Customer Reviews

Who's Gonna Take the Weight: Manhood, Race, and Power in America

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This was a fairly easy read, but lacked an instructional model for follow through. This was more of an autobiographical depiction of what race and manhood means to Kevin.

Beyond the scope of any other book detailing the perils and prosperity of being both a man and a hip-hop head, Kevin Powell sheds a hidden understanding of the myths and glaring truths associated with these two misunderstood complexities in life. Using his life experiences and the starking parellels that he shared with the late Tupac Shakur, KP helps the reader disect the meaning of power and how many of us walk in the frozen images of power that is given to us by society when we never took a chance to understand power or our powerlessness and vulnerabilities of being a man.
Simply put, this book opens the objective reader to a tainted, yet reasonably truthful and analytical picture of manhood, race, power, and hip-hop that has been painted by artists who created a messed up display...they just wanted others to look at the depiction as beauty.
This book is a must read!

I had the opportunity to meet Mr. Powell at the Essence Music Festival this year, and made sure to let him know his book is the truth. It's not for everyone, meaning you have to be able to expand your mind and be willing to be objective. It's obvious he speaks and writes what he writes, because these are very important issues, and also uses himself in many instances to show he isn't merely just running his mouth and criticizing others. His concerns about where black men are and where we are headed are right on point and should be taken seriously.

If Tupac Shakur was voice that represented the angst of troubled youth in hip-hop culture, than Kevin Powell is by all means the James Baldwin of that culture. Introduced to most of us `as one of seven strangers picked to live in a loft to see what happens when people stop being nice and start being real', Powell brings to the surface some of his own painful realties as he deals with some of societies ugliest issues in, "Who's Gonna Take the Weight". In a brutally honest account of his own battles with misogyny, pride, and abandonment, the self-proclaimed Hip-Hop head, masterfully dissects causes and effects of a variety of social behaviors claiming the hearts and spirits of a large number of not only Black America, but also society at large. In questioning his own self destructive behaviors he answers the questions of the Black woman trying to love a Black Man, he answersthe question of the white kid who wants to emulate the hip-hop lifestyle he sees on television, he answers the Black middle class who forgot they were ever poor and he answers the "Man" who perpetuates the images continually seen through all forms of media. What does he answer? Simply why do you act like that? Eloquently breaking down the correlation between the civil rights movement and hip-hop culture, Powell uses his own "issues" as examples of what's wrong and how to begin to fix them. It shows that we all truly need to take the weight individually and collectively. Compelling, clear and concise the latest addition to his collection of essays is truly Keeping it Real!

he loves tupac....he has serious issues with Black Women....its a hard knock life....he was on the real world.....vibe magaizine...? Who is Kevin Powell?

I've read many of his works, and this is the end of the road for me. My biggest issue with him, is that he lacks balance and if he couldgt past his hurt feelings/bruised ego long enough, I could give more credence to what he says. He's like the Gary Coleman of writing. Sure he makes some valid points, but I could do without the bitching. I'll give him this, he's a good editor. I enjoyed Step Into A World. (minus the introduction) Give me Greg Tate, Mark Anthony Neal, Todd Boyd anyday!!!!

He's not saying anything that hasn't been said before, and better. Basically this is a well-written, seemingly powerful but ultimately shallow and heavy-handed piece of work by a writer with the sensibilities of a pimp. What I strangely find the most galling is his hypocritical attitude towards women, firstly, and the way he repeats phony white liberal feminist cant about "black patriarchy," which even he knows is just some crap that the media Establishment made up to make us look bad. Kevin Powell mistakenly believes that his account is some sort of official version of the Black American Experience. It isn't. Kevin Powell is Kevin Powell, a basically immature, confused young black kid(though he's older than me)who is incapable of telling his own story and glibly accepts the white liberal version(s) of it. Furthermore, he is obviously scared to dig a little deeper, beneath that phony New York crap, and really look at how this country operates--I guess it's because he isn't as disturbed about how this country operates as he lets on. He didn't have a damn thing to say about either Katrina or the Iraq War, which just goes to show. Had he truly been in James Baldwin's caliber, rest assured he would have gone on television kicking everybody's ass.

I gave it two stars for the quality of writing, NOT the content, which is basically just trash.

The book was disappointing, man. Kevin could have done better.

In the principal reviews of this book comparisons are made to W.E.B. DuBois, which are of course silly as DuBois was a serious thinker and writer (one greatly overshadowed by Frederick Douglass, but that's another subject altogether). You'll also see comparisons to such a luminary as Dyson, which, on the other hand, are appropriate as Dyson is an idiot with nothing to say. However, the least known fact about this book is that it was written by Powell's dog.

Admittedly, I exaggerate. I suspect that Powell himself actually did sit down and tap this out on his very own computer, or some such. But you do have to take it on faith, because there is no evidence whatsoever of a thinking person behind what amounts to a glut of words arranged to create the appearance of sentences, paragraphs, and thoughts. Indeed, the whole enterprise brings to mind the bit about the infinite monkeys, with infinite time, and War and Peace - oh, wait a minute - in that version, a real book comes out in the end. Here, well, let's just say that 2 or 3 monkeys with their respective typewriters for an hour or two will suffice.

It is not inconceivable that people exist who think this book has some redeeming value. After all, there are people who pay good money for scribblings drawn by elephants with paintbrushes in their trunks. Of course, now that I think about it, even those elephants are assisted by their trainers, so there's a human intelligence at work as well ... ok, well, the analogy's not perfect. The point is, if you're one of the 10 or 12 people who will get something from the book, whether appreciation of the pretty colors, or recollections of the author's time on MTV, well, have at it. Everybody else, hopefully, started investigating other reading material long before reaching the end of this review.