The Trouble with Post-Blackness

by Houston A. Baker Jr., K. Merinda Simmons

An America in which the color of one’s skin no longer matters would be unprecedented. With the election of President Barack Obama, 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 the shifting demographics, rapid redefinitions of race, and 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 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.

290 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 17, 2015

About the author

Houston A. Baker is Distinguished University Professor and a professor of English at Vanderbilt University. He has been awarded fellowships by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities and has been a resident fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences and the National Humanities Center. He has served as president of the Modern Language Association and as editor of the journal American Literature.

Reviews

[Patty · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of academic essays focusing on the problems with the idea of "post-black" or "post-racial". There's a lot of nice essays in here, though there's few really new ideas, at least if you're at all familiar with this conversation. I thought Bayo Holsey's article, "Embodying Africa: Roots-Seekers and the Politics of Blackness" (about tourism in Africa), and Emily Raboteau's poem, "Thirteen Ways of Looking at Post-Blackness", were stand-outs, but all of the articles were worth reading. The book certainly has good timing coming out now, but unfortunately all of the essays were clearly written before the police brutality conversation heated up. There's a few mentions of Travyon Martin in some of the essays, but nothing about Michael Brown or Eric Garner or, obviously, Freddie Gray.

I read this as an ARC via NetGalley.

[Mike Yates · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super academic. Most of the essays are good but feel like a bit of an attack on Touré, who I think did great work with, “Who’s Afraid of Post Blackness.”