John McWhorter

 

I first became aware of linguist and author John McWhorter in 2017, with the release of his book Talking Back, Talking Black, which passionately debunked persistent myths about ‘errors’ in Black English grammar. 

Later, during Covid19, his writings were a welcome antidote to the unthinking orthodoxy of the online left, which was short on solutions and long on sloganeering, and hell-bent on becoming a new religion (minus the forgiveness). 

After George Floyd's murder at the hands of the police, when the white middle class response was to post pictures of themselves “doing the work” by reading Robin DiAngelo's White Fragility, McWhorter argued that the book "openly infantilized Black people" and "dehumanized us”.

He has been described as "a radical centrist thinker" and self-identifies as "a cranky liberal Democrat” and atheist. He teaches John Cage to students in his Music Humanities class at Columbia University. 

Earlier this spring, one of his New York Times opinion columns ended with a strange request: he and his daughters collected Bubly cans and were missing a flavour that was released for a limited time, and only in Canada [see above].

Determined to drink less sugar, I became addicted to these sweetener-free drinks and had been obsessively trying out each new flavour. As a way to entice my nephew to visit, I kept one of each can as a kind of “soda museum” in the door of the basement refrigerator. I think I was up to 75 or so different varieties of soda, before some of them started leaking. 

But I still had a copy of Merry Berry Bubly, from five years ago. 

I found McWhorter's email address and wrote to say that I would happily part with the can, as thanks for his writings and podcast appearances that I had enjoyed over the years. He replied immediately with his home address. Then followed with “Promise not to include a cherry bomb or anthrax.”

His daughter apparently shares his sense of humour. The other day a parcel of signed books arrived with a hand written note:

“Dear Dave, This is John McWhorter’s daughter. Thank you for the sending us the last Bubly can and not poisoning us! - D McWhorter (the older one)”

"In Talking Back, Talking Black, McWhorter offers an explanation, a defence, and, most heartening, a celebration of the dialect that has become, he argues, an American lingua franca. He demonstrates the ‘legitimacy’ of Black English by uncovering its complexity and sophistication, as well as the still unfolding journey that has led to its creation. . . . [His] intelligent breeziness is the source of the book’s considerable charm.

— The New Yorker