A_Rap_on_Race

<i>A Rap on Race</i>

A Rap on Race

Book by Margaret Mead and James Baldwin


A Rap on Race is a 1971 non-fiction book co-authored by the writer and social critic James Baldwin and the anthropologist Margaret Mead. It consists of transcripts of conversations held between the pair in August 1970.

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Summary

Baldwin and Mead intertwine discussions on "identity, power and privilege, race and gender, beauty, religion, justice, and the relationship between the intellect and the imagination."[1] They talk about "New Guinea, South Africa, Women's Lib, the South, slavery, Christianity, their early childhood upbringings, Israel, the Arabs, the bomb, Paris, Istanbul, the English language, Huey Newton, John Wayne, the black bourgeoisie, Baldwin's 2-year-old grandnephew and Professor Mead's daughter."[2]

Literary significance and criticism

The book was dismissed as "the same old bilge you've heard from the fellow on the next stool to you in the saloon" by a reviewer at The New York Times when it was first published.[2]

In 2015, writer Maria Popova called the book "a remarkable and prescient piece of the cultural record" and "a bittersweet testament to one of the recurring themes in their dialogue — our tendency to sideline the past as impertinent to the present, only to rediscover how central it is in understanding the driving forces of our world and harnessing them toward a better future." [3]

References

  1. [1]
    Popova, Maria (2015-03-19). "A Rap on Race: Margaret Mead and James Baldwin's Rare Conversation on Forgiveness and the Difference Between Guilt and Responsibility". The Marginalian. Retrieved 2022-05-28.
  2. [2]
    Elman, Richard (June 27, 1971). "A Rap on Race". The New York Times.
  3. [3]
    Maria Popova, "A Rap on Race: Margaret Mead and James Baldwin’s Rare Conversation on Forgiveness and the Difference Between Guilt and Responsibility", Brain Pickings, March 19, 2015.

A Rap On Race - Abridged recording of the conversations on YouTube


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