Youth Speaks

Whether or not you believe in the idea of “post-race”, this is the language we are inheriting. Our generation can either engage, or let the story be told for us.

Barack Obama is not the end of history. Nor is our Hope the beginning of a brave and new post-racial future. Before we embrace the logic of a world beyond race, we’d like to invite those of us who will surely be remembered as the first ‘post-racial’ generation to have a different conversation.

The Audacity of ‘Post-Racism’ is a compendium of original essays and conversations in which 25 scholars under the age of 25 critically examine issues of race in the world they are set to inherit. Pushing the boundaries of a traditional anthology, it will include roundtable discussions, inter-generational dialogue, and after-essay commentary from selected contributors.

But we need your submissions first.

We are looking for 1000-5000 words that tell a story; writing grounded in personal experience and appealing to academic ears. Writing that can transform a college classroom and steal your attention on the train. It may be a paper you wrote, a well-reasoned blog post, or a chapter from the book you hope to one day finish. We want you to write the kind of work you most enjoy reading.

Through narrative, scholarship, and/or expository writing, we’d like you to consider the questions: what about right now is so ‘post-racial’? What is your story of race in America?By this, we mean to request works that:

• Bridge any divide between your personal and political lives.
• Explore the politics of your family conversations.
• Reflect on the shifting terrain of racial language — what does it mean for our generation?
• Revisit something you have had to learn and un-learn about race in your lifetime.
• Imagine W.E.B. Du Bois in the age of Google. Then put him in conversation with Vijay Prashad.
• Respond to Arundhati Roy and Stephen Colbert in the same instant.
• Validate your non-expert expertise on the durability of race in America.
• Capture a snapshot of this moment for your children.

Or, if the above prompts don’t compel you:
• We have a black president. Go.

The deadline for papers is May 30, 2009. Please direct all questions, comments, and submissions to postracism@gmail.com.

The Editor-in-Chief of The Audacity of ‘Post-Racism’is Adam Mansbach (Author of Angry Black White Boyand The End of the Jews).

ABOUT THE EDITORIAL STAFF:
Nico Caryis an internationally touring performer, poet, and educator and is a recent graduate of the University of California, Berkeley. Part of the HBO-featured group iLL-Literacy, Nico has performed at colleges in over 100 cities, at venues ranging from arena hip-hop concerts to educational conferences. He is a McNair’s Scholar and served as a featured editor for Dave Eggers’ Best American Non-Required Reading (Houghton Mifflin, 2002).

Josh Begleyis a National Collegiate Poetry Slam Champion who now works in the non-profit sector. He recently graduated with Honors from UC Berkeley where he majored in American Studies and served as an Undergraduate Research Fellow.

Chinaka Hodgeis the Program Director for Artistic Development and Performance at Youth Speaks. She was the inaugural recipient of Dave Eggers’ 826Valencia young author scholarship. Her work has been featured in Teen People Magazine, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Oakland Tribune, Scholastic Magazine, Current Magazine, The Annual Women of Color Film Festival, PBS, NPR, KMEL, WBAR, WKCR, CNN, C-Span, KPFA and in two seasons of HBO’s Def Poetry.

ABOUT FIRST WORD PRESS:
In 2003, Youth Speaks established First Word Press to publish the first books of young writers. First Word Press exists to redefine the American canon and firmly place these emerging wordsmiths in the literary continuum. As First Word Press moves into its fifth year, Youth Speaks matures as an institution, and the country shifts radically, we find it crucial to publish writings that document these historic times. Therefore, our press’ third run will feature new texts that we anticipate will shape the political and literary climate for years to come. With this run, we broaden our catalog to include our first non-fiction and academic texts and as well as a brand new anthology chronicling over a decade of Youth Speaks history.