(How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America)
-by john mcwhorter
2021
This country does gobble up polemics, doesn't it?
I avoided this book for a long time because it seemed guilty of bad-faith rhetoric. And as it turns out...it is.
But it's also mostly correct.
Ditch the intentionally-inflammatory overstatement and mcwhorter makes good points. But overstatement sells. Sigh. Just like ta-nehasi coates, mcwhorter is mostly correct, with one or two blind spots.
Replace the titular word "religion" with "quasi-religion", and you'll do a service to the betterment of all. Religion requires magical thinking, something absent from the woke movement. Mcwhorter's language is shamelessly propagandistic, designed to anger both people who love religion, and people who hate it.
Replace that one word, and you'd have a good little book.
You just wouldn't sell as many copies.
