Short Synopsis
From Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and commentator Eugene Robinson comes a paradigm-shifting book about race in America.

Full Synopsis
The African American population in the United States has always been seen as a single entity: a "Black America" with unified interests and needs. In his groundbreaking book Disintegration, longtime Washington Post journalist Eugene Robinson argues that, through decades of desegregation, affirmative action, and immigration, the concept of Black America has shattered. Now, instead of one, there are four distinct groups: a Mainstream middle-class majority with a solid stake in society; a large Abandoned minority with less hope than ever of escaping poverty; a small Transcendent elite, whose enormous wealth and power make even whites genuflect; and newly Emergent groups of mixed-race individuals and recent black immigrants who question what black even means.

Using historical research, reporting, census data, and polling, Robinson shows how these groups have become so distinct that they view each other with mistrust and apprehension. And yet all are reluctant to acknowledge division. Disintegration shines light on crucial debates about affirmative action, the importance of race versus social class, and the ultimate questions of whether and in what form racism and the black community endure.

"Sometimes writers tell us something familiar...but they do it in such a creative and cleareyed way and with such force that we begin to see things differently independent of any new information. This is exactly what Eugene Robinson has done." ---The New York Times

"[A] clear-eyed and compassionate study." ---Publishers Weekly

"The first popular salvo in the Age of Obama regarding the delicate issues of class division, generation gap, and elite obsession in Black America. This painful conversation must continue---and we have Gene Robinson as a useful guide." ---Cornel West

"Eugene Robinson neatly explodes decades' worth of lazy generalizations about race in America. At the same time, he raises new questions about community, invisibility, and the virtues and drawbacks of assimilation. An important book." ---Gwen Ifill

"A bold call to action." ---Los Angeles Times