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Just us an American conversation

"At home and in government, contemporary America finds itself riven by a culture war in which aggression and defensiveness alike are on the rise. It is not alone. In such partisan conditions, how can humans best approach one another across our differences? Taking the study of whiteness and whit...

Full description

Main Author: Rankine, Claudia, 1963-
Format: Books Print Book
Language: English
Published: Minneapolis, Minnesota : Graywolf Press, [2020]
Subjects:
African Americans > Social conditions > 21st century.
Whites > Race identity.
United States > Race relations > 21st century.
United States > Social conditions > 21st century.
Essays.
Summary: "At home and in government, contemporary America finds itself riven by a culture war in which aggression and defensiveness alike are on the rise. It is not alone. In such partisan conditions, how can humans best approach one another across our differences? Taking the study of whiteness and white supremacy as a guiding light, Claudia Rankine explores a series of real encounters with friends and strangers - each disrupting the false comfort of spaces where our public and private lives intersect, like the airport, the theatre, the dinner party and the voting booth - and urges us to enter into the conversations which could offer the only humane pathways through this moment of division. Just Us is an invitation to discover what it takes to stay in the room together, and to breach the silence, guilt and violence that surround whiteness. Brilliantly arranging essays, images and poems along with the voices and rebuttals of others, it counterpoints Rankine's own text with facing-page notes and commentary, and closes with a bravura study of women confronting the political and cultural implications of dyeing their hair blonde."--Publisher's description.
Physical Description: 341 pages : illustrations (chiefly color) ; 24 cm
ISBN: 9781644450215
1644450216
Author Notes: Claudia Rankine was born in Jamaica in 1963. She received a B.A. in English from Williams College and a M.F.A. in poetry from Columbia University. She is the author of several collections of poetry including Don't Let Me Be Lonely, Plot, and The End of the Alphabet. Nothing in Nature is Private won the Cleveland State Poetry Prize and Citizen: An American Lyric won the 2015 Forward Prize for Best Collection. She has edited numerous anthologies including American Women Poets in the Twenty-First Century: Where Lyric Meets Language and American Poets in the Twenty-First Century: The New Poetics. She is currently the Henry G. Lee Professor of English at Pomona College. She won a 2015 Forward Prize for Poetry which carried a monetary award of $21,570.

(Bowker Author Biography)

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