Timelyβas the 2012 presidential election nearsβand controversial, here is the first book by a major African-American public intellectual on racial politics and the Obama presidency.
Kennedy tackles such hot-button issues as the nature of racial opposition to Obama, whether Obama has a singular responsibility to African Americans, electoral politics and cultural chauvinism, black patriotism, the differences in Obamaβs presentation of himself to blacks and to whites, the challenges posed by the dream of a postracial society, and the far-from-simple symbolism of Obama as a leader of the Joshua generation in a country that has elected only three black senators and two black governors in its entire history.
Eschewing the critical excesses of both the left and the right, Kennedy offers a gimlet-eyed view of Obamaβs triumphs and travails, his strengths and weaknesses, as they pertain to the troubled history of race in America.
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