Houston Baker begins his book, "Betrayal: How Black Intellectuals Have Abandoned the Ideals of the Civil Rights Era, " in Memphis, Tenn., in 1968. Martin Luther King is working for "those blacks furthest down -- garbage men, cleaning women, practical nurses and underpaid day laborers, " Baker writes.
A Vanderbilt University professor, Baker's books include, "I Don't Hate the South: Reflections on Faulkner, Family and the South, " "Black Studies, Rap and the Academy" and "Turning South Again: Re-Thinking Modernism/Re-Reading Booker T."
"Betrayal" is crucial reading in this month of King and Obama.
King's legacy can be measured both in terms of miles marched and books written. Thus black public intellectuals, can claim to have taken up at least part of King's legacy. But have they really?
In Baker's view, Stephen Carter, John McWhorter and Shelby Steele, conservatives all, represent not so much a break with the black intellectual mainstream as a continuum of the neoconservative tradition founded by Jewish, former liberals 50 years ago.
Baker argues that the success these neocons enjoyed -- social prominence and financial gain -- was not lost on their progeny. This younger, darker generation has joined our nation's best-selling authors and oft-quoted intellectuals.
Attack on 'black centrists'
But Baker's book is outstanding because it attacks "black centrists, " the media darlings. He contends these men minimize the impact of racism in order to reaffirm America's vision of itself as race blind and merit-based. Bill Cosby may be a comedian with a doctorate in education, but both his credentials and conclusions, are suspect, Baker contends.
"The irony and horror of present-day America is that in the domain of the so-called black public intellectual, a comedian -- whose EdD came out of a scandal-filled University of Massachusetts School of Education, literally selling doctorates -- and his journalistic 'Bundini Brown' are as likely to gain approval from the New York Times best-seller list as real scholars, " Baker writes.
A work of courage
Cornel West and Henry Louis Gates are real scholars, but Baker argues their race writings are not scholarly.
"Black post-Civil Rights era public intellectuals have, in form, substance, style, ideology and spirit, betrayed virtually every contour of the legacy of public intellectual leadership bequeathed by Dr. King. Their lively performances and earnest recommendations have, time and time again, amounted to little more than a black-majority vilifying, neoconservative, ideological pottage sold and fed to paying white audiences."
In "Betrayal, " Baker has written a courageous book, raising much-needed questions in this our brave new world.