The Artificial White Man: Essays on Authenticity [Hardcover]

Stanley Crouch (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 12, 2004

In this penetrating collection of original essays, legendary gadfly and esteemed critic Stanley Crouch tackles the notion on authenticity-what it is, what it isn't, and what we make of it, for good or for bad. While the question of who's the real deal and who isn't has now seeped into nearly every corner of American culture, nowhere does the idea of authenticity hold greater sway than in the realm of ethnicity. In this bracing collection of original essays, Crouch brings all his rhetorical skills to bear on this animating-and polarizing-idea, and investigates the motives behind those who present themselves as authentic, those who claim to expose the inauthentic, and what this all tells us about the state of the arts-from the vaulted halls of literary fiction to the arena of soft drink-shilling pop stars-in America today. For Crouch, this is not simply an academic exercise, but a summation of our peculiar historical moment. Living in a time in which much of the conventions that defined and limited people's futures-whether it be race, class, or sex-have been obliterated, we're both liberated from bigotries and yet-still-facing profound disillusionment. As influences come and go at breakneck speed, as traditions are remade and re-imagined, it has become hard to tell which metaphorical end is up. The result, Crouch argues, is not only a national paranoia that someone may have put something over on us-i.e. that we have too often been duped into believing that the counterfeit is authentic-but also a deep retrenchment of imagination and artistic expression, from white and black alike. As he promises in his introduction: "This book is an argument with all of that, however sympathetic it might be to the search for alternatives to our disappointments. It hopes to present, through affirmation, a new form of rebellion in our time of cosmetic dissent."

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this collection of essays, some previously unpublished, the notoriously contrarian critic of race-based cultural politics examines the problem of ethnic authenticity in contemporary America. Writing in a characteristically peeved style, Crouch (Notes of a Hanging Judge) is perhaps most cogent in an essay entitled "Most Vote for Literary Segregation, Others Don't," in which he asserts that contemporary American writers, wary of being labeled politically incorrect, rarely write about life beyond the boundaries of their own race and class. Philip Roth's The Human Stain, Danzy Senna's Caucasia and Joyce Carol Oates's I'll Take You There are all novels worthy of special attention, Crouch argues, because, as he shows through careful analysis, each deals insightfully with America's complex weave of interracial tensions. Crouch also enthuses about Jazz Modernism, a book by Alfred Appel Jr.—though not without griping about the so-called "American intellectual community," which he claims has habitually and ignorantly overlooked the cultural significance of jazz as an art form. In typical hard-nosed style, Crouch tears into David Shields's Black Planet, a book about race and the NBA basketball scene. He defines Shields as an "artificial white man," who simplifies "black and white" by underplaying his own (Jewish) ethnic identity. Provocative and anti–radical chic, Crouch's fiercely argued essays take American culture to task.
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From Booklist

Crouch, the iconoclastic social critic, brings his keen insight to examine the much-denied social reality that America is, at root, a mulatto nation. The historical illegality of miscegenation is not rooted in law but in cultural camouflage. In this collection of essays, previously unpublished, Crouch exposes the cultural realities of racial authenticity through the works of Phillip Roth, Ernest Hemingway, Saul Bellow, and other literary giants, as well as popular media. Crouch is at his best when he integrates the worldview and artistic styles of Hemingway and Duke Ellington, one writing as a reflection of the blues and the other playing the blues. His focus on the films of Quentin Tarantino reveals a number of Crouch's recurring themes: American culture as a product of miscegenation and the right, not the responsibility, of Tarantino to write about black characters despite objections from blacks, most notably Spike Lee. Crouch argues that the artist's responsibility is to art and his version of truth and ably demonstrates his personal adherence to that creed. Vernon Ford
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Basic Civitas Books (October 12, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465015158
• ISBN-13: 978-0465015153
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,044,026 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a needed contrarian, December 24, 2004

By 

matt (the reading room) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Artificial White Man: Essays on Authenticity (Hardcover)

I have little to add to the given product description. While his views may not be popular, his observations on how culture, race and stereotypes emerge and influence one another is cogent and worth a read, especially if you think that the issues of race are of little importance to the future of our society.

19 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Required Reading In American Hight Schools, February 17, 2005

By 

David Atwood "zappa_appreciative" (Houston) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Artificial White Man: Essays on Authenticity (Hardcover)

This book should be required reading in every American High School. It exposes the fraud waged by a greedy, worthless music industry, MTV, BET and the talentless gang members who play no instruments and sign one-sided (in favor of the label) recording contracts. Rap is social poison that is tainting American youth and Stanley Crouch brilliantly exposes it.

1 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars The Title of this Book Is Misleading, August 24, 2008

By 

Betty Burks "Betty Burks" (Knoxville, TN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Artificial White Man: Essays on Authenticity (Hardcover)

These essays are slanted, starting with 'white' in the title. I've known both races, men who lack confidence and are not realistic as to their abilities. Looking at them, you'd never know they have a worry in the world. Looks are deceiving; sometimes, the best-looking are the least efficient. Amanda wondered aloud at the proliferation of certain ads on the internet aimed at men. It did not bother me; I thought of it as junk. After all, I'd never known an artificial man, and he is white until a charming, energetic con man on the city bus, said "I can help." His demeanor was as artificial as he was. The charm was not real. His energy came from alcohol. Conning is what he specializes in to the extent of owing a lot of money to IRS. He seemed the perfect image of a "real" man, but he had three personalities which surface without warning.

He was a white "Dave" and he loved to charm the while women of all ages. Men of all colors can be artificially re-programmed. Beware the man who is "too good to be true."