The Artificial White Man

When well-known critic Stanley Crouch surveys today's American culture, he sees a problem. He sees black music moguls celebrating a hip-hop gangland of larger-than-life thugs and hussies. He sees white writers fashioning an American fiction devoid of race and color, blacks turning their backs on education, and whites projecting a primitive tribalism on blacks.

Crouch argues Americans are yearning to be what they're not and afraid to be who they are. It's a desperate search for a grasp at cultural authenticity that's taken American culture straight into a hollow, hopeless world of artificiality that ought to stop, Crouch says. What's at stake, according to Crouch, is nothing less than the American individual and American civilization.

Tune in to hear a conversation with Stanley Crouch about American culture and American authenticity.

Guests:

Stanley Crouch, essayist and critic. His latest book is "The Artificial White Man: Essays on Authenticity"