In a Shade of Blue: Pragmatism and the Politics of Black America [Paperback]

Eddie S. Glaude Jr. (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2008

In this provocative book, Eddie S. Glaude Jr., one of our nation’s rising young Afircan American intellectuals, makes an impassioned plea for black America to address its social problems by recourse to experience and with an eye set on the promise and potential of the future, rather than the fixed ideas and categories of the past. Central to Glaude’s mission is a rehabilitation of philosopher John Dewey, whose ideas, he argues, can be fruitfully applied to a renewal of African American politics.
 

According to Glaude, Dewey’s pragmatism, when attentive to the darker dimensions of life—or what we often speak of as the blues—can address many of the conceptual problems that plague contemporary African American discourse. How blacks think about themselves, how they imagine their own history, and how they conceive of their own actions can be rendered in ways that escape bad ways of thinking that assume a tendentious political unity among African Americans simply because they are black. Drawing deeply on black religious thought and literature, In a Shade of Blue seeks to dislodge such crude and simplistic thinking and replace it with a deeper understanding of and appreciation for black life in all its variety and intricacy. Glaude argues that only when black political leaders acknowledge such complexity can the real-life sufferings of many African Americans be remedied, an argument echoed in the recent rhetoric and optimism of the Barack Obama presidential campaign.

 

In a Shade of Blue is a remarkable work of political commentary and to follow its trajectory is to learn how African Americans arrived at this critical moment in their cultural and political history and to envision where they might head in the twenty-first century.

 

“Eddie Glaude is the towering public intellectual of his generation.”—Cornel West
 
“Eddie Glaude is poised to become the leading intellectual voice of our generation, raising questions that make us reexamine the assumptions we hold by expanding our inventory of ideas.”—Tavis Smiley

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Eddie Glaude is the towering public intellectual of his generation." - Cornel West "Eddie Glaude is poised to become the leading intellectual voice of our generation, raising questions that make us reexamine the assumptions we hold by expanding our inventory of ideas." - Tavis Smiley"

About the Author

Eddie S. Glaude Jr. is theWilliam S. Tod Professor of Religion and African American Studies at Princeton University. He is the author of Exodus! Religion, Race, and Nation in Early Nineteenth-Century Black America and editor of Is It Nation Time? Contemporary Essays on Black Power and Black Nationalism, both published by the University of Chicago Press.

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press; Reprint edition (October 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0226298256
• ISBN-13: 978-0226298252
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #680,744 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Know it, but go on out the yard. Go on.", May 2, 2007

By 

Ed Hopkins (CO) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: In a Shade of Blue: Pragmatism and the Politics of Black America (Hardcover)

"Know it, but go on out the yard. Go on." --Baby Suggs, in Toni Morrison's Beloved

Glaude synthesizes his reading of John Dewey's version of pragmatism, U.S. Black history, U.S. Black religious thought, U.S. Black political thought, and the literature of genius U.S. Black writers, such as James Baldwin and Toni Morrison, in order to provide us with a new philosophical framework that should help guide our 21st Century political thought, political organization, and political action. He warns against popular oversimplified silver-bullet political thinking that assumes ideological, social, or cultural homogeneity among U.S. Blacks and that assumes the world is simpler than it actually is. He encourages us to be brave and wise politically, by facing the complexity and ambiguity of our challenges, while using all our intellectual resources and experiences.

In my opinion, this work is Glaude's strongest to date. Indeed, I rank it as the strongest work of Black-focused social and political philosophy in this early 21st Century. After the first chapter, in which Glaude displays substantial erudition and synthesizes several esoteric concepts, the work becomes more accessible to people who have not studied philosophy or Black literature. Invest in this book, and have a conversation with Glaude. You will profit from his practical wisdom.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Shade of Blue -- Whew!, February 11, 2008

By 

L. Lawrence "Budding Lit Critic" (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: In a Shade of Blue: Pragmatism and the Politics of Black America (Hardcover)

I found this text to be incredibly challenging for the semi-academic mind and yet lightening bolts ahead of its time in the presentation of the author's position. It takes the effort of reading and then re-reading almost every page in the first full half of the book in order to appreciate the author's desire to delineate his position as an Deweyan pragmatist. Once able to appreciate the author's position, the suggestion and position offered as a response to what has been our nation's collective pattern of clumping Black America into very limiting icons of groups opens the reader's own mind to breaking out of the colloquial box (if you will) and to venture into the intricate unique differences of individuals once grouped as one icon and appreciate how their experiences, the outcomes of their efforts and the possibilities for what can be learned from moving forward in a new vein is available. More than a great read, this text is an academic awakening for new possibilities in appreciating the Black Experience in America and redefining who and what the politics of Black America really means.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pragamtism is useful for African Americans, June 26, 2007

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A. Jones (Detroit) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: In a Shade of Blue: Pragmatism and the Politics of Black America (Hardcover)

The need for political options is huge. The use of an American Philosophical idea to solve some America's problems sounds like a very important and possible solutions. African Americans using our experience to shape are our future is not new but the course of pragamtism may be a help example of how we are to do that. I truely enjoyed the meaningful references to African American life and cultural. Glaude's use of the researched and relevant African American scholars help shape the arugment. His concern for our quality of life and the passion for us to work toward positive meaningful change in the troubled time is something to admire and be grateful when you come across it in book or hearing his interviews.