I read your essay (twice) despite its having John McWhorter's name in it. I read your essay twice because I wanted to be fair to McWhorter, but I can still not like him, and that's putting it mildly. He seems always to be one of that crowd who wants to show his allegiance to whites by downing the rest of us.

I respect his work, IN LINGUISTICS, but I don't consider him a "public intellectual" in any other way. White people have told him he's that, and the more they accept him, the more he has to say against us. I truly don't know what he believes. I sometimes wonder if he's decided to make his name by trying to prove that he's not one of "us" because that's where the money is. You are kind to want to rescue him. I would leave him where he is and wait for somebody else to save him.