Your Negro Tour Guide: Truths in Black and White

Wilson, a newspaper columnist and commentator for NPR, slices into the reader's consciousness with sharp, staccato sentences in short, vivid essays that speak for the marginalized-mainly blacks, but also women, the working class and homosexuals. As a ""Lone Other,"" a black lesbian who dropped out of college, Wilson has borne a threefold stigma, and her self-perception as an outsider was a key influence on her career as a journalist. Acutely aware of the power of language, Wilson writes with razor-sharp candor and amusing irreverence-to amplify her voice, to divest mainstream America of its monopoly on thought and culture, to ""whittle through and then reclaim tired stereotypes."" This collection of riffs and sketches devotes an entire section to Cincinnati city corruption, while other segments touch on topics as diverse as Bill Cosby, Strom Thurmond and ""the scarlet 'L'"" that media figures try to pin onto lesbians. Far from a fist-pumping paean to all things black, Wilson casts a wide net over the cultural and political landscape-both white America's and her own-to target the unjust, the shameful and the just plain nonsensical. Kobe Bryant, R. Kelly and Black History Month all get a verbal lashing. Wilson writes in a voice that can fairly simmer with disgust, indignation and a powerful blast of irony. To grant the reader a few restorative breaths of air, she also includes poignant vignettes culled from her own life. In its weaker moments, her prose crowds together too many metaphors and head-spinning sentences. But her writing works best when it's crackling and clipped, cutting out any verbal window-dressing to trumpet her convictions loud and clear.