Black Professor Diverts on Affirmative Action Stance

On a campus full of vocal affirmative action supporters, a professor has written a book so critical of race preferences that he will not even allow his photograph to be taken for fear of being targeted.

John McWhorter, who hails from black middle-class Philadelphia, has a degree from Stanford and now teaches linguistics at UC Berkeley. While he has come a long way, many of his peers have not, and he explores why in his new book, "Losing the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America."

Based on a series of personal anecdotes and empirical observations, the book contends that cultural traits are responsible for what McWhorter calls "depressing black scholarly performance."

"The cornerstone of these academic (trials) is a cultural thought and not necessarily poverty or racism," he says. "I'm not talking about the exceptions, but the more typical and general trends."

McWhorter explains that whether or not black students attend a poor public school or a well-funded academic institution, they typically rank in the lower half of their class.

"Even in the very good public schools, (they) find themselves at the bottom," he says. "All of these findings come from national and factual figures."

In various sectors of education, to be academic is to be white, and for many black middle-class students, to do well in school is to identify with the proverbial white racist, McWhorter says.

"The black race has been misled with this kind of institutional mode of thought," he adds. "It's this obsession with victimhood that's holding these students back."

A supporter of the ban on race preferences in UC admissions, he says black students need to succeed academically without the use of a racial crutch.

"Affirmative action is an obsolete policy to lower standards in order to create a black middle class," McWhorter says. "This class finally exists and it's incredibly enormous."

Middle-class black children have poorer academic performance than white students whose parents earn less than $20,000 a year, he said.

"With affirmative action there really is no reason to compete," McWhorter says. "The only way to have a representative group competitive to Berkeley is to eliminate a policy that tells (them) not to be too good."

Students compete only when necessary, McWhorter claims, and an end to affirmative action is the beginning of making black students as competitive as white students.

But some UC Berkeley academics find fault in arguments presented in "Losing the Race."

Robert Chrisman, a visiting professor in the African American studies department and editor for "The Black Scholar," says McWhorter's weakness is his adherence to generalizations.

"His argument of the black student is one settled on those who are lazy, not willing to work or compete," Chrisman says. "This is undoubtedly a result of his frustration from a teaching position."

Chrisman says the book falsely attributes failure to black students on the basis of cultural thought, while virtually dismissing all notions of racism.

"A primary reason why these students don't do so well is because of racism," Chrisman says. "Racism isn't a klansman's wardrobe in the classroom, but a harmful consensus that blacks aren't as smart as others."

McWhorter says he typically receives up to 50 replies per week about his controversial book, predominantly from black readers and overwhelmingly supportive.

While the book is critical of affirmative action, McWhorter says being called an ultra-conservative black academic has been paramount.

"There's a sort of vogue that no matter what, you're conservative if you don't like affirmative action," McWhorter said. "In my opinion, falling to stereotypes like that is just rock cold stupid."

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