The Last Plantation: Color, Conflict, and Identity: Reflections of a New World Black [Hardcover]

Itabari Njeri (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 10, 1997

In the 1980s, when most Americans considered "black" a racial reference, many multiracial people began to see themselves as part of a heterogeneous ethnic group linked by history, culture, and blood - a distinction that has led to considerable conflict. Prompted by the comment " You look like an ordinary Negro to me," Itabari Njeri, the author of the critically acclaimed memoir Every Good-Bye Ain't Gone and a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, decided to take a look at her own family in order to explore racism within her community. What she discovered is disturbing. Referring to incidents in the news - the Rodney King beating, the black boycott of Korean grocers in Los Angeles, the killing of a black teenager by a Korean immigrant - as well as to her family, Njeri lays out with precision and power how limited racial definitions contribute to the psychological slavery that makes the mind the last plantation. She provides telling evidence that the recognition of a larger, multiracial id

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Herself of mixed African and Caribbean roots?her mother a Guyanese Jamaican American, her father a Georgia-born, African American philosopher and Marxist historian?Njeri, a Los Angeles Times reporter, insists that blacks as well as Latinos in the U.S., by definition and history, are mixed, multiracial ethnic groups. By embracing a new, multiracial designation, she suggests, first-generation offspring of interracial marriages, as well as other minority group members who do not want to be defined by a single ancestry, can help break down the polarizing myth of bifurcated white and black categories that continues to sow racism in American society. Afrocentrism, in her view, is "this era's alarmingly vulgar version" of a compensatory black nationalism that flourishes periodically. The core of her provocative book is a highly subjective account of the trial of Korean immigrant merchant Soon Ja Du, who shot to death black teenager Latasha Harlins in 1991 during a dispute; Du's sentencing to probation instead of prison, along with the police assault on motorist Rodney King, triggered rioting in Los Angeles and destruction of Korean stores. Without condoning the riot, which she questionably calls an "uprising," an incendiary Njeri characterizes the behavior of Latino and black looters as an eruption of deep-seated anger resulting from minority marginalizing and exclusion.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Los Angeles Times reporter Njeri takes a look at her family in order to explore racism within her community. She concludes that by examining color conflicts within the African American community, conflicts between blacks and Asians, and similar cultural problems, Americans can begin to reconcile their opposing definitions of race.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 307 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin (February 10, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0395771919
• ISBN-13: 978-0395771914
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,023,534 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Title correction and updated reviews, February 12, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Last Plantation: Color, Conflict, and Identity: Reflections of a New World Black (Hardcover)

The title you use for this book is incorrect. The correct title is: The Last Plantation:Color, Conflict, and Identity--Reflections of a New World Black. (The title you use was on the uncorrected galleys, not the published book.)

You also misspell the author's name upon second reference. The correct spelling is Itabari Njeri

The reviews you use are mostly prepublication ones, instead of the major post-publication reviews: The Washington Post (4/6/97), The Village Voice Literary Supplement (Summer, 1997); The Los Angeles Times (6/15/97). Excerpts from these reviews follow: "Going her own way, Njeri brings intellectual sobriety, wit and pathos to the intricacies of her subject, creating a layered combination of memoir, first-class investigative reporting and social meditation....The Last Plantation is more than a little important."--The Los Angeles Times

"Itabari Njeri plunges into the chaos of multiculturalism. What she comes up with is brave, messy, brilliant,and caustic. A dispatch from the outer limits of the country's internecine race wars, the book reads as an enlightened take on our national obsession. It might be the most idiosyncratic interrogation of race and identity issues in American life since Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man."--Village Voice Literary Supplement

"The combination of Njeri's melliflouous writing, keen powers of observation and journalisltic skill marks this work as one that will stand the test of time." The Washington Post

Finally, in an advance review from Kirkus (1/1/97): "In a disgressive but illuminating book that is an ambitious blend of reportage, memoir, and social commentary, Njeri seeks a redemptive reconfiguration of American's racial self-concept.... Njeri's eclectic perspective is unsettling. But regardless of where individual Americans place themselves on the spectrum of race, culture, identity, and politics, following this writer through the discomfort her views may prompt offers a new path to seeing this country clearly and its increasingly diverse citizens as a vibrant, human whole."