Coming up with the syllabus has been a lot harder than normal, because this class is inter-disciplinary using texts from political science, history, anthropology, and cultural studies. But we’re also adding in some music, some movies, and some video, as well as graphic novels, for good measure.  I usually slaughter my students with reading, but I’m trying to move to the other side to let the readings breathe.
Given the subject matter we really are talking about an embarassment of riches. We won’t have to fiend to find literature.

I am pretty sure we’re going to be developing a podcast of some sorts out of this. (For real!)
This is a rough version that only contains my suggestions.  When we finalize the product I’ll send it out.

What is Racism? (The Purpose of this section is to introduce the concepts of race and racism to the students, to lay out the general framework in which calls for black power are generated)
Omi, Michael, and Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States, Chaps. 4, 5.
Holt, Thomas. The Problem of Race in the 21st Century
Mills, Charles. The Racial Contract

Racism and the Mass Media (How does racism rely upon and use popular culture to do its “work?”)
Entman, Robert, and Andrew Rojecki. The Black Image in the White Mind. Chaps. 2,3 (maybe 4)
Morrison, Toni. Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination
Gilens, Martin. Why Americans Hate Welfare. Chaps. 5, 6.

Dominant Black Responses to Racism (How did black people respond to racism? Precursors to Black Power)
Washington, Booker T. “The Atlanta Compromise” (speech should be online)
Dubois, W. E. B. “Of Booker T. Washington and Others” (chapter in The Souls of Black Foik)
Garvey, Marcus “Declaration of Rights of the Negro People of the World.” Pp. 23-31 in Van Deburg, William (ed.) Modern Black Nationalism
Mitchell, Michele. Righteous Propagation, chap. 6

Black Power (Under what conditions did Black Power emerge? What were its political manifestations)
Carmichael, Stokely and Charles Hamilton. Black Power
Selections from Eyes on the Prize

Cultural Manifestations of Black Power (what were some of the ways that black artists used black power to think about their art, and to also develop new institutions and modes of cultural creation?)
Smethurst, James, The Black Arts Movement, chap. 2
Cobb, Jelani. The Essential Harold Cruse, chap. 14
Green, Adam. Selling the Race (chap. 2)
Smith, Suzanne. Dancing in the Street (chap. 4)
Chang, Jeff. Can’t Stop Won’t Stop (chaps. 1-3)
Sicko, Dan. Techno Rebels (chaps. 2, 3)
Selections from Ali Rap, The Great White Hope

Responses to Black Power (What were the dominant responses to black power by whites?)
Aberbach, Joel and Walker, Jack L. 1970. “The Meanings of Black Power: A Comparison of White and Black Interpretations of a Political Slogan.” American Political Science Review 64 (June):367-88.
Churchill, Ward. The COINTELPRO Papers, chap. 5
Here should go an article about the “co-optation” of Black Power by mainstream business interests.

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But on top of that, teaching gives me an opportunity to both dig into familiar territory (Black Politics) and grapple with an entire new subject (Comparative Racial Politics). A taste of the books we’re reading for Black Politics:

The World Of Marcus Garvey: Race and Class in Modern Society

Written by Judith Stein, she doesn’t spend much time talking about Garvey’s philosophy, but in this case that doesn’t hinder the work because it gives her more room to flesh out how the deep conservatism of both the UNIA and Garvey. Yes the UNIA was the largest group of diasporal blacks in all of history, but there is a reason for it that goes beyond its call for race pride.

Stirrings in the Jug

By my man Adolph Reed, this book is a collection of academic essays. Not for the timid, as Reed’s academic work is a lot harder to read than his more popular stuff, but it rewards re-reading. A professor’s bookshelves contain dozens upon dozens of books…but the average professor only turns to a few of those books more than once. There’s not a single project that I’m working on that doesn’t heavily rely on the arguments placed in this book. The thing about black politics is that even though white supremacy is a bitch, we’ve still got serious politics WITHIN black spaces. How, for example, does Affirmative Action get pitched as a policy that’s good for ALL blacks even though it only directly benefits a few? How did we get to the place where people like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are viewed as leaders instead of reverends without real churches?

The Politics of Disgust

By Ange-Marie Hancock, a rising star in the field. I assigned this book in both classes actually, because it represents a concise argument about the way that the image of the welfare queen gets seared into the nation’s consciousness to the point that not only do WE not care about welfare anymore, the people who do can BARELY get up the political clout to put it on the agenda. Women on welfare are citizens, in that they have the right to vote, the right to free speech, etc. But they have absolutely no juice in the realm of public opinion.

There are more–I actually assigned WAYY too much reading–but those are good to get you started.

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