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Sellout

The Politics of Racial Betrayal

The Politics of Racial Betrayal

The Politics of Racial Betrayal

By Randall Kennedy

By Randall Kennedy

By Randall Kennedy

By Randall Kennedy

By Randall Kennedy
Read by Tovah Ott

By Randall Kennedy
Read by Tovah Ott

Best Seller
Paperback $19.00

Jan 06, 2009 | ISBN 9780307388421

Ebook $6.99

Jan 08, 2008 | ISBN 9780307377203

Audiobook Download $15.00

Jul 13, 2021 | 357 Minutes

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    Sellout by Randall Kennedy
    Paperback $19.00
    Jan 06, 2009 | ISBN 9780307388421

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    • $19.00

      Jan 06, 2009 | ISBN 9780307388421

      Buy from Other Retailers:

    • Jan 08, 2008 | ISBN 9780307377203

      Buy from Other Retailers:

    • Jul 13, 2021 | ISBN 9780593416037

      357 Minutes

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    About Sellout

    An incisive and unflinching study from the national bestselling author of Say it Loud! that tackles a stigma of America’s racial discourse: selling out.

    “Brisk and enjoyable, no small feat given the density of its ideas.”—Los Angeles Times

    Randall Kennedy explains the origins of the concept of selling out, and shows how fear of this label has haunted prominent members of the black community—including, most recently, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, and Barack Obama. Sellout also contains a rigorously fair case study of America’s quintessential racial “sellout”—Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. In the book’s final section, Kennedy recounts how he himself has dealt with accusations of being a sellout.

    About Sellout

    An incisive and unflinching study from the national bestselling author of Say it Loud! that tackles a stigma of America’s racial discourse: selling out.

    “Brisk and enjoyable, no small feat given the density of its ideas.”—Los Angeles Times

    Randall Kennedy explains the origins of the concept of selling out, and shows how fear of this label has haunted prominent members of the black community—including, most recently, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, and Barack Obama. Sellout also contains a rigorously fair case study of America’s quintessential racial “sellout”—Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. In the book’s final section, Kennedy recounts how he himself has dealt with accusations of being a sellout.

    About Sellout

    In the wake of his controversial national best-seller, Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word, Randall Kennedy grapples brilliantly and judiciously with another stigma of our racial discourse: "selling out," or racial betrayal, which is a subject of much anxiety and acrimony in Black America. He atomizes the vicissitudes of the term and shows how its usage bedevils blacks and whites, while elucidating the effects it has on individuals and on our society as a whole.

    Kennedy begins his exploration of selling out with a cogent, historical definition of the "black" community, accounting precisely for who is considered black and who is not. He looks at the ways in which prominent members of that community–Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, and Barack Obama, among others–have been stigmatized as sellouts. He outlines the history of the suspicion of racial betrayal among blacks, and he shows how current fears of selling out are expressed in thought and practice. He offers a rigorous and bracing case study of the quintessential "sellout"–Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, perhaps the most vilified black public official in American history. And he gives is a first-person reckoning of how he himself has dealt with accusations of having sold out at Harvard, especially after the publication of Nigger.

    Lucidly and powerfully articulated, Sellout is essential to any discussion of the troubled history of race in America.

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    Listen to a sample from Sellout

    Also by Randall Kennedy

    Say It Loud!
    Nigger
    For Discrimination
    The Persistence of the Color Line
    Interracial Intimacies
    See all books by Randall Kennedy

    Also by Randall Kennedy

    Say It Loud!
    Nigger
    For Discrimination
    The Persistence of the Color Line
    Interracial Intimacies
    See all books by Randall Kennedy

    Also by Randall Kennedy

    Say It Loud!
    Nigger
    For Discrimination
    The Persistence of the Color Line
    Interracial Intimacies
    See all books by Randall Kennedy

    About Randall Kennedy

    RANDALL KENNEDY is the author of six previous books. He is the Michael R. Klein Professor at Harvard Law School, where he teaches courses on contracts, criminal law, and the regulation of race relations. He is a memberof the bar… More about Randall Kennedy

    About Randall Kennedy

    RANDALL KENNEDY is the author of six previous books. He is the Michael R. Klein Professor at Harvard Law School, where he teaches courses on contracts, criminal law, and the regulation of race relations. He is a memberof the bar… More about Randall Kennedy

    About Randall Kennedy

    RANDALL KENNEDY is the author of six previous books. He is the Michael R. Klein Professor at Harvard Law School, where he teaches courses on contracts, criminal law, and the regulation of race relations. He is a memberof the bar… More about Randall Kennedy

    Product Details

    Category: Domestic Politics

    Paperback | $19.00
    Published by Vintage
    Jan 06, 2009 | 240 Pages | 5-3/16 x 8 | ISBN 9780307388421

    Category: Domestic Politics

    Ebook | $6.99
    Published by Vintage
    Jan 08, 2008 | 240 Pages | ISBN 9780307377203

    Category: Domestic Politics | Audiobooks

    Audiobook Download | $15.00
    Published by Random House Audio
    Jul 13, 2021 | 357 Minutes | ISBN 9780593416037

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    Praise

    “Sellout is brisk and enjoyable, no small feat given the density of its ideas. . . . Worth reading for the light it shines on many subtleties of black history.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review

    “Thought-provoking. . . . [Kennedy offers] illuminating evidence that, despite great marks of progress, race’s stranglehold on the nation’s collective conscious remains as strong as ever.”—The Washington Post


    “Fresh. . . . Elegant and open-minded. . . . Sellout does a great deal to complicate the politics of racial betrayal.”—Salon.com

    “A cool, clean case against the use of a backwards epithet that discourages something black America can hardly do without-coherent and original thought.”—The New York Sun

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