POINTS / POINT PERSON In his new book, Who’s Afraid of Post-
Blackness?, social commentator Touré explores the question of
what it means to be black in America in the aftermath of the
civil rights movement of the 1960s. Touré recently shared his
observations about post-blackness and the nuances of growing up
without many of the traditional constraints of earlier
generations. So what is post-blackness? I’m talking about a
concept of being rooted in, but not constrained by, blackness.
So if you are black and come from the black community, there is
an air about black traditions. But that doesn’t constrain who we
are. You have the freedom to do anything you want, especially
those things that are not considered normative blackness. There
is no reason you can’t do yoga or eat sushi or be a Republican.
A key example of how this works I mention in the book. I went
skydiving, and on my way there I’m told my people don’t do that.
The one thing that I got from parachuting down was this sense
that there must be a God and