The Artificial White Man: Essays on Authenticity

255 Pages·2004·0.608 MB·2004

by  Stanley Crouch

crouch 6/23/06 11:53 AM Page 1
CULTURAL STUDIES/AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES C
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“A sight for sore eyes. This is Crouch’s best, most expansive
A bracing examination of the problem of authenticity in America—in O
U collection of essays since his first, Notes of a Hanging Judge.”
racial politics, the arts, and media—from one of our most important and
C —The Nation
galvanizing intellectual firebrands.
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“Both vital and serious.” —THE WEEKLY STANDARD h
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“An essay by Stanley Crouch is guaranteed to be an event for the reader:
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The author’s personality, his persona, manifests itself with such force r
that one is compelled to enter into a kind of active dialogue…Crouch is t
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at his acute best in praise; his writing is animated and stimulating—even f
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if one disagrees—bringing the reader along as he figures out why he
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loves something.” —THE WASHINGTON POST i
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“The Artificial White Mangrades out highly, if only for offering endlessly
w
refreshing takes on some age-old stand-offs.”
–QUARTERLY BLACK REVIEW h
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“Stanley Crouch is a fearless writer to learn from, and proves again that he e
is one of the greatest cultural critics straddling the twentieth and twenty-
m
first centuries.” —CHARLES JOHNSON
National Book Award-winning author of Middle Passage a
n
STANLEY CROUCH is a columnist, novelist, essayist, and television
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commentator. He has served since 1987 as an artistic consultant at s
s
Lincoln Center and is a co-founder of the department known as Jazz at a
y
s
Lincoln Center. He is the author of Notes of a Hanging Judgeand The
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All-American Skin Game, among other titles. He lives in New York City. n t h e a r t i f i c i a l w hi t e m a n

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STA N L E Y C R O U C H
A Member of the Perseus Books Group
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the artificial white man
Also by Stanley Crouch
Nonfiction
Reconsidering the Souls of Black Folk (with Playthell Benjamin)
One Shot Harris: The Photographs of Charles “Teenie” Harris
Always in Pursuit: Fresh American Perspectives
Notes of a Hanging Judge
The All-American Skin Game, or, The Decoy of Race
Fiction
Don’t the Moon Look Lonesome
the artificial white man
essays on authenticity
S TA N L E Y C R O U C H
A Member of the Perseus Books Group
New York
Portions of this book originally appeared in the following:
“Baby Boy”appeared as “A Lost Generation and Its Exploiters”in The New York
Times.Copyright © 2001 by The New York Times Co.Reprinted with permission.
“Appetite Is the Main Course”is reprinted from volume 4,number 1 of Literary
Imagination: The Review of the Association of Literary Scholars and Critics,© 2002.“The
Novel as Blues Suite”is reprinted from volume 5,number 1 of Literary Imagination,
© 2003.Used by permission of the Association of Literary Scholars and Critics.
“Don’t Be Like Mike”appeared in The New York Observer.
A portion of “Most Vote for Literary Segregation,Others Don’t”first appeared,
in slightly different form,in the Los Angeles Times.
Copyright © 2004 by Stanley Crouch
Hardcover edition first published in 2004 by Basic CivitasBooks,
A Member of the Perseus Books Group
Paperback edition first published in 2005 by Basic Civitas
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this
book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission
except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
For information, address Basic Civitas Books, 387 Park Avenue South, New
York,NY 10016-8810.
Books published by Basic Civitasare available at special discounts for bulk pur-
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For more information, please contact the Special Markets Department at the
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252-5298 or [phone],or e-mail [email protected].
Designed by Lisa Kreinbrink
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Crouch,Stanley.
The artificial white man :essays on authenticity / Stanley Crouch.
p.cm.
Includes index.
ISBN-13:978-0-465-01515-3 (hc);ISBN-10:0-465-01515-8 (hc)
1.Race relations in mass media. 2.Mass media—United States. I.Title.
P94.5.M552U6275 2004
305.8—dc22 2004011998
Paperback:ISBN-13:978-0-465-01516-0;ISBN-10:0-465-01516-6
05 06 07 / 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To my daughter

Contents
Introduction 1
Baby Boy Blues 7
Segregated Fiction Blues 15
Blues Plate Special 51
Blues at the Top 65
Blues for the Artificial White Man 77
The Novel as Blues Suite 101
The Late,Late Blues:Jazz Modernism 121
Blues in More Than One Color:
The Films of Quentin Tarantino 135
Blues to Go 207
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 229
INDEX 231

the artificial white man