“Are black people conscious of how excruciatingly self-conscious white people have become in their every interaction with black people? Is this self-consciousness an improvement? Maybe not, because I'm thinking of people in categories rather than as people, which is a famously dangerous thing to do.”

American author

David Shields is an American author of 25 books. His work spans fiction, nonfiction, and criticism, and he is known for books such as Reality Hunger, The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead, and Black Planet. He has been a Guggenheim Fellow, twice an NEA Fellow, and a winner of the PEN Revson Award. He has also been a finalist for the National Book Critics' Circle Award and the PEN West Award, and has served as senior contributing editor of Conjunctions.