The typical way of having one’s cake and eating it too here is to say that we need to think about both government help and self-help. But in practice this too often becomes a handy way to focus on the comforts of underdoggism while genuflecting to the obvious but undramatic logic of self-direction. Wax usefully asks: “Is it possible to pursue an arduous program of self-improvement while simultaneously thinking of oneself as a victim of grievous mistreatment and of one’s shortcomings as a product of external forces?” To the extent that our ideology on race is more about studied radicalism than about a healthy brand of what Wax calls an internal locus of control, her book provokes, at least in this reader, a certain hopelessness. If she is right, then the bulk of today’s discussion of black America is performance art. Tragically, and for the most part, she is right. ~John McWhorter in TNR
