David Horowitz: Marc Lamont Hill’s Overrated Black People List: Michael Eric Dyson

"For what Marc Lamont Hill has stumbled onto here is one of the tragedies of our time, inflicted on black people by progressives pretending to be their defenders. Shelby Steele has written an insightful book called White Guilt which examines how whites have rewarded behaviors by individual blacks with levels of incompetence that they wouldn’t tolerate for a second in themselves. They have done it in the name of enlightenment and 'social justice.' But the effect is just the opposite. It deprives blacks of the tests of self that make achievement possible. In Steele’s formulation, 'no one ever learned to jump higher by lowering the bar.' (There are no affirmative action athletes and consequently no black superstar’s credentials are questioned. ) Preferential treatment for blacks in intellectual fields undermines the real achievements of African Americans by casting doubt on any credential that they receive. This is an injury that cannot be repaired by more quotas, or by any quotas.

"Barack Obama is a man of several obvious talents but a track record worthy of a Nobel Prize is not one of them (and being president probably isn’t either). Of course there are plenty of over-rated whites — Al Gore, an empty-headed, truth-challenged blowhard whose politically correct prejudices got him a Nobel, an Oscar, and an opera at La Scala is obviously one. But it is blacks who have suffered the most from affirmative action prizes and unearned promotions. We are launching this list as a service both to the African American community and the country at large, since this ongoing hypocrisy and the double-standards it supports hurt us all."