DEALS WITH THE DEVIL

From Atlanta Tribune columnist Cleage, essays that treat sex and politics from an African-American feminist perspective and that are—with minor exceptions—powerful, outspoken, and fluent. Ranging from the hortatory to the reflective, the 36 pieces here make take a principled stand on contemporary issues. In the opening ``Why I Write,'' Cleage announces: ``I am writing to help myself understand the full effects of being black and female in a culture that is both racist and sexist.'' And in succeeding pieces, as she tackles events in Atlanta and elsewhere, she also helps readers understand. In ``The Other Facts of Life,'' ``Mad at Miles,'' ``Good Brother Blues,'' and ``Basic Training,'' Cleage describes and analyzes horrifying instances of black men beating, raping, and murdering black women, and she bravely exhorts her ``sisters'' to reject all excuses for violence, along with the violence itself. In essays such as ``On Redbones'' and ``Fatal Floozies,'' the author brings to bear beautiful memories of her childhood among strong, well-educated black women and men on controversies over skin tones and sexpots; in ``Forgetting to Fuss,'' she compares her reluctant enthusiasm for Bill Clinton with her parents' subdued hopes for JFK (``At our house the much ballyhooed beauty of the new First Lady was greeted with a contemptuous snort...''). Elsewhere, she delineates always thoughtful views of Clarence Thomas (``He is an enemy of our race in particular and of people in general''); Anita Hill (``There is no such thing as a reluctant African-American woman warrior''); and Spike Lee (``His characters are the men we see all the time...the ones who are angry and don't know why'')—as well as Julian Bond, Bret Easton Ellis, Marion Barry, and the film Driving Miss Daisy. A few pieces are disappointingly slight, and two or three may resemble manifestos more than polished essays, but, as a whole, a fresh, gripping, and sane collection.