Authentically Black - Softcover

McWhorter, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1592400469 ISBN 13: 9781592400461

Publisher: Gotham, 2004

Synopsis

A new collection of thought-provoking essays by the best-selling author of Losing the Race examines what it means to be black in modern-day America, addressing such issues as racial profiling, the reparations movement, film and TV stereotypes, diversity, affirmative action, and hip-hop, while calling for the advancement of true racial equality. Reprint.

About this title

About the Author:

John McWhorter is associate professor of linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and a contributing editor to City Journal and The New Republic. He is the author of seven books, including the bestseller Losing the Race, The Power of Babel, and Doing Our Own Thing.

From Booklist:

McWhorter, a linguistics professor, ventures again into his sideline as a black public intellectual as he did in his earlier work, Losing the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America (2000), this time examining the direction--or misdirection--of black leadership in America. His working assumption is that black leaders--wedded to the political left, the Democratic Party, and affirmative action--are out of step with the times. He argues that the civil rights era is dead, and appropriately so. The new battleground against racism requires individual rather than collective action. McWhorter criticizes the icons and issues of black leadership from Randall Robinson on reparations, to Jesse Jackson's shakedown of lucrative deals for his friends, to Al Sharpton for perpetuating notions of victimhood. McWhorter's criticism of this old vanguard of the civil rights movement is formulaic in the mode of the Republican right wing. However, his real contribution to the debate regarding new directions for racial progressiveness is his emphasis on the positives of black endurance and progress. Despite its partisan slant, this is a worthy book. Vernon Ford
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About this edition

• Publisher: Gotham
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 1592400469
• ISBN 13: 9781592400461
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304