Scholars can praise one black critic without implying others are inferior

Evidence

One is that the right to criticize is a universal right, which must be conceded to everyone, European and Asian alike; what is objectionable is not the European’s right to criticize Asians, past or present, but those particular exercises of this right which are manifest and arbitrary exercises of colonial or racial or any other kind of prejudice. In other words, criticism itself must be evaluated from some objective criterion of validity and evidence. The accompanying principle, necessarily conjoined to the first, is that the archive which we have inherited from our colonial past is, like any substantial historical archive, a vast mixture of fantastic constructs, time-bound errors and invaluable empirical information. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 460 (#expands, via linked claim)

For racists like Franklin, it proved difficult to believe that many Blacks were capable of becoming another Francis Williams or Phillis Wheatley. Racists often understood this capable handful to be “extraordinary Negroes.” Joseph Jekyll actually began his 1805 biography of popular Afro-British writer and Duke of Montague protégé Ignatius Sancho identifying him as “this extraordinary Negro.” These extraordinary Negros supposedly defied the laws of nature or nurture that standardized Black decadence. They were not ordinarily inferior like the “majority.” This mind game allowed racists to maintain their racist ideas in the midst of individual Africans defying its precepts. It doomed from the start the strategy of exhibiting excelling Blacks to change racist minds. But this strategy of persuasion endured. — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 250 (#complicates, via linked claim)

This kind of tokenism is not multicultural transformation, but it is familiar to us as the change individuals are most likely to make. Let me give another example. What does it mean when a white female English professor is eager to include a work by Toni Morrison on the syllabus of her course but then teaches that work without ever making reference to race or ethnicity? I have heard individual white women “boast” about how they have shown students that black writers are “as good ” as the white male canon when they do not call attention to race. Clearly, such pedagogy is not an interrogation of the biases conventional canons (if not all canons) establish, but yet an other form of tokenism. — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 85 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Exceptional individual Black achievers are absorbed as exceptions rather than refuting racist doctrine — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning: The…, 250; Scholars are united by civility and conversation, not by a common ground — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 333; White acceptance of black intellectuals requires denying their genuine blackness — Frantz Fanon, Constance Farrington, Black skin, white masks, 251 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Criticism must be judged by objective validity, not the critic’s identity. #expands (0.82) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 460
• Exceptional individual Black achievers are absorbed as exceptions rather than refuting racist doctrine #complicates (0.78) — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 250
• Colorblind inclusion of Black authors is a covert form of tokenism #complicates (0.76) — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 85
• White acceptance of black intellectuals requires denying their genuine blackness #complicates (0.75) — Frantz Fanon, Constance Farrington, Black skin, white masks, 251
• Whiteness scholars disagree fundamentally and are not automatically in dialogue #complicates (0.71) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 768
• Scholars are united by civility and conversation, not by a common ground #complicates (0.70) — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 333