{"id":5941,"date":"2016-02-02T21:21:56","date_gmt":"2016-02-03T02:21:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=5941"},"modified":"2016-02-15T21:47:55","modified_gmt":"2016-02-16T02:47:55","slug":"john-mcwhorter-or-ta-nehisi-coates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=5941","title":{"rendered":"John McWhorter or Ta-Nehisi Coates?"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you want to be a respected and respectable liberal today and your racial heritage is Euro-Caucasian, it’s pretty clear that you need<\/a> to support Ta-Nehisi Coates<\/a> (even if he wasn’t looking<\/a> for your support; I suppose that fact makes it seem all the more real). Earlier in my life, I definitely wanted to be a respected and respectable liberal. But at the same time I was never a guy who likes to follow a crowd; and at some point in my life, it occurred to me that liberals like to follow trends as much as conservatives do. And they often made up complicated but questionable reasons to act like lemmings, post hoc. Just like any other tribe, little or big.<\/p>\n

So, as you might guess, I’m not necessarily in awe of the writings and views of Ta-Nehisi Coates regarding modern American racial matters. I’ve been reading The Atlantic Magazine for about 20 years now, and thus I’ve been familiar with Mr. Coates’ writings for quite some time. He originally wrote small pieces reflecting on the American Civil War and its implications for black history — and how those implications weren’t always as sunny and positive for blacks as many non-black Americans might think. Eventually he was allowed to publish longer pieces addressing more modern racial issues, and his tone at first seemed to balance challenge with reserve. However, within the past two years or so, he’s come into his own, offering wholesale indictments of white America (see his recent blockbuster book, “Between the World And Me<\/a>“), along with sentencing recommendations (i.e., his call for reparations<\/a>). <\/p>\n

There was a recent dust-up when Democratic-Socialist presidential nomination candidate Bernie Sanders rejected Coate’s reparations idea, and Coates immediately attacked Sanders<\/a> (in an intellectual fashion, of course). It’s interesting to see that The Atlantic then allowed one of its writers to publish an article defending Sanders<\/a>. Hmmm, perhaps the white liberal \/ Ta Nehisi Coates love affair has reached a high water mark.<\/p>\n

Whether or not Coates remains a cause celebre amidst white liberals, I have already found my substitute for him: a black intellectual who I believe says a lot of interesting, insightful and valuable things about our complex and often confounding modern racial situation. And that would be Professor John McWhorter<\/a>, an academic language expert (he has a number of “Great Course” video series available from The Teaching Company on various language topics; I personally have his course “Linguistics: The Science of Language”) who has recently entered the fray of modern racial punditry. <\/p>\n

It’s my impression that McWhorter is not currying favor from either the left or the right when speaking out on current affairs. He seems to be his own man, calling each issue on its own merits. During the trial of security guard George Zimmerman for the killing of Treyvon Martin, McWhorter appeared on TV to call out and counter the nasty criticisms<\/a> that prosecution witness Rachel Jeantel had received for her use of \u201cBlack English\u201d while testifying. However, his recent controversial criticisms of the Black Lives Matter movement have gained McWhorter a lot of bad reviews from other black intellectuals. Let me offer a few choice quotes from the good professor on BLM. These comments from McWhorter are also from The Atlantic<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The reason Black Lives Matter has a lot of eyes rolling is not because people don’t care about black people and don’t understand the problem with police. The problem is that the typical black man in a particular kind of community is at much, much more risk of being killed by another black man. And you can’t argue it away.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I think, in short, Black Lives Matter is very important. It could make a very important difference in modern black history. But for it to be a movement that resonates historically, it has to add a new wing . . . that goes into black communities and works in a real way on the black-on-black murders. That would make Black Lives Matter complete. As it is now, it’s incomplete and it looks shrill. And the idea that Black Lives Matter when white people try to take them looks recreational, it looks childish, it looks peevish, and it’s just wrong, it’s incomplete.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(In response to Prof. Glen Loury’s argument that BLM is justified in its exclusive focus on white police killing blacks because black-on-black violence is largely a consequence of the structural racism that has played out over history and continues today:<\/em>) I reject that. I think that argument is hopeless. That is a wordy, beautifully put argument designed to give people an excuse to focus on racism as the problem as opposed to the more complex issue of looking at a Rube-Goldberg sequence of socio-historical events that have led us to an unfortunate situation where racism from whites may not always be the problem that we need to face. And it’s not that the black men shooting each other are evil. I understand their humanity too. But the idea that democracy is threatened by the white cop whereas if the kid from three blocks over does it, well he’s just an ordinary person? No!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well, it seems pretty clear that McWhorter has a lot of guts. I honestly don’t think that he is trying to let whites and \u201cthe establishment\u201d off the hook; he’s been very critical of the police in many of the recent white-black fatal police incidents, even when the facts included exonerating circumstances relative to the police (the big one being the 2014 Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson Mo.). Here’s a recent quote in regard to Michael Brown’s<\/a> death:<\/p>\n

when temperately minded people say that black lives are valued less in the clinch than white ones, jump in I must, because it\u2019s true.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

McWhorter feels that the \u201cWar on Drugs\u201d must end because it does a lot more damage than good, and most of that damage is felt by blacks and black communities, the majority of whom do not use illegal substances. A recent article<\/a> title by McWhorter: \u201cThere Is Only One Real Way to Prevent Future Fergusons: End the War on Drugs\u201d. <\/p>\n

But the Professor’s criticisms of Black Lives Matter definitely swims against the tide of much modern black thought, a tide which is being ridden masterfully by Ta Nehisi Coates. So why aren’t I celebrating Coates and embracing all he has to say, like so many other racially concerned white people today? <\/p>\n

Personally, I believe that one has to consider background and intellectual qualifications in choosing who to take seriously. McWhorter’s intellectual credentials are solid (PhD in Linguistics from Stanford, did his undergrad here in NJ at Rutgers \u2013 I also have a degree from Rutgers, so let me admit my prejudice about that!). Coates also has his academic claims, as he was a visiting professor at MIT. However, Coates never graduated college, having dropped out of Howard University<\/a>. Despite this, he is presently a journalist in residence at City College of New York<\/a>. Coates is obviously a very smart and well studied man, and his lack of grad school pedigree certainly doesn’t mean that he has nothing valuable to say. But if I only have time for one article and the choices are between Coates and McWhorter . . . <\/p>\n

What do these fellows have to say about one another? McWhorter recently called Coates<\/a> a \u201cpriest\u201d in the \u201cnew religion of anti-racism\u201d (or as McWhorter puts it, \u201cour flawed new religion\u201d). Oh, and back in January, McWhorter countered some earlier criticisms<\/a> that Coates made against Bernie Sanders regarding his failure to support reparations. <\/p>\n

It might seem as though McWhorter has a thing against Coates; however, his arguments against Coates are subtle and intellectual, and not especially personal. The emotional vitriol seems to be kept in check. As to Coates, I haven’t been able to find much that he has said or written in response to McWhorter. It appears perhaps that Coates is mostly leaving it to other black voices<\/a> to rebut him. <\/p>\n

Not to say that Coates is fearful; personally, I think this is more of a wise move on his part. McWhorter seems to me to be a man of substance, not someone who is saying things to grab the spotlight (although I’m sure that he does have his ego, and does realize that his views, however intellectually flavored, are controversial and being used by political conservatives). To the degree that Coates sees and respects this, however much he might honestly disagree with McWhorter, the more that I respect Coates. Sure, if I only have time for one article, it will be from McWhorter. But once I get some more time, Coates will be next on my list.<\/p>\n

PS on McWhorter — he had an article today<\/a> (2-3-16) in the NY Times on blacks and the police, focused around the OJ Simpson case. He clearly asserts that there is a “ubiquity of police brutality in black lives”. So what gets Coates upset also gets McWhorter upset. But McWhorter handles it in a different fashion — and in my opinion, a more lucid and ultimately constructive fashion. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you want to be a respected and respectable liberal today and your racial heritage is Euro-Caucasian, it’s pretty clear that you need to support Ta-Nehisi Coates (even if he wasn’t looking for your support; I suppose that fact makes it seem all the more real). Earlier in my life, I definitely wanted to be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5941"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5941"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5941\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5964,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5941\/revisions\/5964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}