What's Wrong with Obamamania?: Black America, Black Leadership, and the Death of Political Imagination

by Ricky L. Jones

Barack Obama's sudden arrival on the national scene has created a wave of excitement in American politics, a phenomenon that has been dubbed "Obamamania." In What's Wrong with Obamamania?, Ricky L. Jones places Obama's run for the presidency in the context of deep and often disturbing shifts in black leadership since the 1960s. From Charles Hamilton Houston to Thurgood Marshall to Jesse Jackson, from prosperity preachers to megachurches, from W. E. B. Du Bois's Talented Tenth and civil rights advocates to Black Entertainment Television and hip-hop culture, Jones paints a picture of lowered expectations, cynicism, and nihilism that should give us all pause.

158 pages, Paperback

First published June 5, 2008

Reviews

[Megan · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I dont really want a downer to the current high emotional state, resulting from the recent elections, I do want to know what this fellow has to say. I came upon this book in the library and decided I should probably read it. So far Im wrapped up in it.

This is taking me awhile to read...its pretty in depth.

[Ross Hamilton, · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every bit of this is superb intellectual critique, especially the forward (by J Blaine Hudson). Keep it handy throughout and beyond the 2008 presidential campaign.

[Patricia · Rating 3 out of 5]

So far I'm learning that Obama is not our savior, nor his he the harbinger of socialism in America. Nice.