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Who We Be: A Cultural History of Race in Post-Civil Rights America
Race. A four-letter word. The greatest social divide in American life, a half-century ago and today. During that time, the U.S. has seen the most dramatic demographic and cultural shifts in its history, what can be called the colorization of America.
But the same nation that elected its first Black president on a wave of hope—another four-letter word—is still plunged into endless culture wars. How do Americans see race now? How has that changed—and not changed—over the half-century? After eras framed by words like "multicultural" and "post-racial," do we see each other any more clearly?
Who We Be remixes comic strips and contemporary art, campus protests and corporate marketing campaigns, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Trayvon Martin into a powerful, unusual, and timely cultural history of the idea of racial progress. In this follow-up to the award-winning classic Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation, Jeff Chang brings fresh energy, style, and sweep to the essential American story.
But the same nation that elected its first Black president on a wave of hope—another four-letter word—is still plunged into endless culture wars. How do Americans see race now? How has that changed—and not changed—over the half-century? After eras framed by words like "multicultural" and "post-racial," do we see each other any more clearly?
Who We Be remixes comic strips and contemporary art, campus protests and corporate marketing campaigns, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Trayvon Martin into a powerful, unusual, and timely cultural history of the idea of racial progress. In this follow-up to the award-winning classic Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation, Jeff Chang brings fresh energy, style, and sweep to the essential American story.
416 pages, Hardcover
First published October 21, 2014
76 people are currently reading
2603 people want to read
About the author
Jeff Chang
21 books410 followersJeff Chang is a writer, host, and a cultural organizer known for his work in culture, politics, the arts, and music.
His cultural biography of Bruce Lee called Water Mirror Echo: Bruce Lee and the Making of Asian America (Mariner) will be published on September 23, 2025. He is the host of the Signal Award-winning podcast on artists and ideas, Edge of Reason, produced by Atlantic: Rethink and Hauser & Wirth, and of Notes From the Edge, produced by KALW Public Media.
His first book, Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation, garnered many honors, including the American Book Award and the Asian American Literary Award. Slate named it one of the best nonfiction books of the past 25 years. Powell’s’ Books chose it as one of their 50 most important books of the past 50 years. A revised and updated Young Adult edition—co-written with legendary hip-hop journalist Dave “Davey D” Cook—was published in 2021.
Who We Be: The Colorization of America (St. Martin’s Press) was released on October 2014, to critical acclaim. It was published in paperback in January 2016 under the new title, Who We Be: A Cultural History of Race in Post Civil Rights America (Picador). The book won the Ray + Pat Browne Award for Best Work in Popular Culture and American Culture and shortlisted for the NAACP Image Award, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and Books For A Better Life Award.
We Gon' Be Alright: Notes On Race and Resegregation (Picador), was published in September 2016, was named a Book of the Year by the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association. The Washington Post declared it “the smartest book of the year.” He also edited the book, Total Chaos: The Art and Aesthetics of Hip-Hop (Basic Civitas, 2006) and Freedom Moves: Hip-Hop Knowledges, Pedagogies, and Futures (University of California Press, 2023).
(You can find a list of all his books in print here.)
Jeff has been a USA Ford Fellow in Literature and a Lucas Artist Fellow. He was named by The Utne Reader as one of "50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World,” by KQED as an Asian Pacific American Local Hero, and by the Yerba Buena Center for The Arts to its YBCA 100 list of those “shaping the future of American culture.” He was named to the Frederick Douglass 200, as one of “200 living individuals who best embody the work and spirit of Douglass.”
In May 2019, he and director Bao Nguyen created a four-episode digital adaptation of We Gon Be Alright for PBS Indie Lens Storycast. Jeff has been featured in the PBS documentary series, Asian Americans, Bao Nguyen’s movie, “Be Water”, and Lisa Ling’s show, “This Is Life.”
His bylines have appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, The Guardian, the Los Angeles Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle, as well as Slate, Mother Jones, The Nation, n+1, and The Believer. He was a winner of the North Star News Prize for his cultural and political journalism. With H. Samy Alim, he received the St. Clair Drake Teaching Award at Stanford University.
A national leader in narrative and cultural strategy and a recognized advocate for cultural justice, Jeff co-founded CultureStr/ke (now the Center for Cultural Power) and the Webby-nominated May 19th Project. He led the Butterfly Lab for Immigrant Narrative Strategy and the Institute for Diversity in the Arts at Stanford University. He helped to write the Cultural New Deal alongside a number of artists and culture bearers.
He was a founding member of the SoleSides Crew, a hip-hop collective that included DJ Shadow, Blackalicious, Lyrics Born, Lateef the Truthspeaker, and Academy Award-winning filmmaker Joseph Monish Patel.
He began his journey working at college radio stations KALX and KDVS, organizing for the Center for Third World Organizing, California State Student Association, and the National Hip-Hop Political Convention, and writing and editing for magazines like URB, Rap Pages, The Bomb Hip-Hop Magazine, Vibe,
His cultural biography of Bruce Lee called Water Mirror Echo: Bruce Lee and the Making of Asian America (Mariner) will be published on September 23, 2025. He is the host of the Signal Award-winning podcast on artists and ideas, Edge of Reason, produced by Atlantic: Rethink and Hauser & Wirth, and of Notes From the Edge, produced by KALW Public Media.
His first book, Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation, garnered many honors, including the American Book Award and the Asian American Literary Award. Slate named it one of the best nonfiction books of the past 25 years. Powell’s’ Books chose it as one of their 50 most important books of the past 50 years. A revised and updated Young Adult edition—co-written with legendary hip-hop journalist Dave “Davey D” Cook—was published in 2021.
Who We Be: The Colorization of America (St. Martin’s Press) was released on October 2014, to critical acclaim. It was published in paperback in January 2016 under the new title, Who We Be: A Cultural History of Race in Post Civil Rights America (Picador). The book won the Ray + Pat Browne Award for Best Work in Popular Culture and American Culture and shortlisted for the NAACP Image Award, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and Books For A Better Life Award.
We Gon' Be Alright: Notes On Race and Resegregation (Picador), was published in September 2016, was named a Book of the Year by the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association. The Washington Post declared it “the smartest book of the year.” He also edited the book, Total Chaos: The Art and Aesthetics of Hip-Hop (Basic Civitas, 2006) and Freedom Moves: Hip-Hop Knowledges, Pedagogies, and Futures (University of California Press, 2023).
(You can find a list of all his books in print here.)
Jeff has been a USA Ford Fellow in Literature and a Lucas Artist Fellow. He was named by The Utne Reader as one of "50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World,” by KQED as an Asian Pacific American Local Hero, and by the Yerba Buena Center for The Arts to its YBCA 100 list of those “shaping the future of American culture.” He was named to the Frederick Douglass 200, as one of “200 living individuals who best embody the work and spirit of Douglass.”
In May 2019, he and director Bao Nguyen created a four-episode digital adaptation of We Gon Be Alright for PBS Indie Lens Storycast. Jeff has been featured in the PBS documentary series, Asian Americans, Bao Nguyen’s movie, “Be Water”, and Lisa Ling’s show, “This Is Life.”
His bylines have appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, The Guardian, the Los Angeles Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle, as well as Slate, Mother Jones, The Nation, n+1, and The Believer. He was a winner of the North Star News Prize for his cultural and political journalism. With H. Samy Alim, he received the St. Clair Drake Teaching Award at Stanford University.
A national leader in narrative and cultural strategy and a recognized advocate for cultural justice, Jeff co-founded CultureStr/ke (now the Center for Cultural Power) and the Webby-nominated May 19th Project. He led the Butterfly Lab for Immigrant Narrative Strategy and the Institute for Diversity in the Arts at Stanford University. He helped to write the Cultural New Deal alongside a number of artists and culture bearers.
He was a founding member of the SoleSides Crew, a hip-hop collective that included DJ Shadow, Blackalicious, Lyrics Born, Lateef the Truthspeaker, and Academy Award-winning filmmaker Joseph Monish Patel.
He began his journey working at college radio stations KALX and KDVS, organizing for the Center for Third World Organizing, California State Student Association, and the National Hip-Hop Political Convention, and writing and editing for magazines like URB, Rap Pages, The Bomb Hip-Hop Magazine, Vibe,
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews
November 9, 2014
It was amazing! What more can I say?
December 29, 2014
oh, no big deal, just provide a primer and treatise on race in the now majority minority U.S., including how silly but apt that phrase is for the nation's collective consciousness.
Chang does what he sets out to do in the introduction: to act as a selective, educated, and thoughtful curator of moments and contextual backdrops for how race has shape-shifted to remain as salient a social organizer as it ever was. Highlights include the context around multiculturalism, which makes its deep irrelevance and functionality even more gaping and the ways that the Southern Solution has been repurposed into debates around immigration.
This book, along with Perry's More Beautiful and More Terrible, and Takaki's Strangers from Another Shore should be mandatory reads in our quest to not start over and over again in understanding race as a political construct.
Chang does what he sets out to do in the introduction: to act as a selective, educated, and thoughtful curator of moments and contextual backdrops for how race has shape-shifted to remain as salient a social organizer as it ever was. Highlights include the context around multiculturalism, which makes its deep irrelevance and functionality even more gaping and the ways that the Southern Solution has been repurposed into debates around immigration.
This book, along with Perry's More Beautiful and More Terrible, and Takaki's Strangers from Another Shore should be mandatory reads in our quest to not start over and over again in understanding race as a political construct.
November 13, 2014
A dense, scholarly book but accessible to the layman; the author examines race relations in America from 1963 through today. The ambitious study of race through culture includes music, TV, politics, printed media and high profiled news with art photos and comic strips throughout the book. My impression is the author is reporting a a cornucopia history of events, and the reader is left to draw conclusions.
An ARC book
An ARC book
May 3, 2015
In a nut shell, "Who We Be" is about...
"The book then moves on to look at how demographic change has impacted American arts, cultural politics, and electoral politics. It asks: Why, after colorization, has racial and cultural inequality remained largely unseen and undiscussed? It asks us to consider the fate of this still emerging cultural majority, and the fate of the nation itself" (p. 11).
I find myself interested in both the distinct issues of race and cultural movements, particularly of the United States, as well as their intersection. The book moves through along chronologically from 1963 until 2013 (being published in 2014), analyzing everything from advertising to the fine arts to graffiti art.
Unfortunately (for me), the root of the author's expertise is in the fine arts and the majority of the 1960's-80's material reflects that. So a good chunk of the book landed outside my frame of reference. That said, I loved the commentary on some comics of the 1960's, TV programming in the late 1990's, and the creation of Obama's "Hope" posters.
Chang does an expert job at giving the larger political, cultural, and socioeconomic picture surrounding each of the time periods as well.
Overall, good book, especially for those concerned with how art and (pop) culture has intersected with race.
"The book then moves on to look at how demographic change has impacted American arts, cultural politics, and electoral politics. It asks: Why, after colorization, has racial and cultural inequality remained largely unseen and undiscussed? It asks us to consider the fate of this still emerging cultural majority, and the fate of the nation itself" (p. 11).
I find myself interested in both the distinct issues of race and cultural movements, particularly of the United States, as well as their intersection. The book moves through along chronologically from 1963 until 2013 (being published in 2014), analyzing everything from advertising to the fine arts to graffiti art.
Unfortunately (for me), the root of the author's expertise is in the fine arts and the majority of the 1960's-80's material reflects that. So a good chunk of the book landed outside my frame of reference. That said, I loved the commentary on some comics of the 1960's, TV programming in the late 1990's, and the creation of Obama's "Hope" posters.
Chang does an expert job at giving the larger political, cultural, and socioeconomic picture surrounding each of the time periods as well.
Overall, good book, especially for those concerned with how art and (pop) culture has intersected with race.
February 22, 2015
This book was really informative and had a lot of interesting stuff and great profiles of artists. Unfortunately, for me, it was also semi-easy to walk away from, because it wasn't nearly as cohesive as Can't Stop, Won't Stop. It ping-pongs through eras - ostensibly its chapters reflect covering a certain period of time, but frequently an artist's career will be followed for longer than that era, or an idea will be mentioned, then backtracked on, then later explored further. I don't think that structure is necessarily impossible to use successfully, but here it mostly contributes to an overall thematic inconsistency. This is worsened by the contrast between periods where art is described intensely, and periods where politics are described with a few mentions of contemporaneous art. Basically, it needed editing. And IDK if this was the author, publisher's preference, or what, but the more academic tone of the book really detracts from it; part of what I liked about Can't Stop, Won't Stop was the strength of the writing itself, which isn't nearly as present in this book. I'd still recommend it, but it needed editing.
STILL, THOUGH. Very, very detailed, had a lot of stuff I didn't already know, it's not like I think my time was wasted.
STILL, THOUGH. Very, very detailed, had a lot of stuff I didn't already know, it's not like I think my time was wasted.
June 5, 2016
I really wanted to like this book! We have come to a critical junction in race relations in the US-- opposing trends of electing our first President of color and citizens energized to protest police brutality with "Black Lives Matter" vs. the current WASP choices for President and ethnic slurs in speeches and "debates" by both political parties. I have lived through all three phases of "colorization" that Chang describes and yet there was a lot of information new to me in his text so I'm glad I read it.
SOME of his writing is completely engaging and read like good feature articles-- but not nearly enough!! Most is excessively verbose and digs too deeply into his area of expertise-- the arts-- without bigger picture context or perspectives from other fields like sports and media.
This will seem petty to some readers, but I felt frustrated with the book's design. It has beautiful glossy paper to display paintings in detail and rich color. But it also uses a sans serif font throughout, the kind used for headlines and captions, that strained my eyes and made the text seem even denser than its words alone conveyed. I could have read it in half the time if I didn't need to rest my eyes every chapter or two.
SOME of his writing is completely engaging and read like good feature articles-- but not nearly enough!! Most is excessively verbose and digs too deeply into his area of expertise-- the arts-- without bigger picture context or perspectives from other fields like sports and media.
This will seem petty to some readers, but I felt frustrated with the book's design. It has beautiful glossy paper to display paintings in detail and rich color. But it also uses a sans serif font throughout, the kind used for headlines and captions, that strained my eyes and made the text seem even denser than its words alone conveyed. I could have read it in half the time if I didn't need to rest my eyes every chapter or two.
July 9, 2015
The insights in this book are interesting, but my rating of two stars is for the dry scholarly manner in which Chang bored my way through this entire book. I agree with most of his arguments, but I thought that this book would be a more engaging tour through this period and these often overlooked groups.
October 31, 2019
Jeff Chang does it again! Who We Be is an important book because it shows a cultural history of race in America and how it is perpetuated by arts and cultural institutions. Most importantly it also shows artist and cultural workers resisting through protest and artistic and cultural production in this moment of the colorization of America.
March 23, 2015
An amazing look at how the cultural image of American went from white to one of many colors. A joy, a treat, an education. In all the best ways.
December 27, 2016
This was an interesting look at art and culture and how they affect politics. Basically, how cultural shifts--largely due to artistic expression and the idea of identity by people of color--create political shifts, leading up to the election of our first Black President of the United States. I wish more of the art that was discussed could be shown on the pages. I do wonder how the discussion in this book would differ if it were written after this year's election results. How could the U.S. go backwards instead of forward? What were the cultural shifts or events that occurred during the past four years that brought us to elect a hate-supporting, anti-women, capitalism-monger who wants to bring the country back to when segregation reigned and the people in power were only one color and one gender? How could this happen when our country is as colorful as it currently is, with women achieving just as much as men? I think I can understand it intellectually, but not emotionally. I had higher hopes in the people of this country. I am disappointed in us.
". . .America's race problem came from something deeper. For whites, historically, skin tone and physiognomy signaled not only difference, but notions of superiority and inferiority. This was the way racial power worked. It went further than merely perceiving difference. It sorted difference into vast systems of freedom and slavery, commitment and neglect, investment and abandonment, mobility and containment." pg. 3
"Culture is the realm of images, ideas, sounds, and stories. It is our shared space. It is the narrative we are immersed in every day. It is where people find community, and express their deepest-held values, where, as Eduardo Galeano put it, 'the collective symbols of identity and memory: the testimonies of what we are, the prophecies of the imagination, the denunciations of what prevents us from being' are circulated." pg. 5
"Here is where artists and those who work and play in the culture enter. They help people to see what cannot yet be seen, hear the unheard, tell the untold. They make change feel not just possible, but inevitable. Every moment of major social change requires a collective leap of imagination. Change presents itself not only in spontaneous and organized expressions of unrest and risk, but in explosions of mass creativity. So those interested in transforming society might assert: cultural change always precedes political change. Put another way, political change is the last manifestation of cultural shifts that have already occurred. Obama could not have been pictured as a symbol of hope if the seeds of that hope had not been planted in the culture long before." pg. 6
"Social realism had depicted images of everyday people to urge a better future. It moved the unseen into the frame in order to mobilize disenchantment with inequality. Capitalist realism reappropriated this radical act of seeing in order to induce trust and satisfaction. The idea was that all our aspirations could be contained within the frame." pg. 61
"Mad that they put in basketball courts and not tennis courts at your local park? Angry your school-age kids were being bused to the inner city? Suspicious your hard-earned money was going to support welfare moms, junkies, and gays? Certain the job at the downsizing plant went to an unqualified person of color over you because of affirmative action? Atwater was saying: we feel your pain. And he understood: defunding legal services and food stamps might slam poor whites, too, but if they thought it hurt minorities more, that might be enough to make them vote Republican. In this way the 1960s divide between Wallace voters and Nixon voters--those comfortable with naked racial appeals versus those who were not--was reconciled. South strategy 2.0 meant never having to say 'White Power.'" pg. 104
"Negotiating identity between the formalists who wanted their art colorblind and multiculturalists who wanted their art uplifting had been the burden of Golden's and Ligon's generation." pg. 219
"For a quarter-century, California had been the bleeding edge of the cultural generation gap. The 1978 passage of Proposition 13--ten years after the triumph of Nixon's Southern strategy and two before the Reagan Revolution--defined cultural generation gap politics. This anti-property tax initiative effectively revoked the Golden State's expansive postwar social contract, an act of civic white flight." pg. 245
"But by the late 1970s, a new era had begun. As wages began to stagnate dramatically in relation to productivity, popular movements shifted from claiming the rights of national citizenship to claiming access to capitalism. Neoliberalism meant the financialization of everything, including notions of credit and debt, resistance and freedom." pg. 292
"You could try to change the images people saw, but how could you change the images people already held of you in their minds?" pg. 311
". . .America's race problem came from something deeper. For whites, historically, skin tone and physiognomy signaled not only difference, but notions of superiority and inferiority. This was the way racial power worked. It went further than merely perceiving difference. It sorted difference into vast systems of freedom and slavery, commitment and neglect, investment and abandonment, mobility and containment." pg. 3
"Culture is the realm of images, ideas, sounds, and stories. It is our shared space. It is the narrative we are immersed in every day. It is where people find community, and express their deepest-held values, where, as Eduardo Galeano put it, 'the collective symbols of identity and memory: the testimonies of what we are, the prophecies of the imagination, the denunciations of what prevents us from being' are circulated." pg. 5
"Here is where artists and those who work and play in the culture enter. They help people to see what cannot yet be seen, hear the unheard, tell the untold. They make change feel not just possible, but inevitable. Every moment of major social change requires a collective leap of imagination. Change presents itself not only in spontaneous and organized expressions of unrest and risk, but in explosions of mass creativity. So those interested in transforming society might assert: cultural change always precedes political change. Put another way, political change is the last manifestation of cultural shifts that have already occurred. Obama could not have been pictured as a symbol of hope if the seeds of that hope had not been planted in the culture long before." pg. 6
"Social realism had depicted images of everyday people to urge a better future. It moved the unseen into the frame in order to mobilize disenchantment with inequality. Capitalist realism reappropriated this radical act of seeing in order to induce trust and satisfaction. The idea was that all our aspirations could be contained within the frame." pg. 61
"Mad that they put in basketball courts and not tennis courts at your local park? Angry your school-age kids were being bused to the inner city? Suspicious your hard-earned money was going to support welfare moms, junkies, and gays? Certain the job at the downsizing plant went to an unqualified person of color over you because of affirmative action? Atwater was saying: we feel your pain. And he understood: defunding legal services and food stamps might slam poor whites, too, but if they thought it hurt minorities more, that might be enough to make them vote Republican. In this way the 1960s divide between Wallace voters and Nixon voters--those comfortable with naked racial appeals versus those who were not--was reconciled. South strategy 2.0 meant never having to say 'White Power.'" pg. 104
"Negotiating identity between the formalists who wanted their art colorblind and multiculturalists who wanted their art uplifting had been the burden of Golden's and Ligon's generation." pg. 219
"For a quarter-century, California had been the bleeding edge of the cultural generation gap. The 1978 passage of Proposition 13--ten years after the triumph of Nixon's Southern strategy and two before the Reagan Revolution--defined cultural generation gap politics. This anti-property tax initiative effectively revoked the Golden State's expansive postwar social contract, an act of civic white flight." pg. 245
"But by the late 1970s, a new era had begun. As wages began to stagnate dramatically in relation to productivity, popular movements shifted from claiming the rights of national citizenship to claiming access to capitalism. Neoliberalism meant the financialization of everything, including notions of credit and debt, resistance and freedom." pg. 292
"You could try to change the images people saw, but how could you change the images people already held of you in their minds?" pg. 311
May 20, 2021
This book is about the rise and fall (or evolution) of multiculturalism in America, but uniquely examined through the lens of visual images. Yes, there are parts about laws, politics, presidential campaigns, school board decisions, etc, but a lot of attention is paid to the art world, and exhibits deemed controversial or unsuccessful at the time of their unveiling, and to advertising and the use of race to sell products/create an idea of a racial utopia.
August 22, 2018
This is a monumental book in that it is a history of race and art in the US from 1963-2013.
"Race happens in the gap between appearance and the perception of difference. It is about what we see and what we think we see and what we think about when we see." "Color is not a human or personal reality. It is a political reality." "The monoliths called races are a purposeful invention, once used to make Europe's slavery and colonial conquests seem moral and inevitable." "Racism is about money and power."
"You don't just become an artist to paint a pretty picture. It's a powerful way of documenting a time, a period and a people." "Art was not just about making things, but making things happen." "We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda, it is a form of truth." "Race is the most successful advertising campaign of all time. We navigate our worlds around it."
It is like so many times where you live through an era but you are so busy living your own life that you don't always pay attention to larger changes taking place. I would not say I have paid attention to "art" in the past 55 years but from this book I realize that art is more than galleries and particularly in our consumer world it is about advertising. I came out of the 60's with the Coca Cola ad for "Teach the World to Sing" (where Don Draper ended the Mad Men show). I thought we were that generation who believed if we all stood together with a drink everything would be OK. So how did we end up as the older generation who are resistant to change and fear the loss of our white privilege? I couldn't go to my 50th class reunion in the Midwest because I didn't want to chat with all those red state voters. I know families who have stopped talking because of differences in politics. I am saddened what the US has come to. I am glad that I was able to spend most of the last 50 years in the Bay Area "the last frontier of the visionary, the bold and weird" and the most diverse area in the US. Our children have married people who are Other and our grandchildren are hybrids. Many of my friends are immigrants and we have in common that no matter what your culture families are the same everywhere. I was on a cruise ship in the Caribbean on a smooth jazz cruise with a most diverse crowd the night we all celebrated Obama's election in 2008. Why did that elation and hope fade so quickly?
Chang takes us through all the history of how we got to 2013 and there are inklings of what was to come in 2016. He reports Pat Buchanan saying, "2009 was the year that radicalized white America." "As a country we are increasingly diverse, we have tremendous white anxiety and we have a racial polarization in our structures, our schools, our housing and our lives."
"Globalization had accelerated the forces of change. For those wired into the new world, globalization did mean connection. For others, it meant displacement and uprooting of people on a previously unimaginable scale."
"We know what NOT to say to each other, but not what to say."
The ART of this week was the cover of The New Yorker. The family with the blue car parked next to the US made big red truck with gun rack and bumper stickers. Maybe there is an artist somewhere who can show us again how much we have in common as humans and like Rodney King wondered, "Can we get along?"
"Race happens in the gap between appearance and the perception of difference. It is about what we see and what we think we see and what we think about when we see." "Color is not a human or personal reality. It is a political reality." "The monoliths called races are a purposeful invention, once used to make Europe's slavery and colonial conquests seem moral and inevitable." "Racism is about money and power."
"You don't just become an artist to paint a pretty picture. It's a powerful way of documenting a time, a period and a people." "Art was not just about making things, but making things happen." "We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda, it is a form of truth." "Race is the most successful advertising campaign of all time. We navigate our worlds around it."
It is like so many times where you live through an era but you are so busy living your own life that you don't always pay attention to larger changes taking place. I would not say I have paid attention to "art" in the past 55 years but from this book I realize that art is more than galleries and particularly in our consumer world it is about advertising. I came out of the 60's with the Coca Cola ad for "Teach the World to Sing" (where Don Draper ended the Mad Men show). I thought we were that generation who believed if we all stood together with a drink everything would be OK. So how did we end up as the older generation who are resistant to change and fear the loss of our white privilege? I couldn't go to my 50th class reunion in the Midwest because I didn't want to chat with all those red state voters. I know families who have stopped talking because of differences in politics. I am saddened what the US has come to. I am glad that I was able to spend most of the last 50 years in the Bay Area "the last frontier of the visionary, the bold and weird" and the most diverse area in the US. Our children have married people who are Other and our grandchildren are hybrids. Many of my friends are immigrants and we have in common that no matter what your culture families are the same everywhere. I was on a cruise ship in the Caribbean on a smooth jazz cruise with a most diverse crowd the night we all celebrated Obama's election in 2008. Why did that elation and hope fade so quickly?
Chang takes us through all the history of how we got to 2013 and there are inklings of what was to come in 2016. He reports Pat Buchanan saying, "2009 was the year that radicalized white America." "As a country we are increasingly diverse, we have tremendous white anxiety and we have a racial polarization in our structures, our schools, our housing and our lives."
"Globalization had accelerated the forces of change. For those wired into the new world, globalization did mean connection. For others, it meant displacement and uprooting of people on a previously unimaginable scale."
"We know what NOT to say to each other, but not what to say."
The ART of this week was the cover of The New Yorker. The family with the blue car parked next to the US made big red truck with gun rack and bumper stickers. Maybe there is an artist somewhere who can show us again how much we have in common as humans and like Rodney King wondered, "Can we get along?"
July 25, 2015
A look at race, art, pop culture and more. I had been under the impression this was his other book which I understand is about the rise of hip-hop. No matter, because this was a fascinating read.
Chang takes us through a partial history of the US (from the 60's) through almost present day (2014) as viewed through the eyes of art, music, political movements, ads, etc. It's a really interesting view of the societal, political, demographic changes through these lenses, rather than as a general historical look by events. And it is how people of color have shaped these movements, changes, and developments.
From the first African American syndicated cartoonist to the influence of the Old Spice 'The Man Your Man Could Smell Like' ads and more. I have to say, some of the commentary and background was really fascinating: breaking down topics like the Old Spice commercial and whether the appeal of Isiah Mustafah came because he fit certain parameters (and because he is shirtless in all his ads) to the once numerous sitcoms and TV shows filled with black actors suddenly gone after networks decided they didn't need those anymore, etc.
It's a dense read and it's something I'd have to chew on for later consumption. I also had trouble with some areas: the author tends to jump back and forth in time and that can make it somewhat difficult to follow. He also talks quite a bit about general art, and as that is not something that interests me I could feel my eyes glaze over.
Still, it's an excellent read and I'm glad I picked it up. It's not a beach read (really, the book is heavy). However I'd strongly recommend picking it up if you have any interest at all in the topics Chang covers.
Chang takes us through a partial history of the US (from the 60's) through almost present day (2014) as viewed through the eyes of art, music, political movements, ads, etc. It's a really interesting view of the societal, political, demographic changes through these lenses, rather than as a general historical look by events. And it is how people of color have shaped these movements, changes, and developments.
From the first African American syndicated cartoonist to the influence of the Old Spice 'The Man Your Man Could Smell Like' ads and more. I have to say, some of the commentary and background was really fascinating: breaking down topics like the Old Spice commercial and whether the appeal of Isiah Mustafah came because he fit certain parameters (and because he is shirtless in all his ads) to the once numerous sitcoms and TV shows filled with black actors suddenly gone after networks decided they didn't need those anymore, etc.
It's a dense read and it's something I'd have to chew on for later consumption. I also had trouble with some areas: the author tends to jump back and forth in time and that can make it somewhat difficult to follow. He also talks quite a bit about general art, and as that is not something that interests me I could feel my eyes glaze over.
Still, it's an excellent read and I'm glad I picked it up. It's not a beach read (really, the book is heavy). However I'd strongly recommend picking it up if you have any interest at all in the topics Chang covers.
January 30, 2015
A discipline spanning examination that drops like a breakdown in the songs of the culture wars. Looks at how the culture of people of color interacts with, opposes, collaborates with, informs, changes, and gets assimilated by our society. Gets deeper philosophically than most, though, while also staying real with the nitty-gritty of politics and people's lives.
There's not much else out there like this, so get a copy and read.
I struggled at the beginning of this. The unusual angle Chang comes at us threw me at first. When he made an assertion that racist caricature in cartoons went underground as Warner Bros. animal characters, I thought he was reaching too far; trying to make connections that weren't there and this effected how I read the following pages. I think that still might be a miss, but the rest of the book is intriguing, insightful, and awesome.
There's not much else out there like this, so get a copy and read.
I struggled at the beginning of this. The unusual angle Chang comes at us threw me at first. When he made an assertion that racist caricature in cartoons went underground as Warner Bros. animal characters, I thought he was reaching too far; trying to make connections that weren't there and this effected how I read the following pages. I think that still might be a miss, but the rest of the book is intriguing, insightful, and awesome.
July 1, 2017
I had mixed emotions about this book. I really enjoyed "Can't Stop Won't Stop" and the reviews on this one were great. At the start it was very engaging, and it seemed like the goal was to write a People's History about race.
But in the middle it completely bogged down, addressing a laundry list of names in the art world, and multi-culturalism. I was avoiding reading, so I skipped a number of pages, and considered not finishing. My initial thought was that such a vast attempt to write on race becomes dated very quickly. But that wasn't all of it...I just didn't see the connection in the entire middle of the book.
I stuck with it and it ended fine. To anyone who is socially conscious, much if this will be treated along the lines of "oh yeah...that happened" -- and for me, that was barely enough.
But in the middle it completely bogged down, addressing a laundry list of names in the art world, and multi-culturalism. I was avoiding reading, so I skipped a number of pages, and considered not finishing. My initial thought was that such a vast attempt to write on race becomes dated very quickly. But that wasn't all of it...I just didn't see the connection in the entire middle of the book.
I stuck with it and it ended fine. To anyone who is socially conscious, much if this will be treated along the lines of "oh yeah...that happened" -- and for me, that was barely enough.
July 11, 2015
Our perceptions are often shaped by the media. From newspaper cartoons to art to television and the movies, we are inundated with the opinions and thoughts of a few. It's only those who choose to break the stereotypes and challenge the ideas of those few do those perceptions change. Jeff Chang seeks to document how society has changed in regard to race in the media. Morrie Turner's newspaper cartoon WeePals would break down racial stereotypes and mock those who would cling to them. Chang brilliantly documents the change in the media even down to a few small months here in there. It's in these small items that big ideas and social change come from.
June 26, 2016
I won a free copy of this book through a Goodreads Giveaway. Jeff Chang presents a fantastic pop-history narrative of race relations in the United States. I appreciated hearing from the perspective of artists of color and about their identity struggles. As a white male who grew up on the south in a household where Fox News played on a daily basis, I now seek out alternative (real) perspectives. Reading through the history presented of the early 90s was particularly eye opening, granting a view into the world around me as I was growing up in America. Highly recommended read.
June 18, 2017
I'm continually impressed by Chang's ability to weave between different aspects of social life such as art and politics and present precise causations I could have never figured out. As a Cornell alum, the parts about the Willard Straight Hall Takeover and the Latino Studies Program founding were particularly interesting and useful to see in the context of broader race relations at the time. The presentation of the book, with beautiful and provocative photos, lends it a more art history type feel, though this book is of course much much more.
February 23, 2015
i have so many thoughts about how good this was, but my best representation of those feelings is me wanting to come home every night to read this before i went to bed, the MOST EXCITED i was about any part of my day.
February 7, 2015
I received a free copy of this book fro the Goodreads First Reads program in exchange for an honest review. Very interesting book on an important topic in today's society. Great read, would recommend.
November 22, 2015
One of the best books I have ever read, this book looks at the history of the U.S. through the complex intertwining of politics, policy, high and pop culture. A subject so myriad in complexities skillfully distilled into a deceptively easy read.
Highly recommend.
Highly recommend.
Read
February 8, 2015enlightening!
This informative and comprehensive book serves as an introduction to the issues of the so-called "post-racial" generation. You come away with an understanding of this oxymoronic term.
This informative and comprehensive book serves as an introduction to the issues of the so-called "post-racial" generation. You come away with an understanding of this oxymoronic term.
June 16, 2016
Written on the eve of Obama's final term in office, this book is smart and no-nonsense as it takes a scalpel to the rise and fall of American racism, multiculturalism, and post-racial dogma. A must read to understand the absurdity of the phrase: "I don't see color, just people."
April 1, 2018
Very detailed and rich in knowledge. I did have trouble following at times because I kept putting it down and picking it up again, had to make a conscious effort to read in larger chunks to get the full picture. May need to read again to get everything to sink in.
March 9, 2015
ESSENTIAL READING RIGHT NOW.
February 1, 2015
Hands down, a must read. Examines our multicultural society in a multi-faceted approach. Read it.
January 16, 2015
A fascinating intellectual discourse of race expressed in art, politics, and culture.
February 4, 2015
I was a big fan of "Can't Stop Won't Stop," but this book didn't click right for me. The underlying analysis was fine, I just got bogged down in its discussion of art and art museums.
November 24, 2017
Interesting cultural history
May 11, 2016
Content just isn't engaging. The title is a bit misleading, imo.
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