Welcome to Fantom Island, where iLL-Literacy's legend finds its habitat. If you've happened upon this portal, may we be as bold as to assert that nested in you is a healthy curiosity. Whether you were drawn here by the Slanted i at this page's 1-o-clock, the quick flash of during loading, or simply because you have a click-happy finger – you've arrived. HihowRUhi?
The peculiar thing about Fantom Island is that it is but a mirage – an Imaginary oasis isolated in the confines of our brainwaves. We shall gradually reveal morsels of our folklore here, so please visit often. To return, simply bring your Imagination as your passport.
Fantom Island
READ: Adam Mansbach "The Audacity of Post-Racism"
Our good friend Adam Mansbach has been a key facilitator in conversations with race, hip-hop, and white privilege with his acclaimed books Angry Black White Boy and The End of the Jews, and is also the editor-in-chief of the upcoming book of essays The Audacity of Post-Racism, which Nico‘s also an editor for! (in the sociopolitical literature arena, having Adam as the editor-in-chief is as big as having Diddy as your executive producer, except instead of adlibs you get grammar checks)
Adam gives a sneak peek of what’s to come with his article of the same name, where he explores the concept of the “post-racism” society that some have assumed that we are a part of with the election of Barack Obama, and dissects the weight behind Barack’s speech “Toward a More Perfect Union” as well as black and Jewish relations in America.
In today’s climate where we can have a mixed-race President while simultaneously a Black Harvard can get arrested for breaking into his own home, Adam prompts a vital discussion.
An excerpt:
The soft-focus abstraction of racial realities goes beyond Obama’s speech. It has been a hallmark of the entire presidential campaign, with its musings on whether Obama is too black, black enough, or ‘post-race.’ Naturally, one must be black to be ‘post-race,’ for the same reason that no one thought to ask whether Hillary Clinton or Mitt Romney was too white or not white enough. The purpose of abstracting race is to obscure racism, to elide the fact that a black person is never so lacking in blackness – culturally, personally, politically, or by any other standard – to find himself exempt from discrimination.
Read the whole article at Davey D’s blog.
