A More Perfect Reunion: Race, Integration, and the Future of America

by Calvin Baker

Overview

A provocative case for integration as the single most radical, discomfiting idea in America, yet the only enduring solution to the racism that threatens our democracy.

Americans have prided ourselves on how far we've come from slavery, lynching, and legal segregation-measuring ourselves by incremental progress instead of by how far we have to go. But fifty years after the last meaningful effort toward civil rights, the US remains overwhelmingly segregated and unjust. Our current solutions — diversity, representation, and desegregation — are not enough.

As acclaimed writer Calvin Baker argues in this bracing, necessary book, we first need to envision a society no longer defined by the structures of race in order to create one. The only meaningful remedy is integration: the full self-determination and participation of all African-Americans, and all other oppressed groups, in every facet of national life. This is the deepest threat to the racial order and the real goal of civil rights.

At once a profound, masterful reading of US history from the colonial era forward and a trenchant critique of the obstacles in our current political and cultural moment, A More Perfect Reunion is also a call to action. As Baker reminds us, we live in a revolutionary democracy. We are one of the best-positioned generations in history to finish that revolution.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781568589237
Publisher:	PublicAffairs
Publication date:	06/30/2020
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Calvin Baker is the author of four novels, including Grace and Dominion, which was a finalist for the Hurston-Wright Award. He teaches in Columbia University's Graduate School of the Arts, and has also taught in the English Department at Yale University, the University of Leipzig, where he held the Picador Chair in American Studies, Long Island University, Graduate Department of English where he was a Distinguished Visiting Professor, Bard College, and Middlebury College. His nonfiction work has appeared in Harper's and the New York Times Magazine. He lives in Brooklyn.

Table of Contents

Preface 1

Introduction The Lie of Demographics 15

I The Shadow Before Memory 37

1 When We Were English 39

2 The Toll of Independence 53

3 Forgetting and Remembrance 71

4 The Land Without Memory 87

5 American Empire: From Periphery to Center 105

6 The Death of the Civil Rights Movement 121

II The Cold Civil War 141

7 Affirmative Action, Diversity, and Symbolism 147

8 The Mainstreaming of Black Music 163

9 Pastime 175

10 Hipsters in the City 195

11 This Is Us? Ambivalence and Representation 211

III In Light of the White Lion 231

Acknowledgments 251

Notes 255

Index 267

Editorial Reviews

04/13/2020

In this rich, meditative account, novelist Baker (Grace) identifies the current “backlash of white bigotry” following the election of the first African-American president as a moment of national reckoning akin to the Continental Congress, the Civil War, and the civil rights movement. In the process of examining why and how those earlier opportunities to “escape from the original sin and eternal problem of race” by fully integrating blacks and other minority groups into American society fell short, Baker offers a wide-ranging and erudite analysis of U.S. history, politics, and culture—from the arrival of the first slave ship at Port Comfort, Va., in 1619 to discriminatory policies built into FDR’s New Deal and an interracial adoption story line on the TV show This Is Us. He critiques identity politics (“my grievance versus your grievance”) on both the right and the left, and accuses liberals of preserving racist power structures by reaching compromises with white supremacists in order to advance piecemeal progressive reforms. Though Baker doesn’t make the mechanisms for “extend the full social contract” to African-Americans clear, he paints an incisive picture of the gaps—in wages, education, life expectancy, and criminal justice—that he says need to be closed in order for the promise of democracy to be fulfilled. This powerful call to action resonates. (June)

Publishers Weekly

"A rich, meditative account... Baker offers a wide-ranging and erudite analysis of U.S. history, politics, and culture.... This powerful call to action resonates."—Publishers Weekly

"Scholarly yet accessible, this book is a wake-up call for a country that would rather celebrate how far we've come than focus on how far we still have to go to eradicate racism. Required reading for any American serious about dismantling systemic racism."
—Kirkus (starred review)

"Contemplating social problems related to race, identity, civil rights and more, a novelist proposes that the simplest, most radical solution is the complete social integration of all minorities."—The New York Times Book Review

From the Publisher

★ 2020-03-22
An impassioned analysis of America’s failure at racial integration as a failure of democracy.

Decades after the many successes of the civil rights movement, why hasn’t America dismantled racism? According to Baker, a novelist who has taught at a variety of universities, it’s because we’ve never employed the only real solution to the problem: integration. The author argues that integration is “the most radical, transformative idea in US politics,” once properly understood, and he endeavors successfully to deliver that understanding. This is not an easy task considering that many Americans are invested in the systems that “perpetuate racism,” but Baker provides plenty of illuminating examples to bolster his argument: A company hires diversity consultants but won’t diversify its C-suite. We want to end the national crisis of school desegregation, but we shrink from the idea of busing. Baker defines integration as full rights of self-determination and participation for all black Americans and other groups historically excluded by race, “in every facet of national life.” A gifted storyteller, the author writes with the urgency of what’s at stake—i.e., the very survival of our democracy. Denying black people rights has been the “flaw in the design of America we have been struggling to resist” for 400 years, and Baker dissects critical junctures in the nation’s history when integration could have ameliorated racism, from the Continental Congress through the election of the first black president. He offers incisive analysis on a variety of topics, including politics, sports, gentrification, and pop culture, and he examines such pivotal figures as Shakespeare, Frederick Douglass, the Black Panthers, Public Enemy, and Colin Kaepernick. Scholarly yet accessible, this book is a wake-up call for a country that would rather celebrate how far we’ve come than focus on how far we still have to go to eradicate racism.

Required reading for any American serious about dismantling systemic racism.

Kirkus Reviews

Landon Woodson’s quiet confidence is a great vehicle for expressing the perspective that permeates this important audiobook about racism. The young actor connects in a balanced way with the author’s mission to call out the realities of slavery and the rationales, denials, and hypocracy associated with its continuing effects on African-Americans. Woodson’s matter-of-fact tone helps listeners absorb these realities with equanimity. The author is a novelist, essayist, and literature teacher who says race is an obsolete concept, a loosely applied type of class distinction. Based on meticulous historical research, his latest book is an accessible account of racial subjugation and marginalization as it’s been practiced across the globe. The blend of this balanced writing and the narrator’s approach make this a go-to audio for anyone desiring enlightenment about these issues. T.W. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

JULY 2020 - AudioFile

Landon Woodson’s quiet confidence is a great vehicle for expressing the perspective that permeates this important audiobook about racism. The young actor connects in a balanced way with the author’s mission to call out the realities of slavery and the rationales, denials, and hypocracy associated with its continuing effects on African-Americans. Woodson’s matter-of-fact tone helps listeners absorb these realities with equanimity. The author is a novelist, essayist, and literature teacher who says race is an obsolete concept, a loosely applied type of class distinction. Based on meticulous historical research, his latest book is an accessible account of racial subjugation and marginalization as it’s been practiced across the globe. The blend of this balanced writing and the narrator’s approach make this a go-to audio for anyone desiring enlightenment about these issues. T.W. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

JULY 2020 - AudioFile