The "black neoconservatives" who Baker singles out in Michael Eric Dyson, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Cornel West, Shelby Steele and Stephen Carter, preach that the "black urban ghetto" of today is a sole result of the behavioral issues within the African American community. These "black neoconservatives" have adopted white values, disavowed their links to the African American majority, and whitewash the prior sins of White America under the apologetic guise of "white guilt" and proclaim the end of racial injustice.Which brings us back to Bill Cosby.
The rise of the black public intellectual in this era of neoconservatism according to Baker has produced a false sense of progress. Baker though, is not a preacher, he is a Professor, a literary scholar, and an intellectual who through textual analysis attempts to deconstruct the arguments made by certain black public intellectuals who according to Baker have betrayed the African American majority and the spirit of the Civil Rights movements.Baker discusses the major themes since the 1960s landmark rulings of the Voting Rights Act including the "white counter-culture", "Mister Backlash", and "white flight" of which the roots of the neoconservative movement were founded on and furthered by the Reagan-Bush coalition. The same kind of views that led to the trigger-finger happy premature condemnations of the Duke Lacrosse team. Wright or the NAACP activists such as the Rev. To be clear, Baker's views are in line with those of the most radical black liberation theologians such as those of Rev. Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads", or later when he said: "Stop beating up on your women because you can't find a job" (p99), it showed how divided America is on the race issue and how even more divided the race issue is among African Americans.This is the topic of Houston Baker Jr's latest book, "Betrayal". Board of Education decision, Bill Cosby said: "I can't even talk the way these people talk. Read moreīetrayal of the Black MajorityWhen in 2004 while commemorating the landmark Brown v. As he sees it, the mission of the black intellectual today is not to do great things but to do specific, racially based work that is in the interest of the black majority. To remedy this situation, Baker urges black intellectuals to forge both sacred and secular connections with local communities and rededicate themselves to social responsibility.
Baker claims King would have criticized these black intellectuals for not persistently raising their voices against a private prison system that incarcerates so many men and women of color. prison-industrial complex in the "disappearing" of blacks. His provocative investigation into their disingenuous posturing exposes what Baker deems a tragic betrayal of King's legacy.īaker concludes with a discussion of American myth and the role of the U.S. Hoover Institution senior fellow Shelby Steele Yale law professor Stephen Carter and Manhattan Institute fellow John McWhorter. Baker devotes chapters to the writing and thought of such black academic superstars as Cornel West, Michael Eric Dyson, and Henry Louis Gates Jr. He also revisits classical sites of African American literary and historical criticism and critique. Baker critiques his own impoverished childhood in the "Little Africa" section of Louisville, Kentucky, to understand the shaping of this new public figure. In the literature, speeches, and academic and public behavior of some black intellectuals in the past quarter century, Baker identifies a "hungry generation" eager for power, respect, and money. Du Bois, Martin Luther King Jr., and others who have fought for black rights. Most important, they do a disservice to the legacy of W. These individuals choose personal gain over the interests of the black majority, whether they are espousing neoconservative positions that distort the contours of contemporary social and political dynamics or abandoning race as an important issue in the study of American literature and culture. condemns those black intellectuals who, he believes, have turned their backs on the tradition of racial activism in America.
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