Winning the Race, by John Mcwhorter, is the work of a man who has thought long and hard about race and the condition of African Americans. Mcwhorter's approach to this study is that of an observer who has soaked in his surroundings and then delved painstakingly into the task of investigating why things are the way they are. Has he found the right answers? I won't say that the conclusions in this book are definitive, but they are plausible, and they do make a great deal of sense. Mcwhorter's questions are as follows: how did certain black inner city neighborhoods across the nation become the drug ravaged, urban war zones that they are today? Why are so many black children underperforming academically? And perhaps most importantly, is racism to blame for the fact that blacks trail whites in every economic and educational indicator? Or is the problem a cultural one? The author's answers to these questions are very well thought out. He is aware of opposing arguments on the various issues he has covered and has regurgitated those arguments in the pages of his book so as to debunk them. When academics have blamed the removal of factories, hence jobs, from the inner city as a reason why black unemployment spiraled and working class black neighborhoods deteriorated into cauldrons of dead end poverty, he refutes the notion. If factory relocation were to blame, he asks, why did this terrible social blight affect the black community in Indianapolis, where factory jobs remained accessible to blacks? Mcwhorter analyzes poor blacks' disproportionate dependence on welfare, pointing out how blacks early in the twentieth century were disinclined to accept charity. Mcwhorter brings much history into his argument to compare and contrast the attitudes of African Americans in the past with those of the present. What he has discovered is an alienation, that has gripped a segment of black people, a militant, inward looking rejection of whites and perceived white values. This behavior pattern, or meme, as he calls it grew out of the white leftist counter culture movement of the sixties. It was adopted by blacks opposed to non-violent civil rights methods and became the goundwork upon which was erected the apathy a number of blacks share toward work, academic achievement and family life. He argues that the America of today, with its bountiful opportunities for blacks, is not the America of the past where white racism was overt and brutal. To those blacks who have equated the feather stroke grievance of a racial slight to the systemized hammer blows of racist oppression suffered by blacks at the turn of the century for example, the author takes them to task. He criticizes black leaders for reinforcing this meme of alienation among their followers while taking a lengthy jab at hip hop. He eloquently rips into academics who choose to focus on the negative aspects of black life in America while ignoring, or downplaying the real progress blacks have made in the post civil rights era. Winning the Race is not all about the author going after those whose views he does not agree with. The book has an optimistic tone. It conveys the author's pride in the struggles and achievements of blacks in the past. Mcwhorter is clearly proud of contemporary black progress: burgeoning black affluence combined with black visibility and accomplishment in all sectors of society. His optimism is tempered with frustration, however. But this is the frustration of a man who believes black people possess the potential do more, if and when the meme of alienation is removed. His anaylsis is not written in stone, but it is sound. Again, his conclusions are not definitive; I'm sure that wasn't his intent. His effort to describe the origins of the ills affecting much of Black America while pointing the way to solutions makes for an admirable piece of popular scholarship.
