One of our most important black intellectuals limns the lives of
black Americans with subtle, lucid rigor. As both an academic and
Baptist minister, Dyson (Communications/Univ. of North Carolina,
Chapel Hill; Making Malcolm, 1994, etc.) winningly combines the
roles of prophet and teacher for which Cornel West has gotten such
acclaim, but to even better effect. Dyson's discussion ranges
across the complexities of class, race, and gender, touching on
politics, personalities, music, and the culture wars. A regular
contributor to the New York Times, Rolling Stone, and other
journals (where most of the essays here originally appeared) Dyson
comfortably adjusts his pitch to suit the many various audiences he
addresses. Uppermost, always, in Dyson's mind is the knotted
relations of black men and women. He uses the O.J. Simpson trial in
particular to examine gender relations, noting how the pressing
issue of spousal abuse was sidelined by many blacks, who focused
instead on the oppression of black men by a white system. He also
looks hard at black popular culture for its misogyny and
impoverished racial vision, although in reviews of popular
musicians like Luther Vandross and Anita Baker, he delights in
black culture's infinite variety, understanding it as the
repository "of our deepest desires and fears." In the most moving
part of the book, the author reprints a letter he wrote to his
brother in jail for murder, offering frightening proof of the
tenuousness of the lives of black men. Dyson gladly places his
concern for blacks within the larger concern for all Americans,
knowing that afflictions of race do not cripple blacks alone, but
all who are a part of this national experiment in democracy.
Synthesizing the disparate poles of the sacred and the secular, men
and women, "high" culture and "low," Dyson's wisdom is a needed
antidote to the poisons of racial hatred and gender inequality ever
present in our lives. (Kirkus Reviews)
Between God and Gangsta Rap is an exploration of the ongoing debate about African-American identity which embraces the hopes of the church and the cool reality of hip-hop.
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