The Omni-Americans: New Perspectives on Black Experience and American Culture

by Albert Murray

Book Overview

The Omni-Americans is a classic collection of wickedly incisive essays, commentaries, and reviews on politics, literature, and music. Provocative and compelling, Albert Murray debunks the "so-called findings and all-too-inclusive extrapolations of social science survey technicians," contending that "human nature is no less complex and fascinating for being encased in dark skin." His claim that blacks have produced "the most complicated culture, and...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0876900015
• ISBN13: 9780876900017
• Release Date: January 1970
• Publisher: E.P. Dutton
• Length: 227 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Excellent, 30yrs later it's still relevant

I totally enjoyed the spirit of this book. I might disagree with a few points and admit that Murry at times overstates to make a point. But he is allowed to signify! I disagree with the person from pittsburgh. I think Murry can be a skilled polemicist/intellectual himself, but think he'd rather not. But the book was speaking to polemicist and intellectuals in their terms. That's the whole point. They gotten so caught up in their rhetoric that they've forgotten how to see or speak about the human experience in any other terms. It is positive, the book continues to add a freshness and bounce to the stale social science dialogue about race, culture and particularly Blacks. As he says 'we (blacks) can't afford to be reduced to oppression and repression'. Murry would probably rather chop it up at a jazz bar or barber shop. That's why he gets to signify.

Still good to the last drop

Although it's now 30 years old, Albert Murray's debut has hardly aged a day, and his potshotting at the shallow pieties of sociology remains all too relevant. The reader from Pittsburgh seems concerned that Murray isn't positive enough. But I think his central thesis--that we are all omni-Americans, sharing a hybrid, black-and-white culture--is one of the most hopeful things to come down the pike since Whitman hung up his versifying shoes. Add to that the fact that Murray is funny (not an easy thing to be when you're taking Daniel Patrick Moynihan down a peg) and you've got an essential volume on your hands. Three cheers for Da Capo for keeping this in print!

The classic text of its kind.

A collection of essays, commentaries and reviews noteworthy for their unorthodox historical and social perspectives. Murray states a compelling case against social science, which he condemns as a tool used by white supremacists to achieve aegregation, negation and subjugation. Topics include White Norms for Black Deviation, The Illusive Black Middle Class. and James Baldwin, Protest Fiction, and the Blues Tradition. An excellent companion volume to The Unheavenly City Revisited by Ed Banfield. Especially recommended for journalists and educators.