Who is This?

John Hamilton McWhorter V (1965- ) is an American linguist. He held the position of American associate professor of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley until 2003, and is now a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a right wing think tank, and a columnist for the New York Sun. He is the author of a number of books on language and race relations. His linguistic specialty is creole and the process through which it forms.

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Murder in the Bronx, Business as Usual: A Suggestion for Obama in 2014

It’s one of those hideous little episodes making minor headlines this week that will be forgotten by the media next week. 15-year-old Vada Vasquez of the Bronx is in a coma with a bullet in her brain, after being caught in the crossfire when a group of ...

From JOHN MCWHORTER, The New Republic,  19 Nov 2009

Related Topics: Bloods,  Barack Obama,  Tyrone Creighton,  Vada Vasquez,  Carvett Gentles

Dying Languages Should Be Saved: But Will They Be Spoken?

You never know which ones of your pieces are going to get around. Last week World Affairs published an essay I wrote exploring whether it would necessarily be such a horrible thing if only one language were spoken in the world. I write that within a ...

From JOHN MCWHORTER, The New Republic,  1 Nov 2009

The Cosmopolitan Tongue

In depicting the emergence of the world’s languages as a curse of gibberish, the biblical tale of the Tower of Babel makes us moderns smile. Yet, considering the headache that 6,000 languages can induce in real life, the story makes a certain sense, ...

From JOHN MCWHORTER, ISN,  28 Oct 2009

Related Topics: Federal Bureau of Investigation,  Central Intelligence Agency,  Penelope Cruz

Just a Cartoon, But Still: Is Family Guy in Blackface Funny?

To strike a note I generally avoid, I am offended. And by a cartoon. Has anybody noticed what a patronizing mess Seth McFarlane’s new The Cleveland Show is? Cleveland is the pudgy, mild-mannered drawling pal of Family Guy’s Peter Griffin, who now has, ...

From JOHN MCWHORTER, The New Republic,  13 Oct 2009

Related Topics: Peter Griffin,  Beatrice Arthur,  Sherman Hemsley,  Pearl Bailey,  Patrick Warburton

Nobel Laureate 'Not-Bush'

A Nobel Peace Prize given to President Obama cannot, for all that I wish him well, qualify as an award. He made a lovely speech to the Muslim world in Cairo, and he was behind the United Nations Security Council's summit on nuclear weapons. But in the ...

From JOHN MCWHORTER, Forbes,  9 Oct 2009

Related Topics: Barack Obama,  United Nations,  George W. Bush

What Should African-American Studies Students Learn?

While this year has become best known as the fortieth anniversary of Woodstock, it was also forty years ago that the first African-American Studies department was established, at San Francisco State University. Forty-one fall semesters later, there are ...

From JOHN MCWHORTER, The New Republic,  1 Oct 2009

Related Topics: Barack Obama

Color Bind

Is Joe Wilson a racist? Many people in Washington seem to think the answer is yes--and that it helps explain the congressman's impolitic yelp of "You lie!" during Obama's recent address on health care. Maureen Dowd encapsulated the good-thinking wisdom ...

From JOHN MCWHORTER, The New Republic,  16 Sep 2009

Related Topics: Joe Wilson (politician),  Maureen Dowd,  Barack Obama,  U.S. Democratic Party,  U.S. Republican Party

What Tyler Perry and Bill Cosby Have in Common: On the Occasion of "I Can Do Bad All By Myself"

At a Christmas party in 2004, a cousin asked me “Do you like Medea?” For a minute I was a confused, since it didn’t seem to be the occasion for sharing our impressions of Greek mythology. But it turned out she was talking about Madea, the massive, ...

From JOHN MCWHORTER, The New Republic,  12 Sep 2009

Related Topics: Tyler Perry,  Bill Cosby,  Maya Angelou,  Zora Neale Hurston,  Taraji Henson

Over the Transom: Under the Radar and Worth a Read

I used to try to read every book that came over the transom. That didn’t last long, but there are always those amidst the flow that grab my attention, and among them, a few that really stick with me. Lately I have been struck by three. Marcus LiBrizzi ...

From JOHN MCWHORTER, The New Republic,  10 Sep 2009

Related Topics: Bill Cosby,  Strom Thurmond,  Derek Bok,  Michael Lerner

Moving On, But In A Different World

In 2005 an old friend announced that he was getting married on Sept. 11. He and his fiancée had decided it was time to "move on." It threw me a bit. I'm not always one for "moving on"--it's part of why one writes books. Yet as it turned out, I myself ...

From JOHN MCWHORTER, Forbes,  9 Sep 2009

Related Topics: Osama bin Laden,  George W. Bush,  Theodore Roosevelt,  U.S. Republican Party,  U.S. Congress

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