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The Black Presidency

Barack Obama and the Politics of Race in America

Audiobook
3 of 3 copies available
3 of 3 copies available
A provocative, lively deep-dive into the meaning of America's first black president and first black presidency, from "one of the most graceful and lucid intellectuals writing on race and politics today" (Vanity Fair)
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    • AudioFile Magazine
      As Michael Eric Dyson, academic, author, and radio host, narrates his own audiobook, he knows what he wants emphasized and where to inflect the prose. This is especially important when reading a text that focuses on a president for whom speech-making matters. One of Dyson's most intriguing insights is how Obama's speech patterns owe a debt to Martin Luther King, Jr. In this wide-ranging yet focused treatment of the nation's first biracial chief executive, the listener is immersed in the Obama years examined through the filter of race--especially the president's struggles with Congress and his complex role as both hero and scold to American blacks. Dyson ends with appreciation for Obama's orations about Trayvon Martin and the murders in a Charleston, South Carolina church. The author/narrator's intense reading style and insider status give this important audiobook authority. A.M. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      January 4, 2016
      In insightful fashion, Dyson (Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster) looks at how President Obama has dealt with, in James Baldwin's phrase, "the burden of representation" as an African-American. He begins with the president's strained relationships with political elders such as Marcia Fudge, Emanuel Cleaver, and Maxine Waters. Dyson cites Martin Luther King Jr., Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton as inspirations for the president's "linguistic charisma" and podium skills, which reflect "the beauty and power of black rhetoric." However, Dyson roundly criticizes Obama's typically measured responses to the race-related controversies of his term, from professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s arrest in Massachusetts and the death of teenager Trayvon Martin in Florida to the riots in Ferguson, Mo., and the church murders in Charleston, S.C. At the same time, the author acknowledges that, as America's first black president, Obama faces unusually heightened expectations. He has been in a precarious position, one that Dyson examines diligently and passionately in this timely analysis. Agent: Tanya McKinnon, McKinnon McIntyre.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

Languages

  • English

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