What's Wrong with Obamamania?: Black America, Black Leadership, and the Death of Political Imagination

I found this book on the new book shelves at the library the other day. I opted to read the first page or two and ultimately checked it out and read it. While I don't completely agree with everything that the author argues, he does bring up some valid points. It's clear from the title of the book that he has not drank the Obama kool-aid and gives various reasons why there should be more introspection regarding the support, if not hagiography, of Barack Obama. The book is definitely timely; however, given the convention is just next week and the election is less than 10 weeks away, so many of us either have to disregard a book like this or read and move forward with support of the presumptive nominee. I will suggest the book to others and might even assign a section of it (the Du Bois discussion is provocative). The audience for this book is wide- I think a lay audience and an academic audience will enjoy it.

The 2008 US Presidential election contains an interesting political dynamic. The Republican nominee, John McCain (b. 1936), marks a return of the GOP to the Nixonian Republicanism of the 1960s. The Democratic nominee, Barack Obama (b. 1961), marks a continuance of the pragmatic descendent of 1960s Leftism that has dominated the party since the rise of Bill Clinton. A little-reported occurrence is that the more radical Left of the Democratic Party has become increasingly disenchanted with Barack Obama. This book is an outgrowth of that phenomenon. Associate-Professor of Pan-African Studies, Ricky L. Jones, as a member of the academic Left takes aim at Barack Obama and the modern African-American leadership. In it, he argues that, since the 1960s, the leadership of the African-American community has changed heavily, and not for the better. Overall, I found this to be an interesting and thought-provoking read. "Yes, Barack Obama is black enough, but..." I think that you should consider reading this radically different book.