Loury's biography deserves quite a bit of discussion. I've written more and that's yet to come. My preliminary conclusion is that Loury was seduced by becoming a 'master of the universe'. And as such it was relatively easy for him to embody some of those Southside Players. He really did idolize them. They truly were his people. He thus was seduced into that racial role of 'black leader'. Yet even as it was happening to him, he felt its discomfort.
But his game with the reader is brilliant in a way. It's like those rap producers shouting out on records so that their work can't be appropriated, even though they themselves are sampling. Loury cannot be biographied into someone else's agenda. And so long as blackness exists, somebody gets to blather on about whether or not Loury is a proper black man. Well, now he told us all exactly what kind of man. What can we do with that? I think we can try to be more honest about who we are, and who we pretend to be when a racial seduction is offered. In some cases he took it. In other cases he resisted it. But you get the undeniable sense that he did wtf he wanted to do, that he was always aware of his choices and he made them and lived with them. NOT that 'as a black man, he was a product of his environment'.
Loury was and is a rock star. That's a risky profession.
Let’s talk a little more about Loury’s autobiography.
I agree that his relating how the academic sausage is made is interesting and informative. He went back and forth a bunch on black identity politics.
He has re-defined what a candid admission is. Many would have taken many of the things he confesses to the grave.
It’s because of the nature and number of these candid admissions that I will take him at his word on why he went back and forth.
He was right on in his intro. He buys the reader’s belief in all his statements by his many, many statements against his own interest.
Loury's biography deserves quite a bit of discussion. I've written more and that's yet to come. My preliminary conclusion is that Loury was seduced by becoming a 'master of the universe'. And as such it was relatively easy for him to embody some of those Southside Players. He really did idolize them. They truly were his people. He thus was seduced into that racial role of 'black leader'. Yet even as it was happening to him, he felt its discomfort.
But his game with the reader is brilliant in a way. It's like those rap producers shouting out on records so that their work can't be appropriated, even though they themselves are sampling. Loury cannot be biographied into someone else's agenda. And so long as blackness exists, somebody gets to blather on about whether or not Loury is a proper black man. Well, now he told us all exactly what kind of man. What can we do with that? I think we can try to be more honest about who we are, and who we pretend to be when a racial seduction is offered. In some cases he took it. In other cases he resisted it. But you get the undeniable sense that he did wtf he wanted to do, that he was always aware of his choices and he made them and lived with them. NOT that 'as a black man, he was a product of his environment'.
Loury was and is a rock star. That's a risky profession.