Book Description

There are no simple answers, only oversimplified ones. But the cure to all social ills lies in uncovering the truth. In this unflinching, timely, wide-ranging collection of essays, professor William Cobb lays bare the black experience of the past decade using cinema, music, literature, politics, and pop culture. "On the Stroll: The Pimping of Three 6 Mafia" is a fascinating take on the first hip-hop group ever to win an Oscar. Cobb lambastes the group for flaunting onstage every stereotype that the movie they performed in (Hustle and Flow) so carefully and brilliantly avoided. In "The Trouble with Harry," Cobb argues that Harry Belafonte's absence from the funeral of forty-year friend Coretta Scott King is a tragedy, and Martin Luther King's children should be ashamed of themselves. In "The Devil and Dave Chappelle" Cobb discusses Chappelle's decision to walk away from a $50 million contract as not just a comedic choice but also as a social and political choice. Chappelle's humor was largely an "inside joke" shared among blacks. When his audience grew, he felt that a line had been crossed. This new audience was laughing at him. Not with him. Chappelle realized that one wrong laugh could put him on the wrong side of the line between genius and Uncle Tom. From the "too smart" irony of Dave Chappelle to the cultural relocation of Bessemer, Alabama; from the gift and curse of the first generation of black prosperity to the failure of history to act as a guide for the present; Cobb reflects on the post--civil rights era with fondness and hope, concern and caution.