Democracy Remixed Black Youth and the Future of American Politics

In Democracy Remixed, award-winning scholar Cathy J. Cohen offers an authoritative and empirically powerful analysis of the state of black youth in America today. Utilizing the results from the Black Youth Project, a groundbreaking nationwide survey, Cohen focuses on what young Black Americans actually experience and think--and underscores the political repercussions. Featuring stories from cities across the country, she reveals that black youth want, in large part, what most Americans want--a good job, a fulfilling life, safety, respect, and equality. But while this generation has much in common with the rest of America, they also believe that equality does not yet exist, at least not in their lives. Many believe that they are treated as second-class citizens. Moreover, for many the future seems bleak when they look at their neighborhoods, their schools, and even their own lives and choices. Through their words, these young people provide a complex and balanced picture of the intersection of opportunity and discrimination in their lives. Democracy Remixed provides the insight we need to transform the future of young Black Americans and American democracy.

Cathy J. Cohen is the David and Mary Winton Green Professor of Political Science and the College at the University of Chicago. She is the author of The Boundaries of Blackness: AIDS and the Breakdown of Black Politics.

1. "My Petition": Black Youth and the Promise of Democratic Citizenship
2. "Gangsta Rap Made Me Do It": Bill Cosby, Don Imus, and Black Moral Panics
3. "Baby Mama": Black Love, Black Deviance, and the Sexual Politics of Morality
4. "Minoritiy Report": Kanye West, Barack Obama, and Political Alienation (with Jamila Celestine-Michener)
5. "Fight the Power": From Jena to the White House
6. "My President Is Black": Barack Obama and the Postracial Illusion
Epilogue Policy and Politics
Appendix A