Betrayal: How Black Intellectuals Have Abandoned the Ideals of the Civil Rights Era
Baker, an esteemed scholar of African American literature and culture, is deeply frustrated with the state of—or, rather, the lack of—racial activism today. Part of the blame rests with contemporary neoconservatives, who Baker claims have sabotaged the civil rights and black power movements by promoting racial injustice under a banner of social equality. But Baker is most bothered by prominent black intellectuals who purport to advance the civil rights movement even though, in Baker’s eyes, their ultimate aspirations and resultant political strategies diverge radically and even counterproductively from those of Martin Luther King Jr. In fiery chapters on each scholar, Baker lambastes Cornel West, Michael Eric Dyson, Shelby Steele, Henry Louis Gates Jr., and others for disingenuous politics, centrism, and above all the vainglorious pursuit of academic and political influence at the expense of the broader “black majority,” who still suffer from social and economic injustice. Mourning the loss of black unityborn of the communal struggles of the 1960s, Baker expresses his disappointment by pulling no punches with his fellow scholars, a sure recipe for equally harsh rebuttals. --Brendan Driscoll