Betrayal

In his non-fiction book Betrayal: How Black Intellectuals Abandoned the Ideals of the Civil Rights Era (2008), American author and educator Houston A. Baker, Jr. criticizes the work and mentality of various African American scholars who, according to Baker, have betrayed the values of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his contemporaries. In 2009, Betrayal was one of thirteen books to receive the American Book Award.

Although Baker begins with a brief discussion of his upbringing in the "Little Africa" neighborhood of Louisville, Kentucky, the book immediately abandons this more personal approach to make the point that far too many modern black intellectuals frame their analysis to social and racial ills through their own personal experiences. According to Baker, this works to the detriment of addressing the problems faced by the majority of black Americans who are not black studies scholars at universities or high-profile public intellectuals. Instead, black intellectuals should follow the examples set by Martin Luther King and W.E.B. DuBois, who spoke directly to the black masses as opposed to what he refers to as "The Talented Tenth" who make up the economic elite of black society in America.

In discussing King, rather than focusing on the famous "I Have a Dream" speech, Baker draws attention to two other important achievements of King's: "The Letter From Birmingham Jail" and his speech on behalf of Memphis sanitation workers. On April 12, 1963, King was arrested for willfully defying a Circuit Judge's injunction prohibiting "parading, demonstrating, boycotting, trespassing, and picketing" related to the Civil Rights Movement in Birmingham. Though the letter dealt broadly with the topic of racial injustice, it was specifically written as a rebuke to a group of white ministers who counseled King and his supporters to allow injustice to be corrected through legal means, specifically the courts, rather than press for more immediate change through non-violent demonstrations. King strongly objected to these appeals to "wait" for injustice to be corrected, writing that throughout history, "'Wait' has almost always meant 'Never.'" He also quoted the legal maxim put forth by Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren that "justice too long delayed is justice denied." King added, "Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, 'Wait.'"



Although King was responding to white clergymen in his letter, Baker says that these words could easily be applied today to numerous black intellectuals who are out of touch with the struggle of every black American. While Baker acknowledges that black intellectuals have faced systemic and personally-directed racism in their lives, he argues that their position of relative privilege, as they sit in their fancy university offices and television studios, has protected them from many of the worst racist predations visited upon the majority of African Americans. It, too, may be relatively easy for wealthy, comfortable black Americans to counsel working-class African Americans to "wait" for the system of injustice to correct itself through legal means.

King's understanding of the struggles faced by working-class black Americans may be best exemplified, Baker says, by his support for striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee. On April 3, 1968—just one day before his assassination—King spoke at Mason Temple on behalf of the strike. In eloquent and powerful terms, King sought to empower the poorest black Americans among them by counseling collective action and unity.

Baker contrasts this inspiring message of collective economic empowerment with the approaches taken by a number of modern black intellectuals. He divides the modern black intellectual movement into two categories: centrists and neoconservatives. Among centrists, the author names Henry Louis Gates, Cornel West, and Michael Dyson, who, despite the inspiring nature of their achievements, tend to write for and on behalf of relatively wealthy black elites like themselves, downplaying major issues facing the black majority such as America's "prison industrial complex." Even worse, the author argues, are the neoconservatives, like Shelby Steele, Stephen Carter, and John McWhorter. These intellectuals seek to push the conversation about civil rights into a "post-racial" realm, where the current struggles of black Americans are largely their own fault, rather than the fault of systems and laws that disproportionately benefit white people.



Betrayal is a scathing examination of the state of modern black intellectualism and the people it is purportedly leaving behind.