Winning the Race: Beyond the Crisis in Black America

by John McWhorter

Book Overview

A provocative new look at the true sources of the social scourges that are holding back black America?and an impassioned manifesto for change Four decades after the great victories of the Civil Rights... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1592401880
• ISBN13: 9781592401888
• Release Date: December 2005
• Publisher: Gotham Books
• Length: 434 Pages
• Weight: 1.51 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.4" x 9.2"
• Age Range: 14 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 9 and higher

Customer Reviews

A man not to be easily categorized...

John McWhorter is neither a conservative nor someone concerned with political correctness. He is attempting to make sense of what he sees, and in doing so, he dares to ask questions about blacks, whites, and race relations. Even more daringly, he attempts to answer some of these questions. You don't have to agree with him to benefit from reading the book, because he will at least force the intelligent reader to define his own position and muster his evidence. What should be obvious to most thinking people is that there is something amiss in the usual social or political explanations that try to explain the continuing state of disadvantage under which so many blacks labor. The difference is that McWhorter states that blacks must take charge of their own story, and he does so from a very definite stance: he finds that mainstream values such as education, work, and intellectual achievement are worthy goals. His claim is that these values have been deep-sixed by many blacks, in favor especially of a victim mentality and a rejection of the very tools (education and intellectual achievement) that would enable people to participate fully in the nation's life. In short, his message states that only blacks can take charge of their future, change the tone of the master narrative that defines their lives, and this can be done only if people own their stories--the whole story, not just the part that lies within the responsibility of others. For those who would like a very opposite viewpoint, also well worth the read, try Robert Jensen's "The Heart of Whiteness".

The Author Knows What He's Talking About!

John Hamilton McWhorter, V, is a scholar whose research and insight into black American culture make his contribution to today's race relations debate crucial for three reasons. First, he takes readers on a journey back in time to black life in America before the 1960s. In doing so, he shows that, despite living under brutal and systemic racial oppression, crushing poverty, and not far removed from slavery, hard-scrabble black folks carved out a sustainable existence for themselves by living by a cultural credo where you basically played the hand you were dealt in life as best you could. Secondly, juxtaposing this earlier slice of black life next to the 1960s - where racism was on the down-slope and the overall economic situation for black Americans was improving - McWhorter demonstrates how embracing the Anti-Establishment Zeitgeist of the sixties all but nullified the cultural credo of that earlier era, thereby rendering blacks - especially the black poor - culturally worse off than previously. Lastly, in Winning the Race as well as in his two previous books (Losing the Race and Authentically Black), McWhorter offers a ray of hope on what can and should be done to make things better. Winning the Race represents John McWhorter's third installment on race and culture in America that will cause readers to look at these crucial issues in fresh new ways.

compelling

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 r

McWhorter is an Intellectual Force for Positive Change

I have long been an admirer of John McWhorter and his scholarship. My background in rhetoric and his in linguistics makes us fellow travelers of a sort. But my admiration for Professor McWhorter is more a function of his courage, intellectual independence, and his fresh, crisp writing style. Moreover, his positions are always deftly argued and rooted in serious study and reflection. That he has to endure the kind of slanderous ad hominem attacks he sometimes encounters is sad. Yet, ironically enough, these actions only serve to bolster his thesis: bereft of any new ideas, the left must use race as an electoral bludgeon, a mechanism designed to ensure obeisance. And so, his critics' barbs morph into boomerangs; they backfire. Still, it's regrettable that discourse has devolved and brought us to this point. With Professor McWhorter and scholars like him courageously leading the way, perhaps we may yet still "Win the Race." Let us hope so.

....HIP HOP REPUBLICAN SPEAKS...

As an avid reader and blogger, I am impressed with the man and this book. I am black, in my twenties and am grateful, that some one could brave the attacks by the left to write such a book. Most of the things in his book, are known to many in his feild, but they choose to be quiet for fear of being called racist, or an uncle tom. They prefer to listen to Cornell West lie to them! Great job John! http://hiphoprepublican.blogspot.com/