Rating: 
Summary: a compassionate, clear look at the situation
Review: According to author McWhorter, only about 25% of African-Americans live in poverty. We're decades beyond the gains made in the civil rights movement, yet African-American students still lag behind their white counterparts--even those of the middle-class, even those that attend good schools, and even those with black teachers. WHY? Black students are as intelligent and capable as any students, so why such poor results?LOSING THE RACE is McWhorter's attempt to explain what ails black students. McWhorter blames three demons: Anti-intellectualism (African-Americans shying away from intellectual pursuits), separatism (avoiding activities that are deemed "white"), and victimology. He doesn't say that ALL black students are dogged by these problems, but that many are. Some contend that poor performance in schools is due to racism, but McWhorter contends that racism has declined since the 1960s, and asks if the occasional inconveniences suffered by most blacks are equal to the strangling racism that African-Americans lived with prior to 1960. McWhorter agrees that the poorest schools need improvements. He suggests improving those schools by various means. Importantly, he also suggests ending race-based affirmative action in school admissions. Race-based affirmative action WAS very necessary, but has outlived its usefulness. Now it stifles the efforts of black students, and doesn't allow them full credit for their achievements. Does the African-American daughter of suburb-dwelling professionals really need affirmative action in order to gain admission to a good college? McWhorter would say no. McWhorter devotes a chapter to the "Ebonics" controversy, which is also very entertaining and informative. As an African-American linguist, he brings a special informed perspective to the debate. His arguments are smart and well-reasoned. Some have faulted LOSING THE RACE for being anecdotal. Sure, the author used scores of stories and anecdotes from his own life. Some of the anecdotes and analogies are ill-chosen or seem exaggerated. Others are inappropriate. Many leave the reader shaking his head in anger and dismay. Simultaneously these stories are the strongest and weakest suits of this book. Without them, we would have dry statistics. Who would read that? In the stories, we have an professor's humane perspective on a serious problem. McWhorter puts forth a powerful argument in LOSING THE RACE. It is a well-written addition to the literature on this topic. ken32
Rating: 
Summary: Insightful. Flawed.
Review: McWhorter maintains that the African American community has internalized a culture of victimology, separatism, and anti-intellectualism. McWhorter acknowledges the history of racism in America and the fact that racism continues to linger. However, he argues that it is the culture of the African American community, not racism, which is the prime factor which currently stagnates the progress of African Americans. McWhorter's argument is fairly consistent with the one which Shelby Steele presents in a Dream Deferred, except that whereas Steele emphasized the disingenuous motives of White liberals in promoting a philosophy of Black people as victims McWhorter emphasizes the Black community's willingness to accept this label. Losing the Race is, in my opinion, a superior work to a Dream Deferred, but lacks much of the statistical rigor of Thomas Sowell's writing on race and culture. Losing The Race is not a research project. McWhoter sites enough factual data and statistics to give the book an objective foundation, but he relies on his own observations to reach his conclusions. A frequent criticism of this book has been that it relies too heavily on anecdotal evidence. In my opinion this is an unfair criticism; what McWhorter does is reinforce the statistics that he sites with real-world examples that he's experienced as a Black man growing up in America. In many ways this is what makes the book an engaging read. There will be readers who, like myself, have noticed some of the cultural attributes that McWhorter discusses in the book. I'm a 35 year old African American male, and many times while reading this book I felt that McWhorter was on to something. Unfortunately, I was also all too frequently mindful of the McWhorter obnoxious tone, which at times made me suspicious of the observations which he chooses to report. The book's primary failure, therefore, is that it is unlikely to convince anyone who has not already independently reached the same conclusion which the McWhorter presents. I agree with much of what McWhorter says, but that generally is how I felt before I first picked up the book. In the end, McWhorter appears to be more interested in demonstrating that he's right (and that liberal conventional wisdom is wrong) than he is in presenting a convincing argument that will change the opinion of a skeptical reader. And that's too bad; McWhorter has some good ideas that expressed by a more subtle author might have changed some minds and opened some eyes. As it is, this book's main accomplishment will be to further reinforce the "Black conservative" label which McWhorter claims to dislike.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing what people will embrace if it validates a bias
Review: McWhorter,a linguist, conducted no research, provides no statistical analyses, has no background in education or any of the other disciplines he makes broad, and often egregiously wrong, conclusions about. For example,he blames black/white testing achievement gaps on a disdain for scholarship and not wanting to "act white", totally ignoring discrepancies in instruction, teacher expectation, teacher preparation,resources and leadership. He is equally dismissive of any of the lingering effects of racism, stereotyping and bias that blacks have no control over. It would be hard to find another book that pretended to illuminate so much about such a complex issue without any kind of legitimate research to back it up that has been so widely touted. If you want to believe that the only thing wrong with black people is their own "victimhood", then this is the book for you. I would suggest, however, that you take it with a grain of salt. As a black academic my first response to the book is that Mr. McWhorter does not know a very broad variety of black people. I had never heard that being smart was acting white until I was over thirty years old. It was never said in the community I grew up in. How does McWhorter explain the fact that 2/3 of blacks live above the poverty line and that record numbers of blacks are attending and graduating from college?Where is their "victimhood?" Mr. McWhorter needs to confine his commentary to linguistics, the field he is trained in, and he needs to get out more.
Rating: 
Summary: Bravo McWhorter!
Review: I loved this book! As a black American I completely agree with Mr. McWhorters arguments for "Self Sabotage in Black America" and his solutions. This is a refreshing read, which confronts our intimate fears head on and demonstrates a clear path to dignified solutions. I highly recommend this book to reading clubs of all races. Let us begin honest discourse on the effects of our cultural handicaps. Maisha Barnett
Rating:
Summary: Finally someone has the courage to speak the truth!!
Review: Thank you John,
It is about time that someone had the courage to speak the truth about the black community here in America. As a minority student myself I am ashamed of my brothers who dare to STILL blame white America for their own short comings. No doubt racism still exists but it is by no means an effective problem anymore. Anti-intellectualism is a correct term used by John to descirbe the ideology of a lot of today's black youth. I was made fun of for wanting to go to college and consiodered a traitor to my race for not speaking in ghetto slang, being accused of "speaking like a white boy". Yes, the majority of the problems faced by black youth is their own doing. Finally, look at who it is who is trashing this book. The very same people that this book critisizes! The truth hurts, but that is why us minorities rarely advance. Before we can correct we must learn to accept the truth!
Rating:
Summary: Amazon.com writes dumb reviews
Review: Why does your house review say that this book is full of "tired anti-affirmative-action, right-wing clichés"? Is it "right-wing" to be concerned about peer pressure among young black men that tells them to ignore academic achievement so they can be "authentic"? Remember that affirmative action was started in the Nixon administration to fully open opportunities for academic and occupational advancement for African-Americans who were just beginning to fully enjoy their civil rights under the 1965 legislation. It has become an excuse for elite whites to ignore the educational needs of black children and then promote them to academic levels that they have not been adequately prepared for.
Rating:
Summary: Whites have a lot to live down too.
Review: Our black brothers remember sitting at the back of the bus and not being admitted to hotels and restaurants, but we whites (who are as old as I) remember wondering why. We still wonder when we try to make our actions up to black people if we appear to be patronizing, and if they see the problem we are facing inside. They hate having been from ancestors who were owned by someone. We hate, to paraphrase Lincoln, to be from ancestors who owned others people. Thank you John for a very thoughtful book, and for pointing the way, and for helping your white brothers to deal with their problems, too.
Rating:
Summary: Possibly the Most Insightful Book on Race Ever Written
Review: There seem to be many reviews here already summarizing the book, so I will clear up two major misconceptions: 1. Mcwhorter's Losing the Race gets frequently attacked as a conservative or right-wing book because of his stances against affirmative action. This is fallacious: I have talked to Mcwhorter personally and he is at most centrist in his political views; I would describe him as a liberal. Mchworter is not against the idea that government can be used to help those that have been given a hard lot in our society...but one major enlightening point he makes that throughout the book is that being black in America is not synonomous with hardship.
Liberals and conservatives alike can enjoy and agree with Mcwhorter's points - Losing the Race transcends the political spectrum. 2. The book is "anecdotal." This is a very poor way of describing Mchwhorter's research and analysis. Yes, Mchwhorter does make reference to many personal examples he has seen throughout his life. In many types of writing, this would indeed be unprofessional, but Mcwhorter is talking about culture, where this style is completely appropriate. The book is not anecdotal, it is anthropological in its methodologies. You cannot describe culture merely in terms of statistics or formal pyschologial studies.
Rating:
Summary: Examination of the African-American Victimology
Review: UC Berkley Prof. John McWhorter's book examins the recent lack of progress among 'Black Americans', particuraly in education. Contrary to some of the negative reviews who assert that McWhorter's book is anecdotal, they have mislead possible buyers. Yes, there are a lot of anecdotes from his expierence as a college professor and as a black man growing up in America. However, he also asserts (implicitly so) that anecdots are a way to measure if something may have a ring of truth to it (like personal accounts of racism, which are largely anecdotal). In the interests of being fair, it should be noted that McWhoter does cite many studies in his book ranging from the U.S. Bureau of the Census, Newsweek, and the Sourcebook of Criminal Statistics. I can only assume that negative reviewers are so cuaght up in ideaology, that they want to focues on the easists things to refute. Anecdotal evidence are always great straw men because they are limited and subjective. Although, it is fair to suggests that McWhoter does make some inductive fallacies because his expierences are not universially positive (i.e., he dos not have infinite knowledge), I assert that he is not trying to make such a claim, but instead is using his expierences to generalize the problems that are already cited in previous studies that are well researched. What is his claim? That there is, in general, a 'cult of victimology' that is prevelent among American Black communities that strecthes along poor, middle class, and wealthy of African-Americans. He, for the most part, logically lays a case, based on studies, anecdotes, and history, that black communities are caught in a victimology mind-set that leads to other social problems like a separtists and anti-intellectual attitude. I did take some issues with certian statements and in particular, quickly inserted statements, used as analogies that are still open to debate. However, they do not directly influence his thesis (after all, his analogies do not support the opposite view, just that in one case I can remember the matter is not settle). Finally, McWhoter's book is completely engrossing. Though the book is 250+ pages, it reads quickly and very well. He is masterful in his use of the language. I think it is insightful, that McWhorter comes from a moderate position. He avoids the demagogue pronouncements used by the left and the right. He is just trying to tell the truth from analysis. He at times takes issues with the consrevatives as well as the liberals. The difference, after reviewing Amazon reviews, it appears the conservatives are at least willing to listen.
Rating:
Summary: agenda-driven analysis with some interesting observations
Review: Many would criticize McWhorter's book as being anecdotal, which it largely is -- but it should be understood as an extended essay rather than a sociological study. That said, in its own terms it often misuses information or misrepresents issues; overall, its analysis in my view is very wrongly directed.
Two examples of mis-argumentation are illustrative: first, in trying to make the simply inaccurate claim that the gap between the races has mostly closed, he confronts one of the key statistics -- that the median income for blacks in America is approximately 61% that of whites. This figure has risen (in the 1990s) and fallen (in the '80s, and since the book was published) but since 1970 has probably risen less than 5%. At that rate it would take 300 years to achieve parity. Faced with this gaping problem, he evades the issue by emphasizing that many misconstrue the statistic as meaning that blacks in identical jobs as whites are only paid 61% as much, which misunderstanding in a country where 40% of the general public think that Saddam Hussein was linked to 9/11 isn't surprising. But this handling of data deftly avoids the real meaning of the statistic, which shows his whole argument in that section of the book, that only remnants of social inequality remain, is bogus.
Second, after taking a series of atrocity stories to try to discredit the wide range of views to the left of his hero Shelby Steele, he has a chapter entitled "How to Save the Black Race" devoted largely to the abolition of affirmative action. Now there are conservative blacks (and the Harvard Law School prof that he criticizes for saying that there's gold in such advocacy for blacks in academe is right on the money) who argue against affirmative action, but NONE that I know of would claim that it is the primary or even a primary solution to the issues facing blacks in the US.
On the positive side, McWhorter's anecdotes are sometimes instructive, such as his compelling review of the political correctness slant of the "ebonics" debate, or the Bolivian woman who was reduced to tears in a class for daring to criticize misogyny in rap (something I know a number of people with what could be termed the social 'credentials' who would also abhor). As an activist on the left for over a quarter of a century, I know that there is much one has to slog through, even where the movement on the overall issue is right; such things need to be highlighted and criticized, but unfortunately, McWhorter, by linking these points to a larger deeply flawed reasoning and characterization of progressive black politics tends to lend intrinsic as opposed to engineered or imposed discredit to these valid, if hardly overriding, points.
One last observation. After spending over 15 years of my life in and around both Harvard and Berkeley Universities, including as a reader of undergraduates' papers at Berkeley in the early 1980's, I noticed a HUGE gulf between Harvard undergraduate and Berkeley graduate student culture on one hand, and Berkeley undergraduates on the other. The various disparaging remarks about black students from Bernie Davis at Harvard and others one hears about notwithstanding, blacks at Harvard or in the graduate schools were, like whites in those schools, much more intellectually oriented than the undergraduates at Berkeley generally. Admittedly my experience is limited, but the 'anecdotal' evidence here points to a pattern that does not fall along racial lines, as is central to McWhorter's argument, but along institutional lines.
Overall, McWhorter's book is a possible source of an interesting story or point here and there, but any way you slice it the argument overall is uncompelling to a close reader.
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