Full Description
Juxtaposes the meteoric rise of Barack Obama with far-reaching—and disturbing—shifts in black leadership in post-Civil Rights America.
Barack Obama's sudden arrival on the national scene has created a wave of excitement in American politics, a phenomenon that has been dubbed "Obamamania." In What's Wrong with Obamamania?, Ricky L. Jones places Obama's run for the presidency in the context of deep and often disturbing shifts in black leadership since the 1960s. From Charles Hamilton Houston to Thurgood Marshall to Jesse Jackson, from prosperity preachers to megachurches, from W. E. B. Du Bois's Talented Tenth and civil rights advocates to Black Entertainment Television and hip-hop culture, Jones paints a picture of lowered expectations, cynicism, and nihilism that should give us all pause.
Contents
Foreword
J. Blaine Hudson
Introduction: Jesse Jackson Didn't Give a Damn!
1. A Series of Unfortunate (and Unsavory) Events: Paving the Way for "Obamamania"
2. Sorry, DuBois Doesn't Live Here Anymore: The Soulessness of the New Talented Tenth
3. The Witch and the Devil: American Political Philosophy and Black Suffering
4. "Black Hawks" Down: America's War on Terror and the Rise of Bushism
5. I Don't Care What Jesus Would Do; I've Got to Get Paid: The New Black Preacher
6. Before and Beyond Don Imus: On BET, Hip-Hop Culture, and Their Consequences
7. What's Wrong with Us?: The Necessary Death of American Romanticism
Appendix
Chronology: Development and Change in Black Leadership Communities from 1619 to the Present
Notes
Index
