The Trouble with Post-Blackness / / ed. by Houston Baker Jr., K. Merinda Simmons.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Columbia University Press Complete eBook-Package 2014-2015
• HerausgeberIn: Baker Jr., Houston,; Simmons, K. Merinda,
• MitwirkendeR: Baker, Houston A.,; Crawford, Margo Natalie,; Holsey, Bayo,; Jackson, John L.,; Kaplan, Erin Aubry,; Li, Stephanie,; Raboteau, Emily,; Rankine, Patrice,; Reed, Ishmael,; Richardson, Riché,; Russell, Heather D.,; Shavers, Rone,; Simmons, K. Merinda,; Thomas, Greg,; Williams, Dana A.,
• Place / Publishing House: New York, NY : : Columbia University Press, , [2015]; ©2015
• Year of Publication: 2015
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (288 p.)

An America in which the color of one's skin no longer matters would be unprecedented. With the election of President Barack Obama in 2008, that future suddenly seemed possible. Obama's rise reflects a nation of fluid populations and fortunes, a society in which a biracial individual could be embraced as a leader by all. Yet complicating this vision are shifting demographics, rapid redefinitions of race, and the instant invention of brands, trends, and identities that determine how we think about ourselves and the place of others.This collection of original essays confronts the premise, advanced by black intellectuals, that the Obama administration marked the start of a "post-racial" era in the United States. While the "transcendent" and post-racial black elite declare victory over America's longstanding codes of racial exclusion and racist violence, their evidence relies largely on their own salaries and celebrity. These essays strike at the certainty of those who insist that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are now independent of skin color and race in America. They argue, signify, and testify that "post-blackness" is a problematic mythology masquerading as fact-a dangerous new "race science" motivated by black transcendentalist individualism. Through rigorous analysis, these essays expose the idea of a post-racial nation as a pleasurable entitlement for a black elite, enabling them to reject the ethics and urgency of improving the well-being of the black majority.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: The Dubious Stage of Post-Blackness- Performing Otherness, Conserving Dominance -- 1. "What Was Is": The Time and Space of Entanglement Erased by Post-Blackness -- 2. Black Literary Writers and Post-Blackness -- 3. African Diasporic Blackness Out of Line: Trouble for "Post-Black" African Americanism -- 4. Fear of a Performative Planet: Troubling the Concept of "Post-Blackness" -- 5. E-Raced: #Touré, Twitter, and Trayvon -- 6. Post-Blackness and All of the Black Americas -- 7. Embodying Africa: Roots-Seekers and the Politics of Blackness -- 8. "The world is a ghetto": Post-Racial America(s) and the Apocalypse -- 9. The Long Road Home -- 10. Half as Good -- 11. "Whither Now and Why": Content Mastery and Pedagogy- A Critique and a Challenge -- 12. Fallacies of the Post-Race Presidency -- 13. Thirteen Ways of Looking at Post-Blackness (after Wallace Stevens) -- Conclusion: Why the Lega Mask Has Many Mouths and Multiple Eyes -- List of Contributors -- Index