Losing the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America

Losing the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America

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Average Customer Rating: 4.0 out of 5

Berkeley linguistics professor John McWhorter, born at the dawn of the post-Civil Rights era, spent years trying to make sense of this question. Now he dares to say the unsayable: racism's ugliest legacy is the disease of defeatism that has infected black America. Losing the Race explores the three main components of this cultural virus: the cults of victimology, separatism, and antiintellectualism that are making blacks their own worst enemies in the struggle for success.

More angry than Stephen Carter, more pragmatic and compassionate than Shelby Steele, more forward-looking than Stanley Crouch, McWhorter represents an original and provocative point of view. With Losing the Race, a bold new voice rises among black intellectuals.

According to the author, victimology "has become a keystone of cultural blackness to treat victimhood not as a problem to be solved but as an identity to be nurtured," while "separatism encourages black Americans to conceive of black people as an unofficial sovereign entity, within which the rules other Americans are expected to follow are suspended out of a belief that our victimhood renders us morally exempt from them." Anti-intellectualism is a belief that "school is a 'white' endeavor." McWhorter suggests that only blacks embrace such opinions, placing most of the blame on them while underemphasizing the institutional racism that facilitates such views. Needless to say, McWhorter has no love for the likes of Al Sharpton, Hazel Carby, June Jordan, or Patricia Williams and their ilk. His chapter on Ebonics, his specialty, is the most nuanced, though certainly not the final word on the matter. And though some readers will be turned off by his use of tired anti-affirmative-action, right-wing clichés, anyone interested in the education of African Americans in the post civil rights era will find Losing the Race a worthy read. --Eugene Holley Jr.

Publisher: Harper Perennial

Release Date: 2001-07-31

Customer Review: 4 out of 5
Enlightening Content, Problematic Writing Style - Like other readers, I found John's writing style to be a bit challenging at times. I can appreciate the necessity of long sentences with embedded clauses, parentheticals, and asides when it comes to complex, logical arguments. But I felt at times that John was writing for an academic reader or letting the linguist in him get carried away with love of syntacital possibilities for their own sake!

As a college teacher with over twenty years of experience, I have witnessed some of the same trends that Mr. McWhorter describes, and I have had black students attest to being bullied for liking "books" and otherwise trying to be "white." Like McWhorter, I have also seen amazing dedication, commitment, and interest from immigrant and second-language students.

Many posters here argue that McWhorter minimizes racism as an ongoing, potent force causing low-performance amongst contemporary Black students, even those who are from stable, middle class families. This includes those who know as little about the struggles of their ancestors as some young Chinese-American students know about the Cultural Revolution (i.e. "Oh, yeah, I think my aunt said something about that"). I should add that plenty of white students from families that have been here for generations are apathetic and low on basic skills, and that is part of a wide, general trend.

It's hard not to be persuaded by McWhorter's accounts -- corroborated by my own teaching experience -- of highly achieving immigrant students who have fled, in some cases, very dire political and economic situations, not to mention having to read and write in a new language. They have also faced discrimination.

One of the most accomplished groups of students I've taught recently is middle-age African-American women. It's interesting to see how little they have in common with their younger African-American classmates (who, like their own age peers, can't seem to leave their IPods and cell phones alone long enough to write notes or ask a question). Of course, this is no scientific sampling, but it does tell me that students who are "ready" often do well. At the risk of being merely anecdotal here, let me say that one of these women wrote an essay in which she said that "black males are committing genocide against each other." She went on to write that, as a young woman, she'd endured a broken family, child abuse, teen pregnancy, and drug addiction. She was outspoken about racism, but, again, what moved me was her readiness to be a student and behave responsibly.

Contrary to what others have written in criticism, I think that McWhorter did include adequate research about how conditions have improved for Blacks in this country. He doesn't deny that racism is still a problem, and he doesn't deny that it can be internalized. Yes, he does include quite a bit of anecdotal experience, but that is what he knows best, no? He doesn't survey students or teachers, and maybe that would have been to his advantage.

My limited understanding tells me that ANY student is more likely to excel if her or his parents stress "books" at an early age. That is supposed to be one of the strongest predictors of later academic success and sheer interest. And, yes, within ANY family you are going to have kids who are naturally drawn to books more than their siblings are. It sounds to me like McWhorter benefitted from both.

Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Losing the Race (book) - Was advertised as a new book and was, indeed, a new, unread book. Thank you.

Customer Review: 4 out of 5
Worth a read - A controversial book that raises questions about race which may be taboo, yet still relevant. This book can be a bit wordy at times, but it is an interesting subject matter, and I think it is worthy of a read.

Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Black Un-conditioning - Being African American definitely has it's pros and cons. In establishing where we are at and where we want to go, we often get lost. The media often portrays the black man as violent, inarticulate, promiscuous, and uneducated, and these things are often true but does not plague the black race in it's entirety. There are many highly driven, highly intellectual black men and women whose primary focus is not to buy the most expensive "bling", or the nicest car, but to expand in themselves a greater knowing and a greater being. We are often conditioned to believe we are inferior to other races though it is not outwardly displayed. Negative feelings for fellow brothers and sisters, negative self images, and anti-black, or light vs. dark manifest and grow with time and this becomes a rather large part of the destruction that has been occurring for many many years.
Some forms of music often perpetuates these problems, purveying the self hate and separative issues that become entertainment, thus, our problems are not being solved but commercialized for profit. This book examines the often self destructive characteristics a number of African Americans possess.

Customer Review: 1 out of 5
Poor Thinking - Too often McWhorter does what many blacks accuse whites of doing--he draws a conclusion from any negative encounter he has experienced with another black person and assumes it is the norm. Bad thinking.

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