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Go Home Diversity In The Academy

OPEN UNIVERSITY JULY 12, 2007

Diversity In The Academy

BY TNR STAFF

By John McWhorter

Since the Supreme Court last week decided against Seattle and Louisville, Kentucky's policies of assuring a certain degree of racial diversity in public schools, we have heard much about the undoing of Brown v. Board.

However, I have a hard time mourning the decision, though the brute notion that we must ignore race to get beyond it is, surely, simplistic.

Preliminarily, I think of the plethora of schools nationwide where all the students are brown and yet excellence is a norm. I think of the fact that to the extent that black teens tar excelling in school as "acting white," it tends to be when they go to school with white people, as scholarly studies have shown.

Yet I openly admit that my discomfort with racial (as opposed to socioeconomic) preferences in education is also based in part on gut impressions--based on my own experiences in academia over, now, almost 20 years. Too often, commitment to "diversity" has nothing to do with recognizing the humanity and individuality of the persons in question.

As it happens, it was ten years ago this week that I had one such experience. Every two summers, linguists have a kind of summer camp, the Linguistics of America Institute, where linguists from around the world give mini-courses for students on a college campus. I was invited to teach at the one in 1997.

There was a biweekly "diversity" meeting, where issues related to same were supposed to be "aired." The person who had been appointed to lead that meeting, along with assorted faculty members associated with it, were especially excited about the impending arrival of someone I will call Terry Allen.

Terry is black. Terry, as it happened, had left linguistics a good 15 years ago, before making any mark, and was stopping by at the Institute for a brief spell just to keep in touch. Terry had also not, as most black American linguists, worked in a subfield of linguistics devoted to racial issues in any meaningful way.
Yet there was this buzzing excitement about the arrival of Terry. The mere enunciation of her name was so frequent that it almost sounded like a bird call. "When is Terry coming? Terry Allen! Terry Allen!"

But really, the sole reason anyone was so excited about Terry coming was because Terry was black. Terry had left the field long ago; it wasn't about an oeuvre these people respected and wanted to meet the author of. None of the people knew anything at all about Terry except skin color.

That was especially clear when the Diversity Meeting coordinator happened, at the dining hall, to sit down the table from another black attendee she hadn't met. "Are you Terry Allen?!?!" she exclaimed--but it was not. The attendee was offended, and brought it up at the next "diversity" meeting, upon which the coordinator got a little ugly, upon which the attendee asked why the coordinator had to get that way, upon which the coordinator--a Latina--said that in her culture it was traditional to get feisty in confrontations.

It seemed to me that "diversity" was not doing anybody any good at that meeting, nor in people being all a-twitter at the imminent arrival of Terry for no reason except that Terry was not white.
I hung out with Terry. Great fun. And at one point when we were doing so, a white bright light in linguistics walked by and genially said "Aha--what are you two cooking up?"

"You two." What made us "two"? I need not even specify. He was no "racist;" he is, in fact, quite sensitive to race issues in America, as I have seen here and there since. He recently invited me to speak at a conference on the basis of my work alone, race not an issue. But still--I cannot imagine him tossing off the "cooking up" comment if I had been talking to someone white, or if Terry had been talking to someone white. He saw us as black, just as the various cheeping heralds of the arrival of Terry were aroused by Terry's color rather than any article with Terry's name on it--which none of them could have even provided.

That week ten years ago, to me, is "diversity" in the academy. On paper, it's about getting past race. In reality, too often it's about people reaffirming their moral solidity by having black people around, and/or ranking people's melanin over their individuality. I could tell a good dozen "Terry" type stories, and like stories of racist abuse against black men by the police, they are not dismissible as "anecdotes."

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

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96 comments

Making a point by annecdote!!! How very unacademic! Not even a statistic in here!

- btau24

July 12, 2007 at 12:07pm

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when the cooking comment was made?

- teplukhin2you

July 12, 2007 at 12:31pm

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Seriously, Mr McWhorter, as a linguist would you agree that the use of the term "diversity" to signify "representation of native-born african-americans" has degraded the term without doing anything to address the major issues facing most african-americans? Would it not be better to address those issues directly without this new code word that obscures the true meaning and value of diverse backgrounds and viewpoints to any organization?

- teplukhin2you

July 12, 2007 at 12:35pm

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John McWhorter speaks in some ways to the final stage of the civil rights movement - if we ever achieve it. That is, consciously being your own person and ultimately escaping the social categories you are grouped into by others - even well-meaning others.

- litwinski

July 12, 2007 at 12:59pm

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to identity politics - 15% is valuable, very valuable, but the rest is too often a safe refuge for personality problems.

- Wandreycer1

July 12, 2007 at 1:37pm

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There are also other important kinds of diversity, e.g. intellectual, cultural, national, that never seem to get much air time.

- ironyroad

July 12, 2007 at 2:04pm

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Than about race.. Seems that most people who are supposed to be in higher education are really just in a circle jerk of sorts most of the time. Really I can relate as a White student not in an organization, it seemed that I was on the list of invisibility or worse that I was the identified patient in the classroom family. Anyone who was different than me was considered holy. I swear I like being in the real world so much better.

- tsbardella

July 12, 2007 at 2:18pm

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... on the subject of "diversity": "So, there was nothing original in my articles compiled in The Caged Virgin: An Emancipation Proclamation for Women and Islam, my first book published in 2006. Everything had been said and written before. But all the same, I generated a great amount of interest with my redundant articles and interviews. When I wondered why the works of realistic thinkers, who are consistent, precise, and eloquent, were not as much in demand as mine, the answer seemed always to be that they are men and, worse still, they are middle-aged. And worst of all, they are white." http://www.cato.org/pubs/catosletter/catosletterv5 n2.pdf (More beautiful young women and fewer middle-aged guys: this is a "diversity" I can support whole-heartedly!)

- wolansky

July 12, 2007 at 2:49pm

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This was racist? It's standard idiom and not meant offensively, but with respect: the people have the ability to do something. I didn't know the author was African-American. I couldn't figure out why he was upset. Still don't.

- dashendorf

July 12, 2007 at 11:18pm

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Ironic that it's McWhorter who can't seem to "get past it".

- jm_rice

July 14, 2007 at 1:19am

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what does this article have to do with the supreme court ruling and why do you ALWAYS think your anecdotes about black life are equal to sustained and systematic analysis of race? i recall that horrible little story you told in your first book on race about being abused by some black girl for being smart --the black monster devours the innocent budding, forward achieving black intellectual -- no wonder blacks can't get anywhere with these awful phantasmagoria floating everywhere in their culture was/is your constant point -- it was perfect fodder for the white neo-cons who love you -- but if you want to disparage diversity or race conscious distribution of social perogatives please give us something more serious than these little tales to gainsay 77 pages of reasonable dissent by breyer that said the majorities simplistic reading of Brown is at the least ahistorical, and imho, mendacious. otherwise spare us any more maudlin scenes from the original lifetime movie "my life as a negro: the john mcwhorter story"; it's well past cliche.

- ck11w

July 14, 2007 at 2:28am

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"Aha--what are you two cooking up?" What's racially offensive about that question? How would you, John Mcwhorter, phrase that question?

- scrubbyoak

July 14, 2007 at 6:59am

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I usually like McWhorter's posts and agree with them. But I found this one confounding--"You two.' What made us "two' "?--verging on incoherent, and flabby as an implicit argument ready to emerge from the anecdote. There's nothing wrong with an exemplum, but this post is a bad example of an exemplum.

- basman

July 14, 2007 at 9:18am

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of TNR's favorite - and apparently, only - AA, Mr. McWorter. I have read his oeuvre and as somone mentioned above, his tendency to elevate self reference to the point of quantitative validation is a bit annoying. But, that said, we all do that so I cannot hold that too strongly against him. These two gems, the Terry Allen and "you two" examples, seem a bit on the non sequitur side and I am having a hard time, even given my previous experience with McWorter's personal life puzzles, really figuring out what the hell he meant to convey with these stories. To go all self referential on him, I have been told that at school administrator gatherings, which have often been compared to those wildly orgasmic Sunday mornings I spent as a kid, listening to some hung over priest intoning sermons in Latin, my colleagues often anxiously await my arrival. What does this mean? Are they really focusing on my Latino roots or perhaps, just maybe, they like me and know that I will find some way, difficult as it may be in the hearty company of school principals, to have a good time. See what I mean? This is a nice ditty but it proves nothing. TNR really needs to get more black folks on the masthead. McWorter is fine but a few more perspectives would enrich the conversation, especially from the magazine's side.

- MrCookie1

July 14, 2007 at 10:02am

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"I have been told that at school administrator gatherings, which have often been compared to those wildly orgasmic Sunday mornings I spent as a kid, listening to some hung over priest intoning sermons in Latin, my colleagues often anxiously await my arrival."

- basman

July 14, 2007 at 11:56am

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That the leftist extreme, especially in academia are guilty of this. The moral relativism, the use of propaganda and revisionism, and outright hypocrisy on the subject and the condescension in especially sociology textbooks. Overall, I do agree that such programs should be used to improve the access to higher ed based on socioeconomic condtions. And there are a many black Americans who feel just that same way. I have read numerous articles, and heard commentary on NPR bemoaning the fact that there is less effort to outreach to black American high school students in favor of students from Africa, and while they feel it's not a bad thing, they are offended by the fact that it is at the expense of the children from their own community. And while I agree that there should be more black Americans on the TNR masthead, I also believe that we should have more black American readers, because honestly, on too many occasions, many of the comments here are obviously, overwhelmingly white.

- MaryM

July 14, 2007 at 12:32pm

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At TNR ? Ya think ? "We should have more black American readers." Yeah. Black folk are really missing a lot. Like that great Bell Curve issue when Sullivan was editor. Serial arguments for the absolute necessity of invading Iraq. Random commentary, such as the above, of a libertarian think tank's race hire. And, of course, the musings of Marty Peretz. Essential reading for black Americans.

- brucds

July 14, 2007 at 1:51pm

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...artificial construct deidcated to bizarre social engineering. Which is why diversityists constantly find themselves mired in arguments over issues of zero meaning outside of their hobby. This conceit will eventually die in the United States. A. Because it's stupid. B. Because as Hispanics become an immense plurality, and in some places a majority, they are not going to give a damn about something invented to help blacks. Of course, Hispanics might bizzarely try to mutate "diversity" into affirmative action for Hispanics. Even where they are in the majority. Which will further underline what a distortion and mutation the entire "diversity" construct is.

- ChanRobt

July 14, 2007 at 1:51pm

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...philistine to point it out, but the way Jews, Asians, Irish, Italians, and other former minorities achieved "diversity," full acceptance, and total integration into American society was and has been through achievement. I am sure there are many, many blacks in this county of merit and accomplishment who are mortified at the patronizing conceit that is at the heart of "diversity" as an idea. (Though "idea" is too good a word for it.)

- ChanRobt

July 14, 2007 at 1:56pm

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...precise. Jews, Asians, Irish, and Italians are still minorities as a portion of the larger population. They just don't think of themselves as a "minority" in the modern mutated meaning of that word. Nor does anyone else.

- ChanRobt

July 14, 2007 at 1:58pm

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- schmiechen

July 14, 2007 at 2:18pm

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who nailed mr McW

- schmiechen

July 14, 2007 at 2:20pm

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McWhorter makes the very telling point in his book that, while good students in the 1950s and early 1960s were often the target of other kids for being such -- as happens anywhere and everywhere -- and while his mother for example had a large vocabulary as a teenager and was known as "a walking dictionary," in those days nobody ever used the phrase "acting white" to suggest there was something wrong or inauthentic about black academic achievement. He has also written very well imo on African-American speech patterns and dialects, and their relationship to standard English(-es). He has also, it's true, pointed out some problems that come with a tendency for community navel-gazing in a world where interconnections and adaptability are going to be key requirements for living reasonable lives in 21st century America -- and some people don't like to hear that kind of thing. Regarding the "neocon friends" dig -- I'm not 100% certain of this, but I believe I've heard McWhorter state in public that he has never even voted Republican. But maybe he or somebody else can correct me on this, if need be.

- ironyroad

July 14, 2007 at 4:03pm

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I know personally many of the AA who at one time or another wrote for this magazine -- from Glen Loury to Henry Gates -- and the general feeling they have is that TNR has no interest in telling the truth about race and racism as it pertains to blacks. It's all black bashing all the time, which is why Mr. Mcwhorter is so beloved by the editors. If it's about how glorious Israel is then its a pom-pom fest (that's a crude reduction but you get the point), but if it's blacks...they trot out

- ck11w

July 14, 2007 at 4:09pm

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ridiculous neo-cons like this Mr. Mcwhorter

- ck11w

July 14, 2007 at 4:10pm

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listening to some hung over priest intoning sermons in Latin

Um, where exactly did you hear sermons in Latin? The liturgy, yes, but sermons...in Latin? A monestary maybe? About the 60-70s they say, if you remember it you weren't there. Maybe that's you.

- jm_rice

July 14, 2007 at 5:29pm

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That all may be the case -- although I'm curious as to why you're surprised at the lack of "truth" on race when the truth of the lack of WMD in Iraq seems to be a problem for so many people at TNR -- but I'm confused by the "neocon" accusation. In what way does McWhorter -- who doesn't seem to be even a Republican -- earn that particular label?

- ironyroad

July 14, 2007 at 5:49pm

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Diversity as social engineering.... The notion that suburban schools are improved by importing inner-city goons, because the schools will be more diverse, is unimaginably fatuous.

What the morons making social policy don't understand is that diversity is not excellence but the RESULT of excellence. Diversity as the cause of excellence is one of the most pernicious of post hoc fallacies, upon which many a political demagogue or academic huckster has based a career.

Of course, an open system is better than a closed system, but only when the open system is exposed to diversity on par, such as the EU. Diversity has meant excellence in America only insofar as the excellence preceded the diversification. Diversity did not make Chinese or Jewish Americans excellent, but their respective cultures of learning and civility made American diversity excellent. One can hardly say that Russia profited from the diversity brought by the Mongol hordes. Nor Europe from the recent Muslim hordes. Excellence must precede diversity.

- jm_rice

July 14, 2007 at 6:52pm

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...my shorthand point. I guess that will make us today's Official Reactionaries of Open University. Unless Tepluh drops by. You will notice that posters rarely bother to rebut the achievement thesis here. It is considered to be so Neanderthal (no offense, cavemen) as to be beneath comment.

- ChanRobt

July 14, 2007 at 7:04pm

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...and I think this is what McWhorter, in an oblique way, also is trying to say. That is, before "you two" tripped him up.

- jm_rice

July 14, 2007 at 7:07pm

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Yeah, I was echoing you, in my voluble way.

The problem has always been that achievement and excellence are favorite foils for demagogues, who conflate them with elitism. This is what poisons the minds of black and Latino kids who are told that doing well is "being white". Come to think of it, it's a human thing. Kinda like being resented in the workplace, if you work too hard: it means you're trying to get in with The Man, means you're trying to make the rest of us look bad, means you're not one of us. Speaking of demagogues, it's something the Rev. Al might say to Obama.

- jm_rice

July 14, 2007 at 7:21pm

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"importing inner-city goons" what does this mean? who are you referring to as "goons"?

- ck11w

July 14, 2007 at 8:16pm

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"Diversity did not make Chinese or Jewish Americans excellent, but their respective cultures of learning and civility made American diversity excellent." Don't leave out the African immigrant. They, too, have an excellent culture of learning and civility. It's all about culture, not race. BTW, what makes you think that inner-city kids imported into suburban schools are goons, jm_rice?

- scrubbyoak

July 14, 2007 at 8:23pm

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- jm_rice

July 14, 2007 at 9:16pm

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It's all about culture, not race.

I couldn't agree more.

- jm_rice

July 14, 2007 at 9:17pm

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While I understand the point John is trying to make, the story he uses is a laughable, specifically because he doesn't have the guts to use the person's real name. On top of that at the end he says that he could tell "a good dozen" such stories that couldn't be dismissed as anecdotal. Really John, well why don't you tell us just one of those stories, perhaps they will have the ring of truth that this one lacks.

And why won't you John, because you know that the people who you would place in those stories perhaps saw things a bit different, and would end up calling you on your distortions. You wouldn't want anyone to be able to pin you down now would you John. Tell us who Terry is, so we can find out how she would characterize these events.

Only the new Republic, perhaps desperate these days for the words of a black man, any black man, would print this kind of speculative gobbledygook, I guess they can rationalize it by saying it's in a blog, where personal experiences are welcome fair.

I would actually be interested in hearing some honest accounts of John's personal experiences, but at this point I think he has so compromised himself that poor John probably isn't capable of giving us anything approaching a journalistic account of the meanderings of his life. So intent is he on bending everything through the lens of his distorted vision that all we are treated to with his words are some rather skewed half-truths and fanciful visions of a world which I imagine really only exists inside of John's head, and in my opinion that's where such things should stay.

- AaronBBrown

July 14, 2007 at 9:42pm

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jm_rice: please clarify who are you referring to when you say "importing inner-city goons?" it seems quite plain to me -- but i'd be interested to hear how this could be anything but a deeply prejudiced slur --

- ck11w

July 14, 2007 at 10:21pm

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but i am glad to see that there are other tnr readers as unimpressed with and outright sick of mcwhorters musings as i have been all these years it seems that only a particular type of conservative who knows NO blacks personally could possibly be convinced by the highly prejudicial slices of black life he uses to make these claims against his own race and its (usually) liberal allies its past time tnr found another more honest critic of race to counter mcwhorter's nonsense

- ck11w

July 14, 2007 at 10:43pm

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ck11w: Once more -- please clarify your grounds for labeling McWhorter a "neocon"? I'd be interested in why this particular slur arises, as neocons are generally foreign policy hawks who care little about questions of race, educational policy, or language.

- ironyroad

July 14, 2007 at 10:45pm

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Your post really nails it. In fact, though I did want to avoid this embarrassing bit of TNR exposure, I sense that the mag isn't really desperate to any AA staffers or readers. Hell, you're taking about a magazine that has yet to have a female editor, of any hue and I don't read too many articles - other than the ones dealing with SC decisions I suppose - on civil rights issues or issues of importance to us darker folks. In their defense, they did nail the racial component to the Katrina disaster and for that, I was heartened. Still, I suppose that I should be even more encouraged by the fact that no poster has mentioned Jesse and Al on this thread, and for TNR, that is a huge improvement.

- MrCookie1

July 14, 2007 at 10:49pm

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ok ironroady -- where mcwhorter stands on national defense or tax policy (to which the phrase neo-con ordinarily applies) i can't profess to know but i know that he gained notoriety from his book "losing the race: self-sabatoge in black america". and subsequent articles like that in these pages and in his current (mostly unreadable) column. the title of the book says it all. to paraphrase my earlier post -- " with all awful phantasmagoria floating everywhere in black culture" blacks are our own worst enemy - this is the clarion call of all black neo-cons who write about race -- like shelby steele and thomas sowell -- i would have more respect for any of them if he/they were ever animated to write a blistering attack of conservative positions and sacred cows, not just liberal ones. but the failures of liberals (and blacks and liberals certainly have our failings) are the only things that seem to get him exercised as though the party that brought us the katrina debacle, clarence thomas, and tax breaks for the rich is unassailable. mr. mcwhorter is mostly a "cultural" critic not a political one and perhaps the phrase neo-con doesn't quite fit, but rest assured his quarrels with progressive racial positions (almost always based on unverifiable personal anecdote) reveals a person with a decidedly prejudiced and conservative cast of mind.

- ck11w

July 14, 2007 at 11:59pm

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OK, I appreciate the clarification. I don't think McWhorter is a neocon and I'm not certain that he's even obviously conservative in any identifiable way, but clearly he takes positions that annoy the liberal black political establishment. As it happens, I thought Losing the Race wasn't all bad, and that there is a genuine problem with kids getting to the stage of seeing educational achievement as "acting white." I agree that the anecdotal drive behind McW's pieces is irritating and unconvincing -- there should be something more substantial there. But personal stories have had great significance in literature as well as in politics, and it can be too glib just to dismiss stuff we don't like as "anecdotal" (which often seems to mean something like "I wish this was untrue but, shit, it sounds genuine!"). Ineptly or not, I think he has faced up to a creeping anti-intellectualism in black American culture (that matches a kind of anti-intellectualism in American culture generally, of course). I'm not saying McW is right (and maybe he is conservative in a bad way) but he seems to be onto a deeper and more ominous problem than what can be dealt with via "progressive racial positions," whatever they are. For a non-anecdotally-based comment by somebody coming from a different place than McW, here's Orlando Patterson in the NYT a few months ago, for example, on why segregation patterns have retained and even enhanced their presence in private life over the last 40 years, while being largely gone from mainstream public life: So why does segregation persist? The evidence seems clear that, in sharp contrast with the past, the major cause is that blacks generally prefer to live in neighborhoods that are at least 40 percent black. Blacks mention ethnic pride and white hostility as their main reasons for not moving to white neighborhoods. But studies like Mary Pattillo-McCoy's ethnography of middle-class black ghettos show that the disadvantages, especially for youth, far outweigh the psychic gains. It would be naive to discount persisting white racism, but other minorities, like Jews, have faced a similar dilemma and opted, with good reasons, for integration. The Jewish-American experience also shows that identity and integration are not incompatible, and that when the middle class moves, others follow. If America is ever to solve the second part of DuBois's color problem, it will be on the shoulders of the black middle class. Not an anecdote.

- ironyroad

July 15, 2007 at 4:42am

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but I've a minor issue with "The Jewish-American experience also shows that identity and intergration are not incompatible, and that when middle class moves, others follow." Very true, but Jews are white. Black American historical experience is vastly different from any other group's. Jews, Irish, Polish, or other ethnic Europeans had a less brutal experience as minorities largely because they are whites or non-blacks. The comparisons of different minority experiences in American intergration tend to underestimate the importance of color.

- scrubbyoak

July 15, 2007 at 5:50am

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i'm not a part of the "liberal black media establishment" and i find him annoying. i whole heartedly support criticizing black people when they/we mess up and we certainly do mess up. i wholeheartedly support taking black misogny or homophobia or anti-intellectualism to task when and where it manifests itself. what i DON'T support is this easy and archly conservative formulation that the root of all evil in black people's lives comes solely from black pathology and liberal white people's efforts to conceal it. there are places where that is true. i think gangsta rap has exploded partly bc of the fascination that whites have with ghetto culture, not blacks (it's a long standing fact that mostly whites purchase these albums )-- thought it detrimentally affects blacks more than whites. white young liberal consumers feeding and cultivating the black pathology that gangsta rap glorifies. liberals (though not tipper gore) and blacks can rightly be chastised for the triumph of this nonsense. and when the new yorker does picture profiles of lil kim u can't help but think white people's fascination with the worst black people have to offer has gone too far. but there were problems in black america well before the advent of lil kim and my only concern is that we distribute blame for those problems where it lies, regardless of race, not because of it and not because it will get us published in tnr faster. as for orlando patterson, anything he has to say is worth listening to. he is serious. mcwhorter is not.

- ck11w

July 15, 2007 at 5:57am

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i'm black and have always thought this "acting white" thing was a myth, made up by self-hating blacks and seized upon by gullible whites who are easy to trick into believing any bad thing about black culture (remember when everyone believed babies were being raped during hurricane katrina -- turns out it was a lie). Here is a link to an article in the ny times, confirming that this slander on black kids (perpertrated by the likes of mcwhorter) is a fabrication. 'Acting White' Myth, The By PAUL TOUGH Published: December 12, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/12/magazine/12ACTIN G.html?ex=1260594000&en=37bb3e44882a21bc&ei=5090&p artner=rssuserland

- ck11w

July 15, 2007 at 6:08am

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they broke up the link so if it doesn't work just time in "acting white" and "nytimes" in google and it will come up. sorry for being so voluble on this blog, but i deeply resent the air time given to people like mcwhorter by a magazine which i otherwise enjoy.

- ck11w

July 15, 2007 at 6:13am

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I thought, as mentioned by me before on this thread, that I tend to agree with McWhorter and I generally like very much his posts; and I think as scrubbyoak says, that your post 42 is spot on concerning MacWhorter's general argument and concerning the place and usefulness of a well placed, useful anecdote. (btw, as Teplukhin hints at above, I'd be interested to read a more considered analysis by MacWhorter, with or without anecdotes, of the meaning for him of the Seattle School case.) It's just that this particular post by MacWhorter is below standard. ck11w sounds hysterical. And aaronbbrown sounds over the top, but he points to, as does cookie, what seems to be a tnr problem: black under-representation in who writes for it.

- basman

July 15, 2007 at 6:20am

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- basman

July 15, 2007 at 6:22am

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to basman -- there is nothing hysterical about me. passion (negative or positive) always comes across as "hysteria" to people who like to think of themselves as intellectuals. whereas the mild chastisement you employed against mcwhorter "below standard" or the tepid endorsement you used for him "i tend to agree" flatter the users into thinking they are sophisticated, impervious, not easily impressed. it's a pose. an old and transparent one, that says nothing about the quality of your brain. i suppose the handful of times the liberal court read their dissents from the bench. souter proclaiming "we cannot treat human beings this way" in the death penalty case that denied a inmate an appeal despite a judges error. breyer rebuking the majority for 77 pages in the integration verdict. gingsburg expressing what must have been horror at unequal pay verdict the when she wrote "The court does not comprehend, or is indifferent to, the insidious way in which women can be victims of pay discrimination." also come across as hysteria. thank god for their hysteria; I "tend to agree" with them.

- ck11w

July 15, 2007 at 1:43pm

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I agree with Ironyroad about his first book, Losing the Race. Is it ironic that Mcwhorter has found an audience with the right in part because of his race? As he is a novelty I also think Tnr enjoys that Mcwhorter is their first black writer, and more conservative than most everyone on their staff. I

- SCardwell00

July 15, 2007 at 3:18pm

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I agree with Ironyroad about his first book Losing the Race. Is it ironic that Mcwhorter has found an audience with the right in part because of his race? As he is a novelty in being -- sort of -- black and so conservative, does he use that novelty to tilt the market in his favor? Also, it seems that Tnr enjoys that Mcwhorter is (one of) their first black writer(s), and more conservative than most everyone on their staff.

- SCardwell00

July 15, 2007 at 3:23pm

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I like passion as much as the next guy. I *tend to like* Janice Joplin, for instance. I don't fancy myself an intellectual-haven't read enough, probably not smart enough. But I like to read and think and argue some, and I am reasonably analytical. Your comment, "there is nothing hysterical about me. passion (negative or positive) always comes across as 'hysteria' to people who like to think of themselves as intellectuals" is self-refuting and about as incisive as a blunt butter knife that can slice nothing at all. It is over-general to the point of absurd self-parody, and is descriptively, analytically and predictively useless. Passion is fine in argument, but fatuous declamation has no good place. The examples you gave are fine. Your problem is that you want to assimilate your hysteria to those examples. The glove won't fit. In the distinction between passion and empty declamation, it is clear, at least to me, on what side of the line you fall. I like McWhorter a lot, but thought that his post was not up to his usual standard. So I said I thought what he wrote was "below standard." Follow me? And he sometimes writes about complex things like the relation between race and culture in America, and, often, about how this relation manifests itself in language use. I don't have a universe of fixed ideas about these things, but I find myself tending to agree with him. Know what I mean? Mind you, when he talks about the invidiousness of identity politics, I am unequivocally in agreement with him. Dig? For myself, I am conflicted between the majority's and minority's reasons in the Seattle School case, although it does not affect me as a Canadian. I had a cup of coffee this very morning with my brother in law, who is the principal of a prestigious private elementary school in Seattle, and who is committed philosophically, as am I, to public schools. But he and his wife worked hard, got themselves reasonably well educated, work hard in their reasonably good jobs and moved into a nice neighbourhood and wanted to send their kid to their local public school. They could not send their daughter to the neighbourhood high school, because of the school plan in place. Being a professional educator, he tried to work the system three different times to get his daughter into the neighbourhood school, which was a good one. And three times he failed. The school his kid would have had to go to was "below standard" (if you follow my drift.) So what did he do? He sent his kid to a private school. So all these liberal types in his situation, what would they do? If it was me I'd have done the same thing as him and would have shut up about decrying the majority's reasoning. For Seattle where there was no history of de jure segregration, the difference betwen de jure and de facto segregation made a big difference to my brother in law in his complicated feelings about where to draw the line in making a personal sacrifice, particularly where that sacrifice would in fact have been on the back of his daughter.

- basman

July 15, 2007 at 4:17pm

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I read Tough's article, which is a bit disappointing: a four-paragraph op-ed citing one report based on a survey of 11 schools in North Carolina for pete's sake! I'm not saying "acting white" is a provable scientific truth, but if McWhorter uses shaky anecdotes in his writing, he's Immanuel Kant in comparison with Tough (at least for that piece). By the way, I wasn't accusing you of being part of the liberal black political (not "media") establishment, I was just saying that McWhorter annoys them (I've seen this in action: I watched an amusing event on C-SPAN where he was giving a talk as a panel member and the others were physically leaning away so as not to be contaminated by his ideas, e.g. that Democrats tend to take the black vote for granted). I'm not an educational theorist although I do teach, and I'm not sure about the "acting white" thing, as getting to college is a kind of a demographic fact in and of itself, no matter what your race/ethnicity might be. Back in high school, the antipathy to institutional discipline, pedagogical procedures, teacher authority etc may be a version of the old working-class dismissal of "book larnin'" which is rooted in American culture. But whether it's all about "acting white" or not, somebody needs to resolve the problem or these kids (not just A-A either) will find a world in which they can't get a foothold because they don't have a real grip on life or social interaction.

- ironyroad

July 15, 2007 at 8:30pm

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whatever u think of my positions the fundamental truth is this -- until the number of black Americans you actually interact with in REAL LIFE exceeds the number of black Americans whose articles you read on the web, how seriously can anyone take your opinion on race in America, Mr. Canada? the same goes for any one else who opines about race but can count the black people they know on a few fingers.

- ck11w

July 15, 2007 at 8:47pm

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Btw I'd recommend Noel Ignatieff's book How the Irish Became White for anyone who'd like a nuance or two to their history.

- ironyroad

July 15, 2007 at 9:51pm

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You are one of the handful on this thread making any sense at all. McWhorter is just another pseudo-libertarian AA houseboy for head-in-the-sand white conservatives. I would quibble a little, however, with your description of McW as a neo-con. I think he might be more fairly described as "libertarian". That position is, itself, so incoherent that referring to someone as a libertarian is, in my view, sufficiently derogatory. basman, you are off your game. Wasn't it you who reminded me once that it is best to avoid the personal insults? I would suggest that accusing someone of "hysteria" just because he/ she has the temerity to disagree with you is just such an insult. In any case, it is not so "analytical". Anyway, the quality of debate (or lack thereof) exhibited heretofore on this thread is why I "tend" to avoid these debates. A bunch of bourgeois white-bread punk-boys declaiming about race and "identity politics" comes close to putting me off my dinner.

- wmsberry

July 15, 2007 at 9:54pm

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the number of black Americans I actually interact with in REAL LIFE: typically about 3-5 on a daily basis. Three black bosses so far, the first a closeted gay a-a, the second a slightly insane Nigerian woman MBA, the third a delightful engineer from Stanford. A couple girlfriends way back when. Lots o colleagues. the number of black Americans whose articles I read on the web: about 1-2 every six months. Saw something forgettable by Debra Dickerson a while back. McWhorter's stuff is interesting though infrequent. How seriously can anyone take my opinion on race in America? I dunno. As seriously as anyone else's, I s'pose.

- teplukhin2you

July 15, 2007 at 9:56pm

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I'm starting to think you are not that bright, and that you cannot argue anything on on the merits. I think it's irrelevant, but, if you want to know, I interact with more black people than the number of Black writers I read on the web. this being your irrelevant criterion about something that blooms in the hot house of your own unique mind. I travel frequently to the American south out of my love for the Blues, which I know a reasonable amount about, and have my entire adult life been immersed in Black music, Black writers, and Black culture generally. Like my cyber buddy Tepluhkin, I have had a few Black girl friends. What of it? "Mr. Canada"--and with sarcasm dripping: really, how pathetic is that. I once read something by Glen Loury where he described playing baseball as a poor kid with his friends in some hard scrabble sand lot, with the kids wearing such tattered remnants of baseball unforms and raggedy gloves as they could muster. Just really poor kids playing ball together. And each time before they played, they would of their own volition take off their caps and all sing The Star-Spangled Banner and without a hint of irony. I found that incredibly moving to read, almost to the point of tears, and in that "anecdote", powerful and telling, it seems to me, resides something of the best promise of America, and something of the spirit that animates Mcwhorter's cultural writing.

- basman

July 15, 2007 at 11:19pm

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Where did I *opine about race* in what I wrote?

- basman

July 15, 2007 at 11:23pm

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"but if McWhorter uses shaky anecdotes in his writing, he's Immanuel Kant in comparison with Tough (at least for that piece)."

- basman

July 15, 2007 at 11:26pm

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iron roady -- to start with an anecdote i was never called white in an all black poor school despite enormous educational acheivement -but i NEVER tell that as a story bc it's a simple anecdote of MY life. but i always wondered where this phenomenon occured since none of my high acheiving friends or family had this experience either (and these friends etc. # in the hundreds probably thousands over the course of my life -- and I always ask bc of how vexing i find this rumor)-- this includes my best friend who is the principal of a inner city school in chicago -- her kids don't call each other white for achieving even despite the roughness of the school and neighborhood ) but i let it lie bc of how aggressively this rumor persisted. So I was always vexed to see it so readily accepted by whites who don't have their own persoanl experiences to be led to doubt this rumor-become-fact. they can only read it in a book and decide that it must be true. there were never hard studies backing it up not just one or two anecdotes that have exploded into the weight of "fact" and i eventually realized that it was repeated so frequently because of how readily even sympathetic whites can be lead to believe in black pathology. again remember the rumor of babies being raped and other nameless atrocities during katrina. i knew this was MOSTLY nonsense -- and i had to wait for a ny times article not long after which confirmed that this was just cruel rumors getting out of control. the study i posted is as close to anything approaching a definitive study of this rumor. and if it is as common place as mcw suggests it should bear itself out even if marginally. again the ability to convince whites of the pathological failures of black culture is VERY easy, so once someone says ooh blacks disparage each other for acheiving, whites run with it. you might ask yourself where did you learn this "fact"? why did you believe it? did you learn it in a study? or was it just somethign that seemed right so you went with it. and didn't bother to listen to or seek out refutations of it. as for telupkin - perhaps i should have made the formulation less "clever" but i'll simply say that your 3-5 blacks and a few girlfriends over the course of your life (next to my thousands of black friends/associates/ classmates and relatives and actually BEING black) is harldy sufficient to equip you to either shore up or doubt mchwhorters non-sensical anecdotes about other blacks. and seeing as how many perfectly intelligent blacks dislike him including the great and ALWAYS fact based glenn loury (who basman paraprhased) and henry gates and basman just bc you have "immersed" yourself in black culture means very little to me. again if you knew any blacks you would know how meaningless someone white telling you that they love black music is. bc you like bo diddly means well..diddly..

- ck11w

July 16, 2007 at 1:31am

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...true or an urban legend? And frankly, when all is said and done, who cares? Berekely, which goes strictly on merit now, is filled with Asians. White kids are the minority. Blacks and Hispancis hard to find. So, who forced the whites, blacks, and Hispanics to fall off the merit-go-round? All this jaw-jaw in academe is just so much jibberish. Once the laws were righted, and after nearly forty years of white guys trying to make up for things out of some sense of guilt, just about everything that can be done by OTHER people has been done. With tens of millions of Latinos pouring into the country and with no end in sight, the entire black/white thing is entirely irrelevant already. Just nobody notices. In twenty years-- make that in ten years-- it will be entirely off the charts as an issue except in acadme where black guys and white guys will talk to each other about it. And in some urban areas where there are enough black voters in relation to Hispanics for any politician to care, they'll give it some lip service. But, man, this is SO 1964, folks. As the Kozzies say, time to Move On.

- ChanRobt

July 16, 2007 at 2:26am

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all that said -- my general points stand. On the merits: mcwhorter is famous not like patterson or loury for being a serious scholar and students of race, but because he writes disparaging cultural commentray on blacks in clear prose. his first book anounced his pov from the start: self-sabatoge in black america. as with that book he bases these comments almost always on personal anecdotes from his life, which conveniently, no one can deny or confirm but him. that's not scholarship. and the white people that either like him or have promoted him range from the editors of this magazine who enjoy disparaging comments on blacks (especially when made by other blacks) and sympathetic liberal whites whose experience with blacks is too narrow to lead them to doubt his word. none of the scholars i have named -- some of whom i know personally - take him very seriously, but some readers of this blog apparently do. and to the person who says he developed a name for himself precisely because he is black and (racially) conservative nailed the issue - like clarence thomas he wants to eliminate the same system without which he would be a nobody.

- ck11w

July 16, 2007 at 2:29am

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...black white thing is mainly a concern of Boomers. They're walking around with "I wanta hold your hand" and "We shall overcome" in their heads. Gen X, Y, & Z-- it's hardly on their radar screens outside of a generalized desire to be fair minded. Civil Rights, Affirmative Action, etc are literally history to them. And bottom line, you can legislate against discrimination-- and you should. But, you can't legislate respect. That's something that's either earned or it isn't. A rule of nature that applie to all of us-- indiscriminately.

- ChanRobt

July 16, 2007 at 2:39am

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People don't need any racial bonafides to be assholes. Do they?

- boxofrox

July 16, 2007 at 2:49am

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"again the ability to convince whites of the pathological failures of black culture is VERY easy, so once someone says ooh blacks disparage each other for achieving, whites run with it. you might ask yourself where did you learn this 'fact'?" Firstly, I don't think McW in his book says anything at all about so-called "pathological failures of black culture." If I recall it right, he's more interested in the problem of the black activist/cultural "respect" approach of the late 60s and early 70s, and how it got out of hand and infected the whole area of education. It's not about pathology, it's about politics and rhetoric. Secondly, I did indeed say that I thought that Losing the Race wasn't all bad (it's not a bad book, even if you don't agree with it), and that there is a genuine problem with kids getting to the stage of seeing educational achievement as "acting white." But I can take a hint, I'm happy to find out that it's just some white-seducing weird idea that I should toss in the garbage asap, but one thing is sure: Paul Tough's op-ed isn't going to do the trick. To put it another way -- I thought that McW made a convincing case that there is such a problem, even if his anecdotal account makes you wonder if he's not building up odd moments and random events into global reality. OTOH, some of the best anti-racist writing in this country during the civil rights struggle was built on people turning anecdotal incidents into an indictment of a larger society. But maybe you're right. Maybe it's all a fantasy dreamed up by McW and his neocon colleagues. Again, I suspect that McW has possibly never even voted Republican, but, hey, who wants reality to disturb their internal movie.

- ironyroad

July 16, 2007 at 5:17am

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not sure exactly who you are referring to as an asshole, me or my critics so if it's me your calling that, here is my response: no people don't need racial bonafides to be assholes, because you're managing to be one quite nicely without them. if you are referring to my critics as assholes then: no, people don't need racial bonafides to be assholes, because they seem to be managing quite well without them. (to be fair - i actually don't know if they are assholes -- i just know that on this matter they are wrong)

- ck11w

July 16, 2007 at 5:44am

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People don't need any racial bonafides to be assholes. Do they? Only white guys are assholes, of course. Here's the thing. We're white. (I think you are, anyway.) So we can never understand what black people go through every day. If an AA says he's been the victim of racism, we're not allowed to ask for evidence, or suggest alternative explanations, or anything like that--we are required to take his word for it. Oh, and my neighbor is a witch. She turned my buddy into a newt. (He got better.)

- Mabus

July 16, 2007 at 7:35am

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"Only white guys are assholes, ofcourse." Nonsense. ck11w, who is black, has written a few posts on this thread critical of J. Mcwhorter, another black, and nowhere on his numerous posts did he say or imply that only whites are assholes. If he was Jewish (I am) and had written about Jews and anti-semitism, he would be cut a lot more slack. Read his posts again, replacing African American for Jew and my point will be made. I don't agree with everything you've written, however, I understand what you are saying, ck11w

- scrubbyoak

July 16, 2007 at 8:05am

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one mistake: it was gerald early and not glen loury.

- basman

July 16, 2007 at 8:17am

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I love it when people presume, as do you, that they ipso facto speak for others.

- basman

July 16, 2007 at 8:22am

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Where did I opine about race? Care to venture an answer? My lack of qualification (according to you)to do something I can't recall doing seems to be the brunt of your argument with me.

- basman

July 16, 2007 at 8:32am

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when discussing McWhorter and it is self referential, but hell, since McWhorter himself seems to think personal stories qualify as quantitative support for larger ideas, here goes: McWhorter, like Clarence Thomas, seems to be a hell of a lot more popular and credible with white folks. I have worked in very diverse communities where I often had AA friends and colleagues. Still do but where I work now is pretty monochrome but that is another story. Sit around with AA professionals and if the opportunity comes around, bring up McWhorter and just listen to what you hear. You'll hear a lot but from my rather narrow frame of experience, I hear my black friends and colleagues generally saying that their biggest gripe about McWhorter is that he appears to be writing to - and for - a white audience. Now, not being in McWhorter's head, I have no idea if this is indeed true, but based upon the orgasmic positive response McWhorter's work gets from folks like Marty Peretz and many TNR readers, who, I strongly sense are overwhelmingly white and not real receptive to modern civil rights issues (just the mention of racial issues can bring a chorus of complaints about "identity politics" and the usual Jesse-Al reduction), I think my black colleagues, and ck11w, may be on to something that escapes your garden variety TNR subscriber.

- MrCookie1

July 16, 2007 at 10:46am

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"...their biggest gripe about McWhorter is that he appears to be writing to - and for - a white audience...." Given where he works, and given his colleagues at the Manhattan Institute, that wouldn't be a surprise.

- SMacEachern2

July 16, 2007 at 1:39pm

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as for telupkin - perhaps i should have made the formulation less "clever" but i'll simply say that your 3-5 blacks and a few girlfriends over the course of your life (next to my thousands of black friends/associates/ classmates and relatives and actually BEING black) is harldy sufficient to equip you to either shore up or doubt mchwhorters non-sensical anecdotes about other blacks To clarify, a few a-a gf's over the years, but 3-5 a-a and africans DAILY, as per your q. Cumulatively, in my lifetime I've had fairly steady and close relationships on and off with probably 100 or so a-a's, africans etc. Lost count.

- teplukhin2you

July 16, 2007 at 1:45pm

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You are making a mistake trying to justify your capacity to comment on issues involving race by quantifying your associations with blacks. The premise is pernicious and invidious.

- basman

July 16, 2007 at 3:27pm

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Why not specify the racial issues that send white liberals into paroxyms of whatever? What does it mean for McWhorter to write for a white audience as opposed to just writing what he thinks? And what does that response from black professionals that you know have to with his good faith in in his writing. Your repeating that likely canard aids no discussion on the merits and in my view constititues an ad hominem smear that McWhorter needs to kiss white asses to get along. I read that as a terible thing to say or repeat as opposed simply to discussing his writing on the merits.

- basman

July 16, 2007 at 3:36pm

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I propose that if we continue any discussion or have one down the road, we refrain from anything ad hominem and simply try to deal with issues on the merits.

- basman

July 16, 2007 at 3:38pm

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...of race, I see symptoms in this discussion of people getting tired of being gentlemen. There's something more going down here than one guy calling another guy a dumbass. That happens at tnr periodically. But, there's something pent up and bursting out in this thread. A certain pleasure in calling someone "not bright" who has identified himself as black. I don't think it's to do with any particular individuals here today. I don't think we have some untapped source of racists. What I'm reading is impatience on the part of white guys with the chronic grievances of blacks. A generaliozed "we've been leaning over backwards for 4 or 5 decades and now we're just not going to do it anymore. In fact, not only are we not going to be difficent, NOW we're going to be abusive. And see how that works out.

- ChanRobt

July 16, 2007 at 4:44pm

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And have ANY of issues been resolved since 1964? I still here complaints that blacks are kept from voting in certain places at certain times. Really true, or just a Dem demagogue issue? Blacks of merit, attainment, and education are denied jobs just because they're black. Blacks are denied access to decent public school education. (I'd say that in a lot of places, like my own Los Angeles Unified School District) that EVERYBODY is denied a decent public school education. I'd like to see the current list. But, I'd guess that a lot of the grievances are going to boil down to outcomes. More white guys and Asians make $x or live x years, therefor that proves there's a conspiracy to hold blacks (and Hispancis yes?no?) back. Part of the problem is, just plain fatigue. Most big beefs in America seem to get resolved in 25 or 30 years. Certainly in half a century. Even though there is a vastly large black middle class than ever in history, the general grievances sound either the same, or sound like old stuff dressed up in academic or bureaucratic phraseology. Fatigue on the part of those being complained to is inevitable after so long.

- ChanRobt

July 16, 2007 at 5:00pm

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mabus -- i think that was sarcasm, therefore i have no idea what you're talking about. i never said white people can't suggest anything to blacks. i only said that whites (and blacks for that matter) be as informed as possible before you/they do so. In other words, do your homework. As one of my black professors said to me, "Race is not rocket science; it's harder." Your off the cuff comments after reading a few columns or a handful of books about blacks are not sufficient. ironroady -- that study SHOULD carry more weight than mcwhorter's word even if you don't think it's definitve. it is MORE definitive than an anecdote. again ask yourself where did you learn this "fact" and why were you and are you so seduced by it in the absence of anything but af few isolated stories by black (racial) conservatives? my issue is not that NO black has every been called white for achieving ( though i have never seen or witnessed it) my issue is how this has become the fastest and most FULLY accepted slander on blacks that whites believe and in just a handful of years. And i continue to be baffled as to why, especially since all the black people i know are scratching our heads as to where this rumor comes from. yet whites (and some ridiculous blacks) seem to LOVE this "fact" as a testament to how fucked up blacks are. telphukin - of the many blacks you have been friends with i'd be curious to know what THEY think of mchwhorter -- whether, like me, and like Mr. Cookies associates, they believe he distorts black people's lives with prejudicial and unverifiable anecdotes in order to make cruel points about his race for the satisfaction of the whites (in this magazine and elsewhere) who promote him and have helped him make his name. basman -- i love gerald early! glad you like him too. he dislikes books and work like mchworter's. Here is his review of a similar book by Debra Dickerson. "Although most black polemicists bristle at the suggestion that blacks are pathological, these books are driven by the view that the behavior and thinking that need correcting are so self-defeating as to require public censure (remember the title of mcwhorter's book -- self-sabatoge in black america). I find these poses....presumptuous and off-putting." he goes on to say more negative things about dickerson and her ilk -- which Mcwhorter belongs to. And you opined (definition: stated an opinion) on race when you said "McW sometimes writes about complex things like the relation between race and culture and I find myself tending to agree with him." Your opinion is that McW is mostly right about race and culture. I disagree as do the BULK of educated, reasonable blacks, Early and Loury (former conservative and darling of the Reagan administraion himself) among them. And all I ask is what i asked of mabus, that before you decide that McW is mostly right about race, you read his critics, that you have more knowledge of the minds and lives of the race he disdains, that you pressure his claims with the same intellectual aggression that you've pressured mine. nothing more than that. and to brown and cookie, etc -- glad to see there are people who understand the core of what i have been arguing -- despite the colorful, provocative language it may be couched in. but as basman knows, i'm very "passionate"

- ck11w

July 16, 2007 at 5:16pm

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"again ask yourself where did you learn this "fact" and why were you and are you so seduced by it in the absence of anything but of few isolated stories by black (racial) conservatives?" Firstly, I don't know that "acting white" is a fact, and I'm not seduced by it. I've read some convincing accounts of it, however, and listened to many people on and off the media discussing it -- for example, it was extensively reported in a Pulitzer-winning series of articles that the NY Times ran around five years ago. They reported in particular from high schools. I think that might stand up rather well against Tough's survey of 11 schools in North Carolina. But maybe everyone whose analysis you don't like is either a "black (racial) conservative," whatever that is, or a bamboozled white. So maybe you're right -- maybe it's all a fantasy dreamed up by McW and his neocon colleagues. I wonder, though, if you're simply not prepared to look at a problematic situation that isn't easily assimilated to old civil rights activism models. On the matter of style and approach, I also noted that much anti-racist writing over time has used the anecdote very effectively to put abstract realities into a human concrete form, something that you don't appear to want to consider. Btw, it's not a big thing, but I usually take care myself to get other people's handles right (even odd combinations of letters and numbers where it's easy to make a slip). You've typed mine incorrectly as "ironroady" about four times now.

- ironyroad

July 16, 2007 at 10:14pm

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Yes, I was being sarcastic. It seems to me that ChanRobt has the right of it. Our society has spent decades and billions of dollars trying to adjust for discrimination, against AAs and a variety of others, yet apparently nothing has changed. That suggests that continuing the present course of increasing amounts of affirmative action would constitute insanity (by the "doing the same thing and expecting different results" definition). But "more of the same" is precisely what's being demanded of us. Therefore I honestly don't understand and suspect I never will.

- Mabus

July 16, 2007 at 11:55pm

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I'm happy to read McWhorter's critics, but no amount of special pleading will ever convince me of the virtue of identity politics, black identity politics included. In fact, special pleading wil only intensify my loathing of it. And if the criticism of McWhorter is typified by the kinds of comments on this thread and on other threads at TNR where he has posted, I am not likely to be dislodged from my agreements with him. But I will try to check some things out and maybe get into them with you if further opportunities beckon.

- basman

July 17, 2007 at 1:37am

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Here is a precis of McWhorter's argument from his Self-Sabotage book. I'll summarize his argument and ask you tell me where he is wrong. ___________________________________ On the fulcrum of the incident of the Washington D.C. city employee who was forced to resign for using the word "niggardly" properly, McWhorter argues that that incident is microcosmic in illuminating the problems he diagnoses in black culture. He notes that blacks tend to perceive themselves, and whites tend to preceive blacks, as a culture apart in America, not part of the American fabric, regardless of the arguments of critics like Stanley Crouch who say that blacks are the most American of Americans. The reason for this, argues Mcwhorter is not racism, even though it clearly persists, but, rather, it resides in three related manifestations of a terrible mind set internally crippling the black community. The first is what he calls "Victimology"-the self-perception by blacks that they are victims, their privileging of victimization and their interest in sustaining and nurturing the idea of it. McWhorter argues that, as an example, it is victimology that led to the outraged reaction to the innocent, however infelicitous, use of the "niggardly" and the incommensurate consequences that flowed from its use-the utterer's effective firing and the mayor saying its use-I paraphrase-was like smoking in a refinery causing an explosion. That is so, argues McWhorter, because blacks in the grips of victimology see racism lurking in every corner so that even a word that sounds racist, but is not actually, becomes racist. He notes that Marion Barry's successor, Anthony Williams, according to McWhorter, did not feel himself "black" enough to satisfy Barry's old constituency in D.C. and thus felt politically compelled to force David Howard's resignation to prove his black cred. McWhorter argues that for blacks victimology is a permanent condition, an eternal pathology, and not a problem that will be solved. The second is what McWhorter calls "Separatism"-the outgrowth of victimology; it encourages, says Mcwhorter, blacks to see themselves as a kind of separate, unofficial sovereignty inside America. And because they are victims and sovereignly isolate, they think the normal rules that apply to other Americans don't apply to them. The acceptance of Howard's resignation is one small example of this, for McWhorter; so are the alarming crime and imprisonment rates for blacks. McWhorter refers to an outgrowth of Separatism-a Separatist conception of morality. An example of this differentiated morality was the re-election of Marion Barry even after after he had run the city into the ground, despite billions of dollars in Federal aid and even after he had been sent to prison for drug use. And effectively firing Howard was Williams' proving he was rooted in the alternate morality. The third, which you have talked some about with Ironyroad, is what McWhorter identifies as a strong bent toward anti-intellectualism, a "culture-internal infection", manifest in a "notorious lag" by black students in grades and test scores, regardless of the socio-economics, which is to say, all across the educational spectrum. McWhorter says that whites in America encourage these attitudes and behaviours partly out of misconceived moral obligation, and partly out of a stifling political correctness-it's something only blacks can say about other blacks. Therefore, argues McWhorter, "...Whites are now implicated in nurturing black self-sabotage not because of racist malevolence, but because of the same historical accidents that have encouraged blacks to embrace these thought patterns. Yet the fact remains that interracial relations in America have congealed into a coded kind of dance that unwittingly encourages black people to preserve and reinforce their status as "other," and a pitiable, weak, and unintelligent "other" at that. This, too, was evident in the niggardly episode, in which David Howard actually accepted the condemnation rained upon him by most of black Washington. Howard thought that he deserved to be fired for innocently uttering a word that even sounded like nigger, even though what he was doing while uttering it was helping to improve the lives of the city's citizens." These three manifestations of the overall crippling mind set are, for McWhorter, pervasive, and, as he says, "part of the very essence of the modern black identity." For example, he notes a poll amongst blacks that showed most thought that 3/4s of blacks live in ghettoes, when in fact 1 out of 5 do. And it manifests itself, he says, in the "fact" that blacks make sub-standard grades in well- funded suburban schools staffed by sensitive, conscientious teachers. To quote McWhorter again: "In short, these three currents are neither only inner-city ills, mere cynical ploys by politicians, nor just smug fantasy churned out from the ivory tower by the brie-and-Zinfandel set. They are so endemic to black culture as a whole that they are no longer even perceived as points of view, but rather as simple logic incarnate. In other words, these defeatist thought patterns have become part of the bedrock of black identity." McWhorter argues that these attitudes can be overcome, as seductive as victimology is. It is comforting in its underdoggism; it gives failure, laziness and even criminality a tacit stamp of approval. It inhibits the challenges of moving ahead and triumphing over circumstances. Separatism provides "the balm of a sense of roots" but it operates to the detriment of blacks in America. And the anti-intellectualism-"a race permanently wary of close reasoning and learning for learning's sake"-so evident in sub-standard academic performance forecloses blacks from a better future by supresing the very techniques necessary to that future. McWhorter's plea is that, "Following that track (his prescriptions) will require some profound adjustments in black identity, which today would feel nothing less than alien to most African Americans under the age of seventy. Nevertheless, these adjustments are not only possible, but most importantly are the only thing that will cut through the circularity and fraudulence infusing so much of interracial relations in America today, and bring African Americans at last to true equality in the only country that will ever be their home." ___________________________________ Frankly ck11w, having rehearsed these arguments more closely, I can understand better your exasperation at a Canadian pontificating about them. But, that said, to all this, what say you?

- basman

July 17, 2007 at 4:24am

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Orgasmic? Come on , man. You're the guy who insists there ain't no referee. Are you bitching about the way the fight is being called these days. Or is it just the quality of the audience? I was an early adopter of things computer. The software back in those days was less than friendly. Sheez. You had to go into the registry for this and that. Jump through various hoops just to get even enough to find the other stuff that wouldn't work. It seemed, rightly, that square one was far behind zero. Nowadays the stuff just works and folks take it for granted. As it should be. I don't even hold it against those that can't appreciate what a pain in the ass it was way back when. I saw a great South Park a few weeks ago. It was a wonderful little look at human nature per through the eyes of a couple of crippled at birth kids. They didn't see clear to allow accidental crips into their 'authentic cripples' club.

- boxofrox

July 17, 2007 at 11:39am

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First let me say I do not have the book here, so I have to rely on the excerpts and paraphrases you provided. But isn't it possible that blacks feel both a part of america AND seperate from it, not just separated victims, like McW says. Or is that too nuanced an idea? The very word African-American implies this. How should blacks feel AFTER hurricane katrina when 1800 blacks died and the president ignored the suffering splashed on EVERY tv screen? If blacks didn't feel a part of America why would be angry with Bush for not coming to their aid. Why did many blacks (not me) bristle at being called refugees which many felt was disenfranchising and alienating. We are also Americans was the cry. As usual, Mcwhorter uses a few extreme negative anecdotes to cover the whole of or even bulk of black America. One white person was forced or asked to resign after using a STRANGE and VERY out of fashion word to describe a black person: a word that NO ONE uses and that sounds EXACTLY like "nigger" AND is also an insult. When he said this black person was acting niggardly, he wasn't complimenting them. Maybe the reaction was extreme. I wasn't there and neither was McWhorter. He read about it in the paper and decided he knew enough to use this story to support his general thesis that we are ALL hysterical. Even if it was extreme, why not counter that story with scenes of comity and cooperation between blacks and whites in the city? Why does one or even a dozen BAD stories get to speak for the whole of a race, but a dozen GOOD stories can't speak for the whole of the race? What about bad stories gives them more currency than good ones? Only if you are predisposed to dislike blacks do you focus on bad, non-scientific anecdotes and ignore non-scientific positive ones. Didn't YOU YOURSELF tell a story about Gerald Early growing up in the ghetto but singing the star spangled banner before he and his friends played basketball? If blacks don't feel American why do we vote at a higher rate than any other minority

- ck11w

July 17, 2007 at 6:03pm

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"To close, one guess whether McWhorter

- basman

July 17, 2007 at 8:00pm

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yeah i figured that last comment would not sit well with the people who dislike my posts. that's no surprise to me. your objection is cliche to me. you're wagging your head at the antiquated race-obsessed black guy who can't see past color to the truth about his own people, right? this is the permanent song of the lazy minded and somewhat dishonest white in America today. every honest person knows there are minorities who will not marry other minorities -- jews who won't ever marry jews. asians who would never marry an asian. on and on. same with blacks. there are also people who are colorblind who marry no matter what a persons race - beautiful - but mcwhorter isn't color blind - he's color obsessed - as his books and this summary of his opinions confirms. if this were a court of law the race of his spouse would be circumstantial evidence at best, maybe not even that, but combine mcwhorter almost pathological fixation on grotesqeuly negative stories about his own people, his insistence that they are all emblematic -- his breezy dismissal of the ills of whites --to his marriage to someone white and you get a caricature of a human being, obsessed with color, pretending to be a colorblind and courageous truth teller. and a bunch of equally uninformed whites who love the fact that he exempts them from having any hand in the racial ills of society.

- ck11w

July 17, 2007 at 8:42pm

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1. It's not that your last comment doesn't sit well with people who didn't like your posts (such as myself); it's that it is stand alone objectionable as racialist (as opposed to racist, as in tending toward racism); 2. You employ the word "cliche" to rationalize away the the truth of the content of my comment, just as you can't look past colour to the content of someone's character. The issue has nothing to do with anything antiquated (though it does have something to do with being "race obsessed"). And I'm not so much wagging my head as in saying "tut tut". I'm saying firmly, but as politely as I can, that your stance here is racialist. You seem not to be able to see past colour to the truth of people, not "your people." (You have no people, nor do I. Your comment here affirms my previous criticism of you for thinking you speak for a vast of group people, who you now seem to assert some proprietorship over.) 3.There is no logical nexus (or socially constructed logical nexus) between decrying your racialism and the qualities of being: "lazy minded"; "somewhat dishonest" or "white". 4. Jews marry other Jews and some Jews, wrongly, on my scale of values decry that; same with Asians, whomever you exactly mean by Asians--Indians?, Pakistanis?, in my view. If Jews, who do not constitute a race, object to other Jews marrying anyone else but Jews, I think they are insular and wrong, but not racist. If a Jew objects to a white skinned Jew marrying a dark skinned Jew or a dark sinned anyone, he or she is racialist. In this regard, there is no analogy between Blacks and Jews. And there is no end to the racialist nonsense, once you get started. At what level of darkness do you draw a line; does brown skin qualify; how about octoroons; or maybe you subscribe to the one drop of blood test? What a load of crap, honestly! The insular ranging to racist attitudes of others ought to give you no comfort in asserting your own racialist position. 5. I'd say that McWhorter is less clour blind than you. He is, as I read him, double minded, in some of the way described by DuBois, as he tries to navigate the dialectic of being, in DuBois's words "an American, a Negro", conscious of his race as part of his particular situatedness as a human being living in America. I submit that it is pain at what he sees in the lives of other blacks that moves him to argue for improvement in their lives in ways that take their humanity and human capacities as a premise rather than their victimization. You can I guess quarrel with his vision, but nothing ought to cause you to dismiss him as "scum", that strong epithet being a proportionately fatuous and pathetic substitute for thought and argument. 6. I'm a lawyer, and I'm here to tell you the race of his spouse is irrelevant to any real issue here. Your hyperbolic use of the word "pathological" is not helped by your weasel word "almost" and is right up their probatively with the word "scum." 7. I need you to tell me that McWhorter's observations about the "notorious" educational lags in black academic performance and the black crime and prison statistics are either wrong or, if not wrong, then account for them. I find persuasive McWhorter's cultural diagnosis: after all, it is not genetics. If you argue that these problems lie at the feet on non-black America, then ck11w, you, in my view, substantiate his analysis and do nobody any ameliorative good. p.s I meant to confine my remarks to the "white wife" point, but went beyond that. I still have not addressed specifically your other coments in your post 87-still mean to do so.

- basman

July 17, 2007 at 10:05pm

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1. Jews marry non Jews and some Jews, wrongly, on my scale of values decry that; 5. I'd say that McWhorter is less colour obsessed than you. In fact I don't see him as colour obsessed at all. Whereas you seem to be.

- basman

July 17, 2007 at 10:36pm

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I'd just like to know what a "black (racial) conservative" is, as I can't figure it -- with or w/o the parentheses. Clearly it's something you think McW is, but wtf is it?

- ironyroad

July 18, 2007 at 12:50am

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...characterizes as a unique black American culture; and that this culture is valueable, irreplaceable, and must be preserved; then he would have some standing to argue that American blacks ought to marry American blacks on cultural grounds. Orthodox Jews, or serious observant Jews, seeing Jewishness as a unique, ancient religion AND a culture did and do have a non-racial, and defensible rationale for hoping and encouraging Jews to marry Jews. I think you could argue, that in America and what Jewish immigrants feared did happen. Their children often married non-Jews and their grandchildren became part of a larger, secular, American --not Jewish-- culture. Other Jews maintain a cultural Jewish identity while observing their religion, if at all, only in the cultural sense on a few major holidays. Not unlike cultural Christians in the West. The point is, the fear of Jewish arrivals in America of losing their religion and culture here through dillution in the larger culture was not unfounded. Where observant and orthodox Jews have married others of the same inclination, their "Jewishness" has remained intact. So, is it wrong, to wish to maintain your culture and not see it diluted? I would argue that it is not. Is it wrong to wish to maintain your "race", and not have it diluted by marriage outside your "race"? Well, as we know, that is a much more problematic question. Is the wish to maintain your culture in its "pure" form any different than the desire to maintain your race in its "pure" form? Is it wrong to wish to perpetuate dachshunds, poodles, and chihuahas as distinguishable breeds, each with desireable and unique traits worth preserving? Even though we know that they are all dogs. Is there any argument to be made that there are "breeds" of human beings, that they have different traits, that those traits are all worthy of being preserved in some sort of "pure" form? Now clearly our heads and our intellects and our contemporary sense of propiety rejects any such notion as a human "breed". But, I think it is also clear, that our guts have at least some proclivity for that notion. The black, Asian, Latino, and white tables at many of our most prestigious universities that these atavistic tendencies are not reserved to South Boston.

- ChanRobt

July 18, 2007 at 2:19am

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The black, Asian, Latino, and white tables at many of our most prestigious universities suggest that these atavistic tendencies are not reserved to South Boston.

- ChanRobt

July 18, 2007 at 2:22am

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ck11w is right about the fact that race is a big, big subject. Obviously he is heavily invested in such studies and desires that others pay a proper respect to such disciplines. The bugger of such is, what color conscience? spirit? intellect? The framing of such studies must needs an even larger and more comprehensive scope than what is being presented heretofor in order to transcend these self defeating tendencies of implied goal. Implied goal being truth. Wherever that may lead. Just casual observance leads me to have sympathy with some of McW observations. I have seen first hand his accounting of backhanded condescension. It is dishonest. I also have seen naked bigotry. These capacities span humanity to include all wherein personal identity is contingent upon the temporal. Intelligence has little to do with it. It is more of a spiritual disposition. The capacity to love has no color or contingency. Much as can be extended will find resolution and freedom for all. It would seem we have a ways to go.

- boxofrox

July 19, 2007 at 10:20am

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in brief about the "notorious lag" of blacks academically. what of the fact that middle to upper middle class white kids/teens with two parent homes are more promiscuous than their black middle class counterparts from two parent homes, esp white girls, more commit suicide, more are anorexic and have body image problems., more use recreational drugs, more have abortions at a young age and get diagnosed with all manners of dispression and any other long list of very unwelcome social behavior. so while black middle class kids MAY get lower grades on the whole than their white counterparts, on a long list of indices blacks surpass/exceed whites -- so what should we conclude about white culture that their teens are SO corrupt/ depressed/ promiscuous/ using cocaine and other drugs. whites must just be AWFUL human beings across the board when they're kids who have stable homes and incomes are nevertheless so immoral, miserable and rebellious. whites must all be sociopathic, rotten people to create progeny like this.

- ck11w

July 19, 2007 at 9:42pm

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