Losing the Race
Losing the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America is a 2000 book by American linguist and political commentator John McWhorter in which he argues that it is not external racial prejudice and discrimination but instead elements of black culture that are more responsible for the social problems faced by black Americans several decades after the Civil Rights Movement. Specifically, McWhorter points to anti-intellectualism, separatism, and a self-perpetuated identity of victimhood as factors limiting them as a group.
The book was a New York Times bestseller and received mixed reactions. McWhorter considers it the work that first made him known to larger audiences and contributed to the perception of him being a conservative commentator.
