Class Notes ― Posing As Politics and Other Thoughts on the American Scene

Essays on labor and race from one of America's most provocative and insightful intellectuals. Adolph Reed, Jr. has earned a national reputation for his nuanced and often searing evaluations of American politics. In the nation's leading liberal journals, Reed advances an unapologetically leftist and antiracist view of American politics and culture. Reed begins this latest volume with a consideration of the theoretical and practical effect of the decline of the U.S. left over the last two decades. After considering the demoralized state of activist politics, he argues forcefully for a class-based political foundation for any progressive movement that can hope to succeed. Reed also writes with rare force and concreteness on the subject of race, discussing the morass of writing about the so-called underclass and looking frankly at relations between black men and women and between blacks and Jews. He examines the meaning of "race" itself, and the emergence and significance of the notion of "black public intellectuals."