Authentically Black: Essays for the Black Silent Majority (Hardcover)

~ John McWhorter (Author) "Black America today is permeated by a new kind of double consciousness that has strayed far beyond the one Du Bois examined in 1903..." (more)
Key Phrases: new double consciousness, new black history, hulled empty, Affirmative Action, The Debt, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

McWhorter, a linguistics professor, ventures again into his sideline as a black public intellectual as he did in his earlier work, Losing the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America (2000), this time examining the direction--or misdirection--of black leadership in America. His working assumption is that black leaders--wedded to the political left, the Democratic Party, and affirmative action--are out of step with the times. He argues that the civil rights era is dead, and appropriately so. The new battleground against racism requires individual rather than collective action. McWhorter criticizes the icons and issues of black leadership from Randall Robinson on reparations, to Jesse Jackson's shakedown of lucrative deals for his friends, to Al Sharpton for perpetuating notions of victimhood. McWhorter's criticism of this old vanguard of the civil rights movement is formulaic in the mode of the Republican right wing. However, his real contribution to the debate regarding new directions for racial progressiveness is his emphasis on the positives of black endurance and progress. Despite its partisan slant, this is a worthy book. Vernon Ford
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Review

"Bill O’Reilly with a Ph.D." -- Black Issues Book Review

"McWhorter writes elegantly and covers plenty of turf . . . which ranges from rap music to reparations . . . [An] important book." -- The Wall Street Journal --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Gotham (January 27, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1592400019
• ISBN-13: 978-1592400010
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.7 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (55 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #554,475 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Yes, professor, January 29, 2003

By	Kimberley Wilson (VA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

If I were the kind of person who got into bar fights I'd want Professor McWhorter to back me up because he's as scrappy as a welterweight boxer. In Authentically Black he's on the attack. McWhorter fearlessly in a series of essays says a number of things the "silent majority" regular black people think and say in private.
Some of the essays are serious, others are quite funny. McWhorter pokes fun at poet Amiri Baraka, and Jesse Jackson. He demolishes Randall Robinson's arguments in The Debt and takes on pompous Donald Bogle and Cornell West with ease. McWhorter calls a fool a fool and challenges a number of racial assumptions. He slaughters every sacred cow I can think and does it with glee.

44 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Authentically Black: Essays for the Black Silent Majority, March 11, 2003

By	Dwayne I. Ingram (St. Louis, MO) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I first must admit that prior to seeing an interview with John McWhorter on television in March 2003, I had never heard of him or his books. I was so enthused and validated by his interview that a couple of days later I purchased this book and his book "Losing the Race". I have long been frustrated by the negative manner of thinking that is seemingly handed down from generation to generation as though it's a badge of honor, by my fellow black Americans. I have not completed Authentically Black, but I am still compelled to write this review. Primarily because I feel that it is imperative that this book be purchased by as many black or bi-racial Americans ASAP! This book is a must read and it is one that I will have my younger children read as they grow older. Internalized oppression/victimhood is holding our race captive. Ideas, thoughts and beliefs set forth in McWhorter's book, are principles that may not be adopted for another 25 years. Which is a sad commentary.

It is so refreshing to read a young black author who is not afraid of having "tomatoes" thrown at him and who is verbalizing thoughts that I have had for awhile now, but not being as articulate as McWhorter, I couldn't quite verbalize my thoughts. Now I have a book that does just that.

Thanks John McWhorter for being brave and willing to break out of the mold. More of us are following.

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Picks up where LOSING THE RACE leaves off., February 19, 2003

By	D. A. Martin "Avid Reader" (Morocco) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

John McWhorter's "Authentically Black" picks up where his best-selling tell-it-like-it-is "Losing the Race" leaves off. He is not afraid to turn the microscope on black America and force us to take a hard look our current ways of thinking and how they hinder us from fully realizing our potential as the powerful people that we are. In fact, the author does so with surgical precison in this book, which is why black "flaming leftist" critics like Ishmael Reed have basically resorted to such childish tactics as calling the man names (e.g. "a rent-a-black who only writes and says what conservative whites want to hear." Give me a break!) instead of trying to offer thoughtful rebuttals to his arguments. They can't refute him, quite frankly, because deep down people like Reed know that McWhorter is telling the truth. Period.

One of the most important themes of this book is that the author wants black Americans to stop emphasizing black plight and misery and all the negative aspects of our history, while treating our successes as anecdotal "exceptions" (a constant theme in more liberal black American discourse these days). In other words, let's ACCENT THE POSITIVES: i.e., focus more on black American achievements of yesterday and today (two notable examples being that the current U.S. secretary of state and national security adviser are both black). As he states poignantly, a people cannot continue to stress how strong it is if it constantly focuses on the negative aspects of its history and current state of affairs. McWhorter blasts such an oxymoronic way of thinking, while reiterating a point he made in "LOSING THE RACE" that black American success stories nowadays are not longer "the exception" - they are THE NORM.

John McWhorter represents the most refreshing and eye-opening contribution to the dialogue on American race relations since Shelby Steele and Thomas Sowell. This book along with "Losing the Race" should be required reading in every African-American studies and sociology college curriculum in the country.