American Skin: Pop Culture, Big Business, and the End of White America

by Leon E. Wynter

Book Overview

Race has always been America's first standard and central paradox. From the start, America based its politics on the principle of white supremacy, but it has always lived and dreamed of itself in color. The truth beneath the contradiction has finally emerged and led us to the threshold of a transformation of American identity as profound as slavery was defining. We live in a country where the "King of Pop" was born black and a leading rap M.C. is...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0609604899
• ISBN13: 9780609604892
• Release Date: June 2002
• Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY)
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 1.27 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.3" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

An intriguing look on the "beige-ing" of America

Leon E. Wynter details the bumpy journey of how race has impacted advertising, marketing and media in America, especially in the last 20 years. He gives a detailed, thoughtful history of the black experience through minstrelsy, vaudeville and jazz and its ultimate digestion into white entertainment. This is especially helpful as he discusses the "whiteness" of 50s advertising and how the battles of the 60s began to change the playing field. I especially enjoyed his examination of the rebirth of the NBA, including his review of NBA commissioner David Stern's strategies to make the league the center of attention again. He also looks into the undeniable impact of Bill Cosby, Michael Jordan and Michael Jackson on whites' perceptions of blacks. His chapter on the transracial explosion in advertising is very eye opening, reaffirming many of my own observations. I especially liked his chapter on the Hey, Kids! who readily accept a multi-cultural world as the norm, unlike their parents. As a white 30-something female, I didn't see the racist overtones others seemed to find. I found the author to be refreshingly frank and open, and often upbeat. He clearly knows the world he's talking about, having covered it for the Wall Street Journal for 10 years. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in how the picture on the TV screen and the voices on the radio have drastically changed over the last 20 years, and where they're going next.

Insight precedes Foresight

Well Done!, Leon Wynter!I've just finished reading "American Skin," and have takenthe time and trouble to express to others (something Irarely do) how thoroughly I enjoyed and appreciated this book.As a 72-year-old WASP Hillbilly (born and bred in theAppalachian Hills of Southeastern Ohio), I well remembermany of the radio and early television examples you cite.As a sometime journalist/wordsmith, I've long thought aboutmedia and society.As you analyzed examples of which I have personal memory,the AHA! button went off, giving me -- after all these years --fresh insights into all sorts of things.While I expect some of your points are overdrawn, it strikesme that your overall thesis -- the subsuming of race in ourincreasingly commerce-dominated culture -- is right on the money.That, of course, is the Bad News AND the Good News. Unlesswe are destined to decline and fade into an altogethercommercial culture -- something I doubt, though that maybe a hope rather than an estimate -- the arenas and meansfor pursuing what Walter Lippman decades ago labelledThe Public Interest -- will have to find its wellsprings inother sources.WELL DONE! CONGRATULATIONS!!

American Skin

For some reason, I just couldn't put this book down. But don't take that as a good thing. And don't be fooled by the more professional reviews on this book: it is about nothing more than the story of how blacks form a style, and whites steal it and make it mainstream. The book is written as a dissortation (intentionally, I don't know), and reeks of large (sometimes fictional) words, surrounded by quotes and passages from other books and authors. When Wynter does speak on his own, he usually drifts off into racist banter (yes, black people can be racist, too) that concludes with an anticlimatic summary of his main point: Blacks are the true Americans. I give it 4 stars because it is a deep, elaborate history of most things pop culture, and is definitely a book from which many ideas can be learned; and, as I said, I couldn't put it down. You almost want to read it to find out the next claim he will make, and the chosen media he picks to support himself. If the colors were reversed, the book would be banned for being too racist, but try and get past the gross editing errors ad enjoy the history.