"This book offers a profound analysis of the psychological damage imposed on African Americans by the United States, which operates as a black-phobic society. With its clear and sharp formulations, the problem becomes evident and solvable. Reading it, I wanted to go back and teach again—finally, I would have had a text that I could identify with on all levels." — Thelma M. Pinto, former Co-Director of the Africana Studies Program, Hobart and William Smith Colleges"This is a well-crafted study of the complexity of 'the racialized body' and the endurance of the frozen and oppressive nature of the epistemic, social, political, economic, and cultural confinements of blacks in the United States into restricted spaces, whether imaginary or physical. Pinder examines all these dynamics through the ways in which Michael Jackson, the iconic pop singer, has been perceived in American society and culture both during and after his lifetime."— Babacar M'Baye, author of Black Cosmopolitanism and Anticolonialism: Pivotal Moments