SOURCE: Thompson, Clifford. Review of Another Day at the Front: Dispatches from the Race War, by Ishmael Reed. Black Issues Book Review 5, no. 1 (January-February 2003): 52.

In the following review, Thompson compliments Reed's discussion of how the media portrays African Americans in Another Day at the Front: Dispatches from the Race War, but notes that some African Americans may object to Reed's arguments.

If there is one thing that can be said unequivocally about Ishmael Reed's new collection of essays—and there may be only one thing—it is that these essays are definitely by Ishmael Reed. His pet themes, the media's misrepresentation of African Americans and the scapegoating of black men by white feminists, are here. So are the elements of his stylistic thumbprint: sly humor, acid, reasonable beliefs held so fiercely that they occasionally take on strange shapes, and eccentric digressions that add depth to his pieces.

As...