The last plantation

by Itabari Njeri

Weaving the personal and the political with passion and grace, Njeri recounts incidents in the news - the Rodney King beating, the Black boycott of Korean grocers in Los Angeles, and the shooting of a Black teenager by a Korean immigrant - and their profound effect on her as a Black woman and journalist. In doing so, she lays out with precision and power how the imposition of limited definitions of identity based on race contributes to a psychological slavery that makes the mind the last plantation. In accepting a larger, multiracial identity - which would substantially define most Americans - we can challenge marginalizing concepts and the way in which the racial debate is now framed.