A collection of eight essays, several first published in magazines, written in the immediate aftermath of the 1992 Los Angeles riots. West examines nihilism and despair in poor Black communities, the limits of both liberal and conservative racial reasoning, a crisis in Black leadership, the new Black conservatism, affirmative action, Black–Jewish relations, taboos around Black sexuality, and the legacy of Malcolm X. Throughout, he locates these questions inside a market-driven culture he sees as spiritually impoverished, while arguing from a prophetic Christian and democratic-socialist tradition that love, moral renewal, and honest conversation across racial lines are preconditions for a genuine multiracial democracy. Brief, accessible, and deliberately provocative, the book made West a national public intellectual and remains his most widely read work, taught across sociology, theology, philosophy, and African American studies.
Author: Cornel West · Original publisher: Beacon Press (Boston), 1993
