Rating: 
Summary: A great book (if you have intellectual integrity)
Review: No doubt, the self-anointed "gatekeepers of Black Culture" will respond to this book with the same TIRED routine that any Black who dares to think differently from them receives: personal attacks, scornful irrational accusations, dogmatic self-serving misdirection of facts, mean-spirited insults, clumsy psycho-analysis of the author and speechifying about nonsense. What they will NOT do is admit - much less intelligently discuss -- how we as Blacks can help ourselves IN SPITE OF (not in the absence of) racism -- in any other way than demanding White people to change their minds about us. In fact, anyone who even dares to broach the subject is either a 'sellout' or 'horribly self loathing'. At any rate, there is a rising tide of Black professionals who can definitely relate to what Dickerson and others like her are saying. We have acknowledged, mourned, and buried our dead, and and are now carving out a space for ourselves in America in the honor of those who came before us -- without the permission of you self-anointed definers of our culture, thank you very much. We succeed IN SPITE OF (not in the absence of) other Blacks calling us Oreos and sellouts. We succeed IN SPITE OF (not in the absence of) the isolation and rejection that comes from Black naysayers. Because we know that these same folk will be back to demand that we 'give back' to the community as soon as we cash our paychecks. See you on payday.
Rating: 
Summary: The End of Blackness
Review: Of course this would be The End of Blackness for someone who as the author has married out of the Black race; however, I tried to get pass that part and see what was mentally there and discovered there's nothing to grow or learn from because the book doesn't look at the real society and how the real society views people of color in today's real problems. We can portray ourselves differently all we want but in the end we will still be seen as the same... a spade will still be considered a spade.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting, But a bit confusing
Review: Overall, this was a good page turner and the information is quite interesting, but I left the book feeling kind of confused. In part one of the book, there is a devastating critique of current White racism. This clearly provess that she beleives that racism is still a major problem. (We cannot deny that it is). The problem is that in the second half, she notices the pathological reaction of Blacks to this (which mostly rings true, although the section on Uncle Toms stretches things a bit ) and all but tells people to "get over it." Easier said than done. The "Ghetto jokes " at the end of the book are ones I've seen on e-mail myself, and the section on low Black self-esteem is on solid ground. But it seems to me that what she said in Part #1` would make it clear to anyone why the behaviors in part 2 exist.
Rating:
Summary: When Truth Speaks to Power
Review: Polemicists love books on race. Everything is either black or white. There are never any shades of brown. Fittingly, this book is devided into two sections. Dickerson begins by positing the the white supremacist dialectic that white behavior is the norm and that black behavior is the pathology. She goes onto argue that white supremacists and black polemicists work together to engage in this warped and ultimately self destructive dialogue. Dickerson is at her strongest in discussing the deep narcisism that is at the heart of white racism. She believes that most white people are incapable of coming to grips with our nation's shameful history of race relations. Dickerson argues that blacks must recognize this deep seated intransgience and then move on. It is a waste of time and emotional energy to ask white America to acknowledge its failures. The second part of the book delves into the unhealthy dance that black America has with white racism. In this post movement era, Dickerson believes the need for group action and group thought is over. She wants blacks to put white racism out of their minds. Dickerson argues the best remedy for white racism can be only found in individual black achievement. Anybody who argues that Dickerson is some sort of neo-conservative has obviously not read the book. She has triggered anger in the black community because of her critique of the established black leadership. One should not be surprised that a Harvard educated lawyer in her early forties should have a different view of the world that her elders of the civil rights generation. In another twenty years, a younger generation will critique Dickerson's generation. Debra Dickerson is a gifted writer. Her book is both thoughtful and entertaining. However, I think it would have been stronger if an editor had cut out 20-30 pages that wander off from her main points. I also think her book would have been much better, if she acknowledged that the United States is truly a multi-cultural nation. Ironically, her need to shape her arguments in a black white dialectic shows that she is a prisoner of the black white paradigm that she is attempting to escape. All and all it is a good book. It could have been a great book if Dickerson had a better editor.
Rating:
Summary: Intellectual dishonesty from a very confused, troubled mind
Review: Read Professor Gerald Early's recent review in The New York Times Book Section, and his summary dismissal of this shallow and self-referential book: "One does not loosely string together a series of disparate, barbershop-type anecdotes and attempt to call it a book. One simply gets over it." Amen. I have seen Debra Dickerson on various talk shows promoting this nonsense, where she has been proven utterly incapable of defending every "thesis" she posits when challenged. Let's get this book to the remainder tables, where it rightly belongs. Let's hope that Ms. Dickerson uses some of her advance money to get into much-needed therapy. And let's hope the author understands that when she hurls stones, that huge glass house in which she lives - her personal life - becomes fair game for public disparagement - ESPECIALLY when viewed through the prism of her foolish, intellectually dishonest pronouncements.
Rating:
Summary: Another Sellout, Doing What Sellouts Do !
Review: Real Brother here. This Book is just one more sad chapter in the annals of the Self-hate Sellout Mentality. I saw Debra Dickerson on Real Time with Bill Mare and I suspected that she was a Sellout married to a White man. No one is arguing that Debra doesn't have the right the hate herself, her Race and want to be White so bad that she marries a White man. And none of us is saying that Black men who Sellout don't have the same Self-hate Sellout Mentality that Black women who Sellout do, but still, what's wrong with correctly pointing out that it's this Self-hatred and desire to breed the Black out of your genepool that is the driving force behind all the Selling Out ? How stupid to suggest that when and if interracial dating eliminates ALL Blacks that we can live in Racial harmony. It's kinda' like saying if we breed women out of existence we rid the world of Breast Cancer. It's Dumb. Debra misses the boat and it's even worse because she knows damn good and well that Black people who are complaining about 450 years of White Supremacy are NOT doing it as victims or to lament the fact that they are failures at life. Black people site the 450 years of Racism, Slavery, Oppression and Discrimination as backdrop to explain why Blacks of today hate themselves, their Race and want to be White and marry White men like Debra has. This Self-hate Sellout Mentality that has Blacks hating and killing and selling crack to one another is the problem and Racism and Oppression or only sited as the underlying cause. I would recommend that people instead of this trash pick up The Sellout Diaries Volume 1, "Everything You Wanted To Know About Sellouts But Were Afraid To Ask". The last thing we need to do is help finance our own destruction. No Sellout.
TKCAL
Rating: 
Summary: Thank You Debra Dickerson
Review: Thank you Debra Dickerson for having the courage to says what has needed saying for a long, long time. Thank you Debra Dickerson for having the scholarship to say it in such a cogent, stark manner. I have read the preceding reviews and I am stunned, particularly by the vicious comments of Mr. Joseph Anderson. (Funny that he opens his comments with a direct quotation from the book - and then uses it to dismiss the book). From the conclusions drawn by him and a couple of others, one can only assume that they either didn't read the book, or - had their minds already made up. Their use of the very term "Neo-conservative" makes this very clear. They have certainly attributed "statements" to her that she never made. She NEVER said "if those whinin' shiftless, lazy negroes would ------just get off their butts". Nor did she say 'racism is over". One can only wish people would read what books SAY rather than what they THINK they say. I have been saying, to anyone who would listen for many years that the energy wasted on bringing up the past (however terrible that past was - and it WAS terrible) is energy that could be far better spent addressing the actual problems. Mr. Anderson refers to himself as one of those who "are trying to eliminate racism" yet it is those very kinds of efforts that have perpetuated racism. They suggest we should try more of what hasn't worked - THEN it will work. Poppycock! Ms. Dickerson doesn't say it so I will: Dr. King would roll over in his grave if he could see and hear what's being done and said in his name. I am also deeply offended by the notion that Conservative thought has no place in the arena-that it is automatically disqualified because it is Conservative. One need only read "Unfounded Loyalty" by Wayne Perryman to get an idea of how misplaced this notion is. (And - read EVERYTHING by Dr. Thomas Sowell). Conservatives simply prefer methods that work, that are based on logic rather than emotion. Liberals have, for generations, been spinning their wheels, tripping over each other in an effort to be "nice" and to "solve" problems. Unfortunately, their efforts have been totally counterintuitive and counterproductive. I have even had it suggested to me by members of the black community that some of these efforts are designed to fail. I personally resist such cynicism but - it does exist. As a long time Conservative with a deep and abiding interest in race and racial problems, I applaud the efforts of Ms. Dickerson and fervently hope and believe that she will not be sidetracked by such as Mr. Anderson. Hers is the approach that I truly believe has the best chance of actually working. If you have any interest in the subject whatever - you MUST read this book. And - be sure to read the "Acknowledgements" section (often overlooked) for the most powerful indictment of all.
Rating:
Summary: Trying to flip the script.
Review: The travesty of books like this is that usually they are hastily put together diatribes.
Dickerson, in my humblest of opinion is a clown. I actually feel sorry for her. She is just one, of a number of "Black" people who so loath the skin that she is in; she will do anything to denigrate it.
For a quick minute; I thought that this clown really had something to say; substantative to the condition that we find ourselves into today. A condition that is exascerbated by our own doing and by conditions of racism, discrimination and just plain hatred-that the clown wants us to believe does not exist.
She is part of a long list of clowns who have used us. She used her blackness to go to the white schools, to get into the army, and to go to Harvard. She is using her blackness now; and by that I mean, haven't any of you noticed that whites and their slaves (the black ones I am speaking of) are trying to bombard us with racist drivel? In reviewing the likes of Sowell, Thomas, A. Williams, Elders,....Dickerson, McWhorter..., with the exception of a Sowell, they are written like 10 year olds, trying to please their parents. And then when we easily pick up on it, the go screaming to Massah, saying that they are being wronged... and old Massah plays this revised history on us... just because someone is black they cannot be racist against blacks.
Well, if I am a racist because I recognize that people like Dickerson is a racist and a nasty one at that; then so be it, I'll wear that title proudly.
Many of you on here have picked up on the things in this "book"
so I don't need to relist them here. But, I went to her "website" the other day (no I will not be returning and advise you all not to give her any attention either) but in her links she lists National Association for the Advancement of White People and Black Republicans.Com...
Black Enterprise, a primere periodical that has been a mainstay on my family's tables since I can remember, has launched a contest at the HBCU's and the clown even mocked that in her blog saying, "Shouldn't they just sue and demand the money?"
Now that was enough for me; the clown in just a pig racist. Luckily, I was able to return the book. Why should we care anyway about some racist?
She is right about one thing however in her book; We should not let Whites and their racism keep us down, and we should ignore it and get on with our lives. Just as we should not let Black Racist - a worse kind of dog; because they are holding out for a bone. Debra Dickerson is such a dog. Let White people have her... and we do not take returns; once you break, you keep.
It is sad to see. Her parent's didn't do right by her; if they had they would have given her the arse whipping that she deserves.
The End of Blackness is fourth rate. A book meant to denigrate and separate us... making us like them. UNITY is our weapon, let us use it.
Rating:
Summary: The End of Sanity
Review: This book is so dense with distortions, self-loathing and flip flops, it is virtually unreadable. Even worse, the occasional sections that are comprehensible are still at best meaningless.
Rating: 
Summary: You mean a Harvard grad wrote this illiterate book?
Review: This is an inconsistent book. In the author's introduction, Dickerson says that she aims at making the case that blacks should get away from obsessing over past grievances such as slavery and Jim Crow and take full responsibility for the choices that they make and accept the consequences. In other words, blacks should stop blaming white folks for everything that goes wrong. She then turns around and spends the first half or so of the book blaming whites for the state of black America. She presents horror stories of racism, such as the murder of Emmett Till, just as if she believes that they represent the state of race relations today. Indeed, she expends much verbiage on whites and on how they pretend to support civil rights while secretly doing everything that they can to undermine those same civil rights. Dickerson seems to have some racist tendencies of her own. She seems to resent the fact that Asian Americans generally live in mostly white, middle-class communities as opposed to having their own ethnic enclaves. Dickerson also has some weird ideas on how prevalent racism supposedly is in America. For instance,Dickerson complains about the fact that the movie "Saving Private Ryan" does not include black soldiers storming the Normandy Beach. However, she admits that no blacks participated in the D-Day invasion. Yet, she criticizes the producers for excluding a black presence in the film anyways. After her carnival of criticism of whites and Asians for their alleged role in keeping blacks down, she then gets into the second half of her book, which is a critique of blacks in modern America. In this part, she criticizes blacks for dwelling on the racist past and using racism as a crutch for blacks not making it in America. By doing so, she completely contradicts the first half of her book. This is an inconsistent and contradictory book on race relations in America. Definitely not recommended.
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