The Dual Mind of Black America
How blacks continue to sabotage themselves
[Book review. A shorter version of this article appears in the February 24, 2003 edition of The American Conservative magazine.]
In his second book, Authentically Black: Essays for the Black Silent Majority, John McWhorter goes further with his candid discussions on how many blacks, through self-defeating behavior, undermine their own ability to achieve. His work joins other studies that have helped to create a kind of genre for re-thinking aspects of the civil rights movement and exposing the excesses and abuses that have exemplified so much of the post-civil rights period.
Drawing from a theme introduced by W.E.B. Du Bois of a "double consciousness" shared by blacks, McWhorter offers a new interpretation. A great many blacks, he claims, while privately taking responsibility for improving their lives, will, in public, dutifully take on the "mantle of victimhood." Such blacks feel obligated to propagate the notion that black people cannot rise without the assistance of whites. Thus, it becomes an imperative to downplay the improving conditions for blacks, to insure that whites do not abandon the black cause. Maintaining an aggrieved public presence to remind whites of their "duty" is coupled with the task of spreading the message that the only barrier to black advancement is white racism.
Even the black who knows through is own personal experience that his progress is not fettered by whites assumes that whites are keeping other blacks down. This "Janus-faced double consciousness," claims McWhorter, where one reality is lived privately, while its opposite is promoted in public, has become a kind of affirmation of "authentic" blackness. This "authentic" black understands that all black success is accidental and just a fluke. He places no value on achievement in mainstream society, for to do so would be selling out.
While exposing the role that the post-civil rights leadership has played in compounding the already existing sense of victimhood among blacks, McWhorter also acknowledges a sad truth. That is, "sitting at the core of the African-American soul," is the belief that blacks are inferior to whites. He correctly views this disposition as the initiator of much of the vituperation directed toward whites. In this self-defensive mindset, it is comforting to believe that the continuing "racism" of whites prevents any upward social or economic movement.
McWhorter claims that for many ordinary blacks, this sense of inferiority is a deepseated problem and they are not being dishonest about their perception of racial barriers, no matter how incorrect that perception might be. Those blacks in prominent leadership positions, however, are fully conscious of the cynical political ploys they engage in when they rail against the system, charging it with "institutionalized racism." Their sole purpose is to play on the weaknesses of the vulnerable black masses.
Much of this book is a criticism of that tendency among blacks to keep whites locked into problems that should rightly be the purview of blacks. McWhorter says, "[W]hites have gone about as far as they will; the rest of the job is ours." Yet, after this revelation of what is basically a psychological problem among blacks ("this private sense of inadequacy"), which one would think should be dealt with by blacks themselves, McWhorter proclaims whites still somehow responsible for taking proper actions to help mitigate this self-defeating strain. "Whether or not that defeatism is appropriate or healthy, it's there," he declares. When exasperated whites call for whining blacks to "knock it off" (in McWhorter's words), whites should instead recognize that blacks "will require more 'goosing,' than, say, most immigrant groups." ["Goosing," by this definition, meaning spurring or encouraging.]
Despite McWhorter's persistent disparagement of blacks who would keep whites "on the hook," and culpable for past, present, and future black problems, he engages in the customary practice of offering prescriptions for whites to follow. We are given a line-up of social programs that he views as detrimental to black progress, and which, therefore, should be of concern to whites. For example, he urges whites not to sponsor an open-ended welfare program "that pays black women to have illegitimate children." Whites should not "dragoon underqualified blacks into positions beyond their abilities." And whites should not lower standards to accommodate blacks. Such approaches to solutions, claims McWhorter, deny blacks the opportunity to learn "how to compete." Competition among blacks is viewed as an obvious good that whites should help to reinforce.
Every one of the policies specified by McWhorter, and which he designates as negative, are vigorously supported by black politicians and civil rights leaders. Yet, for some reason, it is incumbent upon whites to navigate around the wills of blacks' chosen leaders and do what's "best for blacks." In spite of the desires of the intrepid and audacious Maxine Waters, John Conyers or Kweisi Mfume, one wonders? "In encouraging black self-sufficiency," claims McWhorter, whites are "off the hook." And "whites who give us the opportunity to stand on our own two feet are off the hook." Might one ask the obvious question of why whites are more responsible for helping blacks attain self-sufficiency than those who supposedly represent black interests in the first place and daily fight for the special privileges that McWhorter maligns?
Although his laundry list of whites' obligations to the well-being of blacks tends to be considerably shorter than, say, one drawn up by Jesse Jackson, it is a list, nevertheless. It seems clear that if whites fail to possess the prescience necessary to understand what blacks "truly need," or if, heaven forbid, whites simply don't give a damn about those needs, they remain on Professor McWhorter's "hook."
While giving the shaft to the historians of Afrocentric fantasies, who teach that just about nothing in the world was invented until an African conceived it, McWhorter does a fine job of outlining the "missing" history of American blacks. This is the story of ordinary people who used their common sense to create an economic base normal to the development of other ethnic groups. This history of the successful businesses forged by blacks during those years, which were supposedly the "worst of times," has never been of any interest to the civil rights charlatans since it cannot be used in the service of perpetuating victimhood.
On the contrary, it shows what was possible in terms of achievement, even for freedmen, long before slavery officially ended. The fact of blacks' successful entrepreneurial history is problematic for those who teach that blacks encountered restrictions, at all times and in all places, on their ability to achieve and prosper. A pioneer in the study of black business is Professor Juliet Walker of the University of Illinois, who explains why blacks were able to utilize their talents in the same ways that were normal to other Americans, in spite of the discrimination they faced: "It was the very sanctity of private property in American life and thought that allowed blacks, slave and free, to participate in the antebellum economy as entrepreneurs."
Although nascent and growing in this early period, the entrepreneurial spirit peaked and is evidenced in the thousands of businesses that were created in the North and South beginning in the late 19th century. This impressive creation of enterprises, though hobbled by the 1930s Depression, pressed on through the 1940s and, in some cases, right into the 1950s. We learn from McWhorter that wherever a black business district sprouted and thrived, the community was economically stable and self-reliant.
He offers a descriptive example of one of these black "entrepreneurial enclaves," Chicago's "Bronzeville." As Chicago industrialized in the late 19th century, blacks migrated from the South, eventually populating a stretch of blocks on the south side. Here began what was to turn into one of the most prosperous of black communities. By 1917, over 700 stores and firms had been established. Businessmen bought tracts of real estate on which they constructed buildings to house banks, life insurance companies, manufacturing firms, newspaper headquarters, and fraternal societies. There were doctors, lawyers, school teachers, and other professionals. There were theaters, several hotels, with the Hotel Brookmont billed as "The Finest Colored Hotel in the World." McWhorter describes Bronzeville as a "thriving civic community," where the leading churches, such as Olivet Baptist, with a membership of 10,000, focused on community uplift, with special attention paid to servicing the new arrivals from the South. Oscar Michaux's film production company, that pioneered in movies starring black actors and actresses, was based in Bronzeville.
The primary purpose of Issues & Views, which I began in 1985, is to tell some of this remarkable story and to profile these ordinary yet special people. [See When We Were Colored.] The spirit that built Bronzeville also built other black enclaves, including districts in Durham, Birmingham, Nashville, Norfolk and Tulsa. Over the years, outstanding businessmen like Harlem realtor Philip Payton, Philadelphia banker Richard R. Wright, and S.B. Fuller, who founded his first of many companies in Louisiana during the Depression, provided jobs for countless numbers of blacks.
No one would deny the real limitations to expansion placed upon these businesses by legal factors (every region was different), but within the parameters in which they could operate, a great many blacks were able to leave legacies. This is a history worth celebrating and none of it is buried. Over all these decades, any NAACP functionary could easily have collected this data with the aim of inspiring blacks to pick up where these industrious entrepreneurs left off. McWhorter calls the loss of the knowledge of these achievements, the "gap in our historical memory." For today's unworthy black leaders, history of this kind becomes interesting only when there is a sad tale attached to it, as in the case of Tulsa, where, in 1921, the successful black business district was razed during riots instigated by whites. Yet, the part of the Tulsa story that is ignored by those who bask in the details of the tragedy as "proof" of the white man's perfidy, is equally sad.
After the residents had recovered from the shock of the riots, with grit and determination, and because they did not want to be defeated, blacks rebuilt the business district. Some claim that the newly refurbished district was even more impressive than its predecessor. We learn from University of Texas social historian John Sibley Butler that the second death of the district came at the hands of blacks themselves. "In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the enterprises of the once proud district began to suffer because blacks won the right to spend their money freely anywhere in Tulsa." This loss of a consumer base, which also spelled the loss of capital, and the later intrusion of urban renewal, effectively put an end to the blossoming revival. Throughout the country this became a pattern in one town and city after another. As the clamor for integration escalated, money ceased to circulate in black communities, which guaranteed swift and sure economic decline.
An important reason why the general history of this black success is shunted aside is obvious -- there must never be a hint that there were some advantages to segregation.
John McWhorter by no means hints at such an heretical idea. In fact, much to the contrary, his world is one that is moving beyond the restricting racial confines of mere integration. It is clear from several glowing passages sprinkled throughout the book (and in his recent comments to a Salon.com interviewer) that in his ideal world, racial progress is confirmed when hearing ebonics spoken by young white women, wrapped around such words as "dude" and "bitch," or overhearing the friendly banter of Filipino teenagers as they call one another "nigger." Progress is a deracinated amalgam of peoples, who accept the "endless waves of miscegenation" and the inevitable hybridism (his word). Progress is celebrating how black whites are becoming. McWhorter exults, "We're inside of them and most of them don't even know it anymore. This is harmony in the best sense of the term." No doubt, in McWhorter's world, there is no room for ruling this a rather debased harmony.
Returning to his key discussion, McWhorter offers scorn for those in academia who would lower the bar of admission in their quest for "diversity." He intones, "White guilt is a dangerous and addictive drug," in addition to being "a craven, disingenuous and destructive canard" that is antithetical to black excellence. He also takes on Afrocentrists like Randall Robinson, who call for American blacks to find their identity and cultural base in Africa, a vast continent of hundreds of disparate regions where over a thousand languages are spoken, with which blacks have no familiarity at all. In his book, The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks, Robinson tells of his chagrin when, at a college commencement ceremony, a young black woman at the podium closed her talk with "Thank you," and repeated the words in German, French and Italian. This display of Eurocentrism angered Robinson, who suggested that she should have spoken in the African languages of Swahili, Chichewa and Wolof. Claiming that this woman's heritage was as richly Western as African, McWhorter writes, " In fact, given that no slaves were brought to America who spoke Swahili or Chichewa, learning them would no more return her to her roots than learning European languages."
On the subject of reparations, dear to the heart of Robinson, whose book is considered by reparations advocates to be the definitive text on the subject, McWhorter claims that blacks already have reparations. They're called welfare, set-asides, affirmative action, college grants, etc.
It should be made clear that McWhorter is against Affirmative Action only in education, because he believes that lowering educational standards creates a disincentive for blacks to do the hard work of preparing themselves to succeed in their future occupations. Although for much of his book, one could get the impression that he supports a universal ban on Affirmative Action and special preferences in principle, such is not the case. He offers a sketch of what might be his plan for reparations. In an imaginary case where two candidates were "equally qualified," he would, " . . . propose that Affirmative Action policies . . . be imposed in businesses where subtle racism can still slow promotion." And, he continues, "If it were 1966, I would have universities practice racial preferences as well . . . for the sake of a greater good." But today, he claims, such an approach is "outdated."
Prior to this clarification of his position, while reading his many statements of opposition to current Affirmative Action policies, I had wondered if McWhorter had any objections to these biased laws on the basis of their inherent unfairness. I soon got the message that the only negative in all these attempts to accommodate blacks rests in what he perceives to be the damaging effects of such policies. "Is it good for the blacks?" he seems to be silently asking on every page.
Does the Constitution and the protections of individual rights, that the Founders tried to provide, enter into his opposition to these government-sponsored laws? No, he does not care about the constitutional implications of university policies that might reject qualified non-blacks like Jennifer Gratz and Barbara Grutter, as in the case of the University of Michigan. These policies should be done away simply because at this point in time they are holding blacks back and, therefore, have no further utilitarian value. They are irrelevant, not because of the harm they might do to others, that is, non-black citizens, but only because they are "outdated" in whatever benefits they might provide blacks. Furthermore, when blacks are let in under the bar, whites will get to wondering if blacks are as sharp as they are. Although constitutional arguments might be "valid," he relents, it is pointless to raise them in the presence of today's young blacks, for whom the Founding Fathers are looked upon as little more than slaveholders. He appears to see little or no prospect for any deviation from these narrowly held views.
From McWhorter's perspective, whites are not expected to express dissident opinions on race, or show disrespect for what he calls the "civil rights revolution." And, from statements made in the book and elsewhere, he more than implies that he sees nothing wrong with punishments for some forms of verbal dissent. In that Salon.com interview, he expresses delight over the changes in the social climate, " . . . even if it just means you can't say certain things in public, that is progress." Well, yes, if you call the stifling of free speech "progress." He writes, as if in agreement, "For most whites today, to be called a racist is as horrifying a prospect as being pegged as a witch was in Colonial America." He goes on to compliment whites for having "recast" their vision of blacks. Of course, for those whites who have not recast their vision to the satisfaction of people like McWhorter, public ostracism, loss of employment and possible jail time awaits.
To demonstrate the progress that blacks have made in their quest for parity, McWhorter writes, " . . . [W]hite people regularly lose their jobs for even calling us dirty names." Yes, and sometimes they are even incarcerated for it -- a possibility that was never to happen in this land of the First Amendment. Here are some more gems from the freedom-loving McWhorter: "Nothing chills most of today's thinking white people to their bones more than the notion that they might be racist." And, " . . . [T]he mere expression of racist sentiments is socially condemned and often legally actionable."
From these sentiments, one wonders if McWhorter cheers whenever a municipality or state passes yet another "hate crimes" bill. [See What's so special about "hate crimes?"] If so, he probably will be especially pleased when the entire country is subjected to these outrageously unconstitutional laws, which might happen soon, compliments of the Supreme Court. Perhaps he is pleased that the precedent has already been set where citizens have been jailed for merely saying a word considered disparaging to racial groups and likely to "hurt" someone's feelings.
According to McWhorter, carrying on the "civil rights revolution" must still be foremost and at the top of every legislator's agenda in the land. Woe be to that council member, whose constituency insists that he concentrate on priorities other than the "needs" of blacks. Any legislator who fails to give top priority to the ongoing "revolution" is "not fit" to serve in a legislative body.
In this book, McWhorter takes on a lot of hot button issues and with each one he makes his case without flinching. What makes this book of value is his forthright analysis of the self-defeating attitudes and behavior that continue to hobble a great many blacks. His inside knowledge and candor make this a necessary book to add to the growing library of works that deal with this particular aspect of America's enduring entanglement with race.
February 2003
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