Who’s Afraid of Post-Blackness By :Toure
Don’t get it twisted, Toure is not espousing a view that we live in a post-racial America, just that we are increasingly and thankfully entering an era of post-blackness. The difference? Post-racial implies that because we now live in a country with a black President, BET and Oprah, that racism is officially a thing of the past. Well, it isn't, and I'll write more on that another day.
Post-black, on the other hand, is a terminology with roots in the art community. To be post-black is to refuse the burden of (black) representation—meaning that one uses the right to express his or her race honestly, rather than in a way which will continue to codify the black identity as a singular experience (often as poor, uneducated and angry).
People such as myself are incensed when others throw the term black around as a synonym for all things pitiful (poverty, illiteracy, etc) but them some of us immediately turn and ask our brothers and sisters to “keep it real” implying that one ought not try and get too big for his britches with things like secondary degrees, Coldplay concerts or eating hummus. We de-blackify someone if she is a blerd, a camper or a Republican. But in a post-modern society where young black people are a generation removed from some of the more brutally enforced oppressions, it is only natural that some of that intergenerational trauma is starting to heal in us—allowing us to live and move and be different than many of our predecessors. So are the wounds of injustice only real if we keep them bleeding, festering, and ultimately debilitating? Toure says no.
I agree.
Who’s Afraid…is dedicated to “anyone who has ever been told they are not black enough. Whatever that means.” And naturally it is a good read for those of us who fit the bill, but my hope is that it will find a larger audience than that. Toure interviews and discusses post-blackness with influential people from Dave Chappelle, to Cornel West, to Questlove , but for me his own experiences were some of the richest. So,
If you find people to be fascinating, I think you will like this book.
If you’ve secretly or not so secretly wanted to know what it was like to be black, I think you will like this book.
If you enjoy fine writing (and having found your way to this website I will presume that you do) then I think you will like this book.
Read it! It is almost no fun for me to read a book so good if I don’t have someone with whom to discuss it. It’s like pig’s feet without Tabasco sauce, ya know??? Just kidding I don’t eat that stuff, my tongue definitely ain’t afraid to be post-black.
Just buy this book ok, and be sure and let me know what you think!
