from Random House
Best African American Essays 2009
Edited by Debra J. Dickerson and Gerald Early
This exciting collection introduces the first-ever annual anthology of writing solely by African Americans. Here are remarkable essays on a variety of subjects informed by—but not necessarily about—the experience of blackness as seen through the eyes of some of our finest writers.
From art, entertainment, and science to technology, sexuality, and current events—including the battle for the Democratic nomination for the presidency—the essays in this inaugural anthology offer the compelling perspectives of a number of well-known, distinguished writers, including Malcolm Gladwell, Jamaica Kincaid, James McBride, and Walter Mosley, and a number of other writers who are just beginning to be heard.
Selected from an array of respected publications such as the New Yorker, the Virginia Quarterly Review, and National Geographic, the essays gathered here are about making history, living everyday life—and everything in between. In “Fired,” author and professor Emily Bernard wrestles with the pain of a friendship inexplicably ended. Kenneth McClane writes hauntingly of the last days of his parents’ lives in “Driving.” Journalist Brian Palmers shares “The Last Thoughts of an Iraq War Embed.” In “Jamaica Girl,” author Lori Cullen illustrates the struggle of immigrant blacks to become American without losing hold of their cultural roots, and writer Hawa Allan depicts the forces of race and rivalry as two catwalk icons face off in “When Tyra Met Naomi.” A venue in which African American writers can branch out from traditionally “black” subjects, The Best African American Essays features a range of gifted voices exploring the many issues and experiences, joys and trials, that, as human beings, we all share.
From art, entertainment, and science to technology, sexuality, and current events—including the battle for the Democratic nomination for the presidency—the essays in this inaugural anthology offer the compelling perspectives of a number of well-known, distinguished writers, including Malcolm Gladwell, Jamaica Kincaid, James McBride, and Walter Mosley, and a number of other writers who are just beginning to be heard.
Selected from an array of respected publications such as the New Yorker, the Virginia Quarterly Review, and National Geographic, the essays gathered here are about making history, living everyday life—and everything in between. In “Fired,” author and professor Emily Bernard wrestles with the pain of a friendship inexplicably ended. Kenneth McClane writes hauntingly of the last days of his parents’ lives in “Driving.” Journalist Brian Palmers shares “The Last Thoughts of an Iraq War Embed.” In “Jamaica Girl,” author Lori Cullen illustrates the struggle of immigrant blacks to become American without losing hold of their cultural roots, and writer Hawa Allan depicts the forces of race and rivalry as two catwalk icons face off in “When Tyra Met Naomi.” A venue in which African American writers can branch out from traditionally “black” subjects, The Best African American Essays features a range of gifted voices exploring the many issues and experiences, joys and trials, that, as human beings, we all share.
Table of Contents
Introduction/By Gerald Early, Series Editor
Introduction/By Debra J. Dickerson, Guest Editor
Friends, Family
Fired: Can a Friendship Really End for no Good Reason?/By Emily Bernard
Gray Shawl/By Walter Mosley
Real Food/By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Entertainment, Sports, the Arts
Hip Hop Planet/By James McBride
Writers Like Me/By Martha Southgate
Dances with Daffodils/By Jamaica Kincaid
The Coincidental Cousins: A Night Out with Artist Kara Walker/By James Hannaham
Music: Bodies in Pain/By Mark Anthony Neal
When Tyra Met Naomi: Race, Fashion, and Rivalry/By Hawa Allen
Dancing in the Dark: Race, Sex, the South, and Exploitative Cinema/By Gerald Early
Modern-Day Mammy?/By Jill Nelson
Broken Dreams/By Michael A. Gonzales
Sciences, Technology, Education
None of the Above: What I.Q. Doesn’t Tell You About Race/By Malcolm Gladwell
Driving/By Kenneth A. McClane
Part I: I Had a Dream/By Bill Maxwell
Part II: A Dream Lay Dying/By Bill Maxwell
Part III: The Once and Future Promise/By Bill Maxwell
Gay
Get Out of My Closet: Can You Be White and “On the Down Low”?/By Benoit Denizet-Lewis
Girls to Men: Young Lesbians in Brooklyn Find That a Thug’s Life Gets Them More Women/By Chloé A. Hilliard
Internationally Black
A Slow Emancipation/By Kwame Anthony Appiah
Searching for Zion/By Emily Raboteau
Last Thoughts of an Iraq “Embed”/By Brian Palmer
Stop Trying to “Save” Africa/By Uzodinma Iweala
We Are Americans/By Jerald Walker
Activism/ Political Thought
Jena, O.J. and the Jailing of Black America/By Orlando Patterson
One Nation…Under God?/By Sen. Barack Obama
Americans Without Americanness: Is Our Nation Nothing More Than an Address?/By John McWhorter
Barack Obama/By Michael Eric Dyson
Standing Up for “Bad” Words/By Stephane Dunn
Debunking “Driving While Black” Myth/By Thomas Sowell
Goodbye to All That: Why Obama Matters/By Andrew Sullivan
The High Ground/By Stanley Crouch
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