How to Make Black America Better
Leading African Americans Speak Out
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- $5.99
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- $5.99
Publisher Description
Issuing a powerful call for constructive social action, the popular radio and television commentator Tavis Smiley has assembled the voices of leading African American artists, intellectuals, and politicians from Chuck D to Cornel West to Maxine Waters. How to Make Black America Better takes a pragmatic, solutions-oriented approach that includes Smiley’s own ten challenges to the African American community.
Smiley and his contributors stress the family tie, the power of community networks, the promise of education, and the leverage of black economic and political strength in shaping a new vision of America. Encouraging African Americans to realize the potential of their own leadership and to work collectively from the bottom up, the selections offer new ideas for addressing vital issues facing black communities. Featuring original essays by some of our most important thinkers, How to Make Black America Better is an essential book for anyone concerned with the status of African Americans today.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Exhorting black Americans to respect themselves and support their community, BET talk show host Smiley opens with 10 "challenges," focusing on education, health and money. These themes are underscored in the second section of the book, which features a collection of short entries from 28 black movers and shakers, from Maxine Waters to Shaquille O'Neal. While the litany of concerns and lists of remedies may seem repetitious, the net effect is a consensus on the needs of black America: more emphasis on educational excellence, more patronage of black enterprises, more voter registration and political involvement, and more pride in black history and culture. Reform of the prison system is urged by many, as well as a reckoning within the black church with homophobia and sexism. Spokespeople for very different perspectives sometimes offer strikingly similar thoughts: both critic Stanley Crouch and musician Sinbad wonder when it became hip to be dumb. The book ends with transcripts of two discussions with leading black thinkers held at the Democratic convention of 2000. Again, there's much consensus, thanks either to the absence of black Republicans or to a willingness to think inclusively. When educator Jawanza Kunjufu proposes a Ujamaa (cooperative economics) plan for black America, the moderator, attorney Raymond Brown, avoids a response, rather than criticize. Even if they give way to monologues, these two panel talks are longer on substance and shorter on rhetoric than the sometimes tedious earlier sections of the book.
