Erasing Racism: The Survival of the American Nation

by Molefi Kete Asante

Book Overview

Did the election of Barack Obama to be President of the United States signal real progress in bridging America's longstanding racial divide? In this profound study of systemic racism, Molefi Kete Asante, one of our leading scholars of African American history and culture, discusses the greatest source of frustration and anger among African Americans in recent decades: what he calls "the wall of ignorance" that attempts to hide the long history of...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1591027659
• ISBN13: 9781591027652
• Release Date: September 2009
• Publisher: Prometheus Books
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

This is a must read book!

This is an excellent book. Dr Molefi Kete Asante has written a brillliant book on a very complex issue in the American society and the world: race. How does one erase racism from one's mind? As Pr Asante writes, only by a better knowledge of its past that America can better deal with such a very sensitive and complex problem. The U.S. likes boasting itself of being a great defender of democracy and justice but it is incapable of defending that same justice and equality for its citizens of African descent. America -and the whole world for that matter- will not be a peaceful place if it doesn't seriously tackle that corny issue: racism. Whether one lives in Paris, London, New-York, Madrid, Brussels, Rome, Beijing, Tokyo or Moscow, to name but a few, racism is always present. We have to erase it if we want to live peacefully with our fellow human beings. This book by Dr Asante is so well written that I more than recommend it to all the people who put humanity first. I give it five stars because it more than deserves it! Go get it!

Intelligent Argument

Although sometimes long-winded and with way too many wild examples for me to handle when it came to brutality (which was precisely his point), I liked this book a lot. I read it for a class, but I would've read it for fun. It goes into the depths of how racism has affected our country as a whole, be it through riots, murder, job prejudice, lack of progress, lack of companionship, lack of trust, poverty, and through celebrities. This author goes into all realms of racism and in the end, proposes the same argument I supported for years. I thoroughly agree with every point he has made, and I like his unique way of spreading about Reparations. I heard him speak at my college and he was phenomenal. My teacher said he was humble. I don't know where she got that idea from because he was very in-your-face and I love that about him. Any time someone speaks on a controversial topic, they have to be willing to stand by what they say and have relevant examples to back themselves up. One of the ladies in my class said before he spoke that she felt this book "disrespected white people." I totally disagree. I think this book is just the truth that some are not ready to read.

Asante Continues to Add Insight to Discussion of Race

Upon initial exposure of this new Asante tome, i thought it a fresh and long over-due departure from the "Greece borrowed/stole this or that from Afrika" discussion that has engulfed him for more than twenty years. My assumption was correct.In this book, Asante adds new and pertinent points of perspectives not before considered in debates or discussions dealing with race. He also discusses the very important issue of reparations. This book is a must-have for those interested in courageously addressing the issue of race in the United States and throughout the world.BNS FOREVER.Tarikh Bandele