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The bridge-builders

Lookup NU author(s): Dr Daniel McNeil

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Abstract

David Remnick is well acquainted with the fallacious argument that Barack Obama’s election signalled the end of racism in America. Responding to “sentimental narratives” about the 44^th President of the United State of America, he has drawn on his contacts as editor of The New Yorker and developed a “piece of biographical journalism that, through interviews with his contemporaries and certain historical actors, examined Obama’s life before his Presidency and some of the historical currents that helped to form him” (586). In its 621 pages, The Bridge has room for Obama’s classmates, anecdotes about his family, CliffsNotes on African American autobiography, and American cultural gatekeepers who convey their opinions about race and Obama’s self-fashioning. However, it is unable, or unwilling, to admit activist-intellectuals such as Harold Cruse and Steve Biko, cultural critics who can illuminate Obama’s journey in Black and White as well as his carefully crafted civility.

Publication metadata

Author(s): McNeil D

Publication type: Review

Publication status: Published

Journal: Safundi: The Journal of South African and American Studies

Year: 2010

Volume: 11

Issue: 4

Pages: 459-464

Print publication date: 01/01/2010

ISSN (print): 1753-3171

ISSN (electronic): 1543-1304

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17533171.2010.511794

DOI: 10.1080/17533171.2010.511794

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