Leaving “Black” Behind

(Chicago Reader) — Have black folks left “blackness” behind? Local writer (and sometime Reader contributor) Ytasha L. Womack thinks so. In her new book, Post Black: How A New Generation Is Redefining African American Identity, she makes the case that the old ways of imagining African-Americans fail to encompass the dazzling diversity that now characterizes the community.

“There has always been diversity in the African-American community,” Womack told me the other day. “But now, because of so many hard struggles, we have so much more opportunity. The number of college graduates is significantly larger than ever before, African and Caribbean immigration has increased, there’s more interracial coupling. And these are just some of the reasons for a postblack reality.”

Read More…