Being a black public intellectual no longer guarantees political progressivism.

Evidence

The new black public intellectual appears in the form of conservatives such as Randall Kennedy, Thomas Sowell, Orlando Paterson, Shelby Steele, and Glen Loury, all of whom share the desire to preach the credo of color blindness, deny the central force of racism in America, and offer a voice of moderation, pointing with one hand away from how deeply racist exclusions are embedded in American institutions, the collective psyche, and its everyday relations. Being a black public intellectual is no longer synonymous with being politically progressive, just as assuming the role of a black public intellectual offers no political guarantees, particularly since such a role gains its meaning within particular social formations, historical contexts, and specific types of political action. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2682

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s existing work on how political signifiers get captured and repurposed; also echoes broader literature on conservative co-optation of identity categories.