john-mcwhorter

John McWhorter Explained

Hamilton Nolan · 06/13/08 09:08AM

An excellent analysis of bizarre racial thinker and hip hop hating intellectual John McWhorter traces his evolution from academia into neocon hackdom, and concludes, "We have admittedly now left the frame of legitimate criticism, but there is a sense in which McWhorter has never recovered from the shame and trauma of having been beaten up by a girl when he was four." [ebogjonson]

Hip Hop: All Bad

Hamilton Nolan · 06/12/08 08:38AM

Are you one of the apologist types who argues that not all hip hop music is ignorant, antisocial filth? Please excuse New York Sun columnist and bizarre racial thinker John McWhorter as he shakes his head in exasperation at your foolish "fallacy." Did you know that the urban black demographic has problems with crime and education? Let's hear you defend your precious "conscious" rap now! How does the irredeemable evil of all rap music ever recorded logically follow from the existence of social problems? John McWhorter will tell you how: with some terrifying lyrics from The Roots, proving that hip hop will be our generation's downfall:

Non-Racist Whites Simply Don't Like Obama's Race

Hamilton Nolan · 05/27/08 08:21AM

John McWhorter—Bill Buckley-esque NY Sun columnist and bizarre racial thinker—has taken his bizarre racial thinking act over to the New York Times for a day, presumably because conservative black academic columnists are hard to come by in New York City on a holiday weekend. In a video debate on the Times' website, McWhorter advances the novel theory that Barack Obama doesn't have to worry about racism; just his race. Here's an example of a statement that he says is not racist: "I won't vote for a black person because he's a radical type and would bring in Farrakhan." And hey, how come black people can hang around each other and it's okay, but white people can't? It's because "white people aren't allowed to be diverse." Okay! The other guy is, frankly, no match for McWhorter's secret redefinitions of words that negate their own meaning. The baffling debate, after the jump.

John McWhorter Sees A Little Bill Buckley In Himself

Hamilton Nolan · 05/21/08 08:45AM

New York Sun columnist and bizarre racial thinker John McWhorter takes a wistful look back today at God and Man at Yale, crypto-fascist William F. Buckley's seminal work on how to be an uptight Ivy League conservative. Why today? Well, there's never a bad time to speak out against the outrageous marginalization of capitalism and Christianity on college campuses, in McWhorter's view, and besides, he had a column due. He thoughtfully and eloquently fellates Buckley's 1951 plea for sticks (of morality) to be inserted in asses (of Christianity) throughout our nation's top schools. And you know—not to be immodest—McWhorter can't help but see a little bit of Buckley's controversial genius in himself:

Campus Conservatives Cry Out For Own Victim Status

Hamilton Nolan · 04/17/08 02:49PM

Bizarre racial thinker and conservative columnist John McWhorter today muses over his run-ins with the smug, misguided intellectuals who infest American higher education with their "radical leftist perspective." It's a standard-issue argument against political correctness, which ignores the salient point that conservatives are just as convinced of their own righteousness as liberals, they just don't have the numbers to assert their will on most campuses. Also, a tip for McWhorter: if you don't want to get argued with, you shouldn't have worked at freaking Berkeley. He says that the documentary "Indoctrinate U," out now, will help strike a blow against closed leftist minds. We agree that liberal political correctness is terribly annoying—almost as annoying as Republicans who use it as a canard to distract the world from their happy march towards fascism. Hey, this post is like a bad Poli-Sci class! The trailer for the film that will save beleaguered Ivy League ROTC students, after the jump.

Blackness Explained Bizarrely

Hamilton Nolan · 02/14/08 09:23AM

For those of us who have been wondering what it means to be "really black," John McWhorter is here with some impenetrable explanations. McWhorter is a scholar at the conservative Manhattan Institute and frequent phoner-in of columns to the New York Sun (seriously, today's is just him riffing on how much the play "Hairspray" sucks, for no apparent reason). In an essay on TheRoot.com, he takes on those backward-thinking idealists who reject the question of who is "black enough." What's McWhorter's groundbreaking formula for measuring blackness? Hint: It involves dance skills, Ebonics, and chicken!