Presence

I happened to be watching The Today show on Martin Luther King Day (observed), and saw an interview with Robert Louis Gates, Jr., a professor at Harvard University, who recently published a book entitled "America Behind the Color Line" about the divisions in the black community in the US. MSNBC has an excerpt online, which I'm still reading. According to the interview on the Today show, the book is really meant to accompany an documentary that is airing sometime in the next month (not sure where or when).

The book looks interesting; it's a topic that intrigues me, mainly because I live in Baltimore (growing up on the mean streets of the NoPo/MoCo suburbs didn't really provide exposure to these issues). Despite the author's credentials, which are top-notch as far as I can tell, I'm a tad skeptical. Something about the mass-marketing of the book sets off alarms that there wont be much conveyed that I don't alreay know. I'm sure it's available at the library so I'll probably check it out.