Looking forward to Dr. Loury's memoir. Interesting when Dr. McWhorter points out that this idealizing of "badass motherfucker" has been a part of other American ethnic communities and not just the Black community. I think it's a very American identity. (D.H. Lawrence: "“The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted."). There's a romantic yearning in American masculinity to be that badass motherfucker no matter which side of the law you're on, and no matter your race. I'm not qualified by experience or study to say whether it is a special problem in the Black community, but the life experience of Dr. Loury certainly seems to attest to that. Whatever the case, these mythologies make us feel alive, but in the end do more harm than good. Perhaps part of the solution is not to argue against it as much as to find other mythologies that can make us feel alive, but without the nihilistic edge.
Looking forward to Dr. Loury's memoir. Interesting when Dr. McWhorter points out that this idealizing of "badass motherfucker" has been a part of other American ethnic communities and not just the Black community. I think it's a very American identity. (D.H. Lawrence: "“The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted."). There's a romantic yearning in American masculinity to be that badass motherfucker no matter which side of the law you're on, and no matter your race. I'm not qualified by experience or study to say whether it is a special problem in the Black community, but the life experience of Dr. Loury certainly seems to attest to that. Whatever the case, these mythologies make us feel alive, but in the end do more harm than good. Perhaps part of the solution is not to argue against it as much as to find other mythologies that can make us feel alive, but without the nihilistic edge.