It's disingenous of John to be shocked that people would be outraged and insulted by being told some of them are "blacker" than others. Such a judgment obviously threatens people's sense of identity and establishes dubious criteria (established by John) for authenticity. Trust me, if you pulled this number in the Jewish or Mexican-American communities (of which I'm a part) you'd have a huge friggin' riot on your hands.

Wonderment: While I agree with John's thesis (just finished the article) and applaud him for stating it so plainly, you make a good point about his being surprised at the outcry the article provoked. (Good supporting point about other cultures having this same sensitivity, too.) I don't know that I'd call his reaction "disingenuous," though. That word connotes dishonesty. I take him at his word that he was genuinely surprised at the level of noise, while granting that he had to know he'd provoke at least some.

http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/889...6&out=00:20:40 A nice summation of Bob Wright's reservations about too much heat generated from the comments section

Good one, Wonderment. I will admit that both of these gentlemen pinned my guilt meter in this regard.

Re WM's:

Such a judgment... threatens... sense of identity and establishes dubious criteria... for authenticity.

You missed the point: "Among those of the same race, individuals vary in the degree to which they are wedded to artifacts of cultural expression." There are no "criteria for authenticity" for "authenticity" is a DNA-level "given." This is just honest talk based on clear thinking. JM might be naive to assume others would readily follow straightforward analysis, but there's no "disengenuousness" here. It's essentially a matter of personal insecurity when a person or group so identifies with artifacts of "tribal" expression that clear analysis is reacted to as "fighting words." But even JM's "conventional-reality-level" analysis is somewhat shallow when considered from a more profound level of perception: The "self" itself has no inherently-existent reality about it (being but an aggregation of subcomponent entities like physical form, sensations, thoughts, processes, and consciousness). In this it's no different from a "river" or "waterfall" (just drops of H2O, or deeper yet, subatomic particles). Even less therefore is there any inherent reality to impermanent and ever-changing appurtenances of the self (like these "cultural artifacts.") They are really all just drifting and ever-morphing cultural "clouds." EW

Of course it's strange that John McWhorter would be surprised that a discussion of "Who's Blacker than who?" would generate a lot of controversy. I think although Mr. McWhorter tried to present his argument here as a totally innocent statement, he ignited and guaranteed controversy with his claim, "Alan Keyes is blacker than Barack Obama" I want to make two things perfectly clear: I am more Irish than bjkeefe and more Muslim than Reza Aslan. http://abunooralirlandee.wordpress.com

Abu Noor:

I want to make two things perfectly clear: I am more Irish than bjkeefe and more Muslim than Reza Aslan.

LOL! My Irishness definitely took a McWhorter-style turn after I was old enough to go out by myself on St. Patrick's Day. But in all seriousness:

... he ignited and guaranteed controversy with his claim, "Alan Keyes is blacker than Barack Obama"

You're absolutely right about that. Even if one has no intention to say one side is better than the other, it's just asking for it to compare anyone to Alan Keyes over anything. Except maybe wingnuttiness.

Oh, yeah, forgot one thing: We really got short-changed on this DV. They owe us at least another thirty minutes. Nice taste, but it's sort of like going to one of those "Zen" restaurants where the presentation is lovely, but the portions are, frankly, inadequate to satisfy a grown man's appetite. Looking forward to more. EW

EW:

... one of those "Zen" restaurants ...

Is Zen here synonymous with nouvelle cuisine? ;^)

The Aunt Jemima discussion was giving me flashbacks to an episode of A Different World, the Cosby spinoff. There will never be another night of television like Thursday nights on NBC during the Cosby reign. http://abunooralirlandee.wordpress.com

I have to disagree with Wonderment's post that a discussion of what constitutes Jewish culture or Mexican-American culture would cause a riot. I'm Jewish by birth and Mexican-American by marriage. I've had many conversations about what Jewish culture consists of and whether I'm a "real Jew" (to quote from Annie Hall) and many discussions,somewhat jokingly, about how "cholo" someone is. To my mind, there are identifiable Jewish, Mexican-American and black cultural elements and there's nothing wrong with talking about them (realizing, of course, that in present day America there is a great deal of interchangeability - I have WASP friends who I consider Jewish and Irish friends who, growing up in East Los Angeles, are definitely cholo.)

I understand that it was well-intentioned and obviously historically defensible in a broad context, but I was more than a bit stunned when the words "Communists and Jews" spilled out of John McW's mouth as Kennedy was reeling off his specifics on "good white people" who were involved in civil rights activism. After I picked my jaw up off the floor, I started laughing. Another example, imbedded innocently and unselfconsciously in the discussion, of how extremely loaded stereotypes can be, depending on circumstance, proffered as reasonable shorthand for complex matters of history and culture, as mildly offensive half-truths or as toxic invective.

Quoting Wonderment: It's disingenous of John to be shocked that people would be outraged and insulted by being told some of them are "blacker" than others.

Such a judgment obviously threatens people's sense of identity and establishes dubious criteria (established by John) for authenticity.

Trust me, if you pulled this number in the Jewish or Mexican-American communities (of which I'm a part) you'd have a huge friggin' riot on your hands.

I think there may be room for distinguishing between how culturally black, Jewish, Mexican, etc. one is, and how strongly one identifies as a Black person, a Jew, a Mexican, etc. I don't think the two are necessarily the same. For example, there are many people I know who are more culturally Jewish than I am (they're more religiously observant than I am, read more Jewish literature and listen to more Jewish music than I do, have a family life with more Jewish content, etc.) but who do not necessarily identify more strongly than I do with the Jewish people. I'm not sure how exactly to cash out this identifying-with-the-Jewish-people business, but it involves seeing myself as no less Jewish than many of my more culturally Jewish counterparts, as caring no less about the

Saying that one is “blacker,” “more Jewish,” etc. than another seems to be more about one's identity than the degree to which one has taken on elements of the relevant culture; and that may be what got some people bothered. Had John stuck throughout his piece to just talking about how “culturally black” people are, rather than how “black” they are (which goes to their identity), he may not have elicited so strong a reaction.

Right. But he didn't. He was deliberately provocative by asserting "...It's perfectly ordinary to say one black person is culturally blacker than another." The disingenuous part is feigning surprise: "About once a year I write something that I think is very innocent and suddenly I find that people are enraged. ...." For those who have disputed my choice of words... DISINGENUOUS: "Not candid or sincere, typically by pretending one knows less about something than one really does."

But this is just the point, mvantony, isn't it? I know Mr. McWhorter thinks saying "culturally Black" is an attempt to move it one step away from authenticity and identity arguments, but to follow up on your example, what is "culturally Jewish"? A religious Jew might think Jewish culture is obeying the commandments. A non-observant Jew thinks Jewish culture is reflected in Woody Allen movies. A political Jew might think that Jewish culture is support for Israel, while a political Jew with different politics might think that Jewish culture involves criticizing Israeli oppression and another Jew could even think supporting Israel is a betrayal of Jewish culture. (I am a big fan of Potok's The Chosen) I think whenever you try to start applying such analyses to particular people, you are in big trouble and often, even when you're trying not to apply it people are personalizing the general traits or applying them in their mind and you can expect disaster. So, I might in the abstract say no one could argue that Roman Catholicism, the Pub culture, and resistance to the English are defining elements of Irish culture. But people of other religions as well and

I found the "dancing" discussion quite amusing. I play guitar in a blues/funk/soul band that is made up predominantly of older African-American guys. Out of 9 members, only me and the keys player are white. We jam in Compton, and frequently play gigs where everyone in the audience is black. Churches, community fundraisers, you name it. It's a really killer band and all the guys are great guys so it's fun as hell. I can say that I have definitely had experiences that are similiar to the Charlie's Angel scene. There have been plenty of times where I was suddenly called on to play a solo on a super-funky tune or a slow wail in a deep-pocket blues. And I definitely felt all eyes upon me as they asked silently whether I could "get down", or "bring it" or show some "soul". Fortunately, they usually like the way I play (and let me know!), and embrace me, so it's a fun experience that is unlike most of the "celebrational" behavior that I have ever really experienced in white culture (primarily Italian). That's not to say it's more joyous or compassionate or anything, but it's just different. Same idea, different culture. But it is definitely real. I can't

Wonderment:

For those who have disputed my choice of words... DISINGENUOUS: "Not candid or sincere, typically by pretending one knows less about something than one really does."

Well, that's just it, speaking as one who disputed your choice of words. I did not take him to be insincere in this. I do grant that John should have expected some reaction, and that he's certainly smart enough to know when he's pushing buttons, but I take him at his word that he was honestly surprised at the magnitude of the reaction.

I do grant that John should have expected some reaction, and that he's certainly smart enough to know when he's pushing buttons, but I take him at his word that he was honestly surprised at the magnitude of the reaction.

I see your point, but still think the "surprise" was feigned and sketchy and the shit storm quite predictable. Your civic comportment grade goes up, however, for giving him the benefit of the doubt. I will reduce "disingenuous" to "a bit naive" in the interests of world peace.

Wonderment:

Your civic comportment grade goes up, however ...

Thanks! To what, D-? ;^)

Many, many interesting and thoughtful posts as was the diavlog. Since people are formed out of their experience, their identity, their cultural or social selves, are the ongoing syntheses of a dialectic between distillations of experience and new reckonings. For some identity changes hardly or not at all; for others a lifetime may house radical changes. McWhorter, I think, is correct to discern a Black culture, and then to discern varying degrees of adherence to it, even if notions of Black culture are themselves fluid and undergo over time radical transformations, the same dialectical process, I’d contend, at the level of the group. Therefore, in relation to groups, since groups must necessarily be definable to be groups, we can speak of those who are deracinated, on the margins of the group, or less identified with the group. I therefore disagree with the argument that there are no criteria for authenticity, since it “is a DNA-level ‘given’”, although I think that argument needs some parsing. Firstly, cultural identity is borne of the merging of an infinite variety of sources: genetic, historical, circumstantial and so on, even in some cases legalistic, the contingency of which seem eluded by the apparent concreteness and fixedness of identity and

I don't understand why this DV has gotten such praise. I've seen McWhorter in much better form. His criticism of the student film concept was an example of much ado about nothing. His outrage really does seem feigned. Parody of political figures and riffing on popular issues is standard fare in movies and TV programming. Seems to me there was no need to criticize the students with the sarcastic "...and they have bachelor's degrees?" The film concept he describes even reminds me of a movie I saw years ago on VHS (remember those?) in which Moms Mabley and Butterfly McQueen threatened and blackmailed a conservative black politician into becoming a progressive. I think Kennedy's comment on many who use the Uncle Tom putdown is absolutely true. But Aunt Jemima "overcoming?" That was weak. The only overcoming and "making it through" that was done was by the manufacturer of the pancake mix because they are still making a profit while using this image. Kennedy can't come up with a better reason for buying Aunt Jemima pancake mix other than "she's overcome?" But I guess the guy that sees usefulness in the "N" word

Quoting basman: I myself did not hear from McWhorter assertions of varying degrees of blackness as opposed to varying degrees of cultural blackness—Colin Powell as against Jesse Jackson. He may have for shorthand used blacker to stand for culturally blacker, but there is no doubt in my mind he wasn’t positing some ideal of racial blackness or conflating ineffable blackness with cultural blackness. He was to my mind always speaking about and discussing only the latter.

basman, I don't remember exactly what John said in the diavlog, but his article which got the negative response is called "Blackness: A Quick and Dirty Primer." The heart of the article contains a discussion of black culture, but ends like this:

if we really know what being black is about, we can say the following without anyone batting an eye:

Queen Latifah is blacker than Tiger Woods.

Alan Keyes is blacker than Barack Obama.

Jada Pinkett Smith is blacker than Colin Powell.

And, Michael Eric Dyson is blacker than me.

So if there is something to the distinction I was trying to draw between cultural blackness and identifying as a black person, then I think the two were

mvantony I just glanced at the short piece by McWhorter you linked to: it is clear to me at least that McWhorter--a fairly careful writer and thinker--was being purposeful in his use of the phrase "blacker than" at his conclusion. My little analysis of that purposefulness is that he made the case that blackness means cultural blackness, and he rhetorically supported that case in his examples by saying than "blacker than", confident that that stood for, exhausted really, "culturally blacker than". Finally for McWhorter, as I read and hear him, save for saying that one's skin colour is darker than another's, he is saying emphatically that "blacker than" can only mean "cuturally blacker than" and that that is a true and benign conception.

Quoting basman: My little analysis of that purposefulness is that he made the case that blackness means cultural blackness, and he rhetorically supported that case in his examples by saying than "blacker than", confident that that stood for, exhausted really, "culturally blacker than". Finally for McWhorter, as I read and hear him, save for saying that one's skin colour is darker than another's, he is saying emphatically that "blacker than" can only mean "cuturally blacker than" and that that is a true and benign conception.

In looking over John's piece a bit more carefully, I agree that he's being quite clear in claiming that being black amounts to being culturally black. I agree that there is such a use of "being black," "being blacker than," etc., and I agree it's benign. (I in effect acknowledged that it's benign when I said in my original post that "I wouldn't mind someone pointing out that I’m less culturally Jewish than many other Jews," since I am by choice.) I also agree that John is proposing that cultural blackness is the only (central?) sense of "blackness" -- aside, of course, from the sense that concerns skin color. I don't agree, however, that he made a case for that last claim, or offered any

mvantony: Thanks for your interesting further comments. It’s a 2 page throw away little piece by McWhorter, but, having looked at it again myself, I grant you that he assumes, (to put it I think more precisely than I first did) as you note, without argument that blackness is necessarily but not sufficiently constituted by cultural blackness. His line of reasoning seems to me to be: there is such a thing as black culture; he then does assert—as noted without arguing it— that the traits of black culture are “what it is to be black”; he then says it must follow that that different people will exhibit them more than others; and therefore, he says, in the sense he is talking about, some people are blacker than others and gives examples. But that said, I am not following your argument for your distinction, which we should think through, I suggest, before we worry about who may have been offended. I am not understanding, once the legalistic or foundational requirements for belonging to particular groups are met—a Jewish mother; racial characteristics; whatever—what except for cultural *reality* can comprise the consciousness of belonging to the kinds of groups we are mooting? Rather than arguing from the notion

Sorry to jump into this discussion, and I'm not sure whether I'm getting the overall point that mv is getting at, but the distinction makes sense to me in terms of homosexuality (which seems like a possible real-world example). Someone like Larry Craig, even though he has homosexual desires, is not usually considered to be gay, since "gayness" is supposed to be a matter of how you identify yourself, and clearly Craig doesn't want to think of himself as characterized by his homosexual desires.
There's some kind of gay culture as well, though this is undergoing a lot of changes as gays become more mainstream. Accepting that one does desire people of the same sex and not dissociating oneself from that by regarding it as a temptation from the devil or a bestial desire or whatever, and recognizing that one may have political interests in common with other gay people would be the non-cultural identity question.
Whether one then decides one wants to learn how to dance to house music, be a bar boy or an opera queen -- or whatever is involved in "gay

Whether one then decides one wants to learn how to dance to house music, be a bar boy or an opera queen -- or whatever is involved in "gay culture" -- is a somewhat separate question.

Right. So what John has done is take 4 categories he has (arbitrarily?) decided constitute blackness (use of a linguistic variant, food, dancing ability and manner of walking) as constituing blackness. Likewise, you might say limpwristedness, a lisp, length of time out of closet and a knowledge of gay history are what constitute primary characteristics of male gayness. If I'm not mistaken lefthandedness and a certain hair-direction swirl also correlates, so you might want to throw those in. Thus, Barney Frank is gayer than Walt Whitman. Doesn't this strike you as more than a little ridiculous and a lot insulting? We are not talking about robins here, (the analogy Michael used). We're talking about human beings with a subjective understanding of their fundamental identity. Expecting them not to be outraged when an opinionated professor and journalist comes along and challenges/undermines that identity is, well, disingenuous.

Quoting Wonderment: Right. So what John has done is take 4 categories he has (arbitrarily?) decided constitute blackness (use of a linguistic variant, food, dancing ability and manner of walking) as constituing blackness.

Likewise, you might say limpwristedness, a lisp, length of time out of closet and a knowledge of gay history are what constitute primary characteristics of male gayness. If I'm not mistaken lefthandedness and a certain hair-direction swirl also correlates, so you might want to throw those in.

Thus, Barney Frank is gayer than Walt Whitman.

Doesn't this strike you as more than a little ridiculous and a lot insulting?

We are not talking about robins here, (the analogy Michael used). We're talking about human beings with a subjective understanding of their fundamental identity. Expecting them not to be outraged when an opinionated professor and journalist comes along and challenges/undermines that identity is, well, disingenuous.

Hmmm...I think I'll speak only for myself. I think it would depend a lot on who said it and what I thought their underlying attitude was. Gay guys are not above teasing each other about who's "nellier" than whom. And when it's pointed out that I'm not much of a dancer or an interior

Thanks Bloggin. Your example is very helpful. basman, you ask:

once the legalistic or foundational requirements for belonging to particular groups are met—a Jewish mother; racial characteristics; whatever—what except for cultural *reality* can comprise the consciousness of belonging to the kinds of groups we are mooting?

I think that what's crucial is little more than an intentional decision, or at least an act of conceptualization: a person at some point in time comes to view oneself as falling under a certain category (black, gay, conservative, feminist, Christian, etc.) -- one identifies oneself as a person to which the category in question applies. It may be because one has reached a point (or has always been at such a point) where one can no longer avoid viewing oneself in such terms, but it could also be much more voluntary than that, and come about when it does for all sorts of different reasons, motives, needs, etc. So I view what's crucial in psychological terms -- a decision, or at least an act of self-categorization. And, then, given that that has occurred, so song as the minimal requirements for category membership are satisfied, one is a full-fledged member of the category. The idea can be illustrated by

Quoting Wonderment: We are not talking about robins here, (the analogy Michael used). We're talking about human beings with a subjective understanding of their fundamental identity. Expecting them not to be outraged when an opinionated professor and journalist comes along and challenges/undermines that identity is, well, disingenuous.

Wonderment, I did want to say (in case it wasn't clear) that I've been agreeing with you in my posts here, at least insofar as I agree with you that John's words could very naturally be interpreted as offensive by those who identify as African-Americans. The ambiguity that I've been suggesting exists allows for both the offensive interpretation you've responded to (and many of John's readers!), and the more benign interpretation basman has focused on.

Wonderment and Bolggin’ Noggin and Mvatony: Thanks for your posts. I think they are conducive to clearer thinking on the issues here. The homosexual example is an interesting one. Generally, I am, rightly or wrongly, --I thought it was rightly but am keeping an open mind-- trying to proceed from a distinction between the foundational attribute of the group and the culture of the group. It may be, given Bloggin’ Noggin’s example, that my distinction is more elusive than I originally thought. And it may be that distinctions have to be allowed for, given the constituents of particular groups. Therefore might one want to distinguish for these purposes between, arbitrary, homosexuals and blacks? Unless one can, so to speak, Michael Jacksonize one’s self, being black is inescapable save at the margins of blackness—those who can, as they used to say, pass. But someone might have a homosexual orientation and with varying degrees of *success*--even completely— might suppress it. So if Larry Craig with all his desires lives a heterosexual life, but acts out as he apparently has from time to time, does that pose an example different from someone black who simply does not act black culturally? And even in the latter example, would we

sorry for typos and bad grammar and missed words.

mvatony: I made my last post and carelessy skipped over yours of 02/25/2008 at 04:58 PM. Sorry. I may not have been as responsive to your argument as I should have been. If anythng I just wrote causes anyone to respond which causes me to respond further, I'll try to avert to your post missed by me.

Wonderment, I did want to say (in case it wasn't clear) that I've been agreeing with you in my posts here, at least insofar as I agree with you that John's words could very naturally be interpreted as offensive by those who identify as African-Americans.

Yes, I see we basically agree here. If there's one thing we Jews have learned from Spinoza to the present, it's that raising these kinds of inflammatory questions is a divisive exercise and almost invariably carries a hidden agenda or ulterior motives. Hitler, of course, at one point became Europe's leading "expert" on what constituted Jewish identity -- a 1/8 Jew must die while a 1/16 Jew was granted Aryan status and life. This kind of insanity was also applied to blacks when they were divided into categories like quadroon, octoroon, mulato, etc. John did not have biology in mind, but in such identity debates nature often overlaps with nurture. Israel, for example, has a one-Jewish-grandparent rule for admission to the country as a Jew, while the Orthodox rabbinic establishment requires matrilineal descent, which usually, although not always, means biology (the mother could be a convert from Islam or Christianity.) We just saw in this country

McWhorter Fans: Take Note: John will be on BookTV this weekend. (Details) Web version is usually available a short time after the show airs. Watch it after you watch that day's episode of BH.tv, of course.