the content is good enough that a little repetition isn't a bad thing. There's only one or two things I felt got a little overstated, and in the end it wasn't a big deal.
If you care about issues of race, but want something that takes into account other factors (primarily class, though he also gets into gender and sexuality), or you want something that gives you a constructive path forward, check this book out. It's a shame he isn't still around, because I'd do anything to hear his take on current events. As a historian, Marable may be one of my favorite thinkers of all time, and I don't say that lightly.
The essays deal with a variety of topics, but all of them are related in some way to blackness and most of them further related to some combination of class struggle, the struggle of other communities of color, building popular movements, and the role of academia. I'm heavily biased in evaluating this material because I share Marable's general worldview- what could be called multiracial/intersectional democratic socialism- but the scholarly merit and clear-eyed way of conceptualizing things really stood out to me here. There are other writers whom I agree with, but none have struck me the way Marable has.
The essays in this collection clearly weren't made with the thought of being put into a collection. Not because they don't gel well together, they do, but because a few times things can get a bit repetitive. It's the closest thing I have to a complaint about this book, but the content is good enough that a little repetition isn't a bad thing. There's only one or two things I felt got a little overstated, and in the end it wasn't a big deal.
If you care about issues of race, but want something that takes into account other factors (primarily class, though he also gets into gender and sexuality), or you want something that gives you a constructive path forward, check this book out. It's a shame he isn't still around, because I'd do anything to hear his take on current events. As a historian, Marable may be one of my favorite thinkers of all time, and I don't say that lightly.
November 9, 2022
Collection of essays on contemporary black (/american) political situation; interesting stuff about 93 election, clarence thomas, katrina, even an article about Adolph Reed being too mean. Hits all the bases basically. Originally got into Marable from his amazing Malcolm X bio. Anyways this is a good survey of the post-civil rights period from a "transformationalist" perspective that seeks to get beyond accommodationist and separatism as black political traditions.
January 7, 2015
This is a classic exploration of civil rights and black power both historically and contemporary.
May 2, 2017
I came to the second edition of this book, published in 2008, after the first election of Barack Obama. This was an important book when it was first published in 1995, and it remains an incredibly important book.
Manning Marable starts off with a discussion of Black leadership within the US just as slavery collapsed as an institution. Charting the rise of leaders such as Booker T Washington, to other, more radical thinkers. This book charts why the Civil Rights struggle did not deliver up to its potential, and the crisis of Black leadership. However, in its second edition also contains a set of chapters on Hurricane Katrina and Barack Obama. Irrespective, this collection of articles remains timely, contemporary, relevant and deeply though-provoking.
Perhaps the major underpinning of this collection of articles can be summed up with the questions: 1) what is race; and 2) how does it function. We all know that scientifically speaking, race is not a thing. Therefore, what it is a socioeconomic construction. It functions by hijacking identities and allowing others to define us.
This book powerfully analyses the responses to Black leadership movements, the traditional unwillingness of white voters to vote for black political candidates and the continued belief amongst many polled white people that black people in the US "ask for too much." However, Marable places Black demands firmly back in the context they arise from. They arise from slavery, a practice that the US continues to deny was a crime against humanity. They arise from terroristic violence in the reconstruction south. They arise from coded attacks on the community by the stripping away of welfare and the bloated prison-industrial complex. Looking at these issues, we are drawn through articles that show how the war on drugs operates to criminalise the groups that use drugs the least. We are shown, with clarity, how the US government wilfuly and criminally responded slowly to Hurricane Katrina. We are shown how reportage of that incident was skewed: white people were taking things from stores; black people were "looting". This sort of reportage shows how the Black image remains linked to bestial savagery. A racial hierarchy which consistently privileges European white identity as superior to Black-African identity.
However, Marable does not advocate parochialism. He links the struggles of Black America to the wider Third-World, and shows how e.g. the fight against Apartheid was won by grassroots Black activism, even as Reagan tried his best to prop the regime up with his best-buddy Thatcher. It is this element of the collection that urges us to look beyond Black and White. Indeed, the analysis of race operates in the US (and globally) should make radicals of us all.
That is not to say that Marable is Afrocentric. He identifies 3 strands within Black liberation movements. Integrationists - who are allied to the liberal capitalist project. These folk want symbolic representation. Separatists who demand a separate Black nation; and transformationalists who seek a radical overhaul of the global economic order. Marable himself is in the third category, and his criticisms of all these movements are extremely illuminating.
The sad truth is that as integrationists have won the day, more and more black people must suppress their racial identity. They are political candidates who "happen to be black". The petty bourgeois who became a managerial and executive class amongst Black communities have fled, causing atomisation. Therefore, Black representatives often have no inkling of how Black men in Harlem have a lower life expectancy than males in Bangladesh. Those that do, are loath to tackle the structures that produce this fact. This atomisation is roundly criticised by Marable.
Overall, this book is terribly important for anyone who is interested in race relations, and is willing to approach the subject with an open mind. Anyone who questions why criminal justice programmes target people of colour so acutely, anyone who questions why Black Lives Matter has found such a strong voice, and anyone who questions the hard limits of what can be achieved through liberal democratic electoral politics. The final chapter of the book reminds us all: change must come from the bottom up, and this is achieved through solidarity and taking to the streets to demand change. Without this, those in power have a mandate to oppress those who have been oppressed for centuries.
Manning Marable starts off with a discussion of Black leadership within the US just as slavery collapsed as an institution. Charting the rise of leaders such as Booker T Washington, to other, more radical thinkers. This book charts why the Civil Rights struggle did not deliver up to its potential, and the crisis of Black leadership. However, in its second edition also contains a set of chapters on Hurricane Katrina and Barack Obama. Irrespective, this collection of articles remains timely, contemporary, relevant and deeply though-provoking.
Perhaps the major underpinning of this collection of articles can be summed up with the questions: 1) what is race; and 2) how does it function. We all know that scientifically speaking, race is not a thing. Therefore, what it is a socioeconomic construction. It functions by hijacking identities and allowing others to define us.
This book powerfully analyses the responses to Black leadership movements, the traditional unwillingness of white voters to vote for black political candidates and the continued belief amongst many polled white people that black people in the US "ask for too much." However, Marable places Black demands firmly back in the context they arise from. They arise from slavery, a practice that the US continues to deny was a crime against humanity. They arise from terroristic violence in the reconstruction south. They arise from coded attacks on the community by the stripping away of welfare and the bloated prison-industrial complex. Looking at these issues, we are drawn through articles that show how the war on drugs operates to criminalise the groups that use drugs the least. We are shown, with clarity, how the US government wilfuly and criminally responded slowly to Hurricane Katrina. We are shown how reportage of that incident was skewed: white people were taking things from stores; black people were "looting". This sort of reportage shows how the Black image remains linked to bestial savagery. A racial hierarchy which consistently privileges European white identity as superior to Black-African identity.
However, Marable does not advocate parochialism. He links the struggles of Black America to the wider Third-World, and shows how e.g. the fight against Apartheid was won by grassroots Black activism, even as Reagan tried his best to prop the regime up with his best-buddy Thatcher. It is this element of the collection that urges us to look beyond Black and White. Indeed, the analysis of race operates in the US (and globally) should make radicals of us all.
That is not to say that Marable is Afrocentric. He identifies 3 strands within Black liberation movements. Integrationists - who are allied to the liberal capitalist project. These folk want symbolic representation. Separatists who demand a separate Black nation; and transformationalists who seek a radical overhaul of the global economic order. Marable himself is in the third category, and his criticisms of all these movements are extremely illuminating.
The sad truth is that as integrationists have won the day, more and more black people must suppress their racial identity. They are political candidates who "happen to be black". The petty bourgeois who became a managerial and executive class amongst Black communities have fled, causing atomisation. Therefore, Black representatives often have no inkling of how Black men in Harlem have a lower life expectancy than males in Bangladesh. Those that do, are loath to tackle the structures that produce this fact. This atomisation is roundly criticised by Marable.
Overall, this book is terribly important for anyone who is interested in race relations, and is willing to approach the subject with an open mind. Anyone who questions why criminal justice programmes target people of colour so acutely, anyone who questions why Black Lives Matter has found such a strong voice, and anyone who questions the hard limits of what can be achieved through liberal democratic electoral politics. The final chapter of the book reminds us all: change must come from the bottom up, and this is achieved through solidarity and taking to the streets to demand change. Without this, those in power have a mandate to oppress those who have been oppressed for centuries.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews