Black, Listed cover art

Black, Listed

Black British Culture Explored

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Black, Listed

By: Jeffrey Boakye
Narrated by: Ben Onwukwe
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About this listen

Guardian Must Read Books of 2019.

Financial Times Books to Read 2019.

New Statesman Must Reads 2019.

Who is a roadman really? What's wrong with calling someone a 'lighty'? Why do people think black guys are cool?

These are just some of the questions being wrestled with in Black, Listed, an exploration of 21st century black identity told through a list of insults, insights and everything in between.

Taking a panoramic look at global black history, interrogating both contemporary and historical culture, Black, Listed investigates the ways in which black communities (and individuals) have been represented, oppressed, mimicked, celebrated and othered. Part historical study, part autobiographical musing, part pop culture vivisection, it's a comprehensive attempt to make sense of blackness from the vantage point of the hilarious and insightful psyche of Jeffrey Boakye.

Along the way, it explores a far reaching range of social and cultural contexts, including but not limited to, sport, art, entertainment, politics, literature, history, music, theatre, cinema, education and criminal justice, sometimes at the same time.

©2019 Jeffrey Boakye (P)2019 Hachette Audio UK
Education & Learning Social Sciences Funny Witty

Critic Reviews

Intense and compelling from the very beginning, Jeffrey Boakye bravely explores the ways in which people with darker skin are located in language . . . This book gives a voice to those whose experience is persistently defined, refined and denied by others. Boakye shows how language does not always have to be insulting, offensive or loaded, it can also be incredibly emancipatory, particularly when the black community takes ownership of the terms of prose . . . If blackness is a maze, then we must be the ones who design it. With architects like Jeffrey Boakye, I'm optimistic we can build ourselves an authentic future (David Lammy)
A truly radical book, which manages to be unflinching and constantly entertaining
(CAROLINE SANDERSON)
Wit abounds in Jeffrey Boakye's insightful Black, Listed, a kind of periodic table of 60 words and phrases used down the ages to describe black people (Colin Grant)
Boakye aims to challenge, complicate and undo assumptions about what blackness means, often taking surprising routes . . . Black, Listed covers some terrain similar to that of recent books such as Akala's blistering Natives and Reni Eddo Logdge's Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race, and while Boakye may share those authors' political intent, his humour sets him apart. He is a winningly funny "tour guide". . . The unpredictable range of his references is exciting . . . As he argues against the endlessly problematic ways in which blackness has been categorized and codified, taking on the "biggest and the blackest of the big black stereotypes", the text bobs, weaves and wanders - always one thrilling step ahead (Michael Donkor)

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