If We Are Brave: Essays from Black Americana
Theodore R. Johnson
HarperOne/Armistad
“The United States claims to be a nation founded on an idea,” writes Theodore R. Johnson, “but Americans—even though we nod our heads to that assertion—do not agree on what that idea is, what it should do, or who it is for.”
If We Are Brave is a sobering examination of this rift and how race exposes and challenges traditional conceptions of national identity, national mythology, and American democracy.
Johnson reveals the subtle ways that racialized conceptions of the American identity and the imperfect culture of democracy have hindered our ability to connect with one another, carefully piecing together first-person accounts ranging from a Rust Belt diner to the back of a police car to a jail cell.