|
The Boundaries of Blackness: AIDS and the Breakdown of Black Politics
|
| List Price: | $23.00 |
| Price: | $17.94 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details |
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com
38 new or used available from $6.53
Average customer review:
Product Description
The Boundaries of Blackness is the first full-scale exploration of the social, political, and cultural impact of AIDS on the African-American community. Informed by interviews with activists, ministers, public officials, and people with AIDS, Cathy Cohen unflinchingly brings to light how the epidemic fractured, rather than united, the black community. She traces how the disease separated blacks along different fault lines and analyzes the ensuing struggles and debates.
More broadly, Cohen analyzes how other cross-cutting issues—of class, gender, and sexuality—challenge accepted ideas of who belongs in the community. Such issues, she predicts, will increasingly occupy the political agendas of black organizations and institutions and can lead to either greater inclusiveness or further divisiveness.
The Boundaries of Blackness, by examining the response of a changing community to an issue laced with stigma, has much to teach us about oppression, resistance, and marginalization. It also offers valuable insight into how the politics of the African-American community—and other marginal groups—will evolve in the twenty-first century.
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #340979 in Books
- Published on: 1999-04-30
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Paperback
- 410 pages
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Yale professor Cohen combines rigorous research and fresh sociological insights to build her argument that a black political agenda based solely on race promotes exclusionary practices. Cohen tracked responses to AIDS by black civic and church leaders and media in New York City (where, since 1990, AIDS has infected more blacks than any other racial or ethnic group), finding that they have espoused an understanding of racial identity that privileges middle-class, heterosexual males, while using code words "to designate who was expendable." Starting at the beginning of the AIDS crisis, she compares coverage by network television news and the New York Times with that of black newspapers and magazines. Cohen attributes the failure of black media to focus on AIDS at the beginning of the epidemic to homophobia, classism and sexism, resulting in the extreme stigmatization of the most disempowered members of black communities. She finds that in the 1980s, the black political response to AIDS came largely from black lesbians and gays. In recent years, women and children of color have come to be most at risk, while the black media focuses on alternative treatments and new heterosexual dating patterns in response to AIDS. Although Cohen's analysis is encumbered by academic jargon, it is astute and eye-opening.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Cohen's intent in writing this book was, among other things, to expose the processes used to determine what issues affecting substantial numbers of African Americans can be called "`black issues,' deserving of attention, resources, and action on the part of other black people." She specifically looks at why AIDS has been a neglected issue in the black community and why traditional black leaders have remained silent about the disease. Cohen doesn't seek to indict, but to provoke discussion about the nature of black politics. Because blacks have been so marginalized by American culture, internal fragmentation has produced crosscutting issues that have strained the traditional political framework. Traditional civil rights groups and the black church are too centered in a middle-class ethos to take up an issue that appears to impact other marginal populations--homosexuals and drug users. Beyond the AIDS issue, Cohen looks at a new generation of leaders, more inclined or better able to incorporate the more marginalized groups within black America. Vanessa Bush
About the Author
Customer Reviews
A Definite Must Have!
Cohen does an excellent job of providing a dual analysis -- one of the current state in the AIDS crisis as well as an honest look at the state of affairs of Black leaders and their inability to "fight the fight" on behalf on our communitites devasted by AIDS. Her scholarly work is provoking, courageous and long overdue. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in Black politics and the REAL challenges facing the most marginal of Black communities.
Excellent and scholarly study
The Boundaries of Blackness is a solid book which analyzes the response of black communities to the AIDS crisis. The complexity of black communities, which are so often described as a singular entity, emerges from Cohen's comprehensive but also nuanced and balanced study. I strongly recommend this book!
Add This Book To Your Collection
Rarely, if ever, does a reader encounter an analysis of black politics, of the AIDS crisis, or of government response to either that addresses such issues in a textured and multi-dimensional way. Cohen's book is an anomaly in that it acknowledges and builds upon those complexities while constructing an argument that does not end with them. Boundaries is a great, informative read and a must-have on the bookshelf of anyone who considers themselves a critical thinker.
