Race

Issues of race in America are integral to Bakari’s identity, as well as to his political goals; by highlighting racial inequality in America, Bakari hopes to enable progress in addressing those issues. Bakari is black, and he grew up in the predominantly black town of Denmark, South Carolina. Bakari and his friends and family all have firsthand experience of racial oppression. Additionally, as Bakari has become increasingly prominent in the public eye, he has received an increasing amount of racial abuse. For example, when he ran for a seat in the South Carolina state legislature, “I’d get calls at the house saying, ‘Tell that [racial slur] to get out of the race’” (104). Throughout the book, Bakari highlights dynamics of racial impression both at the personal and the systemic/institutional levels. He also illustrates the ways in which past dynamics of racism persist in the present, as...