My Mother. Barack Obama. Donald Trump. And the Last Stand of the Angry White Man.

by Kevin Powell

Overview

Written in the tradition of works by Joan Didion, bell hooks, Toni Morrison, and Eve Ensler, this “profoundly insightful and brilliantly inciting” (Dominique Morisseau, Obie Award-winning playwright) exploration of the soul of the United States—the past, the present, and the future Kevin Powell wants for us all, through the lens and lives of three major figures: his mother, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump.

Ten short years ago, Barack Obama became president of the United States, and changed the course of history. Ten short years ago, our America was hailed globally as a breathtaking example of democracy, as a rainbow coalition of everyday people marching to the same drum beat. We had finally overcome.

But had we?

Both the presidencies of Obama and Donald Trump have produced some of the ugliest divides in history: horrific racial murders, non-stop mass shootings, the explosion of attacks on immigrants and on the LGBTQ community, the rise of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, a massive gap between the haves and the have-nots, and legions of women stepping forth to challenge sexual violence—and men—in all forms.

In this collection of thirteen powerful essays, “Kevin Powell thoughtfully weaves together the connective tissue between gender, race, sexuality, pop culture, and sports through a series of raw, incredibly personal essays” (Jemele Hill, writer and ESPN anchor). Be it politics, sports, pop culture, hip-hop music, mental health, racism, #MeToo, or his very complicated relationship with his mother, these impassioned essays are not merely a mirror of who we are, but also who and what Powell thinks we ought to be.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781982105259
Publisher:	Atria Books
Publication date:	05/14/2019
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Kevin Powell is the author of thirteen books, including his autobiography, The Education of Kevin Powell: A Boy’s Journey into Manhood. He lives with his wife Jinah Parker, the dancer, choreographer, and playwright, in Brooklyn, New York.

Table of Contents

Allow me to re-introduce myself… xiii

Letter to a Young Man 1

Will Racism Ever End? Will I Ever Stop Being a? 13

The Day Our Prince Died 35

A Letter to Tupac Shakur 41

Why Is Baltimore Burning? 65

The Killing of a Mockingbird Cam Newton 73

The Liner Notes for the A Tribe Called Quest Greatest Hits Album That Never Happened 123

JAY-Z and the Remaking of His Manhood. Or, The Crumpled and Forgotten Freedom Papers of Mr. Shawn Carter 129

Me and Muhammad Ali 163

Gun Violence, and What the Fourth of July, Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, and the Dallas and Baton Rouge Police Shootings Mean to Me 169

Prodigy and the America That Raised Him Hamilton O. J. Simpson Orlando 205

Re-defining Manhood: Harvey Weinstein and how his toxic manhood is our toxic manhood, too 211

My Mother. Barack Obama. Donald Trump. And the Last Stand of the Angry White Man. 225

Acknowledgments 283

Editorial Reviews

"Kevin Powell thoughtfully weaves together the connective tissue between gender, race, sexuality, pop culture, and sports through a series of raw, incredibly personal essays. He masterfully uses his own life experiences to force us to take an uncomfortable look at how we’ve been conditioned to adopt, accept, and extend the unfortunate American traditions of hate and violence.”— Jemele Hill, ESPN anchor, commentator, writer

“Hip-hop has been the most influential cultural force of the last fifty years and no writer has understood its power quite like Kevin Powell. It's not just music. It's a lens to understand the world and Kevin Powell wields it to further our understanding of racism, manhood, and our troubled political times. Make no mistake about it: Whether writing about Harvey Weinstein, his mother, or American football, this book is hip-hop in the best sense of the phrase, in that it challenges the readers to step outside of themselves. Powell takes us to a place beyond the beats. It's a place most fear to tread, but if we hope to salvage this country, it's a place we all need to understand."— David Zirin, writer and editor for The Nation

“Kevin Powell’s writing never fails to be both profoundly insightful and brilliantly inciting. His words are unassuming daggers, piercing the skin of racism in America, gender inequality, misogyny, and the socio-political impact of our greatest icons while expertly avoiding clichés and pretension. His work provides a compassionate examination of our contemporary ethos, and inspires us to move beyond apathy into full social accountability.”— Dominique Morisseau, Obie Award-winning playwright

From the Publisher

10/15/2018
The latest book from activist Powell (The Education of Kevin Powell), who has written about the experiences of African-American men in books and at Vibe magazine, compiles 13 previously published essays on hip-hop, sports, politics, and culture that chronicle his growth as a cultural critic. “To be a Black man in America,” he writes, “is to be under a constant state of enormous pressure, stress, and danger, from outside, from within”; his penetrating profiles of celebrities, such as doomed rapper-actor Tupac Shakur and charismatic quarterback Cam Newton, typify the perils faced by and promise of black America. Other essays discuss, for example, Powell’s awakening to misogyny in public and private life, and the contradictions of the hit musical Hamilton, whose casting foregrounds marginalized Americans but whose subject matter reinforces white-centric mainstream views of history. The collection’s title essay is a three-point treatise on Powell’s complicated relationship with his chronically ill single mom, her experiences growing up black in the deep South, Obama’s legacy as the first black president, and the racist backlash that led to the election of Donald Trump. Admirers of Greg Tate’s postsoul aesthetic and Ta-Nehisi Coates’s 21st-century urban realism will find much to savor in Powell’s urgent and eloquent prose. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

Powell's collection of essays on hip-hop, football, politics, black identity, and his own limitations to be a better person are given even more gravitas by his slightly raspy and emphatic voice. Whether he's debating the merits of Tupac, Prince, Beyoncé, or Kanye; tracing the roots of his own challenging upbringing in an urban single-family home; or considering what it means to be black in a country with a racialized criminal justice system, Powell's prose gains added emphasis and emotion through his narration. He makes the work sound like it was born to be read aloud. Powell explores the culture around him and grounds it in his analysis and experience, making for a rich work about both an individual and this nation. L.E. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

DECEMBER 2018 - AudioFile

Powell's collection of essays on hip-hop, football, politics, black identity, and his own limitations to be a better person are given even more gravitas by his slightly raspy and emphatic voice. Whether he's debating the merits of Tupac, Prince, Beyoncé, or Kanye; tracing the roots of his own challenging upbringing in an urban single-family home; or considering what it means to be black in a country with a racialized criminal justice system, Powell's prose gains added emphasis and emotion through his narration. He makes the work sound like it was born to be read aloud. Powell explores the culture around him and grounds it in his analysis and experience, making for a rich work about both an individual and this nation. L.E. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

DECEMBER 2018 - AudioFile

2018-05-23
Emotionally raw essays focus on racism, sexism, and manhood.In a collection of previously published essays, journalist, activist, blogger, and podcast host Powell (The Education of Kevin Powell: A Boy's Journey into Manhood, 2016, etc.) writes with urgency and outrage about his identity as a black American. "To be Black in America is to live a sort of death every single day of your life," he writes. "It makes for a stressful, paranoid, and schizophrenic existence: Am I an American, or am I not?" The author grew up in the slums of Jersey City, raised by a single mother who struggled to support them on meager wages and government assistance. When he was 8, his father, whom he had seen only a few times, refused to help financially, claiming that Kevin was not his son. Powell was besieged by images of men engaged in "toxic behavior," with no role models to help him understand "that manhood is not, in fact, power, privilege, sex, rock and roll, hip-hop, violence, ego gone wild, material things, money, any of that. That manhood should be about love, peace, non-violence, [and] respecting women as our equals." The theme of manhood recurs in many essays—about Jay-Z, Tupac Shakur, O.J. Simpson, Harvey Weinstein, and Barack Obama, among others—in which Powell regrets the legacy of "patriarchy, sexism, misogyny, violence," and hatred that characterized his relationships with women before therapy, education, and spirituality helped him to figure out "how to be a man who is not a human lethal weapon, to self, to others." Toxic manhood and endemic racism have blighted him, causing "internal wars around self-esteem, staggering bouts with sadness, with depression," and a feeling of "tremendous emptiness." Internalized racism "becomes Black self-hatred, Black abuse" and also generates a "Black elite, the Black gatekeepers," quick to pass judgment on poor blacks. Although racism continues unabated, Powell admits that he has "limitless hope" that efforts of America's young people will change the world.Passion and anger fuel a biting critique.

Kirkus Reviews