BLACK GENIUS: African American Solutions to African American Problems
Edited by Walter Mosley, Manthia Diawara, Clyde Taylor and Regina Austin
Norton, 314 pages, $24.95
`Black Genius” is a theoretical colloquy smart enough to conceive itself as a self-help book offering sincere, practical guidance rather than an exercise in intellectualism. Spawned by a series of community lectures, “Black Genius” features prominent blacks from various walks of life talking about extremely problematic issues and generously supplying solutions that they feel are most important to the success of African-Americans.
This is a talented gallery of contributors positioning themselves as advocates of what one of them, playwright-actress Anna Deavere Smith, calls “cultural equity,” “a varied identity” and “an open conversation.” Their volume skillfully preaches and teaches us a sharp lesson, giving voice to the black diaspora. They offer many beneficial solutions that are firmly braided together in a sincere effort to save folks from drowning in a sea of despair. Their expressions are affirming, inspiring and heartening. Yet what’s more impressive is how these thinkers go out of their way to deliver their messages coherently, accessibly, to make them plain.
Like Martin Luther King Jr., “Black Genius” strives mightily to demystify the role of race in America’s social structures, its essays emphasizing such concepts as individual versus collective responsibility and spirit. Its messages are well-informed, admirable, usually exhilarating, and unifying.
Chicago educator, publisher and poet Haki Madhubuti stands out; his essay discussing the building of black institutions is the longest in the book, but his incredible range proves unsurpassable as he moves from discussing racism to being transformed by Richard Wright’s “Black Boy” to street culture before eventually winding up on the role of education and its relationship to self-identity and empowerment. Novelist Walter Mosley, on blacks as people “who know what it’s like to live the blues,” and nationally syndicated columnist Julianne Malveaux, on America’s economic growth, also shine. Mosley writes viscerally, showcasing, by example, what he refers to as “the hope and courage of the blues that make us listen and understand.” And Malveaux gains respect from the get-go, starting her article by boldly tossing out: “I am just a bit daunted by this notion of black genius because I think that it is a redundant term. To be African American and to survive, and to survive with at least a modicum of sanity, is at times intrinsically genius.”
“Black Genius” also includes a few conversations that might fail to move the crowd. George Curry’s call for African-Americans to “get on-line” is needed, and Curry, the editor in chief of Emerge magazine, recites engaging facts highlighting the importance of black people trying to tame the tiger of technology, but his language is probably more striking as speech than as writing. And while you have torespectactor-playwright-director-scree nwriter-novelist-songwriter-financier Melvin Van Peebles for what he has accomplished, it’s easy to be put off of his argument about money when ego undermines the point. “Yeah, I made it,” he boasts. “(B)ut I made it working eighty-five times harder than the cat standing next to me ever could.”
Filmmaker Spike Lee and author bell hooks roll their terrible eyes, gnash their terrible teeth, and show their terrible claws, laboring to rip apart their enemies.
Lee’s take on independent filmmaking is not without deeper meaning, but he’s obsessed with whacking away at Warner Bros. for its seeming reluctance to fully support his grand, 1992 movie “Malcolm X.” And while many of his statements–such as, “There are far too many black people, with a whole lot of money and a whole lot of clout, who are not in the fold”–are true, some of them, coming from Lee, sound self-serving or like the same old rhetoric/bitterness.
Hooks comes across as short-tempered too. In a powerful section extending the exploration of black genius and her usual themes of hedonistic materialism and self-healing, hooks justifiably lambastes the mainstream media for not hailing the literary and cultural accomplishments of the late African-American writer Toni Cade Bambara. The media deserve it, as “Black Genius” contributor and ABC News correspondent Farai Chideya nicely expounds upon in her essay, “Holding the Media Accountable.” But hooks adds a brief, nasty assault on her critics that feels forced and uncalled for in a book that supposedly has a warmer, more altruistic purpose. Still, hooks’ approach to self-improvement always stresses the spiritual, which is refreshing.
In other essays, Dr. Jocelyn Elders, a former U.S. surgeon general, charts the decay of black public health; educator and activist Angela Davis addresses the overrepresentation of blacks in prison; and human-rights activist Randall Robinson finishes this bright volume with a cogent umbrella subject, democracy.
Alas, “Black Genius” won’t expunge racism, nor is it likely to improve the lot of African-Americans who, in searching for their identity, try to conceal what they are inside while seeking to escape the mentality of victimization. But “Black Genius” is powerful enough so that just a small dose of it will have you looking to do good, and that isn’t bad.
