Conservative critics explain away black intellectuals’ dissent as repressed self-hatred

Evidence

One also finds a strong tendency, especially in the work of such writers as Robert Boynton and Sean Wilentz, to argue that the racialist story line of the black intellectuals represents a form of ghettoization, an overemphasis on the connectedness of black history, experience, and culture to their discourse. The notion that the history, intellectual legacies, and struggles of African Americans - along with their damning indictment of white supremacy and racial oppression - are more than mere flotsam “on capitalism’s undulating surface” (cited in Hanchard, 1996:22) seems lost on many white intellectuals. … Hard pressed to account for Loury’s criticism, Podhoretz suggests that it began with Loury’s objection to a favorable endorsement of The Bell Curve that ran in the journal, Commentary, while Podhoretz was editor-in-chief. Oddly, Podhoretz doesn’t mention Loury’s resignation from the American Enterprise Institute because of its support for Dinesh D’Souza’s execrable book, The End of Racism. For Podhoretz, Loury’s criticism of the widespread endorsement by conservatives of such a racist tract has little to do with the viability of Loury’s position. On the contrary, Loury is disparaged because he has taken the route of James Baldwin and leaped into the “loyalty trap,” defined as a “duty in standing with ‘his people’” (Podhoretz, 1999:36) But, of course, Loury found himself standing with a number of white progressives as well who also condemned The Bell Curve. In order to address this additional shift of loyalty, Podhoretz pulls out the final punch and accuses Loury and his cohorts of repressed racism. The implication is that any black conservative who even thinks about moving beyond the Booker T. Washington credo of self-help - urging blacks to engage in social criticism and collective struggles in the name of racial justice - does nothing less than unleash their own repressed self-hatred and racism. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2653 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: White intellectuals dismissed black critiques of racism as ghettoizing or repressed self-hatred — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2653; High-profile black conservative intellectuals legitimize colorblind accommodationist discourse in mass media — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2663; White acceptance of black intellectuals requires denying their genuine blackness — Frantz Fanon, Constance Farrington, Black skin, white masks, 251 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• White intellectuals dismissed black critiques of racism as ghettoizing or repressed self-hatred #corroborates (0.95) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2653