Walking On Water by Randall Kenan

"I felt that I had somehow in my thinking become both a Booker T. Washington and a Du Bois, an MLK and an X - seeing both sides, advocating for both sides, yet suspicious that arguments about African Americans could be bifurcated, as if there were only two sides to the debate of what must be done to deal with the problems of the great-great-grand-daughters and great-great-grandsons of the slaves. I wanted to believe in the indomitable spirit of black folk and in the wickedness of the great white father - while not dismissing the statistics of murder, drug addictions, and poverty, poverty, poverty; knowing full well that there exists an inherent contradiction in these simplistic views. I was seeing that I had grown up the son of Booker T. Washington, and wanted to run away and live with Dr. Du Bois. But I was getting to be a big boy: wasn't it time to build my own house?

I couldn't have it both ways; nor did I really want to have it either way; I longed for another, fresher vision of the black American situation.

I was trying to come to terms with a desire to speak with hope and pride of black folk and of honestly assessing the problems that conspire to destroy us - yes us - rich, poor, educated and illiterate, a destruction based on color and nothing more."

http://www.amazon.com/Walking-Water-American-Twenty-First-Century/dp/067973788X

http://www.salon.com/books/int/1999/02/cov_24int.html