Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul Paperback – January 10, 2017
by Eddie S. Glaude Jr. (Author)
4.7 out of 5 stars 179 ratings
A powerful polemic on the state of black America that savages the idea of a post-racial society.
America’s great promise of equality has always rung hollow in the ears of African Americans. But today the situation has grown even more dire. From the murders of black youth by the police, to the dismantling of the Voting Rights Act, to the disaster visited upon poor and middle-class black families by the Great Recession, it is clear that black America faces an emergency—at the very moment the election of the first black president has prompted many to believe we’ve solved America’s race problem.
Democracy in Black is Eddie S. Glaude Jr.'s impassioned response. Part manifesto, part history, part memoir, it argues that we live in a country founded on a “value gap”—with white lives valued more than others—that still distorts our politics today. Whether discussing why all Americans have racial habits that reinforce inequality, why black politics based on the civil-rights era have reached a dead end, or why only remaking democracy from the ground up can bring real change, Glaude crystallizes the untenable position of black America--and offers thoughts on a better way forward. Forceful in ideas and unsettling in its candor, Democracy In Black is a landmark book on race in America, one that promises to spark wide discussion as we move toward the end of our first black presidency.
America’s great promise of equality has always rung hollow in the ears of African Americans. But today the situation has grown even more dire. From the murders of black youth by the police, to the dismantling of the Voting Rights Act, to the disaster visited upon poor and middle-class black families by the Great Recession, it is clear that black America faces an emergency—at the very moment the election of the first black president has prompted many to believe we’ve solved America’s race problem.
Democracy in Black is Eddie S. Glaude Jr.'s impassioned response. Part manifesto, part history, part memoir, it argues that we live in a country founded on a “value gap”—with white lives valued more than others—that still distorts our politics today. Whether discussing why all Americans have racial habits that reinforce inequality, why black politics based on the civil-rights era have reached a dead end, or why only remaking democracy from the ground up can bring real change, Glaude crystallizes the untenable position of black America--and offers thoughts on a better way forward. Forceful in ideas and unsettling in its candor, Democracy In Black is a landmark book on race in America, one that promises to spark wide discussion as we move toward the end of our first black presidency.
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“Eddie Glaude speaks some hard truths in this important new book. Glaude is the fiercest of thinkers, and this book is a brilliant and crucial prescription for necessary change.” —Henry Louis Gates Jr.
“This powerful and timely book should shape the framework for a post-Obama America—a bold rejection of black liberal politics and a prophetic call for a revolution of value that reinvigorates our democratic life with imagination and courage.”
—Cornel West
“Democracy in Black tells necessary truths about the state of race and justice in America and challenges us to embrace genuinely -- not merely rhetorically -- the revolution of values preached by Dr. King.” —Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow
“Eddie Glaude has written a book that challenges and demands as well as one that informs and inspires. This is a very important book, I am better for having read it and even more motivated in my work and mission.” –U.S. Senator Cory Booker
“Eloquent and impassioned, insightful and factual, Democracy in Black powerfully reimagines black politics and presents strategies for remaking American democracy.” —Nell Irvin Painter, Edwards Professor of American History, Emerita, Princeton University and author of The History of White People.
“Democracy in Black is an urgent, clear-eyed manifesto. It proves not only that Black Lives Matter, but Black social movements matter if the nation ever hopes to lift the veil of racism and long shadow of slavery.” –Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination
“Eddie Glaude writes compellingly of the collective moral and intellectual failures locking Americans into a repetitive “human value gap.” This book documents why and how race remains our ultimate, even dedicated, civic irrationality.” –Patricia J. Williams, author of Seeing a Color-blind Future
“Democracy in Black tells a powerful story about democracy in action in the streets of Ferguson. People should read it and be transformed by Eddie Glaude’s call for a revolution of values. I hope it is read widely.” —James H. Cone, Union Theological Seminary
“Democracy in Black puts a Toni Morrison question to a nation ‘between worlds’: ‘Wanna fly?’ Listen up: ‘You got to give up the shit that weighs you down.’ Easier said than done. Read all about it. I did. Now I’m thinking about it all.” —Robert P. Moses, President, The Algebra Project, Inc.
“He proves his point cogently… with more than enough documentation to move the argument along this new and painful track…This is every bit as important a book as Coates’ more personal account: essential reading.” --Booklist
"A book for the ages...one of the most imaginative, daring books of the 21st century" --Los Angeles Times
About the Author
EDDIE S. GLAUDE JR. is a professor at Princeton University, teaching in the religion department and the Department of African American Studies.
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Product details
Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: Broadway Books; Reprint edition (January 10, 2017)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0804137439
ISBN-13: 978-0804137430
Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.6 x 8 inches
Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Customer Reviews: 4.7 out of 5 stars179 customer ratings
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,979 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
#43 in African American History (Books)
#98 in African American Demographic Studies (Books)
#86 in Political Commentary & Opinion
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Biography
Eddie S. Glaude Jr. is the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor at Princeton University and author of Democracy in Black
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value gap black people democracy in black racial habits eddie glaude united states white people change in how we view lives matter professor glaude civil rights jim crow black community african americans american soul white supremacy race relations people are valued enslaves the american valued more than others
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4.0 out of 5 stars Thought provoking analysis of race in America
Reviewed in the United States on December 18, 2016
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As an older white male, I found Prof. Glaude's book to be both painful and thought provoking. I think he is absolutely correct about the existence of a value gap wherein in white people are more valued than people of color, and that this is associated with a variety of racial habits. However, like many complex social problems, it's one thing to talk about diagnoses and another to come up with meaningful cures. The author identifies three components of a "value revolution": (1) a change in how we view government; (2) a change in how we view black people; and (3) a change in how we view what ultimately matters to us as Americans. I fully agree that governmental action is required to address many of the racial problems in this country including black poverty, mass incarceration, and voting rights. However, bringing about change in longstanding attitudes is much more difficult and may take generations to occur. I can understand his frustration with President Obama, Democrats in general, and traditional liberals - both white and black. However, ultimately we may have to settle for incremental change over a long period of time. I highly recommend Carol Anderson's book, White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide, which makes the case that every advance made by black people in this country, going back to the abolition of slavery, has been followed by white backlash. Glaude was disappointed that the election of a black president did nothing to address the value gap and recommended that blacks leave the choice for president blank in the 2016 election. I considered this to be a mistake. Although in interviews, he later recommended voting for Clinton in battleground states, we ended up with Trump who had strong support from white supremacists. There is no question that a subtext for Trump's call to "make America great again" was "make America white again." This is just another example of white backlash against the election of a black president and growing diversity within the country. While I understand his disdain for Hillary Clinton, we are now left with the consequences for black America of a Trump administration. To his credit, Glaude did recommend voting for downstream candidates and efforts to bring about electoral change at local, grassroots levels. Despite these concerns, I believe that Glaude's book should be widely read by all Americans - especially whites who deny that race influences their attitudes and behavior toward blacks and all people of color.
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L. M. Crane
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4.0 out of 5 stars Biased, but expounds a view that must be heard
Reviewed in the United States on October 10, 2017
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In Democracy in Black, Professor Eddie Glaude shows he is passionate and competently articulates a point of view held by many blacks – but not all. His writing is clear and well organized, although he contradicts himself more than once. My main problem with Democracy in Black is not as much what it includes, but what it conveniently leaves out. Glaude also glosses over some history when it doesn’t fit his narrative. The book is rife with selective and conformation bias.
Glaude wants to make several main points:
• There is a value gap in how we value white and black citizens in the United States. From the time of the country’s inception, through the Civil War, Jim Crow, and leading to the present, Glaude maintains that whites value black lives less than their own. For much of our history, that is indisputable. The last five decades have seen significant change, however, and Glaude only briefly acknowledges that change and those who fought for it.
• There is an active “forgetting” of our racial history. Whites want to forget about our repressive history with blacks because it allows them to evade responsibility and maintain white privilege. Glaude shows he is just as capable of forgetting as whites by not addressing cultural shifts in black communities in the last 6 decades.
• To his credit, Glaude notes the obvious – there is no monolithic black community or thought. Not all blacks are the descendants of slaves and many have come from the Caribbean or Africa. He acknowledges that easy appeals to black identity don’t work in the face of class, gender, sexual, and ethnic differences among the black community. Even as he recognizes these differences, however, Glaude fails to acknowledge the intolerance of political diversity among the black community.
• Black institutions (churches, historically black colleges, newspapers) are falling apart locally and nationally, mainly because there is an educational freedom of choice that wasn’t present previously and job openings are more prevalent in “white” companies (Glaude is employed at Princeton). Glaude views this in a wistful way, not mentioning that this inclusiveness in society was what prior leaders fought for. He wants black institutions to persist to offer a safe harbor for blacks. He correctly notes, however, that this often puts some blacks between two worlds, as they leave the black comfort zone and enter the mainstream of society.
• Glaude says that whites fear the ascension to power of any black person because true justice for blacks mean white people will lose something. Glaude doesn’t realize that most whites gave up that zero-sum argument a long time ago.
• We are shaped by our racial habits. Of course. That’s why societal changes are always incremental in every nation.
• Glaude calls out prior black social leaders – including Dr. Martin Luther King – as deficient and contributing to the forgetting of our racial history by making it easy for whites to avoid guilt over that history by seeking an inclusive community rather than making whites pay or acknowledge what they’ve done in the past.
• Black political leaders – including President Barack Obama – soon lose contact with the “common black people” and are ineffective in bringing about any real improvement in the lives of blacks. Interestingly, Glaude agrees with conservative black author Jason Riley on this.
• I give Glaude credit for recognizing that Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and a few others are merely “race hustlers” who are in it for themselves and not the people they claim to represent.
• Whatever economic wealth black people had gained was lost in the housing recession of 2007. This is absolutely true, as most families’ wealth is in their home, and blacks don’t have as many securities or pension accounts. Glaude fails to mention that one of the several causes of the housing recession was the demand by black politicians that lending criteria for blacks be loosened and that many blacks bought houses they were ill prepared to pay for.
Glaude’s solution to our current racial dilemma is two-fold. First, he eschews top down black political organizations (NAACP, etc.) and wants grass roots protests held by local leaders. He endorses the “moral” Forward Together and Black Lives Matter movements and embraces their loose organizational concepts, but does not ask if they’ve been effective or if the various disparate – and often conflicting – voices coming from BLM chapters throughout the country have mixed or lost the main message. Second, he advocates ballot protests in which black voters write in “none of the above” or don’t vote at all. His book was written in 2016 and he wasn’t alone among black intellectuals asking black people not to vote, but we all know how that eventually turned out.
I would recommend the book because it encapsulates and articulates the views of many black people, and it’s important we understand those viewpoints. I would also balance Glaude’s book by reading Jason Riley, Thomas Sowell, and Amy Wax.
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