Airing Dirty Laundry

What's great about Ishmael Reed as a polemicist is that he actually thoroughly researches his facts, so when he holds forth about media distortions of rates of (eg) crack use among white suburbanites, black working-class single mothers being falsely projected as the archetypal welfare-claimants etc, he's not just venting inchoate rage. The introductory section of this book is a masterpiece of close analysis, the individual essays ranging from the interesting to the excellent. His claims about the contemptible misrepresentation of black men in America in huge swathes of the media are, I think, true - and at the least, convincingly argued. His style is clear, direct and accessible. A very good read, & I think the best of his books of collected non-fiction.