Class Notes: Posing as Politics and Other Thoughts on the American Scene

by Adolph L. Reed Jr.

Book Overview

The classic and deeply prescient collection that explores the multifaceted nature of race, class, and identity in America, from one of our most insightful and iconoclastic intellectuals

Hailed by Publishers Weekly for its "forceful" and "bracing opinions on race and politics," Class Notes is a collection of critic Adolph Reed Jr.'s clearest thinking on matters of race, class, and other American dilemmas. With barbed wit, Reed takes aim against the solipsistic, individualistic approaches of identity politics, and in favor of class-based political interpretation and action. Reed leaves no topic untouched, from the myth that there exists a particular kind of "Black Anti-Semitism," to the grift perpetuated by commentators who claim to speak for groups solely based on their identity categories.

Adolph Reed Jr. remains one of our most controversial and necessary interpreters of American politics. These essays illustrate why Reed is "the smartest person of any race, class, or gender writing on race, class, and gender" (Katha Pollitt). Class Notes is a classic text that signposts a path for the Left-out of essentialist gridlock and into meaningful, goal-oriented mass politics.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1565846753
• ISBN13: 9781565846753
• Release Date: July 2001
• Publisher: New Press
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.62 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

refreshingly intelligent

It's really wondeful to read someone who is committed to both class-based politics and electoral politics. Though I did have my disagreements with some of his arguments, I appreciated reading someone who was neither blithe nor bleak about the possibility of social change.

Class Notes: Posing as Politics

Adolph Reed looks at issues, getting past media representations and demagoguery to consistently, doggedly return the reader to the fact that poverty is not the fault of the poor, and the only way to improve things is to do the hard work of organizing active political bodies and force change. He is succinct, accurate, and appropriately scathing. Give this book to someone who gets their politics via the major media; it should at least make him or her angry.

Forceful and Honest

"Class Notes" should be read by everyone, especially those who identify with the left and care about the state of black politics. Reed maintains that he is toward the statist end of the left and he debunks the current conservative ideology that "Big government" is a failure. But Reed saves his best ammunition for so-called black leaders and intellectuals such as Louis Farrakhan,Jesse Jackson,Cornel West,and Henry Louis Gates Jr. In order for any progressive movement to succeced it needs to be class-based, but with a concern for those still suffering discrimination. This book is essential reading.