Unmitigated Blackness is coming to the realization that as fucked up and meaningless as it all is, sometimes it’s the nihilism that makes life worth living. Winner of the 2016 Man Booker Prize Winner of the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award in Fiction Named one of the best books of 2015 by The New York Times Book Review and the Wall Street Journal Paul Beatty is the author of three novelsSlumberland, Tuff, and The White Boy Shuffleand two books of poetry: Big Bank Take Little Bank and Joker, Joker, Deuce. It’s the acceptance of contradiction not being a sin and a crime but a human frailty like split ends and libertarianism. It’s the realization that there are no absolutes, except when there are. Unmitigated Blackness is essays passing for fiction. Clarence Cooper, Charlie Parker, Richard Pryor, Maya Deren, Sun Ra, Mizoguchi, Frida Kahlo, black-and-white Godard, Céline, Gong Li, David Hammons, Björk, and the Wu-Tang Clan in any of their hooded permutations. Unmitigated Blackness is simply not giving a fuck. It’s “whereas” and “things of that nature.” It’s our beautiful hands and our fucked-up feet. It’s the crossover dribble and wearing house shoes outside. It’s Tiparillos, chitterlings, and a night in jail. It’s Donald Goines, Chester Himes, Abbey Lincoln, Marcus Garvey, Alfre Woodard, and the serious black actor. On the surface Unmitigated Blackness is a seeming unwillingness to succeed. I’m not sure what Unmitigated Blackness is, but whatever it is, it doesn’t sell. “There should be a Stage IV of black identity-Unmitigated Blackness.
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