[mhking]

From my own site (http://mhking.blogspot.com/) on Dickerson's book this afternoon:

The End of Blackness? We Can All At The Least Hope For Enlightenment

Debra Dickerson's new book, The End of Blackness, must be worth the read, if only to see for yourself if the negative comments from the crab-in-the-barrel black folks on the Amazon.com reader review section of her book entry are upset because of seeing themselves in the mirror the book provides or if the book is poorly written.

I'd be inclined toward the former, simply due to the type of rhetoric there -- the same type of brow-beating and carping that I see regularly in my own hatemail.

"Look at Dickerson's white fan club below! Including the one from Los Angeles POSING as a black person (January 19). And TWENTY-ONE white friends in his white club really LOVED it too! (Don't you guys think that you made yourself a little too heavy-handed and obvious, spamming positive book review votes for Dickerson? And, negatively, counterspamming book review votes against black reveiwers, some very well written or incisively pithy.)"

"Dickerson (and her supporters here) would have us drop "counterproductive" liberal efforts that "haven't worked." Like what? The resoundingly successful Head Start, breakfast programs, health screening, and the like? They also oppose "counterintuitive" liberal ideas -- quality schools with resources equal to the best white public schools, small classrooms with well-paid teachers, urban neighborhoods as well-maintained by cities as white neighborhoods, and police who actually live in and care about the urban communities they serve in. Why? All of those things (which have never been properly tried, thanks to opposition by conservatives) would cost money, when it's obvious that our national priority is funneling all of our resources into war and military spending -- and enriching the few and the well-connected. Better to blame Blacks for their own plight, then, and offer more "pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps" solutions that haven't led anywhere."

"Do we really need another black neo-conservative to tell us how hypocritical black America is?"

Anybody notice that in the minds of many of the Soul Patrol that all conservative blacks are coded "neo-cons" in order to dehumanize us and make it easier to make personal insults?

And to answer that last person's question, obviously, America does. The hypocrites in black America continue to blame everyone outside themselves for their problems. They continue to insist (as the whining scribe just before notes) that self-empowerment doesn't work.

Dickerson's earlier book, An American Story, engendered similar accusations of self-hatred and selling out. It too, is one that I'm going to see about looking at. I'd rather read the reasoned thoughts of someone who has taken the time for self-examination as opposed to attacking others simply for having views that are outside of the mainstream.

---

This review also published on Blogcritics.org at: http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/02/20/155353.php.

[Ditto]

The resoundingly successful Head Start, breakfast programs, health screening, and the like? They also oppose "counterintuitive" liberal ideas -- quality schools with resources equal to the best white public schools, small classrooms with well-paid teachers,

Successful!!! For who? Maybe the race-hustling cleptocrats who make fortunes off the backs of poor blacks, but those programs have been complete and utter failures from an educational standpoint. Poor black kids have fallen further and further behind at a time when education is more than ever a prerequisite for success.

[rocksblues]

MH: Thought you might like to see this.

People can rise from
mean streets to Wall St.

"Blacks have gone from being a traded commodity to trading commodities on Wall Street, and while that is clearly progress, it cannot be completely applauded until the other sectors of society catch up to the meritocracy we see on Wall Street - where people are judged by their abilities, not the color of their skin."

Excerpted, click here for full article.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ideas_opinions/story/166040p-145321c.html

[William Wallace]

Thanks for the heads-up, Michael. Excellent article.

Don't assume all the venomous reviewers on Amazon who self-identify as black really are black. White liberals think spewing ugly racial epithets is ok as long as they're directed at black conservatives (witness Clarence Thomas and Condelezza Rice). Per their twisted logic, pretending to be black gives legitimacy to their race-baiting.

I will be sure to pick up Debra Dickerson's book after reading such "reviews."

[farmfriend]

Thanks Michael!

[Map Kernow]

The consensus of many if not most of the reviews of Ms. Dickerson's book on Amazon.com by self-identified black people dismisses "End of Blackness" as "a book to make white people feel good." Books by black people that reach across the racial divide are obviously perceived as a threat by "race hustlers."