Lure and Loathing

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Commenting on W.E.B. Du Bois's famous observation that African Americans experience a ``double-consciousness'' when they approach questions of assimilation, race and identity, 20 black intellectuals here offer thoughtful, provocative and divergent responses. Several attack Du Bois's premise: essayist Stanley Crouch argues for recognition of ``the miscegenated national heart,'' while Afrocentrist Molefi Kete Asante recalls a segregated boyhood that ``made my consciousness unitary and holistic.'' Novelist Kristin Hunter Lattany affirms a ``healthy double-consciousness'' that includes `` `off-timing'--a mockery of white folks and their madness.'' Sociologist C. Eric Lincoln suggests that while ``the browning of America'' will redefine racial reality, it could either render ``the notion of Du Boisian dubiety'' obsolete, or multiply Du Boisian ``fragments of self-consciousness.'' Others look within their specialties: Yale law professor Stephen Carter argues that ``the professional ethic'' is neither white nor Eurocentric but American, and Kenneth R. Manning, a professor of rhetoric and of the history of science at MIT, explores how Du Bois's ideas were shaped by racist scientific practices. Early, director of African American studies at George Washington University, provides a sensitive introduction; like most of the contributors, he grounds political arguments in a readily accessible personal narrative. (Mar.)

Library Journal

In this collection of essays, 20 black intellectuals and writers react to W.E.B. Du Bois's 1903 statement in The Souls of Black Folk that ``one ever feels his twoness--an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body.'' Penetrating and poignant, biting and brilliant, the essays address issues both simmering and already boiled-over in this country. Perspectives are so varied that no two essays are at all alike. Du Bois himself is perceived in several ways. Essayists range from ``household'' names--Molefi K(ete) Asante, Nikki Giovanni, and Henry Louis Gates--to soon-to-be household names; all have impressive writing credentials. These essays enlighten historically, politically, sociologically, legally, artistically, religiously, and--most certainly--morally. Every public, high school, and academic library should have this book. Highly recommended.-- Katherine Dahl, Western Illinois Univ. Lib., Macomb

Roland Wulbert

English professor Gerald Early had for some time pondered the opening chapter of DuBois' "The Souls of Black Folk", in which he, "an American, a Negro," wrote in 1903 about his "double consciousness . . . this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of the others." Like a close reader of the Bible, Early found the passage at once perfectly accessible and open to endless interpretation. Assuming it would be equally provocative to others like him, he invited responses from 18 black intellectuals and writers. Their essays make up a collection that is truly exceptional, partly because it adds to discussion of race in America perspectives that are unfamiliar, strikingly contemporary, and admirably inconsistent ideologically--a rare mixture under any circumstances and doubly so in the writing on black American identity, which might easily subside into homiletics. On the whole, the authors Early has convened--among them Stanley Crouch, Nikki Giovanni, Louis Gates, Jr., C. Eric Lincoln, and Toni Cade Bambara--do not strive to supersede DuBois but sharpen their own and our perception through their reactions to him.