Dismantling Evil: Emilie M. Townes

Abstract

With the nomination and election of the first African American president of the United States in 2008,¹ some social commentators—professional and amateur, mostly white—proclaimed the advent of a “post-racial era.” By this they seemed to mean that most white people have realized that we ought not to discriminate based on race. John McWhorter, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and himself African American, declared the day after the election that racism is “no longer our main problem.”² “Sure, there are racists,” McWhorter shrugs. “There are also rust and mosquitoes, and there always will be. Life goes on.” Noting that, for example, the Congressional Black Caucus collaborated in the legislation that mandates stiffer penalties for possession of crack than powdered cocaine, which has resulted in more jail time for black offenders, he rejects the idea that racism still shapes the structures of U.S. society.