About this item
"THE SMARTEST BOOK OF THE YEAR" (THE WASHINGTON POST) In these provocative, powerful essays acclaimed writer/journalist Jeff Chang (Can't Stop Won't Stop, Who We Be) takes an incisive and wide-ranging look at the recent tragedies and widespread protests that have shaken the country. Through deep reporting with key activists and thinkers, passionately personal writing, and distinguished cultural criticism, We Gon' Be Alright links #BlackLivesMatter to #OscarsSoWhite, Ferguson to Washington D.C., the Great Migration to resurgent nativism. Chang explores the rise and fall of the idea of "diversity," the roots of student protest, changing ideas about Asian Americanness, and the impact of a century of racial separation in housing. He argues that resegregation is the unexamined condition of our time, the undoing of which is key to moving the nation forward to racial justice and cultural equity.
About the Author
Jeff Chang has written extensively on culture, politics, the arts, and music. His first book, Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation, garnered many honors, including the American Book Award and the Asian American Literary Award. He edited the book, Total Chaos: The Art and Aesthetics of Hip-Hop. Who We Be: The Colorization of America, was released on St. Martin's Press in October 2014. His next book, We Gon' Be Alright: Notes on Race and Resegregation (Picador) will be out in September 2016. He is currently at work on a biography of Bruce Lee (Little, Brown) .Jeff has been a USA Ford Fellow in Literature. He was named by The Utne Reader as one of "50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World," by KQED as an Asian Pacific American Local Hero, and by the Yerba Buena Center for The Arts to its 2016 YBCA 100 list of those "shaping the future of American culture. " He has also been a winner of the North Star News Prize, and the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association's Ray & Pat Browne Award for Best Single Work by One or More Authors in Popular Culture and American Culture. With H. Samy Alim, he received the St. Clair Drake Teaching Award at Stanford University. Jeff co-founded CultureStr/ke and ColorLines. He has written for The Nation, the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Guardian, The Believer, Foreign Policy, N 1, Mother Jones, Salon, Slate, Buzzfeed, and Medium, among many others. Born and raised in Honolulu, Hawai'i, he is a graduate of 'Iolani School, the University of California at Berkeley, and the University of California at Los Angeles. He serves as the Executive Director of the Institute for Diversity in the Arts at Stanford University.
