Lessie B. Branch, “Optimism at All Costs: Black Attitudes, Activism, and Advancement in Obama’s America” (U Massachusetts Press, 2018)

New Books in African American Studies · Aug 17, 2018 · 47m

Optimism at All Costs: Black Attitudes, Activism, and Advancement in Obama’s America (University of Massachusetts Press, 2018) takes as its point of departure and central preoccupation the notion of “paradoxical ebullience,” by which author Lessie B. Branch means the optimism expressed by African Americans during the presidency of Barack Obama despite a lack of socioeconomic gains (and some notable reversals) during the same period. Branch’s argument around what she considers unwarranted optimism is premised on the idea that during the Obama era, African Americans bought into an elite…