Rethinking the African Diaspora Book

While I found the premise of the Fleetwood's study that is studying when Black iconicity in society fails, I did not find Fleetwood's execution (methods and writing) to be supportive of this premise. Fleetwood structures the chapters in the book to conclude with the failure of black iconicity, rather than starting off with them. For example, I agree with her argument on excessive flesh, as it pertains to Black women, is, at time a radical performance of alterity through an analysis of Lil' Kim, but instead of continuing to read through Lil' Kim's transformational work via music video and plastic surgery, Fleetwood ends her chapter musing what that analysis would be. The opportunity for further exploration is how many of her chapters end, thus the book is another example of studying what Black iconicity looks like in society, which goes against what she sets out to accomplish in the introduction of her book. Additionally, I found that Fleetwood's use of performance theory didn't really support her argument. Fleetwood's use of visuality and visual studies, however, was incredibly insightful and were the strongest parts of her argument.