Excellent excerpt. It's ironic that Prof. McWhorter references James Baldwin's early essay, "Everybody's Protest Novel." Baldwin himself fell prey to some of the very tendencies of protest literature he critiqued.
Albert Murray details such points in his constructive critique of Baldwin in his essay, "James Baldwin, Protest Fiction, and the Blues Tradition" in The Omni-Americans:
"Baldwin’s criticism of Native Son was essentially valid. The people, the situations, and the motivation in that quasi-realistic novel were more than oversimplified. They were exaggerated by an overemphasis on protest as such and by a very specific kind of political protest at that. Oversimplification in these terms does lead almost inevitably to false positions based on false assumptions about human nature itself. Every story whatever its immediate purpose is a story about being man on earth. This is the basis of its universality, the fundamental interest and sense of identification it generates in other people.
If you ignore this and reduce man’s whole story to a series of sensational but superficial news items and editorial complaints and accusations, blaming all the bad things that happen to your characters on racial bigotry, you imply that people are primarily concerned with only certain political and social absolutes. You imply that these absolutes are the sine qua non of all human fulfillment. And you also imply that there are people who possess these political and social absolutes, and that these people are on better terms with the world as such and are consequently better people. In other words, no matter how noble your mission, when you oversimplify the reasons why a poor or an oppressed man lies, cheats, steals, betrays, hates, murders, or becomes an alcoholic or addict, you imply that well-to-do, rich, and powerful people don’t do these things. But they do."
That is such a good point, Greg. It only took Irish Americans eight generations or so, after escaping the English yoke and boot, to be perceived as somewhat respectable, if they’ve ever even achieved that: Just speak to some wealthy WASPS and see how they perceive the Irish. I believe they see them as genetically inferior. We had a JFK only because his father would do anything for a buck, and he did, including graft and bootlegging. When “everything is bullshit”, you get expressions like “money talks and bullshit walks”.
You might not realize that “everything is bullshit” until enough doors are slammed in your face, and then you begin to see the power of money.
But beyond repression and suppression, some people are just born with an instinct that tells them how the world is structured and that it’s just not fair (even if they can’t articulate it any better than I can) . . . and they rebel.
Some, like Bin Laden, are born with all the wealth any man could ever need, become revolutionaries or freedom fighters, or to us, just crass terrorists who threaten our way of life.
Some others don’t have any idea why they’re doing what they’re doing, it’s just easier than stepping on the treadmill and working for the man your whole wife to little avail. They don’t want to comply.
I was raised among waving fields of grain in an idyllic rural location with no neighbors within eyesight. This instinct was somehow born in me and manifested itself around eighth grade when to me it became apparent that “everything is bullshit”, The great philosophy of the working class regardless of race, creed, or culture.
If you want to play in the bullshit game you have to comply, and some people just do not like to comply.
When you’re poor and destitute, wether Black or Irish or anyone else, you’re going to break the law in order to survive. That points directly to the human condition: it is what is expected of you.
But if you have the means to thrive, but you just don’t want to comply, then that’s also part of the human condition.
It may be fair to say that life is more unfair for some citizens than for other citizens simply based on their heritage and the course of history.
But I also agree that Woke is Broke, and it causes incredible resentment among people who are not in the less than 13% of our population who are Black.
What a great disservice the small percentage of woke race activist are doing to our African-American population whom I think simply want to be seen and treated as ordinary human beings.
Excellent excerpt. It's ironic that Prof. McWhorter references James Baldwin's early essay, "Everybody's Protest Novel." Baldwin himself fell prey to some of the very tendencies of protest literature he critiqued.
Albert Murray details such points in his constructive critique of Baldwin in his essay, "James Baldwin, Protest Fiction, and the Blues Tradition" in The Omni-Americans:
"Baldwin’s criticism of Native Son was essentially valid. The people, the situations, and the motivation in that quasi-realistic novel were more than oversimplified. They were exaggerated by an overemphasis on protest as such and by a very specific kind of political protest at that. Oversimplification in these terms does lead almost inevitably to false positions based on false assumptions about human nature itself. Every story whatever its immediate purpose is a story about being man on earth. This is the basis of its universality, the fundamental interest and sense of identification it generates in other people.
If you ignore this and reduce man’s whole story to a series of sensational but superficial news items and editorial complaints and accusations, blaming all the bad things that happen to your characters on racial bigotry, you imply that people are primarily concerned with only certain political and social absolutes. You imply that these absolutes are the sine qua non of all human fulfillment. And you also imply that there are people who possess these political and social absolutes, and that these people are on better terms with the world as such and are consequently better people. In other words, no matter how noble your mission, when you oversimplify the reasons why a poor or an oppressed man lies, cheats, steals, betrays, hates, murders, or becomes an alcoholic or addict, you imply that well-to-do, rich, and powerful people don’t do these things. But they do."
That is such a good point, Greg. It only took Irish Americans eight generations or so, after escaping the English yoke and boot, to be perceived as somewhat respectable, if they’ve ever even achieved that: Just speak to some wealthy WASPS and see how they perceive the Irish. I believe they see them as genetically inferior. We had a JFK only because his father would do anything for a buck, and he did, including graft and bootlegging. When “everything is bullshit”, you get expressions like “money talks and bullshit walks”.
You might not realize that “everything is bullshit” until enough doors are slammed in your face, and then you begin to see the power of money.
But beyond repression and suppression, some people are just born with an instinct that tells them how the world is structured and that it’s just not fair (even if they can’t articulate it any better than I can) . . . and they rebel.
Some, like Bin Laden, are born with all the wealth any man could ever need, become revolutionaries or freedom fighters, or to us, just crass terrorists who threaten our way of life.
Some others don’t have any idea why they’re doing what they’re doing, it’s just easier than stepping on the treadmill and working for the man your whole wife to little avail. They don’t want to comply.
I was raised among waving fields of grain in an idyllic rural location with no neighbors within eyesight. This instinct was somehow born in me and manifested itself around eighth grade when to me it became apparent that “everything is bullshit”, The great philosophy of the working class regardless of race, creed, or culture.
If you want to play in the bullshit game you have to comply, and some people just do not like to comply.
When you’re poor and destitute, wether Black or Irish or anyone else, you’re going to break the law in order to survive. That points directly to the human condition: it is what is expected of you.
But if you have the means to thrive, but you just don’t want to comply, then that’s also part of the human condition.
It may be fair to say that life is more unfair for some citizens than for other citizens simply based on their heritage and the course of history.
But I also agree that Woke is Broke, and it causes incredible resentment among people who are not in the less than 13% of our population who are Black.
What a great disservice the small percentage of woke race activist are doing to our African-American population whom I think simply want to be seen and treated as ordinary human beings.