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Boynton's great hope is that these intellectuals, in moving beyond black concerns, will look deep into the heart of America and tell us something new and liberating about ourselves. On the evidence to date I would say that hope is misplaced. Still, they are professional intellectuals. As such they are obligated to seek the truth, no matter how unpleasant it may be to countenance, no matter how treacherous it may be to construct. If they cannot face up to the gnarled and ugly/beautiful miracle which is the heart of America, how can they help rest of us to do so?
Talk alone will not heal us, but talking is a good starting point. If those intellectuals are to be significant leaders, rather than simply the purveyors of the latest, "yet another intellectual fashion", albeit one with a sepia tone, then they must look deep into themselves to find the courage, imagination, and intellectual discipline needed to help America understand where it has come from and where it has the potential to go. As West has remarked, America is "the first new nation that had to deal with [a diverse cultural make-up] in a very, very real sense..." America is a grand and totally unplanned cultural experiment. If America cannot learn to live with the diversity it has been intimate with through four centuries, then what hope has the world to live with its much greater and far stranger diversity?
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