What's Wrong with Obamamania?: Black America, Black Leadership, and the Death of Political ImaginationBarack Obama's sudden arrival on the national scene has created a wave of excitement in American politics, a phenomenon that has been dubbed "Obamamania." In What's Wrong with Obamamania?, Ricky L. Jones places Obama's run for the presidency in the context of deep and often disturbing shifts in black leadership since the 1960s. From Charles Hamilton Houston to Thurgood Marshall to Jesse Jackson, from prosperity preachers to megachurches, from W. E. B. Du Bois's Talented Tenth and civil rights advocates to Black Entertainment Television and hip-hop culture, Jones paints a picture of lowered expectations, cynicism, and nihilism that should give us all pause. |
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Contents
| 1 | |
Paving the Way for Obamamania | 9 |
The Soulessness of the New Talented Tenth | 25 |
American Political Philosophy and Black Suffering | 43 |
Americas War on Terror and the Rise of Bushism | 57 |
The New Black Preacher | 75 |
On BET HipHop Cultureand Their Consequences | 95 |
7 Whats Wrong with Us?The Necessary Death of American Romanticism | 113 |
APPENDIX | 125 |
Notes | 127 |
Index | 139 |
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What's Wrong with Obamamania?: Black America, Black Leadership, and the ... Ricky L. Jones No preview available - 2008 |
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action African Americans American Antonio Gramsci argue attacks Barack Obama become believe black America black community Bush called century certainly challenge church citizens civil clear concerned consciousness conservative considered continued course create critical culture Democratic domination DuBois economic election elites engagement example exist face fact force hip-hop historical human important individual institutions intellectual involved issues Jackson King largely leaders leadership less liberalism live major masses matter ministers moral never officers oppressed party percent police political politicians popular position possible present president presidential problem question race racial reality religious Republican responsibility result seemed Senate September 11 served simply social society speak stance stand structures struggle suffering sure Talented Tenth tion United vote Washington wrong York young
Popular passages
Page viii - God give us men! A time like this demands Strong minds, great hearts, true faith, and ready hands, Men whom the lust of office does not kill; Men whom the spoils of office Cannot buy; Men who possess opinions and a will; Men who have honor; men who will not lie...
Page 27 - As we have proved our loyalty to you in the past, nursing your children, watching by the sick-bed of your mothers and fathers, and often following them with tear-dimmed eyes to their graves, so in the future, in our humble way, we shall stand by you with a devotion that no foreigner can approach, ready to lay down our lives, if need be, in defence of yours, interlacing our industrial, commercial, civil, and religious life with yours in a way that shall make the interests of both races one. In all...
Page 28 - Education thus becomes an act of depositing, in which the students are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor. Instead of communicating, the teacher issues communiques and makes deposits which the students patiently receive, memorize, and repeat. This is the "banking...
Page 14 - I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either."43 Who is the "we
Page viii - GOD, GIVE US MEN! GOD, GIVE us MEN! A time like this demands Strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands; Men whom the lust of office does not kill; Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy; Men who possess opinions and a will; Men who have honor; men who will not lie; Men who can stand before a demagogue And damn his treacherous flatteries without winking! Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog In public duty and in private thinking...
Page 27 - Casting down your bucket among my people, helping and encouraging them as you are doing on these grounds, and, with education of head, hand and heart, you will find that they will buy your surplus land, make blossom the waste places in your fields, and run your factories. While doing this, you can be sure in the future, as in the past, that you and your families will...
Page 63 - We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.
Page 107 - Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an end and never as a means only.
Page 29 - Negroes must first of all deal with the Talented Tenth; it is the problem of developing the Best of this race that they may guide the Mass away from the contamination and death of the Worst, in their own and other races. Now the training of men is a difficult and intricate task. Its technique is a matter for educational experts, but its object is for the vision of seers. If we make money the object of man-training, we shall develop money-makers but not necessarily men; if we make technical skill...
Page 27 - While doing this, you can be sure in the future, as in the past, that you and your families will be surrounded by the most patient, faithful, lawabiding, and unresentful people that the world has seen.
Bibliographic information
| Title | What's Wrong with Obamamania?: Black America, Black Leadership, and the Death of Political Imagination |
| Author | Ricky L. Jones |
| Edition | illustrated |
| Publisher | State University of New York Press, 2010 |
| ISBN | 0791477630, 9780791477632 |
| Length | 158 pages |
| Subjects | › › › History / United States / General Social Science / Ethnic Studies / American / African American & Black Studies |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |