The Huffington Post | By Braden Goyette Email Posted: 11/03/2014 7:00 am EST
Jeff Chang, author of Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation, has taken on some massive subjects in his latest book: race, and the way America sees itself.
Who We Be: The Colorization Of America follows the rise of the idea of multiculturalism -- and the backlash that followed it -- from the Civil Rights movement through to Obama's election, the fight over the DREAM Act, and Trayvon Martin's death.
The book explores how race has figured in American visual culture since the 60s, and the rhetorical imagery that's driven American politics. "We can all agree that race is not a question of biology," Chang writes. "Instead it is a question of culture and it begins as a visual problem, one of vision and visuality. Race happens in the gap between appearance and the perception of difference. It is about what we see and what we think we see and what we think about when we see. In that sense, it's bigger than personal affinities, preferences, tastes and bonds."
Chang sat down with HuffPost to talk about how the culture wars are still with us today, what it means that we're headed toward becoming a "majority-minority" society in 2042, and why America still hasn't had the kind of "national conversation about race" that it really needs. (This interview has been edited and condensed). more
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