The End of Blackness: Returning the Souls of Black Folk to Their Rightful Owners [Paperback]

Debra Dickerson pulls no punches in this electrifying manifesto. Outspoken journalist and author of the critically acclaimed memoir An American Story, she challenges black Americans to stop obsessing about racism and start focusing on problems they can fix. The way out of the ghetto, she asserts, is to take a good, hard look in the mirror. Get angry, Dickerson says, but use that anger to fuel excellence and civic participation rather than crime or drug addiction. Drawing richly on black history and thought, as well as her own hard-won wisdom, she urges blacks to let go of the past and claim their full freedom. It’s only by shaping their own future, she argues, that blacks will finally abolish the myth of white superiority.: “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&l#%