Lure and Loathing: Essays on Race, Identity, and the Ambivalence of Assimilation [Hardcover]

Gerald Early (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1993

"The premise of this collection," Gerald Early writes, "is really quite simple: nearly two dozen black intellectuals and writers were invited to write essays on assimilation, race and identity" (p. xxi). Early, director of the department of African American Studies at Washington University, presented each writer with the famous quotation from W.E.B. Du Bois's The Souls of Black Folk 1 as a point of departure: It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his twines -- an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife --this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. (Pp. xvii-xviii). As would be expected, these twenty essays encompass a wide range of styles, approaches, ideologies and conclusions. Yet, with one or two exceptions, each essay fits into one of three categories. In the first group of essays, which includes those by economist Glenn Loury, essayist Stanley Crouch, and professor Kenneth Manning, the writer argues or assumes that the racial identity of black Americans is meaningless and irrelevant or, worse, is limiting by derogating individuality.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 351 pages
• Publisher: Viking Penguin; First Edition/second Impression edition (February 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670841854
• ISBN-13: 978-0670841851
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #442,245 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Questions of Race, December 1, 2001

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"nuclearmse" (Oxford, OH United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lure and Loathing: Essays on Race, Identity, and the Ambivalence of Assimilation (Hardcover)

Lure and Loathing is an intriguing look at how black people see the idea of their own race. Starting from W.E.B. DuBois' quote about the concept of "double-consciousness," prominent black intellectuals and scholars write about their personal and professional experiences with being black in American society. They both agree and disagree on points, focus upon different aspects of race, and relate highly personal events. Although the book does not lead to any one conclusion, it illustrates the tensions still associated with race today: we have admitted that race is a social construction but this concept of human creation has real impact on society. The book's essays ask questions about different controversies within the black community over what it means to be black, such as Afrocentrism, authenticity and legitimacy, cultural questions,affirmative action, etc.