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Before I begin, I should make a disclaimer or two. First, the weaknesses I've indicated don't apply uniformly to all in Boynton's anointed group, which is a large and diverse bunch of folks including, in no particular order:
Toni Morrison, Cornel West, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Orlando Patterson, Shelby Steele, David Levering Lewis, Stanley Crouch, Patricia Williams, William Julius Wilson, bell hooks, Houston Baker, Randall Kennedy, Michael Eric Dyson, Gerald Early, Jerry Watts, Robert Gooding-Williams, Nell Painter, Thomas Sowell, Ellis Cose, Juan Williams, Lani Guinier, Glenn Loury, Michelle Wallace, Manning Marable, Adolph Reed, June Jordan, Walter Williams, and Derrick Bell.Stanley Crouch and Gerald Early have, for example, written extensively about black music. Houston Baker has written a book about hip hop, though he's more concerned with the lyrics than with rhyme, rhythm and artistic technique. Cornel West has a chapter in Race Matters about sex and race, which is at the heart of racist psychodynamics. For the most part, however, the music is more admired than analyzed and understood and the subject of psychodynamics is left untouched and, therefore, unscathed.
The other qualification is personal and negative. I haven't read all of those folks, so I may well be sticking a foot or two in my mouth. Just so you know, I have read at least something, and generally more, by the following: Toni Morrison, Orlando Patterson, Stanley Crouch, Cornel West, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., bell hooks, Houston Baker, Gerald Early, Thomas Sowell, and Juan Williams. Beyond this, I know something about the work of many of those whom I haven't read. In particular, I know their work doesn't address the issues I've mentioned above.
While critiquing individuals for what they don't do is a doubtful enterprise, and one I will nonetheless undertake, my real criticism is of the group. Boynton has written about and invested hope in them as a group. My criticism is directed at deficiencies in the intellectual program one can expect of this aggregation. To the extent they can control and influence discourse about America, we are in trouble. That trouble is not so deep as that presented by, say, the religious right, but it is a trouble progressive folk would be better off without.
Finally, regardless of what may seem to be a rather nasty critique, I should say that reading these folks has given me much pleasure and more than a little insight. Thus my criticism is in the spirit of the "loyal opposition." They have much to teach us. But, they also have much to learn about themselves and about America. It's about time they cut the cord and get on with it.
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