From Publishers Weekly
A series of dialogues between and interviews with two of the foremost black intellectuals in America today, this volume is of enormous importance and offers rewarding reading. At the outset, hooks describes these conversations as a kind of "testimony," in the religious sense, to "what it means to be Blackstet cap intellectuals at this historical moment." West ( Prophetic Fragments ) and hooks ( Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black ) talk frankly about the difficult necessity of moving beyond the academy to reach an audience in the black community at large. Much of their talk focuses on the violence done to the black community by consumer capitalism, by rampant market forces that have eroded the traditional institutions of support within the community, replacing them with a Big Mac and designer sneakers. Both are suspicious of the easy appeal of certain brands of black nationalism currently fashionable, but their analysis of those trends is balanced and convincingly argued. In her concluding essay hooks, drawing on her own childhood experiences, writes movingly of the pressures put on black women to reject intellectual pursuits.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Activists and academicians hooks ( Talking Back , LJ 12/88) and West ( Prophetic Fragments , LJ 3/1/88) share roots in the black church and a commitment to the life of the mind. This, their first joint publication, takes the form of a dialog that explores diverse aspects of modern African American culture: the spiritual crisis in the black community, conservatism among the black middle class, the new black nationalism, depictions of African Americans in popular culture, uses of black icons by modern political leaders. Of particular interest are their discussions of gender and politics; both feminists, they hope their own intellectual engagement can serve as a model for new kinds of relationships between black men and women. Although they rely too much on academic jargon, these two have important things to say, and this book's audience should by no means be confined to blacks. Highly recommended.
- Beverly Miller, Boise State Univ. Lib., Id.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
- Beverly Miller, Boise State Univ. Lib., Id.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
