Home > The Book Page > Archives > 2008 > January > 30
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Who’s a sellout?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Randall Kennedy writes about incendiary topics with a sharp, cool intellect. One can admire that approach, and/or one can paraphrase Dr. Phil: So, how’s that working for ya?
Kennedy is a law professor at Harvard. His last book was the excellent historical and literary journey subtitled “The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word.” I’m being more coy than Kennedy was as to the title.
Kennedy’s latest book is “Sellout: The Politics of Racial Betrayal.” He will be at the Margaret Mitchell House tonight to discuss and sign the book; as always, reception at 6, lecture at 7, $10 for non-members.
Kennedy is a thorough, precise writer whose thoughts do not reduce to a simple power point presentatiom. “Selllout’ is about the many permutations of black life that give rise to accusations of selling out one’s race, from “acting white” (i.e. studying in school) to dating or marrying white.
The paper’s @Issue section ran a pretty large excerpt from “Sellout” on Jan. 20. Here are a few snippets:
“Angst over complacency, collaboration and defection continues to occupy a salient place in the Afro-American mind and soul. One hears it in ceaselessly repeated phrases such as “Don’t forget where you come from” and “Stay black.” One sees it in the often obsessive attentiveness with which many blacks scrutinize other blacks for evidence of “passing,” “acting white,” or otherwise showing what is denounced as an inadequate commitment to black solidarity. One sees it in efforts by blacks, especially those in elite, predominantly white settings, to signal to other blacks (and themselves as well) that they have remained true to blackness.”
“…Pursuing certain occupations or attending to certain tasks within an occupation have prompted charges of selling out. Blacks who serve as police officers can expect such denunciation, as can blacks who work as elite corporate attorneys.
During the murder trial of O.J. Simpson, the black assistant district attorney Christopher Darden became a target for accusations of racial betrayal. Black journalists, too, have been condemned. When Milton Coleman of The Washington Post revealed that presidential contender Jesse Jackson had referred to Jews as “Hymies,” Coleman “was assailed by blacks across the country as a sellout who, for career advancement, was attempting to derail Jackson’s historic campaign.” Minister Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam vilified the reporter as “a no-good, filthy traitor” who should be shunned “so that he cannot enter in among black people.”
Scores of black conservatives have been derided as sellouts. Angered by the black economist Thomas Sowell’s opposition to affirmative action and other liberal policies, the journalist Carl Rowan said of him that “Vidkun Quisling, in his collaboration with the Nazis, surely did not do as much damage to the Norwegians as Sowell is doing to the most helpless of black Americans. Sowell is giving aid and comfort to America’s racists.”
Is Kennedy’s concern justified? Is there a way out of this mess?
Thanks to all who commented. I’m turning off commenting now. Come back tomorrow for something completely different.
Permalink | Comments (12) | Categories: Atlanta Events
