Resistance

Most collections of pop culture reviews are too ephemeral to have much value in libraries, but White's agenda gives this one uncommon substance. For 10 years, White has voiced his political and social convictions as arts editor of Brooklyn's black weekly, the City Sun. His stated intention is to "defend and agitate." Here, he surveys a decade's worth of mostly films, but also hip-hop records and plays, from Purple Rain through Forrest Gump. His is a highly radicalized perspective in which the black and white keys in The Piano (the movie) have an "unexplored racial subtext." If a focus that educes such observations is White's limitation, it is also what sets him apart. He raises issues and ideas others are unlikely to have considered. While railing against U.S. culture's indifference to the work of African American artists, he expresses a passion that is too scarce in the rarefied realm of arts criticism. Consider this provocative volume as an alternative to other pop culture titles, especially in libraries with strong black culture collections. Gordon Flagg