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3 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A Reluctant Two Stars (1.6 is closer to 2 than 1),
By
This review is from: Dispatches from the Ebony Tower: Intellectuals Confront the African American Experience (Hardcover)
Some of these essays were close to valid. Or at least something like well thought out. (Essay on the Sex Industry in Latin America observed that some of the most militant black men are the "first ones to jump into bed with a white woman.")Others (Amiri Baraka) were just rambling. When I read these books written by black "intellectuals" I wonder: Can people really believe *anything* subject to feedback from reality? Apparently they can in the case that they are academics-- which effectively means NO feedback from reality. The value of this book, IMHO is to demonstrate to black people exactly why academics/ intellectuals are the perfect place to go if you want the WRONG information. WEB DuBois, for example. As much as everyone talks about him, it seems overlooked that he became disgusted when his ideas didn't get lauded with the praise and acceptance that he deserved. And he actually ended up dying a bitter old man and being buried in Ghana. One thing that I see as a thread of commonality in all of these essays is that they obsessively reinterpret EVERY SINGLE ISSUE as something for political acion. Or collective action of some sort. The other consistency is that they misunderstand the economics of "black issues." Everyone seems to think that if you take a sociological approach to these things (i.e.,nonsense uttered with seeming profundity--see Amiri Baraka) or repeat them enough times, they'll become true. It might have been nice if they'd [=the various authors] shown a few more examples of where NOT to go, as learned from past mistakes (i.e., the political panacea), or critiqued what had actually happened when some of these earlier "intellectuals'" ideas had actually been put into practice. Or, derived the origin of some of the problems in reasonably concrete terms. (Housing projects and welfare roles leading to the destruction of the black family, for example.) I hope that this stands as an example for blacks who take the time to read it just what *not* to do for economic success. |
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Dispatches from the Ebony Tower: Intellectuals Confront the African American Experience by Manning Marable (Hardcover - March 15, 2000)
$85.00
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