The following is a brief excerpt from a review posted on PopandPolitics.com:Race is one of the trickiest subjects to discuss in mixed company today in America. It’s hard enough for two people of the same race to have a frank discussion about a complex topic; trying to accomplish this feat with people of different races without the conversation devolving into something out of a daytime trash talk show is a monumentally difficult task.
Taking on this challenge is lawyer and journalist Debra J. Dickerson, who has written an important and profound book, “The End of Blackness: Returning the Souls of Black Folk to Their Rightful Owners.” This 2004 publication will remain a timeless polemic as long as our schizophrenic debate about the meaning of race defines American discourse. Her main thesis is simply that in order for black Americans to come up and truly take their place as full citizens in both mind and deed, they must forgive whites for slavery and Jim Crow, rather than wait for perpetual repentance and apologies. She contends that whites have done all they are going to do as far as apologizing and making up for their horrific mistreatment of blacks since the Age of Exploration. The future for black Americans, according to Dickerson, is in forgiveness.
Dickerson is very fair in her criticisms of both whites and blacks. She unabashedly points out what whites have done to keep blacks pegged in a certain societal place and why said whites feel compelled to act in this way. By the same token, she also uses vivid portraits of history to paint a picture of the antebellum South and life under the tyranny of Jim Crow in comparison to life for the average black citizen circa 2003-2004. (Read more)
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