Description
Book SynopsisProvides a history of Blackness and a theoretically challenging understanding of race and ethnicity. This book traces how Blackness was defined by cultural ideas, social practices and shared identities as well as shaped in response to the social and historical conditions at different moments in American history.
Trade ReviewAlgernon Austin offers sweeping, occasionally defiant, essays on the state of Black social and political thought. Achieving Blackness will provoke, inspire, irritate, and educate its readers. Austin may well be setting the agenda for a new generation of race theorists. -- Charles Lemert,author of Dark Thoughts: Race and the Eclipse of Society
Austin does a magnificent job of advancing the field and pushes the scholarly conversation in exciting and productive directions. Beautifully written, this truly is a groundbreaking piece of work and will have a major impact on the field because it challenges leading theorists and well-established theories of race and difference. -- David N. Pellow,author of Garbage Wars: The Struggle for Environmental Justice in Chicago
This book is engagingly written from start to finish, and, since (Austin) draws upon- and often debunks- views of other scholars, I felt like I was eavesdropping at a symposium which grew heated at times. . . . I also must confess this is the most compelling reading I've done this year. -- Gerri Gribi,Curator, AfroAmericanHeritage.com
This highly informed work addresses a complicated and difficult topic in light of solid research and common sense. It should become required reading for those who are interested in clear definitions and balanced views. -- Wilson J. Moses,author of Creative Conflict in African American Thought
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations List of TablesPreface 1 Making Races 2 Asiatic Identity in the Nation of Islam 3 Achieving Blackness during the Black Power Era 4 The Racial Structures of Black Power 5 The Racial Ideology of Afrocentrism 6 Conservative Black Nationalism in the Afrocentric Era 7 Change in Black Nationalism in the Twentieth Century =8 Making Races, Making Ethnicities Appendix Notes Index About the Author
