Racism 101 - Hardcover

Nikki Giovanni is a professor of English at Virginia Polytechnic.

Giovanni's status as a best-selling black woman poet seems, even 25 years after Black Feeling, Black Talk, still to half-baffle and half-delight the publishing world. Her sixteenth book, a real dynamo, will also arouse mixed reactions, but that's pure Giovanni, who is always herself whether anyone likes it or not. This potent group of essays varies in tone from breezy to vehement and covers a mind-tingling assortment of topics that all relate in one way or another to being a black American, or as Giovanni prefers, a "Black american," a usage she explains in "Black Is the Noun." Currently a professor at Virginia Polytechnic, Giovanni has a lot to say about the African American community and education, the value of a historical perspective, and the essentiality of stories and writing. In her more meditative pieces, Giovanni recalls her childhood and years at Fisk University and admits to being a die-hard Trekker and an unrepentant smoker. She sings the praises of Toni Morrison and Dr. Mae Carol Jemison, the first black woman astronaut, and muses over why freed slaves chose to stay in the land of their oppressors. Then she takes off her gloves and goes after Clarence Thomas and other black conservatives for their rejection of affirmative action. She also absolutely shreds Spike Lee's Malcolm X, grieves over the fact more black men study in jail than in college, and in a scathing bit of satire, mocks the complacency of white women. Giovanni is a shrewd observer and an exhilarating essayist, modulating her tone from chummy to lethal, hilarious to sagacious as smoothly as a race-car driver shifts gears. Donna Seaman