I don't know why I liked this essay, but I did. John McWhorter, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, explains why he doesn't want to be "African American" any more:
"But what about the black business districts that thrived across the country after slavery was abolished? What about Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells, W.E.B. Du Bois, Gwendolyn Brooks, Richard Wright and Thurgood Marshall, none born in Africa and all deeply American people? And while we're on Marshall, what about the civil rights revolution, a moral awakening that we gave to ourselves and the nation. My roots trace back to working-class Black people - Americans, not foreigners - and I'm proud of it. I am John Hamilton McWhorter the Fifth. Four men with my name and appearance, doing their best in a segregated America, came before me. They and their dearest are the heritage that I can feel in my heart, and they knew the sidewalks of Philadelphia and Atlanta, not Sierra Leone.
So, we will have a name for ourselves - and it should be Black...."
UPDATE: Meanwhile, Mark Kleiman sees an increasingly grown up mindset around issues of race and crime. It only took liberals about 30 years... and I'm glad to see real progress at last.
> I don't know why I liked this essay,
Well, McWhorter is a skilled and engaging writer and (presumably, based on his writing) a Pretty Decent Guy and a Sane Commentator, too. What's not to like? :-)
Now that the liberals have started to grow up about crime, how about the conservatives?
Mark,
Given that it was a sustained (and much vilified, but electorally successful) neo-conservative critique that forced the liberal growing up, and given the contributions and successful application of ideas like the Broken Windows theory et. al. to the debate, I'd say the American Right is in pretty good shape here.
My biggest quibble with them lies in "3 strikes and you're out" laws, which often produce grotesque results.
Interesting. Clarence Walker doesn't like African American either, and his political views are very different from McWhorter's.
African American doesn't speak to Mr. McWhorter's life experience since it includes Mr. McWhorter, Kim Du Toit (white, born in South Africa), and, say, Ethiopians born in Africa.
"Black" doesn't quite do it either since it includes Mr. McWhorter, "black" people from Africa, and "black" people from the Caribbean—very different life experiences.
Perhaps Mr. McWhorter should consider the term "Afro-American", proposed by Northwestern sociologist Charles Moskas to mean exactly what Mr. McWhorter advocates for "black".