Racing in Place

A thirty-four-year-old associate professor of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, McWhorter has written four other books, but they are specialized works, focusing mainly on language. Now, in taking this shockingly strong stand on perhaps the most divisive issue in America, he is showing extraordinary bravery.

In Losing the Race, he points out the way in which victimology blames white racism for black problems and “inherently gives failure, lack of effort, and even criminality a tacit stamp of approval.” Because of the “Cult of Victimology,” writes McWhorter, “it has become a keystone of cultural blackness to treat victimhood not as a problem to be solved but as an identity to be nurtured.” Though he generally praises Shelby Steele’s The Content of Our Character, he disagrees with Steele’s analysis of victimology as “a conscious manipulation strategy.” Rather, says McWhorter, it is a “subconscious psychological gangrene” that “infects our whole culture, not just the power seekers.”

Separatism is a direct product of victimology, and it causes “a restriction of cultural taste, a narrowing of intellectual inquiry, and most importantly, a studied dilution of moral judgment.” By labeling as “white” the mainstream culture, separatism “alienates many black people from some of the most well-wrought, emotionally stirring art and ideas that humans have produced, miring the race in a parochialism that clips its spiritual wings.” So too separatism results in the “ghettoization” of black academic work, downplaying “logical argument and factual evidence in the service of filling in an idealized vision of the black past and present, which is founded not upon intellectual curiosity but upon raising in-group self-esteem.”

But the “most crippling symptom” of separatism is its conviction that black people “cannot be held responsible for immoral or destructive actions.” Separatism reinforces the “dumb black myth” and “is a drag on hiring and career advancement.”

In his discussion of black culture’s anti-intellectualism, McWhorter marshals the statistical evidence of black underachievement in academics, reinforcing it with disturbing incidents involving black students in his own teaching career.

He concludes: “The sad but simple fact is that while there are some excellent black students, on the average, black students do not try as hard as other students.”

And that is because “all of these students belong to a culture infected with an anti-intellectual strain, which subtly but decisively teaches them from birth not to embrace schoolwork too wholeheartedly.”

Academic excellence, in other words, is seen as “acting white.” A “wariness of books and learning for learning’s sake as ‘white’ has become ingrained in black culture.” This is indeed cultural, not racial, writes McWhorter, pointing to the marked differences between newly immigrated black Caribbeans and native-born African Americans.

McWhorter’s writing is epigrammatic but also anecdotal, frequently drawing on his own experiences as teacher and student. He grew up in a middle-class suburb of Philadelphia, and that middle-class background is important. Throughout Losing the Race, McWhorter stresses that the viruses he has identified have infected African Americans at every socioeconomic level. He emphasizes “the little-noted fact” that “middle-class black students tend to make substandard grades even in well-funded suburban schools where teachers are making Herculean, culturally sensitive efforts to reach them.”

In a concluding chapter, he declares that the day has come in which African Americans “must be treated as equals, and we must allow ourselves to be treated as equals.” For that, blacks must abandon victimology and acknowledge that success is now the norm for them, that occasional inconvenience is not oppression, and that race hustlers like Al Sharpton are to be rejected. He also calls for a rejection of affirmative action in higher education (although, unpersuasively, not “in the business realm”).

In a stirring call to action in the last three pages, McWhorter asserts, “I am not alone,” and he asks “those black Americans who find themselves unable to identify with the self-indulgent theatrics now forced upon us by whites and blacks alike to come out of hiding and start speaking up for real progress.”

McWhorter does not deny that racism still exists. He rejects many conservative arguments against affirmative action, lists Spike Lee as one of his favorite movie directors, and is “an avid supporter of Black English.” He rejects the liberal mindset here — with its condescension and lower standards — on account of his racial pride, not because he lacks it.

Losing the Race is important not only because it is powerfully argued and correct in its diagnosis and prescription. Multiracial and multiethnic relations are in general remarkably rancor-free in America — except as regards African Americans. Even here, there has been enormous progress in a very short period of time. For that progress to continue, however, social pathologies that disproportionately affect the black community — illegitimacy, crime, substance abuse, poor academics — must be corrected. It is becoming increasingly clear that this correction cannot be simply imposed from without but must be advocated from within. And for taking up the challenge, John H. McWhorter is to be loudly and gratefully applauded.

Roger Clegg is general counsel of the Center for Equal Opportunity in Washington, D.C.