Airing Dirty Laundry. - book reviews

Black Enterprise, Oct, 1994 by Tonya Bolden

I shmael Reed's Airing Dirty Laundry is full of sound and fury, signifying much. And of the 35 pieces collected here, the title essay is the most powerful. In it, Reed exposes the media's savage obsession with painting deviant and dangerous behavior in blackface. What evidence does Reed cite?

* "...the typical crack addict is a forty-year-old white male professional, married, and suburban."

* "While the rate of unwed black mothers is on the decline, the fastest rising rate of 'illegitimacy' is among white women..."

* "...[Black youth] are four times more likely to be incarcerated than whites who commit the same crime."

And so on, and so on--including the ravaging of society by the Irish-, Italian- and Jewish-American members of organized crime. While neither denying the wrongs committed by African-Americans, nor inciting anyone to rejoice over the crimes and crying shames of others, Reed makes it quite clear that black America is not the ruination of this country.

The other essays in Airing Dirty Laundry are just as provocative. There are profiles of poet Gwendolyn Brooks, director Bill Gunn, Chester Himes, Reginald Lewis and others. Essays range from commentaries on recent events ("Mike Tyson and the White Hope Cult," for example) to reflections on music, the author's education and his own Irish ancestry.