I think McWhorter is confusing analysis with proposing solutions. Those who are honest and discuss institutional racism are also engaged in grassroots activism, and they also focus on community outreach and how this outreach and bring about democratic solutions within the community.
To assume that analysis will lead to solution is to insinuate that intellectuals--I believe this is the context in which McWhorter is speaking and writing--have the solution for the downtrodden, which is not true
@emahunn Wait, so intellectuals are engaged in both analysis and activism but those two activities are unrelated? Shouldn't we assume that one's analysis of institutional racism should inform their activism? And what's the point of analysis if it doesn't lead toward solutions?
@cambocan You seem to have misconstrued my comment. It is those who have a firm understanding of institutional racism are also participating in grassroots activism--and I am not referring to top-down activists (ie professors, etc.); I am referring to bottom-up intellectuals (ie organic intellectuals in the truest, Gramscian sense of the term).
Leading to a solution is fundamentally different than having a solution. Read the projects of Michel Foucault and Derrida to know more...
@emahunn You're saying two different things. 1. Intellectuals by their very class function are incapable of offering "real solutions" as opposed to the "organic intellectuals" who are really activisits and (2) contributing to the solution of a social problem is fundamentally unrelated to having a position as to the solution of the problem. I'd like you to determine the veracity of either statement.
@cambocan I am simply clarifying my point. It is Gramsci's take--a take to which I subscribe--that organic intellectuals are not solely activists, although they can be. Organic intellectuals, rather, are intellectuals who do not come from capitalist educational institutions. It is, indeed, more likely, considering the composition of the education acquired by organic intellectuals, for organic intellectuals to be activists. Furthermore, you are using language I did not use nor imply...
can you read? i think my point was clearly made in the paragraph that you read unless you're referring to my calling mr mcwhorter "ugly". if you're not intelligent enough to understand the point just say so now. if you don't have a logical refutation to my "point" and this is the best response you could muster, just admit so now. otherwise, i see any further conversation with you an effort in futility.
it appears that you were in fact referring to my "ugly" comment. in that case, dismiss everything else i've stated and let me answer your question: my point is...that he's an ugly motherfucker. that's the point. you do know what ugly means don't you?
I was trying to point out that calling someone a nasty name are calling them less-than-desirable is a childish thing to do and is irrelevant to the conversation below.
As for your point, you do realize that almost every ethnic group has either been enslaved or made slaves out of another group, don't you?
Should reparations be given to any group that's been given the shaft in the past?
It's not going to happen and it shouldn't happen. Try to earn wealth yourself rather than beg for it.
i understand all of that, but i think as long as whites are benefiting from the effects of slavery while blacks are suffering, reparations should be on the table. you say it will never happen, but you don't have a crystal ball, so what you really mean to say is that you "hope" it will never happen because you don't care about fixing injustices, as you're the beneficiary of the injustice. but the reality is you don't know what will happen, so i wouldn't be so confident over there if i were you.
more importantly, you need to understand that your reign on the top as the most powerful race on the planet has been slowly slipping away for many many years. and it'll only get worse from here. don't worry: whites will spend their fair time at the bottom of the barrel in due time...just wait.
If it wasn't us, it would have been someone else. I honestly feel that black Americans have been given a lot of benefits already. All black children are given a place in public schools if their parents follow the proper procedures that a parent of any race in this nation must. There are scholarships for black students who meet the bare minimum of a 2.5 GPA.
Also, less than 10% of whites in this country owned slaves. I know my ancestors didn't. Why should my taxes go to people I've never hurt?
i feel that EVERYONE'S taxes (blacks included) should go towards the REPAIRING (reparations) of the black community. i don't believe that it should be whites only because that would be revenge, which i don't believe in, plus as you say, not all whites are the descendants of slave owners, just like not all blacks are the descendants of slaves. and again, i don't believe in giving blacks a monthly check because that won't "repair" them.
@FuzzyCan Well, I think it's a question of (1) should taxes go toward rectifying historical injustices, (2) or whether taxes should be used to support the poor. I would say no to former but yes to the latter.
@FuzzyCan I agree. As a latino/black from the ghetto Bronx in the 80s, I still went to college, excelled in school, stayed out of trouble, drugs, avoided getting women pregnant & am successful today because I WANTED TO. The excuse that blacks can't get ahead is just that: an excuse or laziness. Even in the 80s, there were scholarships for us, financial aid, Pell Grants, yet most of the black kids in my area chose crime & the ghetto over college. That's their fault & NOT White folks.
@shadowmancer122 Thanks! I am by no means a conservative, yet a lot of their ideals of self reliance & self fulfillment ring true with me yet I vote Democrat every time. I just get tired of blacks/latinos hating on the "white man" & blaming them for every minority ill. Asians are immigrants & despite racism, they excel. Blacks immigrants from Africa also excel, get degrees, become professionals too, so why can't African Americans excel? Because we want someone else to blame for our failures.
I'm an independent conservative. I see the Democrats as aiding and abetting the dysfunctionality within the black/Latino community. By the way, I'm from Brooklyn.
I don't know the original village my great great grandfather came from. I do not know what my great great grandmother did for a living. I don't know my original Azrehlian name, I don't know what is my original job, mate, offspring and bohdie tree. For that you owe me reparations!
So you're bitching about the fact that you didn't grow up in a third world country where the recordsof such things had probably been lost or not made at all?
I don't get that at all. In the USA you have far more oppourtunities than you would likely have had if you had grown up in Africa.
I'm bi-racial. Would I have to pay or receive reparations?
But the real point is no one owes you anything. You grew up in the most proserous and secure country in history and could have made anything of yourself. You know where Blacks are STILL sold as slaves? Africa, where Muslim trade Black Christians and Animists to Arabs. Where's your complaints about that "brother?"
BUT I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING TO YOU. All I ever hear in the reparations debate is how "unfair" life has been for the descendents of slaves. What about how unfair it would be for those of us who never "owned" anyone to pay for someone else's mistakes?
you may not have done anything but neither did we, and yet we suffer for what your ancestors did to ours while you benefit from it. that's not fair and needs to be accounted for in some way. i don't agree with the idea of handing out checks to blacks. but their needs to be a REPARATION of the black community in some way by the american government, which obviously would put you on the hook as a taxpayer.
just because YOU suffer doesnt meant that WE suffer. Btw- welfare, food stamps, affirmative action, political correctness has not been enough for your suffering ass?
get a clue house nigga. the black community as a collective whole has suffered as a result of white supremacy and no amount of white ass kissing on your part is going to change that fact. have a nice day clown.
@FuckUtube2008 So are you gonna stand up and be positive and do something or are you just going to rant about how the white man has kept you down? In this day and age you can make it in this world if you apply yourself. Dont give me this whole "the white man is still keeping me down" because its fucking lame man!
Can i please hear an educated comment plz? Listen, before i read the book Losing the race, i was pro-affirmative action, and placing blaim in the wrong places. This book made me realize that that we african americans are too talented and gifted to let ne thing hold us back, and to give ourselves a lowered standard Racism isn't dead, it's institutionalized and psychological. I honestly have too much to say to fit on the page, but seriously, black america, let's get real. get off the bullshit!
ummm excuse me DURCO02...i definitely read loosing the race...but after i read his essay that my COLLEGE professor assigned. "how hip hop holds blacks back" i think he is an uncle tom nigga and i know someone who met him personally, and i have my reasons so please me being 19 has nothing to with anything....i am an educated 19 year old so please come correct.
But not educated enough to know that "Uncle Tom" actually fought for fellow slaves in the book of his origin? Get real. You don't even know how to insult someone intelligently.
certain hip hop song in a sense show some of our immaturity and self destruction as a race. is all hip hop like this, no(it's my fav music genre), but yur professor does have a point. the book is excellent, every black man should read it.
Go ahead and try it, faggot. You're damn lucky that white people care about you, because if we didn't, we'd just conquer you people all over again. You've never beaten us; you're weak and you know it.
Hey, black people are a more homophobic demographic group than crackers, so don't try to outfaggot me you metrosexual, Hellenistic culture worshipping, Ayn Rand reading, Western Union supremacist. Reverse yo' Boston Celtics hat and stick it up the bootey of a black bitch that what you wanna do, brotha, you stupid cocksucker.
Can you explain this to me. You call him a Uncle tom because he doesn't hold the same view has you? That and you 19 years old. Something tells me you have never even read the book.
lol @ all the dumbasses here warping everything mcwhorter says to say "see, this justifies every time i've called a beaner or black person lazy".
YearOfTheSens 1 year ago
@YearOfTheSens
lol @ the dumbasses like yourself who believe the bs that you wrote.
shadowmancer122 3 weeks ago
Life is harder for some than others. Working class kids usually become working class adults.
It ain't brain science.
We don't live in a meritocracy.
DrunkenPoetic 1 year ago
Brilliant,honest man!
ashken79 1 year ago
I think McWhorter is confusing analysis with proposing solutions. Those who are honest and discuss institutional racism are also engaged in grassroots activism, and they also focus on community outreach and how this outreach and bring about democratic solutions within the community.
To assume that analysis will lead to solution is to insinuate that intellectuals--I believe this is the context in which McWhorter is speaking and writing--have the solution for the downtrodden, which is not true
emahunn 1 year ago
@emahunn Wait, so intellectuals are engaged in both analysis and activism but those two activities are unrelated? Shouldn't we assume that one's analysis of institutional racism should inform their activism? And what's the point of analysis if it doesn't lead toward solutions?
cambocan 1 year ago
@cambocan You seem to have misconstrued my comment. It is those who have a firm understanding of institutional racism are also participating in grassroots activism--and I am not referring to top-down activists (ie professors, etc.); I am referring to bottom-up intellectuals (ie organic intellectuals in the truest, Gramscian sense of the term).
Leading to a solution is fundamentally different than having a solution. Read the projects of Michel Foucault and Derrida to know more...
emahunn 1 year ago
@emahunn You're saying two different things. 1. Intellectuals by their very class function are incapable of offering "real solutions" as opposed to the "organic intellectuals" who are really activisits and (2) contributing to the solution of a social problem is fundamentally unrelated to having a position as to the solution of the problem. I'd like you to determine the veracity of either statement.
cambocan 1 year ago
@cambocan I am simply clarifying my point. It is Gramsci's take--a take to which I subscribe--that organic intellectuals are not solely activists, although they can be. Organic intellectuals, rather, are intellectuals who do not come from capitalist educational institutions. It is, indeed, more likely, considering the composition of the education acquired by organic intellectuals, for organic intellectuals to be activists. Furthermore, you are using language I did not use nor imply...
emahunn 1 year ago
John McWhorter is an ugly motherfucker.
FuckUtube2008 2 years ago
What's your point?
FuzzyCan 2 years ago
can you read? i think my point was clearly made in the paragraph that you read unless you're referring to my calling mr mcwhorter "ugly". if you're not intelligent enough to understand the point just say so now. if you don't have a logical refutation to my "point" and this is the best response you could muster, just admit so now. otherwise, i see any further conversation with you an effort in futility.
FuckUtube2008 2 years ago
it appears that you were in fact referring to my "ugly" comment. in that case, dismiss everything else i've stated and let me answer your question: my point is...that he's an ugly motherfucker. that's the point. you do know what ugly means don't you?
FuckUtube2008 2 years ago
I was trying to point out that calling someone a nasty name are calling them less-than-desirable is a childish thing to do and is irrelevant to the conversation below.
As for your point, you do realize that almost every ethnic group has either been enslaved or made slaves out of another group, don't you?
Should reparations be given to any group that's been given the shaft in the past?
It's not going to happen and it shouldn't happen. Try to earn wealth yourself rather than beg for it.
FuzzyCan 2 years ago
i understand all of that, but i think as long as whites are benefiting from the effects of slavery while blacks are suffering, reparations should be on the table. you say it will never happen, but you don't have a crystal ball, so what you really mean to say is that you "hope" it will never happen because you don't care about fixing injustices, as you're the beneficiary of the injustice. but the reality is you don't know what will happen, so i wouldn't be so confident over there if i were you.
FuckUtube2008 2 years ago
more importantly, you need to understand that your reign on the top as the most powerful race on the planet has been slowly slipping away for many many years. and it'll only get worse from here. don't worry: whites will spend their fair time at the bottom of the barrel in due time...just wait.
FuckUtube2008 2 years ago
If it wasn't us, it would have been someone else. I honestly feel that black Americans have been given a lot of benefits already. All black children are given a place in public schools if their parents follow the proper procedures that a parent of any race in this nation must. There are scholarships for black students who meet the bare minimum of a 2.5 GPA.
Also, less than 10% of whites in this country owned slaves. I know my ancestors didn't. Why should my taxes go to people I've never hurt?
FuzzyCan 2 years ago
i feel that EVERYONE'S taxes (blacks included) should go towards the REPAIRING (reparations) of the black community. i don't believe that it should be whites only because that would be revenge, which i don't believe in, plus as you say, not all whites are the descendants of slave owners, just like not all blacks are the descendants of slaves. and again, i don't believe in giving blacks a monthly check because that won't "repair" them.
FuckUtube2008 2 years ago
@FuzzyCan Well, I think it's a question of (1) should taxes go toward rectifying historical injustices, (2) or whether taxes should be used to support the poor. I would say no to former but yes to the latter.
cambocan 1 year ago
@FuzzyCan I agree. As a latino/black from the ghetto Bronx in the 80s, I still went to college, excelled in school, stayed out of trouble, drugs, avoided getting women pregnant & am successful today because I WANTED TO. The excuse that blacks can't get ahead is just that: an excuse or laziness. Even in the 80s, there were scholarships for us, financial aid, Pell Grants, yet most of the black kids in my area chose crime & the ghetto over college. That's their fault & NOT White folks.
cjs33139 1 year ago 9
@cjs33139
I agree with you 100%. It's to bad that your way of thinking is still in short supply here in NYC.
shadowmancer122 1 month ago
@shadowmancer122 Thanks! I am by no means a conservative, yet a lot of their ideals of self reliance & self fulfillment ring true with me yet I vote Democrat every time. I just get tired of blacks/latinos hating on the "white man" & blaming them for every minority ill. Asians are immigrants & despite racism, they excel. Blacks immigrants from Africa also excel, get degrees, become professionals too, so why can't African Americans excel? Because we want someone else to blame for our failures.
cjs33139 1 month ago
@cjs33139
I'm an independent conservative. I see the Democrats as aiding and abetting the dysfunctionality within the black/Latino community. By the way, I'm from Brooklyn.
shadowmancer122 3 weeks ago
Sorry if I came off as a bit hostile at first, by the way.
I'm not trying to offend you.
FuzzyCan 2 years ago
I don't know the original village my great great grandfather came from. I do not know what my great great grandmother did for a living. I don't know my original Azrehlian name, I don't know what is my original job, mate, offspring and bohdie tree. For that you owe me reparations!
RationalEmotive 2 years ago
So you're bitching about the fact that you didn't grow up in a third world country where the recordsof such things had probably been lost or not made at all?
I don't get that at all. In the USA you have far more oppourtunities than you would likely have had if you had grown up in Africa.
AmberNightwolf 2 years ago
You people owe! Kucinich sees that and would have paid reparations if he would have been elected President.
Obama is openly sympathizing with white culture, golf and wants the repression of people of color going on in the future.
RationalEmotive 2 years ago
I'm bi-racial. Would I have to pay or receive reparations?
But the real point is no one owes you anything. You grew up in the most proserous and secure country in history and could have made anything of yourself. You know where Blacks are STILL sold as slaves? Africa, where Muslim trade Black Christians and Animists to Arabs. Where's your complaints about that "brother?"
Hellfireblogs 2 years ago
BUT I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING TO YOU. All I ever hear in the reparations debate is how "unfair" life has been for the descendents of slaves. What about how unfair it would be for those of us who never "owned" anyone to pay for someone else's mistakes?
BethGray12 2 years ago
you may not have done anything but neither did we, and yet we suffer for what your ancestors did to ours while you benefit from it. that's not fair and needs to be accounted for in some way. i don't agree with the idea of handing out checks to blacks. but their needs to be a REPARATION of the black community in some way by the american government, which obviously would put you on the hook as a taxpayer.
FuckUtube2008 2 years ago
just because YOU suffer doesnt meant that WE suffer. Btw- welfare, food stamps, affirmative action, political correctness has not been enough for your suffering ass?
onegcds 2 years ago
get a clue house nigga. the black community as a collective whole has suffered as a result of white supremacy and no amount of white ass kissing on your part is going to change that fact. have a nice day clown.
FuckUtube2008 2 years ago
@FuckUtube2008 So are you gonna stand up and be positive and do something or are you just going to rant about how the white man has kept you down? In this day and age you can make it in this world if you apply yourself. Dont give me this whole "the white man is still keeping me down" because its fucking lame man!
onegcds 8 months ago
there is some truth to that, however, that is still playing the victim.
TerminatorX87 2 years ago
and he trippin on hip hop, lol. At least the kind i listen too, i don't listen to that radio bullshit, lol.
TerminatorX87 2 years ago
Can i please hear an educated comment plz? Listen, before i read the book Losing the race, i was pro-affirmative action, and placing blaim in the wrong places. This book made me realize that that we african americans are too talented and gifted to let ne thing hold us back, and to give ourselves a lowered standard Racism isn't dead, it's institutionalized and psychological. I honestly have too much to say to fit on the page, but seriously, black america, let's get real. get off the bullshit!
TerminatorX87 2 years ago
A lot of other races still get fast tracked (i.e.) grades, promoted, etc.etc. But we need to do for self.
hagnuj 2 years ago 2
damn skippy, lol.
TerminatorX87 2 years ago
ummm excuse me DURCO02...i definitely read loosing the race...but after i read his essay that my COLLEGE professor assigned. "how hip hop holds blacks back" i think he is an uncle tom nigga and i know someone who met him personally, and i have my reasons so please me being 19 has nothing to with anything....i am an educated 19 year old so please come correct.
thewiseone1990 2 years ago
But not educated enough to know that "Uncle Tom" actually fought for fellow slaves in the book of his origin? Get real. You don't even know how to insult someone intelligently.
BethGray12 2 years ago
certain hip hop song in a sense show some of our immaturity and self destruction as a race. is all hip hop like this, no(it's my fav music genre), but yur professor does have a point. the book is excellent, every black man should read it.
TerminatorX87 2 years ago
uncle tom nigga
thewiseone1990 3 years ago
stay classy
weeds121980 3 years ago
Yeah, really. Stay classy. And while you're at it, why don't you go make some money and stop blaming white people for your shitty life.
Bitch.
FightDPower 2 years ago
Brothas are going to gangbang yo' momma real hard, cracker post-punk white trash O'Reilly idiot.
RationalEmotive 2 years ago
Go ahead and try it, faggot. You're damn lucky that white people care about you, because if we didn't, we'd just conquer you people all over again. You've never beaten us; you're weak and you know it.
FightDPower 2 years ago
Hey, black people are a more homophobic demographic group than crackers, so don't try to outfaggot me you metrosexual, Hellenistic culture worshipping, Ayn Rand reading, Western Union supremacist. Reverse yo' Boston Celtics hat and stick it up the bootey of a black bitch that what you wanna do, brotha, you stupid cocksucker.
RationalEmotive 2 years ago
out of breath already?
RationalEmotive 2 years ago
dude, u should get shot for what u just said u bigotted, no good, over zealous son of a bitch!
TerminatorX87 2 years ago
Can you explain this to me. You call him a Uncle tom because he doesn't hold the same view has you? That and you 19 years old. Something tells me you have never even read the book.
DURCO02 2 years ago 2
Blame Canada...
Blame Ca-NA-DAAH!!!
HandGrenadeTesticles 3 years ago