New Black double consciousness -- Profiling and "getting past race" -- "What have you done for me lately?" : the reparations movement -- The "can you find the stereotype?" game : Blacks on television -- "Aren't you in favor of diversity?" : white guilt and university admissions -- The unbearable lightness of "the 'N' word" -- "We don't learn our history!" -- Black academics and doing the right thing : "They don't care what you know till they know that you care"? -- New Black leadership
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SUMMARY OR ABSTRACT
Text of Note
In his New York Times bestseller, Losing the Race, John McWhorter, a Berkeley linguistics professor, tried to make sense of why so many African-Americans continue to define themselves by race and examined what he calls the cult of Victimology, Separatism, and Anti-Intellectualism he has witnessed on America's college campuses. In Authentically Black, McWhorter broadens his lens in this penetrating and profound collection of essays that continue his exploration of what it means to be black in America today. According to McWhorter, 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. McWhorter terms this phenomenon the "New Double Consciousness" in homage to W.E.B. Dubois's description of a different kind of double consciousness in blacks a century ago. It is within this context that McWhorter takes us on a guided tour through the race issues dominating our current discourse: racial profiling, getting past race, the reparations movement, black stereotypes in film and television, black leadership, diversity, affirmative action, the word nigger, and Cornel West's resignation from Harvard. With his fierce intelligence and fervent eloquence, John McWhorter makes a powerful case for the advancement of true racial equality. Authentically Black is 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
TOPICAL NAME USED AS SUBJECT
African Americans in popular culture
African Americans-- Intellectual life-- 21st century
African Americans-- Race identity
African Americans-- Social conditions-- 21st century