American Nigger is carefully and boldly executed. In these poems Marc Stallion weaponizes poetry to dismantle the culture of white supremacy, bigotry, sexism and injustice. With perfectly ragged language, Stallion highlights some personal challenges and experiences as a black man in America. American Nigger is about the curses and blessings of being black in America, and it targets systems created to oppress generation after generation. In this book Stallion raises some questions about the N-Word and it's uses throughout history, and in today's pop culture.

Randall Kennedy takes on not just a word, but our laws, attitudes, and culture with bracing courage and intelligence—with a range of reference that extends from the Jim Crow south to Chris Rock routines and the O. J. Simpson trial. It’s “the nuclear bomb of racial epithets,” a word that whites have employed to wound and degrade African Americans for three centuries. Paradoxically, among many Black people it has become a term of affection and even empowerment. The word, of course, is nigger, and in this candid, lucidly argued book the distinguished legal scholar Randall Kennedy traces its origins, maps its multifarious connotations, and explores the controversies that rage around it. Should Blacks be able to use nigger in ways forbidden to others? Should the law treat it as a provocation that reduces the culpability of those who respond to it violently? Should it cost a person his job, or a book like Huckleberry Finn its place on library shelves?

An engrossing autobiographical exploration of black masculinity as a mode of racial and verbal performance. In Your Average Nigga, Vershawn Ashanti Young disputes the belief that speaking Standard English and giving up Black English Vernacular helps black students succeed academically. Young argues that this assumption not only exaggerates the differences between two compatible varieties of English but forces black males to choose between an education and their masculinity, by choosing to act either white or black. As one would expect from a scholar who is subject to the very circumstances he studies, Young shares his own experiences as he exposes the factors that make black racial identity irreconcilable with literacy for blacks, especially black males. Drawing on a range of interdisciplinary scholarship in performance theory and African American literary and cultural studies, Young shows that the linguistic conflict that exists between black and white language styles harms black students from the inner city the most. If these students choose to speak Standard English they risk alienating themselves from their families and communities, and if they choose to retain their customary speech and behavior they may isolate themselves from mainstream society. Young argues that this conflict leaves blacks in the impossible position of either trying to be white or forever struggling to prove that they are black enough. For men, this also becomes an endless struggle to prove that they are masculine enough. Young calls this constant effort to display proper masculine and racial identity the burden of racial performance. Ultimately, Young argues that racial and verbal performances are a burden because they cannot reduce the causes or effects of racism, nor can they denaturalize supposedly fixed identity categories, as many theorists contend. On the contrary, racial and verbal performances only reinscribe the essentialism that they are believed to subvert. Scholars and teachers of rhetoric, performance studies, and African American studies will enjoy this insightful volume.

Comedian and civil rights activist Dick Gregory’s million-copy-plus bestselling memoir—now in trade paperback for the first time. “Powerful and ugly and beautiful...a moving story of a man who deeply wants a world without malice and hate and is doing something about it.”—The New York Times Fifty-five years ago, in 1964, an incredibly honest and revealing memoir by one of the America's best-loved comedians and activists, Dick Gregory, was published. With a shocking title and breathtaking writing, Dick Gregory defined a genre and changed the way race was discussed in America. Telling stories that range from his hardscrabble childhood in St. Louis to his pioneering early days as a comedian to his indefatigable activism alongside Medgar Evers and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Gregory's memoir riveted readers in the sixties. In the years and decades to come, the stories and lessons became more relevant than ever, and the book attained the status of a classic. The book has sold over a million copies and become core text about race relations and civil rights, continuing to inspire readers everywhere with Dick Gregory's incredible story about triumphing over racism and poverty to become an American legend.

From high school dropout and convicted drug dealer, to successful entertainment industry executive, eventual law school graduate, and college professor, this is an explosively emotional inspirational journey exploring the ups & downs of growing up bi-racial in America. Born just a few years after the Supreme Court made discrimination against interracial marriage unconstitutional, the author takes you from his time as an impoverished youth, living in a predominantly white neighborhood, to his move to the inner city and predominately black school system. From being called 'nigger' in the white neighborhood to fighting daily for being attacked and called 'white boy' in the black neighborhoods. From the brutal murders of friends and family members, to providing an insider's look at the author's time in the entertainment industry, working on projects that went on to win Grammy Awards and garner numerous Gold, Platinum and Diamond records, through all the highs and lows of a life full of extreme challenges and inspirational triumphs. REVIEWS & PRESS "Simply brilliant"- Nancy Bonilla, Cabrera Press "The must read book of the year!" - M.J. Brown "Stunningly blatant and non-apologetic, this is a must read for anyone that is searching to find understanding in our current racially divisive times. For the first time, I feel as if I have a real understanding of the struggles associated with being bi-racial in America..." - KnowledgeOfself.online Comparable works 'The Autobiography of Malcom X' by Alex Haley 'Makes Me Wanna Holler' by Nathan McCall 'Manchild in the Promised Land' by Claude Brown 'Nigger' by Dick Gregory

One of many regional reprints of Jerry Farber's 1967 Los Angeles Free Press essay comparing the relationship between universities and students to that of masters and slaves.

There are countless self help books flooding the market, but few are specific to the current needs and concerns of the broad African American community. There have been numerous significant studies researching the subject of whether, and to what degree, Black Americans still suffer from the self-hatred engendered by years of enslavement and oppression. Yet none of those studies has anything to offer the average Black American who is functioning with the normal problems of living of the modern world. With more than thirty years of experience as a psychotherapist, educator, Yoruba Priest, and student of African practices and traditions, Dr. Lee presents practical and simple KEYS to unlock the remaining psychological and physical chains that impair healthy functioning for African Americans. Acknowledging the "Nigger" in Us All picks up where Harold Cruse's Crisis of the Negro Intellectual and Franz Fanon's Black Skin, White Mask left off more than forty years ago. In presenting a book that informs with living examples rather than with theory, New African KEYS offers the reader 12 interconnected KEYS developed to arm Black Americans or anyone else with tools for individual and group self improvement. Dr. Lee emphasizes that the work of individual transformation has to include work toward changing the world, but all of this "work" must be done in a playful and compassionate way. The book also provides a major critique of our current approaches to relationships based on romantic love and suggests an approach that offers the possibilities for deeper and more satisfying intimate relationships. The book initiates a re-investigation of the history of Africans in the Americas and examines the adverse effects that this history has had on the African self. Dr. Lee exposes why the concept of the "nigger" was created and advises African Americans not to repeat the destructive mistake that White Americans made by creating some scapegoat in order to feel good about themselves. He makes the diagnosis that all humans individually and collectively have "good" and "bad" qualities and potentials; and he prescripts unconditional self acceptance as the only prescription to prevent the scapegoat trap. This concept of unconditional self acceptance that Dr. Lee calls - ASHE - is a simple and ancient, yet revolutionary concept. The KEYS are offered to assist in the internalization of this concept that can also assist in the development of alternative coping mechanisms. Dr. Lee's goal is to empower readers to do battle both individually and collectively with the strains of living within our sexist and racist society. More importantly, he attempts to empower readers with the keys to change their world.