Overview
Bestselling author Randall Robinson, one of our nation's most distinguished African-American leaders, returns with a book certain to be as important and controversial as his classic book on reparations, The Debt.
The man hailed by Cornel West as "the greatest pro-Africa freedom fighter of his generation in America" makes a striking departure, figuratively and literally: He leaves America for a life in the Caribbean.
Randall Robinson is quitting America, and this book charts his journey from the most powerful nation on earth to the tiny tropical island where his wife was born. His search for a more peaceful and hospitable place grew out of the disappointment and increasing sense of abandonment he felt in the land of his own birth-an America that has sapped the creative energies of his race and "transfigured humanity."
Here, in a culture that is as different from America as black is from white, Robinson shares his feelings about the need to escape the racism he has fought all his life. Yet even while he lives among his wife's people, America is never far from his mind. He discusses the current state of political and socioeconomic affairs in our country, and why the leadership we have put in place will continue to fall short of our expectations.
Another stirring example of the astonishing breadth and scope of Randall Robinson's vision, Quitting America demonstrates once again why he is one of the most profound and provocative thinkers of our time.
Editorials
The Washington Post
Randall Robinson's new book straddles several genres. It is an impassioned jeremiad against the war in Iraq. It is a fascinating history of the Caribbean, from the horrors of slavery and colonialism, through the battle for independence, to the economic dilemmas of the 21st century. But, above all, Quitting America is a love story; more specifically, a wrenching tale of unrequited love. — Jake LamarPublishers Weekly
Founder of the humanitarian group TransAfrica, Robinson has been eloquently angry in his calls, including The Debt and The Reckoning, for America to recognize the depredations suffered by the descendants of slaves. Part meditation, part rant, this book takes off from Robinson's move to the Caribbean island of St. Kitts (his wife's home country), but he has hardly mellowed. The book's first part is titled "Five Hundred Years of White Crimes and Self-Absolution in the Americas," contrasting the modest, decent nature of life in St. Kitts with a wealthy, harsh, racist, complacent America. Regarding violence, for example, "Americans only ask: who? Never: why?" The book's second part is a Chomskyesque essay of political manipulation regarding Iraq. The third circles back to contrast cash-obsessed America and the social goals of places like St. Kitts and Haiti, which, despite their modestness, are grounded in the commonweal of all. Robinson makes casual checkable errors (a proposal to put a U.S. base on St. Kitts did make the U.S. press) as well as more profound ones: the pronouncement "Only white countries are capable of killing so many at one time" immediately raises the specter of Rwanda. But incontrovertible wrongs fuel Robinson's ire: the U.S. government protects Haiti's leading human rights violator; slavery defender Robert E. Lee is widely commemorated; President Bill Clinton helped wreck the Caribbean banana trade during the U.S.-Europe feud over imports in 1999. Adding it all up, Robinson sees the difference between the status of blacks in America and blacks he sees in St. Kitts as the result of the "post-slavery American experience." Readers will find it difficult to disagree. (On sale Jan. 26) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.Beware: Robinson is writing again, and his contempt for America's treatment of its black minorities still rages. In protest, the author, activist, and founder of TransAfrica has quit America. Robinson (Defending the Spirit) currently resides with his family on the island of St. Kitts, but that has not dulled his pen or his sense of outrage. He asks, "Are economic numbers more important than life itself?" Deriding the sinking ship of American domestic affairs, he condemns our nation for its failure to become socially compassionate. Born out of years of frustration, these 22 choppy chapters focus on white crimes, disintegrating democracy, and the innocent victims. Not even black leadership escapes his hairtrigger, and he is contemptuous of national figures like Condoleezza Rice ("not worth my thoughts") and especially Colin Powell, whom he terms a "Ronald Reagan rectal success of a conscience-dead black man." Some may argue with his reasoning but few can fault his passion and zeal. Recommended for large public and academic libraries.-Boyd Childress, Auburn Univ. Lib., AL Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.