John McWhorter | |
|---|---|
 McWhorter in 2017 | |
| Born | John Hamilton McWhorter V (1965-10-06)October 6, 1965 (age 60) |
| Occupations | Academic and Commentator |
| Academic background | |
| Education | |
| Thesis | Toward a New Model of Genesis: Competing Processes in the Birth of Saramaccan Creole (1993) |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | |
| Institutions | |
| Main interests | Music,American history,Race relations in the United States |
John Hamilton McWhorter V (/məkˈhwɔːrtər/;[1] born October 6, 1965) is an Americanlinguist.[2][3] He is anassociate professor oflinguistics atColumbia University,[4] where he also teachesAmerican studies andmusic history.[5] He has authored a number of books onrace relations andAfrican-American culture, and is apolitical commentator especially in hisNew York Times newsletter.[6]
McWhorter was born inPhiladelphia, and raised in theMount Airy neighborhood of Philadelphia and inLawnside, New Jersey.[7] His father, John Hamilton McWhorter IV (1927–1996),[8] was a college administrator, and his mother, Schelysture Gordon McWhorter (1937–2011), taught social work atTemple University.[9][10] McWhorter attendedFriends Select School inPhiladelphia, and aftertenth grade he was accepted toSimon's Rock College, where he earned anAA degree. McWhorter has described his upbringing as part of theBlack middle class. He has also attributed some of his views to theQuaker school he attended as a child.[11]
McWhorter later attendedRutgers University and received aB.A. degree inFrench in 1985.[12] He obtained anM.A. degree inAmerican Studies fromNew York University. In 1993, he earned hisPh.D. degree inlinguistics fromStanford University.[13] His dissertation focused onSaramaccan, a creole language spoken by approximately 58,000 people of West African descent inSuriname.[7]
McWhorter taught linguistics atCornell University from 1993 to 1995.[14] He then became anassociate professor of linguistics at theUniversity of California, Berkeley, where he worked from 1995 until 2003. He left that position to become a senior fellow at theManhattan Institute, aconservative think tank.[14]
Since 2008, McWhorter has taught linguistics, American studies, and classes in thecore curriculum program atColumbia University. As Columbia's Department of Linguistics had been dissolved in 1989, he was initially assigned to the Department of English and Comparative Literature. The Program of Linguistics (including a revived undergraduate major as of 2021) is housed in the Department of Slavic Languages.[13]
McWhorter is the instructor of the courses "The Story of Human Language";[15] "Understanding Linguistics: The Science of Language";[16] "Myths, Lies and Half-Truths About English Usage";[17] "Language Families of the World";[18] "Ancient Writing and the History of the Alphabet"; and "Language From A to Z",[19] as part ofThe Great Courses, a series produced byThe Teaching Company.
McWhorter has written forTime,The Wall Street Journal,The Chronicle of Higher Education,The Washington Post,The New Republic,Politico,Forbes,The Chicago Tribune,The New York Daily News,City Journal,The New York Sun,The New Yorker,The Root,The Daily Beast,Books & Culture, andCNN.
McWhorter was contributing editor atThe New Republic from 2001 to 2014. He is acontributing editor atThe Atlantic. After writingop-eds forThe New York Times for several years, he became an Opinion columnist there in 2021. He hosts theLexicon Valley podcast,[20] previously forSlate from 2016 to 2021 and since then for Booksmart Studios.[21]
McWhorter has published a number of books on linguistics and on race relations, includingThe Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language,Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold History of English,Doing Our Own Thing: The Degradation of Language and Music and Why You Should, Like, Care, andLosing the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America.[13]
Much of McWhorter's academic work is concerned withcreole languages and their relationship to other languages, often focusing on theSuriname creole languageSaramaccan. His work has expanded to a general investigation of the effect ofsecond-language acquisition on a language. Regarding the various positions arising from theuniversal grammar debate, he describes himself as partial to the theoretical frameworks ofPeter Culicover andRay Jackendoff.[22]
Some of McWhorter's fellow linguists, such as Mauro Giuffré of theUniversity of Palermo, suggest that his notions of simplicity and complexity are impressionistic and grounded on comparisons withEuropean languages, and they point to exceptions to his proposed correlations.[23][24]
| External videos | |
|---|---|
 Presentation by McWhorter onWhat Language Is, August 9, 2011,C-SPAN |
McWhorter has argued that languages naturally tend toward complexity and irregularity, a tendency that is reversed only by adults acquiring the language, and creole formation is simply an extreme example of the latter.[25] As examples, he cites English,Mandarin Chinese,Persian,Swahili,Indonesian, and modern colloquialvarieties of Arabic. He has outlined his ideas in academic format inLanguage Interrupted andLinguistic Simplicity and Complexity and, for the general public, inWhat Language Is andOur Magnificent Bastard Tongue.
The Austronesian family of languages makes abundant use of prefixes and suffixes (which form new words by adding extensions either before or after root-words, such as [per-]form or child[-hood]), but thelanguages from the center of Flores Island, which belong to that family, are curiously devoid of prefixes or suffixes and are not tonal either (tones may make up for the loss or absence of affixes):Kéo,Lio,Ngadha,Rongga,Ende. McWhorter extends to those the hypothesis of language simplification by acquisition during adulthood. He links this withHomo floresiensis, the most recent individuals known dated from 12,000 years ago. Austronesians came to Flores from Taiwan in the west only a few thousand years ago. Current legends exist that tell of "little people" orebo gogo who lived among the ancestors of present Floresians,[26] until as late as the 1500s,[27] and possibly only 200 years ago, when the "little people" were exterminated "because they kept stealing". These legends are most vivid in the middle of Flores island, their vividness decreasing as the distance from the center increases towards the west and they are entirely absent in the east.[26][28][29][30]
McWhorter is a vocal critic of theSapir–Whorf hypothesis. In his 2014 bookThe Language Hoax, he argues that, although language influences thought in an "infinitesimal way" and culture is expressed through language, he believes that language itself does not create different ways of thinking or determine world views.[31]
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McWhorter has characterized himself as "a cranky liberalDemocrat". In support of this description, he states that while he "disagree[s] sustainedly with many of the tenets of thecivil rights orthodoxy", he also "supportsBarack Obama, reviles thewar on drugs, supportsgay marriage, never voted forGeorge W. Bush, and writes ofBlack English as coherent speech". McWhorter supportedRalph Nader in his1996 and2000 presidential campaigns.[32]
McWhorter has stated that the conservativeManhattan Institute, for which he worked, "has always been hospitable to Democrats". McWhorter is biweekly guest onThe Glenn Show, a commentary podcast hosted byGlenn Loury, a member of the Manhattan Institute and professor of economics atBrown University.[33] Political theoristMark Satin identifies McWhorter as aradical centrist thinker.[34]
In 2003, McWhorter criticized the influence ofhip-hop on young African-Americans. He blamed the subculture underlying the genre for promoting violence, misogyny, and lawlessness, reserving particular criticism for artists such asTupac Shakur,N.W.A,Suge Knight,50 Cent,Jay-Z, andSean Combs.[35] In 2023, McWhorter wrote a contrasting piece presenting hip-hop in a more positive light, stating that it had become a form of American poetry.[36]
In a 2001 article, McWhorter argued that the attitudes and general behavior of black people, rather than white racism, were what held African Americans back in the United States. According to McWhorter, "victimology,separatism, andanti-intellectualism underlie the general black community's response to all race-related issues", and "it's time for well-intentioned whites to stop pardoning as 'understandable' the worst of human nature whenever black people exhibit it".[37]
In April 2015, McWhorter appeared onNPR and said that the use of the word "thug" was becoming code for "theN-word" or "black people ruining things" when used by whites in reference to criminal activity.[38][39] He added that use by PresidentBarack Obama and former Baltimore MayorStephanie Rawlings-Blake (for which she later apologized) could not be interpreted in the same way, given that among blacks the use of "thug" often connotes admiration for black self-direction and survival. McWhorter clarified his views in an article inThe Washington Post.[39]
McWhorter has argued thatsoftware algorithms by themselves cannot be racist since, unlike humans, they lack intention. Rather, unless the human engineers behind atechnological product intend for it to discriminate against people of a particular ethnicity, any unintentional bias should be seen as asoftware bug that needs to be fixed ("an obstacle to achievement") rather than an issue of racism.[40]
McWhorter has criticized left-wing and activist educators in particular, such asPaulo Freire andJonathan Kozol.[41] McWhorter has criticized both fearmongering and dismissal of concerns over the usage ofcritical race theory in education. In 2021, McWhorter argued in aNew York Times op-ed that "if critical race theory isn’t being taught to children—and in a technical sense, it isn’t—then it’s hardly illogical to suppose that some other concern may be afoot." McWhorter argues instead for continued concern over critical race influenced teaching, which McWhorter worries would be simplistic if taught to children and ineffective to produce nuanced discussion.[42] McWhorter has argued thataffirmative action should be based on class rather than race.[43][44][45]
In 2018, McWhorter posited thatanti-racism has become as harmful in the United States asracism itself.[46][47] In 2014, McWhorter criticized the term "microaggression".[48] In 2016, he criticized what he regards as the overly casual conflation ofracial bias withwhite supremacy.[49] As early as December 2018, McWhorter described anti-racism as a "religious movement".[50]
In July 2020, McWhorter criticizedRobin DiAngelo's 2018 bookWhite Fragility, following its resurgence in sales during theGeorge Floyd protests, beginning in May 2020, arguing that it "openly infantilized Black people" and "simply dehumanized us", and "does not see fit to address why all of this agonizing soul-searching [for residual racism by white people] is necessary to forging change in society. One might ask just how a people can be poised for making change when they have been taught that pretty much anything they say or think is racist and thus antithetical to the good."[51]
| External videos | |
|---|---|
| Presentation by McWhorter onWoke Racism, November 2, 2021,C-SPAN |
In his 2021 bookWoke Racism, McWhorter argues that the anti-racism ideology has been elevated into a religion: "I do not mean that these people’s ideology is 'like' a religion... I mean that it actually is a religion... An anthropologist would see no difference in type betweenPentecostalism and this new form of antiracism."[52]
McWhorter expands upon his previous views and argues that "third wave anti-racism" is a religion he terms "Electism" withwhite privilege asoriginal sin. McWhorter likens the booksWhite Fragility,How to Be an Antiracist andBetween the World and Me to sacred religious texts. He argues that this hypothesized status as a religion explains the behavior of its adherents, whom he calls "the Elect".[53]
He advises that since the faith (like all faith) is not open to discussion, arguments with its adherents should be avoided in favor of pragmatic action against racism. McWhorter advocates three programs: ending thewar on drugs, teaching reading byphonics to children lacking books at home, and freevocational education, promoting the idea that not everyone needs a four-year college education to succeed.[54] In June 2023, McWhorter expressed qualified support forreparations for African Americans, particularly those descended from victims ofredlining.[55]
McWhorter separated from his wife in 2019. He has two daughters.[56] He plays the piano and has appeared in musical theater productions.[57] McWhorter is anatheist.[58]
McWhorter is proficient in English, French and Spanish, and has some competence in Russian and several other languages.[59][60][61]
Way back, I ... played the lead in a small production of 'Merrily We Roll Along,' and I have played piano for productions of 'Funny Thing' and 'Into The Woods.'
I speak three and a bit of Japanese, and can read seven.
When I was a teenaged language nerd in the seventies and eighties, it was the tail end of a time when kids of my bent knew French first and foremost, and then likely dabbled in other Romance languages, plus some German and maybe a dash of Russian.
these days I am trying to teach myself Mandarin, and I am just wallowing in finally getting a feel of the inner workings of a language that isn't all about prefixes and suffixes and isn't related at all to European languages ... One language that I failed to ever really crack was Japanese, simply because it seemed that mastering the writing system would be so difficult that it wasn't worth trying if I wasn't doing it for any real reason. But these days I am climbing that mountain again with Mandarin and finding that with some quiet, semi-obsessive dedication, learning to read on the level of a child isn't impossible.
