New Book By Author Brings Fresh Look To Multiculturalism Debate

Fear of a "Black" America
Multiculturalism and the African American Experience
by Donald Earl Collins

Fear is the glue that holds together every American discussion of race and diversity, past and present. With a style that is at once accessible and provocative, freelance writer and "recovering academic" Donald Earl Collins tells the story of multiculturalism's death-like state because of its association with African Americans. Fear is the underlying reason for misreading multiculturalism as a "Black thing" that could destroy the fabric of American culture. He traces an important trajectory of American cultural thought in the lives of African Americans, in the lines of Black intellectuals and writers, and in the labels of White conservatives.

Fear of a "Black" America consists of two themes. One is demonstrating the historical connections between multiculturalism and African Americans. Although multiculturalism has had many supporters, cultural equality has always been a tough pill for highbrow American culture, mainstream Americans, and many elite African Americans to swallow. But there is also much evidence that many African Americans acknowledged their unique experience as Blacks and how this has contributed to the overall American experience, not to mention their own lives.

The book's other theme centers on the more recent battles over multiculturalism among African Americans and in the mainstream public arena. Through conservative voices, the media killed multiculturalism with the pen and the microphone, stretching the term as if it were bubblegum while raising a hellfire of fear against it. By labeling multiculturalism as "Black," "evil," and "divisive," these forces killed multiculturalism in the American public discourse, even as employers, school districts, and colleges and universities began to use the idea to address their increasingly diverse workforces and classrooms. Multiculturalism is similar to a ghost, neither fully dead nor alive, but in need of a resting place within America's multicultural future.

Donald Earl Collins has used his gifts as a writer and intellectual to dig beyond the dense jargon and palpable fear around multiculturalism. He has created a work that reveals the nuances of American cultural misunderstanding and a historical guide for avoiding them.

Donald Earl Collins is a freelance writer who has published in Black Issues in Higher Education, Gannett Suburban Newspapers, History of Education Quarterly, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Washington Post, and Radical Society. Collins earned his Ph.D. in History at Carnegie Mellon University, and serves as an adjunct professor at George Washington University. He lives in Silver Spring, Maryland with his wife and one-year-old son.

Publisher: IUniverse.com
Publication Date: August 27, 2004
ISBN: 0-595-32552-1
Price: $16.95, Paperback
Where to Order/Purchase: http://www.BarnesandNoble.com, http://Amazon.com , http://www.BooksaMillion.com

Author/Book Website: http://www.fearofablackamerica.com