The End of Blackness [Hardcover]

In order to make progress possible, blacks have to give up on the past-that's the core argument of this inflammatory, cogently written book. Dickerson, a lawyer and journalist, continues the examination of black self-reliance that she introduced in her first book, An American Story. This time, however, she leaves her own experiences out of it and focuses on breaking down racial myths, social concepts and prejudices with the help of statistics and citations by such figures as W.E.B. Du Bois, Frederick Douglass and James Baldwin. Racism, according to the author, "is compounded by black cooperation and by fruitless black jousts with intransigence, while winnable victories are ignored because they do not center on whites and because they are unglamorous." Dismissing Afrocentrism as "self-eliminative and isolationist," Dickerson encourages blacks to focus on their own talents and ignore the expectations of whites and other blacks. She fearlessly condemns the black community for defending the actions of O.J. Simpson and Marion Barry, and for scorning "Uncle Tom" figures like Julian Abele, a black architect who designed Duke University in the 1920s despite its whites-only policy preventing him from ever visiting the campus. "The great architect never got to see his creation, but those for whom he left it in trust-knowledge seekers of all races and nationalities-do. Thank God he was an Uncle Tom," she writes. Few of the book's assertions are new or groundbreaking, but Dickerson updates and expands the arguments by using references to current television sitcoms, mass-mailed Internet jokes that reinforce stereotypes and the emergence of hip-hop artists as individualistic thinkers to back up her statements. Addressing an incendiary issue in a straightforward and un-self-serving manner, this polemic is likely to provoke thoughtful discussion.
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Journalist Dickerson asserts that black consciousness, Afrocentrism, and other aesthetics growing out of the civil rights movement have reached their limitations as progressive strategies. They have focused too much on whites by seeking to change their minds and provoke acknowledgment or admission of racism. Given that whites feel they have conceded enough and are blinded by self-interest, a better strategy would be to turn the focus inward, to transcend race while continuing to address historic racism. Dickerson's perspective is that of a post-civil rights generation, who, although they have been the direct beneficiaries of the movement and are well versed in historical facts, are more inclined to look for solutions in new arenas. She contrasts members of the old-school civil rights generation with youngsters from the emerging hip-hop generation, who have lost respect for their elders even as some of them continue to fall victim to self-destructive forces centered in racism. This is a thought-provoking and compelling look at generational perspectives on contemporary race issues. Vernon Ford
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

: “A dazzling diatribe. . . . [Dickerson] has distilled a lifetime’s worth of eye-opening realizations into a furious, bitterly funny indictment. . . . This book . . .makes her a star.” —The New York Times

“It’s impossible to label Dickerson. The message isn’t conservative or neo-con, not radical nor middle of the road but politically provocative. . . . Dickerson’s book is a hot poker, aimed at shaking up assumptions on all sides.” —Los Angeles Times

“A brave, original, and angry book.” —The Boston Globe

“Dickerson offers a bracing polemic. . . . The brutal honesty of The End of Blackness makes it . . . essential.” —New York Post

“The headlong momentum of her argument, propelled by anecdotes, quotes, homilies, one-liners and blogs, jumps and hums with a vitality reminiscent of high-end pop music, good chase movies or contact-sports television.” —The Nation

"Stimulating. . . . Provocative. . . . Loaded with wish-I'd-said-that one-liners. . . . Dickerson has a way with words and a timely message. . . . When she says it's time for black America to get off its duff, she's not asking anyone to do something she wouldn't do--and hasn't done--herself." --Chicago Tribune

"Blunt and bracing. . . . The End of Blackness is a solidly researched account of the evolution of black identity in America (her 'prologue' is about as concise and direct an account of slavery and its long-standing effects as you are likely to find). . . . Dickerson’s is a message for all Americans, not only those who are confused about how to think about race." --Mother Jones

"Fascinating. . . . A call to arms. . . . Dickerson knows how to throw a literary punch." --Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"[Dickerson is] a thinker who suffers no fools of either the liberal or the conservative stripe. . . . Revive[s] a tradition of clear-eyed, accessible writing about black political destiny in the vein of W.E.B. Du Bois, Carter G. Woodson, and Frederick Douglass." --The Atlantic Monthly

"A brave, original, and angry book. . . . I find much to agree with. . . . We Americans need to get out of the 'race' routine, and black folk must lead the way. . . . The end of blackness . . . is worth striving for." --Glenn C. Loury, The Boston Herald

"Compelling. . . . Exhibits a praiseworthy independence of mind, questioning everyone from the 'Black Politboro'--the civil rights establishment, which sets the tone of black politics--to white apologists who still downplay the ravages of slavery. . . . A stirring endorsement of a new marriage of responsible civic individualism and dedication to the collective good." --The Washington Post

"[An] important and powerful book. . . . With deft, precise and often humorous language, Dickerson takes equal aims at both whites and blacks who would deny the diversity of opinion among blacks and dictate how they should think." --San Antonio Express-News

"Illuminating. . . . Throw[s] the entire damn dictionary of race out the window. . . . Dickerson journeys into interesting, and gutsy, terrain." --The Washington Monthly

"Dickerson has a great deal to offer about the perplexing constraints of race, and in this exhaustive collection of essays on the subject she doesn’t merely say it: She rants, raves, vents, exposes, attacks, questions, ponders, pontificates and theorizes. . . . She’s dead on." --Ft. Worth Star-Telegram

"[Dickerson] is emerging as one of this country’s leading authors on race. . . . The End of Blackness explains how racism laid and continues to maintain the groundwork that makes escape so difficult." --The News & Observer (Raleigh)

"Incendiary. . . . [Dickerson throws] a heavy and sharp-knuckled gauntlet." --Newsday

"Dickerson is . . . courageous, smart and well-informed. She has a wonderfully sharp sense of humor. . . . [The End of Blackness] serves as a fitting tribute to the achievement of Dickerson's heroes, among them Frederick Douglass, Ralph Ellison and especially Carter G. Woodson." --The Washington Times

"Bold and appropriately documented. . . . Dickerson writes with sincere concern for the plight of African-Americans. The End of Blackness is not an attack. It is a plea for blacks to look inward." --St. Petersburg Times




From the Trade Paperback edition.

“This book will prove and promote the idea that the concept of ‘blackness,’ as it has come to be understood, is rapidly losing its ability to describe, let alone predict or manipulate, the political and social behavior of African Americans.” Such is the explosive enterprise of what is sure to be one of the most
controversial books of recent times.

How has the notion of “blackness” bamboozled African Americans into an unhealthy obsession with white America? What are the deleterious consequences of this? How has “blackness” diminished the sovereignty of African Americans as rational and moral beings? How has white America exploited the concept to sublimate its rage toward and contempt for black America? Is American racism an intractable malaise, and who gets to decide when the past is over?

In this unstinting, keen, and brutally funny manifesto, Debra Dickerson critiques “race” as a bankrupt scientific and social construct, exposing the insidious, manipulative racial myths and prejudices still held by American blacks and whites. She examines much statistical rubbish that passes for sociological fact, the purposeful corruption of American history, and the resulting social ills and pathologies bedeviling both the black and white communities.

She bravely argues that, whether or not African Americans still have a moral claim against this country, they must now be fiercely self-reliant, ignoring the hackneyed presuppositions and expectations of whites and other blacks still stuck in tired and fruitless ways of thinking.

As the New York Times remarked about her highly acclaimed memoir, An American Story, “it is a startling thing to hear an American speak as frankly and un-self-servingly about race as Dickerson does.”

: “A dazzling diatribe. . . . [Dickerson] has distilled a lifetime’s worth of eye-opening realizations into a furious, bitterly funny indictment. . . . This book . . .makes her a star.” —The New York Times

“It’s impossible to label Dickerson. The message isn’t conservative or neo-con, not radical nor middle of the road but politically provocative. . . . Dickerson’s book is a hot poker, aimed at shaking up assumptions on all sides.” —Los Angeles Times

“A brave, original, and angry book.” —The Boston Globe

“Dickerson offers a bracing polemic. . . . The brutal honesty of The End of Blackness makes it . . . essential.” —New York Post

“The headlong momentum of her argument, propelled by anecdotes, quotes, homilies, one-liners and blogs, jumps and hums with a vitality reminiscent of high-end pop music, good chase movies or contact-sports television.” —The Nation

"Stimulating. . . . Provocative. . . . Loaded with wish-I'd-said-that one-liners. . . . Dickerson has a way with words and a timely message. . . . When she says it's time for black America to get off its duff, she's not asking anyone to do something she wouldn't do--and hasn't done--herself." --Chicago Tribune

"Blunt and bracing. . . . The End of Blackness is a solidly researched account of the evolution of black identity in America (her 'prologue' is about as concise and direct an account of slavery and its long-standing effects as you are likely to find). . . . Dickerson’s is a message for all Americans, not only those who are confused about how to think about race." --Mother Jones

"Fascinating. . . . A call to arms. . . . Dickerson knows how to throw a literary punch." --Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"[Dickerson is] a thinker who suffers no fools of either the liberal or the conservative stripe. . . . Revive[s] a tradition of clear-eyed, accessible writing about black political destiny in the vein of W.E.B. Du Bois, Carter G. Woodson, and Frederick Douglass." --The Atlantic Monthly

"A brave, original, and angry book. . . . I find much to agree with. . . . We Americans need to get out of the 'race' routine, and black folk must lead the way. . . . The end of blackness . . . is worth striving for." --Glenn C. Loury, The Boston Herald

"Compelling. . . . Exhibits a praiseworthy independence of mind, questioning everyone from the 'Black Politboro'--the civil rights establishment, which sets the tone of black politics--to white apologists who still downplay the ravages of slavery. . . . A stirring endorsement of a new marriage of responsible civic individualism and dedication to the collective good." --The Washington Post

"[An] important and powerful book. . . . With deft, precise and often humorous language, Dickerson takes equal aims at both whites and blacks who would deny the diversity of opinion among blacks and dictate how they should think." --San Antonio Express-News

"Illuminating. . . . Throw[s] the entire damn dictionary of race out the window. . . . Dickerson journeys into interesting, and gutsy, terrain." --The Washington Monthly

"Dickerson has a great deal to offer about the perplexing constraints of race, and in this exhaustive collection of essays on the subject she doesn’t merely say it: She rants, raves, vents, exposes, attacks, questions, ponders, pontificates and theorizes. . . . She’s dead on." --Ft. Worth Star-Telegram

"[Dickerson] is emerging as one of this country’s leading authors on race. . . . The End of Blackness explains how racism laid and continues to maintain the groundwork that makes escape so difficult." --The News & Observer (Raleigh)

"Incendiary. . . . [Dickerson throws] a heavy and sharp-knuckled gauntlet." --Newsday

"Dickerson is . . . courageous, smart and well-informed. She has a wonderfully sharp sense of humor. . . . [The End of Blackness] serves as a fitting tribute to the achievement of Dickerson's heroes, among them Frederick Douglass, Ralph Ellison and especially Carter G. Woodson." --The Washington Times

"Bold and appropriately documented. . . . Dickerson writes with sincere concern for the plight of African-Americans. The End of Blackness is not an attack. It is a plea for blacks to look inward." --St. Petersburg Times




From the Trade Paperback edition.

Debra J. Dickerson was educated at the University of Maryland, St. Mary’s University, and Harvard Law School. She has been both a senior editor and a contributing editor at U.S. News & World Report, and her work has also appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the Washington Post, The New Republic, Slate, The Village Voice, and Essence. She lives in Albany, New York.

ONE

TAKING THE WORDS OUT OF BLACK MOUTHS:
Narcissism, Know-Nothingness, and White Intransigence

"Priscilla and I, and nine others, had been charged with
'disturbing the peace,' among other charges, because we tried
to order food at Woolworth. If not for segregation, and the
fact that we were all Negroes, we would have been served
without incident. At our trial on March 17, 1960,
Judge John Rudd ruled that our lawyers should
'get off that race question.' "
--PATRICIA STEPHENS DUE

"[I]n 1955, that's when the gruesome murder of
Emmett Till came up in Mississippi. I remember how
the Charlotte Observer, which was supposed to be a liberal
or moderate newspaper, condemned the NAACP,
saying it was just as bad as the Ku Klux Klan
in raising 'racial' issues about this murder."
--JOHN DORSEY DUE JR.

"Among the topics that the southern white man did not
like to discuss with Negroes were the following: American
white women; the Ku Klux Klan; France, and how Negro
soldiers fared while there; French women; Jack Johnson;
the entire northern part of the United States; the civil war;
Abraham Lincoln; U.S. Grant; General Sherman; Catholics;
the Pope; Jews; the Republican Party; Slavery, Social
Equality, Communism; Socialism; the 13th, 14th,
and 15th Amendments to the Constitution; or any
topic calling for positive knowledge or manly
self-assertion on the part of the Negro."
--RICHARD WRIGHT

"All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence;
then success is sure."
--MARK TWAIN



Black people are not crazy. They're not paranoid. They're punch-drunk, or as Carter G. Woodson put it, "the Negro's mind has been brought under the control of his oppressor. The problem of holding the Negro down, therefore, is easily solved. When you control a man's thinking you do not have to worry about his actions."

White racism and white supremacist ideology, however denied, however subconscious, continue to exist. To believe otherwise, one would truly have to believe that blacks are genetically and morally deficient. Of course some believe exactly that, but the rest of America understands that the disproportionately lower status of blacks is at least in some measure a result of group interactions. Blacks are neither blameless nor helpless, but they are certainly not operating in a societal vacuum. Still, blacks can be complicit in maintaining white supremacy by playing the game on the master's terms--that is, by vying for white approval or a white apology rather than for their own autonomy, by giving in to nihilism and immorality in the face of the endless struggle to surmount inequality. "Careless ignorance and laziness here, fierce hate and vindictiveness there; these are the extremes of the Negro problem which we met [while doing sociological research] that day," said W.E.B. DuBois, "and we scarce knew which we preferred." Surely blacks reject both propositions, even knowing that white racism still exists and that, like all self-serving rationalizations, it has adapted to fit the times.

Having collapsed under the weight of its own contradictions, an articulated white supremacy--whites-only signs, restrictive covenants, overt police brutality--is no more. But structuralized greed, entrenched privilege, and xenophobia, on the other hand, are alive, well, and mutating athletically to retard each new inroad that blacks make into skin or class privilege. If you can't keep something but you can't give it up, you have to render it unrecognizable; racism has been defined out of existence and repackaged so that whites could retain its perks, especially the psychological ones. It has undergone existential plastic surgery. To keep it buried alive in its unholy grave, a host of Strangelovean anti-intellectualisms have been developed and honed.

For some whites, racism means nothing less than police attack dogs, George Wallace standing in the school-house door, and gentle seamstresses being carted off to jail for sitting in the front of the bus. Racism, thus, is now history. All that is left are isolated acts of individual bigotry, which probably, albeit regrettably, can be explained by some past run-in with black pathology.

For some blacks, racism means a societal infrastructure organized and operated so as to distribute benefits, burdens, and resources according to a racial hierarchy, however unspoken. The education and criminal justice systems are the most obvious examples.

Modern white racism insists that the races remain separate, even if only psychologically, so that whites get to think of themselves as "America," as better, as the judge of every other race, and that whites get to remain on top. As Albert Murray noted, whites do not take their privilege for granted--they work at it. "They leave little to nature and what they inherit is the full-time obligation to keep up social appearances without ever seeming to do so." Being the master race is a full-time job.

Regardless of the civic havoc that white racism wreaks, it is important for blacks to remind themselves that whites are no more innately evil than others. History has simply situated them to dominate in this era. Greed and power imbalances are at the root of the problem; racism is merely a by-product, but such a virulent one as to eclipse its progenitors. Given the success of the civil rights movement, however, these sociopathologies need be dispositive of nothing. Still, it is important for blacks to monitor the forms that white supremacy takes, even though it no longer dare speak its name. On a practical note, this is also a useful way for cowed blacks to demystify the all-mighty Caucasian, because there is nothing to be proud of in the current form to which white racism and denial, crazily clutching their pile of perks with ever more wizened fingers, has been reduced to sustain itself.

Second, it must be said that black racism, while largely masturbatory because largely powerless, is equally ignoble, sinful, and simian. There is little doubt that blacks would behave as badly as whites if they were the ones on top. We know this because of how badly blacks have treated one another. Rapidly falling under whites' racist sway, from nearly the beginning of their time in America, they practiced the same racism among themselves that they decried in whites. American-born slaves derided the Africa-born, while light-skinned and house slaves despised the dark field hands. Some free mulattoes distanced themselves politically as far as possible from slaves and even opposed their enfranchisement. Immediately after Emancipation, Brahmin blacks apishly erected a social structure patterned on that of whites, especially their disgust for low-class blacks. When southern blacks arrived up north during the Great Migration, their contemptuous brothers called them "Cornbread," wouldn't let them join their churches, and thought the problem of racism was whites' refusal to differentiate them from "the niggers." Now it is the ghetto blacks who are despised.

Franz Fanon aptly defined the "native" as "an oppressed person whose permanent dream is to become the persecutor." We may say the same about "the African American." Even more relevantly, Fanon defined a "settler," in his 1950s colonial context, as "an exhibitionist" who "pits brute force against the weight of numbers." We may say the same about "the unreconstructed white." Far too little thought has been given to an examination of the exhibitionism attendant upon white predation. It is best described as narcissistic know-nothingness.


NARCISSISM

What is racism but a fascination with oneself?

Why, a seventeenth-century European newly arrived in Africa must have mused, are these odd creatures not pale, not straight-haired, not freckled, not wearing filthy pantaloons, and not praying to two pieces of wood nailed at a right angle? Why are they so unlike me? What's the matter with them? Whites couldn't have been white until they saw someone who wasn't.

Fundamentally, racism and xenophobia are more about self-exaltation than about exploiting others, more about filling the human need to feel special, set apart, and touched by grace, than about hatred. A sixteenth-century European genius perfectly illustrates this need and the ripple effects that ethnocentrism can set in motion across the centuries. Gerardus Mercator solved an age-old navigational problem by devising the map that every schoolchild has grown up with for nearly five centuries. The trouble is, partly for practical reasons but mostly for reasons of cultural narcissism, he built huge distortions into "the world." To better showcase his native Flanders and Europe generally, Mercator inflated and situated the northern hemisphere so as to dominate the map. Africa is dwarfed by Greenland, though it is twelve times larger. South America was pygmyized. Those smart enough to figure out the world were arrogant enough to try to make it over in their own image.

But has there ever been a society that didn't think itself naturally superior to every other? Anthropologist Earl Shorris explains:

"Ethnocentrism was not . . . a European invention. Most of the cultures native to the Americas named themselves "the People," as if no others could even be described as human beings. The practice was not limited to any language group. . . . We know [Native American tribes] . . . by the names given them by their adversaries. The Lakotas, Dakotas, and Nakotas are known to us as "Sioux," . . . it means "snake" or "enemy." Similarly, the word "Apache" . . . meant "enemy," while the word the Apaches . . . used for themselves, "Diné," means "the P... --This text refers to the Paperback edition.