Synopsis
"You can find in a text whatever you bring, if you will stand between it and the mirror of your imagination. . . . Yes, take it all around, there is quite a good deal of information in the book. I regret this very much; but really it could not be helped."
*Mark Twain
Like his literary forebears *Frederick Douglass, James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, and yes, Mark Twain *Ralph Wiley has some information to purvey. The news is not always good. But with Wiley's electrifying take on subjects from the black intelligentsia to The Bell Curve to O.J., Dark Witness is certain to outrage, entertain, and ultimately enlighten.
The titles of his chapters say it all: "One Day, When I Was On Exhibit." "Why Black People Are So Stupid." "Why Niggers Steal, Are Violent, and Stay on Welfare." "Where Negroes Got All That Rhythm." "Whoopi-Do and Hughes 2." "Sin and Juice." Behind the explosive flash of these phrases simmer the intense honesty and searing self-reflection of a man burning for justice. Taking to heart Douglass's words that "it is not light that is needed, but
fire . . . not the gentle shower, but thunder," Wiley, heir to the long tradition of "writer as activist," examines some of the most hotly debated issues of black life today and turns them inside out.
No one writing today has the incisiveness, the fire to dissect the world the way Ralph Wiley does. In Dark Witness he proves once again that he is one of the most gifted writers chronicling life in the crucible that is late-twentieth- century America.
"Wiley brings to the debate his own inimitable style, a bold perspective that is without compromise and a voice that provokes laughter about society's weightiest dilemmas."
*Emerge
"Humor is a formidable weapon, and Wiley puts it to outstanding use in this sharp-edged book."
*Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
From the Inside Flap
n find in a text whatever you bring, if you will stand between it and the mirror of your imagination. . . . Yes, take it all around, there is quite a good deal of information in the book. I regret this very much; but really it could not be helped."
*Mark Twain
Like his literary forebears *Frederick Douglass, James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, and yes, Mark Twain *Ralph Wiley has some information to purvey. The news is not always good. But with Wiley's electrifying take on subjects from the black intelligentsia to The Bell Curve to O.J., Dark Witness is certain to outrage, entertain, and ultimately enlighten.
The titles of his chapters say it all: "One Day, When I Was On Exhibit." "Why Black People Are So Stupid." "Why Niggers Steal, Are Violent, and Stay on Welfare." "Where Negroes Got All That Rhythm." "Whoopi-Do and Hughes 2." "Sin and Juice." Behind the explosive flash of
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