Introduction : is America a nation of cowards or has Attorney General Eric Holder lost his mind? -- The teaching moment that never was : Henry Louis Gates, Barack Obama, and the post-racial dilemma -- "I know what's in his heart" : enlightened exceptionalism and the problem with using Barack Obama as the racial litmus test for Black progress and achievement -- The audacity of Reverend Wright : speaking truth to power in the twenty-first century -- Setting the record straight : why Barack Obama and America cannot afford to ignore a Black agenda -- Pull yourself up by your bootstraps : Barack Obama, the Black poor, and the problems of racial common sense thinking
Summary
In a speech from which Nation of Cowards derives its title, Attorney General Eric Holder argued forcefully that Americans today need to talk more-not less-about racism. This appeal for candid talk about race exposes the paradox of Barack Obama's historic rise to the US presidency and the ever-increasing social and economic instability of African American communities. David H. Ikard and Martell Lee Teasley maintain that such a conversation can take place only with passionate and organized pressure from black Americans, and that neither Obama nor any political figure is likely to be in the fo
