Desmond HenryTREASURE BEACH:
HE, HIS writing, and his speeches are raising one helluva social storm in the US, mainly because he is saying some truths that some people would rather not hear.
According to reports in the US press, African-American social scientist and linguist, Professor John McWhorter of Cali-fornia is becoming the butt of some harsh comments, mainly from persons of his own race. Reason? In a recently published book Losing The Race: Self Sabotage In Black America, McWhorter has said in effect, that blacks in America (and by extension, in the world) are victims of their own self-destruction. He calls it "the cult of victimology" and goes on to demonstrate how blacks have hurt, and continued to hurt themselves, in the competitive features of life.
The main feature, he asserts, is in education where many blacks still refer to scholastic achievement as "a white thing". This, in effect, leads to a continuous adoption of a wrong set of values including the romanticising of ghetto life; loafing through school; labelling minor inconveniences as racism; frowning on serious scholarship; and promoting an anti-intellectual culture.
He points out that in the US, as a group, black students are the worst performing of all racial groups. They achieve the lowest grades and test scores at every level from elementary schools through law schools, he says. In addition, they score lower than whites in common vocabulary tests. African-Americans, he further concludes, spend far more time watching television than whites, and are more likely to adopt the wrong set of values for the worst set of reasons.
At age 34, McWhorter himself is no academic slouch. He has a doctorate in Linguistics from Stanford Univer-sity and speaks English, Spanish, French and German; and has a good working knowledge of Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch, Swedish and Hebrew.
To demonstrate his point of how he thinks blacks focus on the wrong issues, he cites a story of a black 'rapper' telling in music, how he got stuck in well-heeled Baldwin Hills in California while trying to reach Watts in Los Angeles. If a Jewish singer had offered the same illustration, he said, about trying to reach Harlem in New York, but getting stuck in Murray Hill, he would have been booed off stage. What is worse, he infers, no record company would have offered him a performance contract. Blacks, as he sees it, need to refocus on the things that really matter, and to recapture 'a new seriousness of purpose'.
Most black TV programmes, he points out, promote a kind of 'bump and grind' promiscuity for the camera, and foster a tendency to distrust everything white, including most examples of mainstream achievement. The link between tube-addiction and academic performance is far more direct than most will admit, he writes. The 'cult of victimology' more than anything else encourages black kids to scorn school. Television, he asserts, promotes success without effort, accomplishment without process.
Across the post-colonial world (including Jamaica) we suffer from many of Mr. McWhorter's 'cult of victimology'. Our minds fester in a psyche of victimisation, without trying to learn from others who have surpassed that stage. We have not creatively and appealingly applied the benefits of scholarship and inquiry to the art of life and progress. We have neither taught ourselves, nor learnt from others. Our mother country, Africa, with all its rich resources, had been a colossal embarrassment.
They are still tribal, while the rest of the world has been homogeneous. We have a long way to go.
If we all take McWhorter's message to heart, everyone has the potential to be so much richer.
Road angels
Had the pleasure of attending this year's Road Angel Award last Sunday at the Caymanas Polo Club.
It is remarkable that after 30 years this unique Jamaican special-markets programme, just grows and grows with success. It is, by any measurement, a classic example of niche marketing at its best. I have long suggested that the University of the West Indies' Department of Business should have one of either their masters or doctorate students research this programme, for the benefit of future generations of students and business practitioners.
That's how you create academic case histories.
Congratulations to Dennis Lalor and Company.
THE BOTTOM LINE:
Free speech and cheap talk are two entirely different things.
Desmond Henry is a marketing strategist based in Treasure Beach, St. Elizabeth.
