John McWhorter
Booknotes, Sunday, March 2, 2003
John McWhorter discusses Authentically Black: Essays for the Black Silent Majority.
—from the publisher's website Picking up where the bestselling Losing the Race left off, this penetrating and profound collection of essays by the controversial thinker and passionate advocate for racial enlightenment and achievement explores what it means to be black in America today. According to the author, nearly forty years after the Civil Rights Act, African-Americans in this country still remain "a race apart." He feels that modern black Americans have internalized a tacit message: "authentically black" people stress initiative in private but cloak the race in victimhood in public in order to protect black people from an ever-looming white backlash. He terms this the "New Double Consciousness" in homage to W.E.B. DuBois' description of a different kind of double consciousness in blacks a century ago. Within this context McWhorter takes the reader on a guided tour through the race issues dominant in our moment: racial profiling, getting past race, the reparations movement, black stereotypes in film and television, hip-hop, diversity, affirmative action, the word nigger, and Cornel West's resignation from Harvard. With his fierce intelligence and fervent eloquence, McWhorter makes a powerful case for the advancement of true racial equality. A timely and important work about issues that must be addressed by blacks and whites alike, Authentically Black is a book for Americans of every racial, social, political, and economic persuasion. (timspalding)… (more)
—from the publisher's website Picking up where the bestselling Losing the Race left off, this penetrating and profound collection of essays by the controversial thinker and passionate advocate for racial enlightenment and achievement explores what it means to be black in America today. According to the author, nearly forty years after the Civil Rights Act, African-Americans in this country still remain "a race apart." He feels that modern black Americans have internalized a tacit message: "authentically black" people stress initiative in private but cloak the race in victimhood in public in order to protect black people from an ever-looming white backlash. He terms this the "New Double Consciousness" in homage to W.E.B. DuBois' description of a different kind of double consciousness in blacks a century ago. Within this context McWhorter takes the reader on a guided tour through the race issues dominant in our moment: racial profiling, getting past race, the reparations movement, black stereotypes in film and television, hip-hop, diversity, affirmative action, the word nigger, and Cornel West's resignation from Harvard. With his fierce intelligence and fervent eloquence, McWhorter makes a powerful case for the advancement of true racial equality. A timely and important work about issues that must be addressed by blacks and whites alike, Authentically Black is a book for Americans of every racial, social, political, and economic persuasion. (timspalding)… (more)
2
