The All-American Skin Game, or Decoy of Race
The Long and the Short of It, 1990-1994
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4.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $4.99
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
In this brilliantly acerbic collection of essays--a New York Times Notable Book in 1995--Stanley Crouch confirms that he is one of the most eloquent and unpredictable commentators on race and culture in American society--something already known to anyone who's seen him on 60 Minutes or read his columns in The Village Voice and The New Republic. 288 pp. National media appearances.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In speeches, essays and reviews from publications like the New Republic, Crouch (Notes of a Hanging Judge) offers eloquent, pungent takes on racial politics, literature, film and music. The author made his name as a jazz critic, and he invokes jazz to proclaim that our society's ``multiple miscegenations'' are proof and source of enduring vitality and renewal. Thus, he has no truck with racial balkanizers or those who claim rapsters as the soul of black authenticity. A disciple of Ralph Ellison, he hails the recently departed writer as ``a citizen of this nation'' and argues that black filmmakers must develop a more nuanced American vision. Crouch's deconstruction of Miles Davis, his sympathy for Quentin Tarantino, his celebration of novelist Leon Forrest--all make good reading. So what's missing? Crouch's view of a practical politics to engage and enhance his oft-invoked democratic vistas.
