> I am not writing this thinking of right-wing America as my audience. I will make no appearances on any Fox News program to promote it. People of that world are welcome to listen in. But I write this to two segments of the American populace. Both are what I consider to be my people, which is what worries me so much about what is going on. One segment is the New York Times-reading, National Public Radio-listening people of any color who have innocently fallen under the impression that pious, unempirical virtue-signaling about race is a form of moral enlightenment and political activism, and ever teeter upon becoming card-carrying Third Wave Antiracists themselves. The other is those black people who have innocently fallen under the misimpression that for us only, cries of weakness constitute a kind of strength, and that for us only, what makes us interesting, what makes us matter, is a curated persona as eternally victimized souls, ever carrying and defined by the memories and injuries of our people across four centuries behind us, ever “unrecognized,” ever “misunderstood,” ever unpaid.
I think this is key to understanding this article, and perhaps he should have led with it.
I tend to think of myself as a "classical liberal" in the sense that I value freedom, and that I believe that tolerance and freedom of expression are foundational to a healthy democratic society.
I think the "thought police" aspect of what McWhorter calls "third wave antiracism" is concerning. It reminds me of McCarthyism, and I have imagined that this is unsustainable and will eventually dissipate. But of course, that is not guaranteed.
> However, they and everyone else should also realize: I know quite well that white readers will be more likely to hear out views like this when written by a black person, and consider it nothing less than my duty as a black person to write it.
I think this is correct as well. It seems right to be that we should primarily be looking to people from the black community as thought leaders on these issues. Their debate, based in first-hand experience, is more interesting and noteworthy to me.
McWhorter also contributes to a group called 1776 Unites (https://1776unites.com), which is a group of black leaders and scholars generally writing counter narratives to the mainstream, or what McWhorter has called "third wave antiracism." Again, as a "classical liberal," I find their ideas worth considering.
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A side note, I have a copy of McWhorter's book "Words on the Move," and I highly recommend it :)