<\/p>![\"41xC1w14Q5L._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nickduffel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/41xc1w14q5l-_sy344_bo1204203200_-1.jpg?resize=228%2C346\")
We supposedly live in an era of racial enlightenment; an era of equal value and opportunity for all people, regardless of color.\u00a0 Slavery and the Jim Crow South are the stuff of history books\u2014cautionary tales\u2014and the central figures of the Civil Rights Movement are generally held up as archetypal heroes of the people, devoid of squirm-inducing political extremism.\u00a0 But is this the truth?\n
Speaking of extremism, Eddie S. Glaude, Jr. believes that may be just what the doctor ordered for America and tells us as much in his new book, Democracy in Black.\u00a0<\/em> Why does he advocate extreme measures?\u00a0 Because business-as-usual black politics and our standard responses to occurrences like the shooting of Michael Brown are not addressing the deeper issue.\u00a0 Even electing the first black president has not addressed the deeper issue.\u00a0 And the issue is the \u201cracial value gap:\u201d the deeply-held belief\u2014so deeply held that it\u2019s part of the national sub-consciousness\u2014that white people are more valuable than everyone else.<\/p>\n Glaude makes a compelling case for his belief that there is a racial crisis in America and white people remain largely unaware and even culpable because we sit on top, not really understanding the value gap.\u00a0 As a result, true democracy suffers.\u00a0 As a white reader, there were several times I wanted to put the book down, but I knew I couldn\u2019t look away. \u00a0I needed a big bowl of this, and you probably do, too.<\/p>\n Glaude, as a Princeton professor, knows his history and writes with both skill and venom.\u00a0 Paragraphs land like blows.\u00a0 He connects the dots of American history, reminding us that there isn\u2019t a direct line between the founding of the NAACP, the Harlem Renaissance, Brown v. Board of Education<\/em>, King\u2019s \u201cI Have A Dream Speech,\u201d and Obama\u2019s election.\u00a0 It is the events that happened in the margins of the history books that tell the most important story, which is the story of the narrowing of the American mind to accept the value gap that still exists.\u00a0 We narrow our minds because we want our idealized view of America as a land of equal opportunity and value to remain untarnished.\u00a0 We want to believe in an America that \u201crights itself\u201d when injustice rears its ugly head.<\/p>\n Here is a statement from the climatic chapter:<\/p>\n \u201cObviously we know we matter.\u00a0 The phrase isn\u2019t about asserting our humanity to folks who deny it\u2026#BlackLivesMatter reminds white people that their <\/em>lives do not matter more than others.\u00a0 It is a direct challenge to white supremacy.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Are Glaude\u2019s statements inflammatory?\u00a0 Yes.\u00a0 Do I agree with him categorically?\u00a0 Of course not.\u00a0 That doesn\u2019t change the fact that this book stands as a bold statement of the value of black people at a historical crossroads.\u00a0 I pray his message is not ignored or dismissed.\u00a0 Glaude calls for all Americans to cast a blank, \u201cnone of the above\u201d ballot for the upcoming presidential election as a \u201chard reset\u201d of American democracy.\u00a0 That\u2019s starting to look like a really good idea right now.<\/p>\n Please Note: This book was gifted as a part of the Blogging for Books<\/a> Reviewers Program in exchange for my unbiased review of this work. This has in no way influenced my opinion or review of this work.<\/p>\n<\/body>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We supposedly live in an era of racial enlightenment; an era of equal value and opportunity for all people, regardless of color.\u00a0 Slavery and the Jim Crow South are the stuff of history books\u2014cautionary tales\u2014and the central figures of the Civil Rights Movement are generally held up as archetypal heroes of the people, devoid of… Read More »Book Review: Democracy in Black by Eddie S. Glaude, Jr.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,4,12],"tags":[15,75,111,113,149,150,157,176],"class_list":["post-1158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogging-for-books","category-books-2","category-reviews","tag-52-books","tag-fear","tag-jesus","tag-leaders","tag-race","tag-reading","tag-reviews-2","tag-social-justice"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7EHHr-iG","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nickduffel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nickduffel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nickduffel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nickduffel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nickduffel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nickduffel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1158\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nickduffel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nickduffel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nickduffel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}