Black Cool: One Thousand Streams of Blackness

by Rebecca Walker (Editor), Henry Louis Gates Jr. (Foreword by)

Overview

Soft Skull Press proudly offers this tenth-anniversary edition of visionary essays exploring the glory and power of Black Cool, curated by thought leader and bestselling author Rebecca Walker, with a foreword by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Originally published in 2012, this collection of illuminating essays exploring the ineffable and protean aesthetics of Black Cool has been widely cited for its contribution to much of the contemporary discussion of the influence of Black Cool on culture, politics, and power around the world.

Curated by Rebecca Walker, and drawing on her lifelong study of the African roots of Black Cool and its expression within the African diaspora, this collection identifies ancestral elements often excluded from colloquial understandings of Black Cool: cultivated reserve, coded resistance, intentional audacity, transcendent intellectual and spiritual rigor, intentionally disruptive eccentricity, and more.

With essays by some of America’s most innovative Black thinkers, including visual artist Hank Willis Thomas, writer and filmmaker dream hampton, MacArthur-winning photographer Dawoud Bey, fashion legend Michaela angela Davis, and critical theorist and cultural icon bell hooks, Black Cool offers an excavation of the African roots of Cool and its hitherto undefined legacy in American culture and beyond.

This edition includes a new introduction from Rebecca Walker, a powerful meditation on the genesis, creation, completion, and subsequent impact of this landmark volume over the last decade.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781593764173
Publisher:	Catapult
Publication date:	02/07/2012
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Rebecca Walker has contributed to the global conversation about race, gender, power, and the evolution of the human family for three decades. Since graduating from Yale, she has authored and edited seven bestselling books on subjects ranging from intergenerational feminism and multiracial identity to Black Cool and ambivalent motherhood, and written dozens of articles on topics as varied as Barack Obama’s masculinity, the work of visual artist Ana Mendieta, and the changing configuration of the American family.

Walker has won many awards, including the Women Who Could Be President Award from the League of Women Voters, was named by Time magazine as one of the most influential leaders of her generation, and continues to teach her masterclass, "The Art of Memoir," at gorgeous and inspiring places around the world.

Table of Contents

Foreword Henry Louis Gates, Jr IX

Introduction Rebecca Walker XI

Audacity dream hampton 1

The Geek Mat Johnson 11

Crazy Rachel M. Harper 19

Reserve Helena Andrews 29

The Hipster Dayo Olopade 39

The Break Valorie Thomas 47

Resistance Michaela angela Davis 59

Forever bell hooks 71

Hunger Veronica Chambers 81

Eccentricity Margo Jefferson 89

Soul Hank Willis Thomas 97

Authenticity Staceyann Chin 111

The Scream Ulli K. Ryder 121

Evolution Miles Marshall Lewis 129

The Posse Esther Armah .137

Swagger Dawoud Bey 147

Editorial Reviews

"Rebecca Walker’s slim anthology gives itself a formidable task: pinning down the elusive definitions of 'Black Cool,' an aesthetic and a philosophy that echoes across the African diaspora . . . The book’s tone shifts as fluidly as its focus does, and many of the writers lace their cultural diagnoses with personal anecdotes and vice versa. Originally released in 2012, the 10th-anniversary reissue provides not just scrutiny into the titular phenomenon but also a kind of time capsule from the recent past." —Nicole Acheampong, The Atlantic

From the Publisher

A collection of essays focused on the "cool" cultural legacy of African-Americans. In her latest work, writer/editor Rebecca Walker (Baby Love: Choosing Motherhood After a Lifetime of Ambivalence, 2007, etc.) assembles the writings of 16 prominent thinkers in an attempt to define "Black Cool," a phrase utilized to encompass African-American's self-confidence and swagger. Staceyann Chin's "Authenticity" recounts her coming-of-age in Jamaica, during which she stumbled upon the healing powers of cool. "My newfound swagger sustained me through the rest of my teens," she writes. "It nurtured an unyielding sense of self that served me well when I moved from Montego Bay to attend college in Kingston." In "Geek," Mat Johnson defines black cool by describing how it feels to lack it. A self-tagged "black geek"), he admits that "[b]lackness can be a rigid, didactic identity, with people stepping out of line facing ridicule and admonishment or worse: condemnation." Yet Hank Willis Thomas argues that black cool needn't be naturally possessed; it's simply a commodity for purchase: "A crisp, clean pair of brand spanking new Air Jordan sneakers was a supreme status symbol for anyone who wanted to be cool and ‘down with the streets.' " Thomas takes the intangible concept of black cool and quite skillfully grounds it between a pair of Nike swooshes." While the aforementioned essays employ personal anecdotes to spur thoughtful debate, a few of the pieces feel tonally at-odds with the rest. This is particularly true of Michaela Angela Davis' contribution, which reads more like a fiery manifesto in which she makes clear that non-blacks can never possess "our cool ass Black style." It's an interesting concept, but the author's informality and defensive tone proves less successful than the collection's subtler pieces. Other contributors include Margo Jefferson, Veronica Chambers, Dawoud Bey and the ubiquitous Henry Louis Gates Jr., who provides the foreword. An occasionally unbalanced yet probing collection grappling with the true meaning of "Black Cool."

Kirkus Reviews