Mixing It Up: Taking on the Media Bullies and Other Reflection

In this latest collection of essays, culled from the pages of the New York Times, Playboy, CounterPunch, and elsewhere, MacArthur fellow Ishmael Reed is at his most probing and fearless. Reed tackles subjects ranging from Oakland, eugenics, and domestic violence to the way gentrification is causing us to lose Black Harlem; and from the media portrayals of Michael Jackson and Kobe Bryant to a profile of legendary jazz saxophonist Sonny Rollins. The collection also includes his landmark essay in the Baltimore Sun, in which he was the first writer to label Bill Clinton a black president. In this important and stunning collection, one of Americas most forceful and eversurprising commentators paints a complex portrait of the media and its place in American culture.