Race Rules: Navigating The Color Line - Hardcover

Dyson, Michael Eric

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0201911868 ISBN 13: 9780201911862

Publisher: Basic Books, 1996

Synopsis

Former welfare father, ordained Baptist minister, and Princeton Ph.D., Michael Eric Dyson is best known for taking black studies ”to the streets” with his passion for popular culture and his commitment to urban youth. Here he unearths the hidden rules that poison our language, our thinking, and our politics.Dyson reveals the pernicious influence of racial thinking across the broad canvas of American social and cultural life, from the disjunction between how whites and blacks view the world, to the way perceptions of black masculinity thwart black leadership, to the politics of nostalgia that keeps us looking to an imaginary past rather than creating a positive future. Through painful examples drawn from within the black community sexual conflict in the black church, the myth of the ”head Negro,” relations between black men and women he depicts our ongoing failure to break free of the rule of race.”In a color-blind society, we can only see black and white,” warns Dyson as he argues for color consciousness informed by history and shaped by hope. provocative and compelling, Race Rules is the most important work to date from the ”hip-hop intellectual” who stands at the forefront of his generation of black public thinkers.

About this title

Review

This collection of essays by Michael Eric Dyson, who teaches communications at the University of North Carolina, deals with the problem of racial division in America, and explores divisions within the black community. A discussion of O. J. Simpson focuses on the tensions between black celebrities who find a favored niche in white society and those who must contend with a more mundane existence where racism is sharper. Another intra-commnity division arises in the tension between black women and men. One essay points to the similar support bases of Louis Farrakhan and Colin Powell. Another to the rivalries that have developed between the star-studded casts of newly prominent black intellectuals. Dyson offers a wide survey of African-American concerns from racism to rap.

From the Inside Flap

"You couldn't ask for a fairer-minded, better-informed, or more enjoyable guide."
--Elle

As a former welfare father who is also an ordained Baptist minister and a Princeton Ph.D., Michael Eric Dyson is one of those rare intellectuals who act not only as interpreters between black and white America but as bridges between the academy and the street. In this brave, bracing, and vastly readable book, he identifies the hidden rules that govern interactions between the races and within black communities, poisoning our language, our politics, and our thinking.

From the O. J. Simpson trial to the generational politics of gangsta rap, and from Colin Powell to Louis Farrakhan, Dyson takes on the most contentious issues of the 1990s. Again and again he shows us that, in a society that prides itself on being color-blind, race is more important--and more pernicious--than ever. Filled with eloquence and erudition, wit and moral common sense, Race Rules is an invaluable guide to the America we really live in as well as a redemptive vision of the one we want for our children.

"Dyson's insightful analysis comes to life on topics ranging from hip-hop culture to black leadership. "
--Atlanta Journal & Constitution

Edition details

• Publisher: Basic Books
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0201911868
• ISBN 13: 9780201911862
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 240