The Rise of the Black Nerd
(excerpts ) by James Hannaham

Studying at elite institutions has alienated . . . Afrodemics from blacks who see higher education as whitewashing. Yet their views still cause mainstream whites to ostracize or misunderstand them. Isolated from both camps, and even each other, they've developed an independent party of race politics with an intellectual bent. All that isolation and scholarship are what classify them as nerds. 

Theologist Thandeka, Boston University economics professor (and supposed former neocon) -- Thandeka, a Unitarian minister and associate professor of theology and culture at Meadville/Lombard Theological School, draws conclusions not unlike Loury's, but with a more sensitive, sociological approach. Her recent book, Learning to Be White, examines the process by which Euro-Americans maintain racial boundaries for their children through shame. It may seem counterintuitive for a black woman to spend time explaining the damaging effects of racism on white kids. But the real paradox is that it has always fallen to the victims of discrimination to describe how it works—as if they had created it.

"Would that the problem was really racism in and of itself!" Thandeka exclaims. She starts off Learning to Be White with a series of personal anecdotes from Euro-Americans detailing the first instances in which they felt themselves to be "raced." "Sarah," Thandeka explains, recounting an episode from the book, "brought her black best friend home, and her mother told her not to bring her back. As Sarah pressed for the real reason, she discovered that if she persisted, she risked losing her mother's love. Every time she saw her friend, her appearance reminded Sarah of what she didn't want to know." 

In many cases, theorizes the author, "the motivation for racist acts is not racism, but a fear of being excluded."

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Glenn C. Loury --Brazenly esoteric, Loury's new book, The Anatomy of Racial Inequality, excavates racism using the unlikely tools of theoretical economics. He argues that racism has become embedded in our society because racially stigmatized groups are denied access to the informal social networks crucial to success in any field. Also, what he calls "self-confirming stereotypes" help to "create the facts." 

Black people sometimes believe our own bad press and behave accordingly, even adopting negative stereotypical behavior as a way of throwing it back at society. But when non-blacks see the effect of this "feedback loop," they conclude that blacks are being held back because of something in our nature. This Loury calls "essentialism," and he rejects it as an explanation for inequality.

  He holds liberal politics responsible for miscomprehending this process. The problem, he says, is that liberal individualism sweeps the issues of social networking and self-confirming stereotypes under the rug. In the process, it has allowed the idea of racism to become separated from specific acts of discrimination, so that it appears "natural and nondissonant."

Loury's assertion that racism has become unmoored from its direct objects is a common thread among today's black intellectuals. 

While Loury suspects that class will become as much of an issue as race in the future, Thandeka's research reveals that America's racist attitudes originated with class discrimination. She cites colonial Virginia's "race laws" of the late 1600s as the moment when British classism gave way to American racism. 

Previously, indentured servants and slaves had mixed freely and identified with the other group's plight. In 1676, former indentured servants began to rebel against the ruling class for their unfair taxation and greed. They burned Jamestown to the ground. Terrified that the slave population would join forces with the indentured servants, the masters put the "race laws" into effect. Among other rules, white servants could legally whip black slaves and were protected from receiving beatings themselves. 

"A new multiclass 'white race' would emerge from the Virginia laws as one not biologically engineered but socially constructed," concludes Thandeka. "The very definition of the white would now be legally bound to the inferior social status of the black."

It isn't hard to bring this historical data alive in the modern era, Thandeka points out, since the ruling class still treats the lower classes with contempt no matter who they are. "The Enron execs didn't discriminate against their employees racially!" she says.

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Novelist Martha Southgate embraces the label: "In high school, I never found my way into the black social circle, but I never felt fully comfortable in white social circles either. I certainly am a nerd!" For Southgate and others, righteous anger usually takes a backseat to curiosity, compassion, and a dash of world-weariness. "People ask me at readings to provide answers to this conundrum," she says. "I don't really have any. I'm just interested in exploring that tension."

Novelist Martha Southgate focuses on upward mobility, and the ways in which race and class have ceased to be synonymous social problems, echoing the ideas of Loury and Thandeka. Centering on an intra-black class conflict, her recent novel The Fall of Rome describes the events leading to a confrontation between two black men of different classes..

"The Fall of Rome ended up being in part a way to address the idea that things aren't simply black and white," says 41-year-old Southgate. "In the early '90s there were a number of newspaper pieces about the good old days when we all lived together, almost saying, 'Segregation is good.' I would get impatient with that. They're right about the split among classes, and that a lot of people have been left utterly behind. But I just don't really think Jim Crow was that great!"

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BLACK NERDS THROUGH HISTORY

AKHNATON Egyptian pharaoh/eccentric mama's boy; brought avant-garde art and monotheism to Egypt in 1300s B.C. Moved capital to middle of desert. Legacy suppressed, name denounced for years afterward.

BANKOURI Prince who renounced throne of Songhai to become scholar at Timbuktu during heyday in 14th century.

SALLY HEMINGS Jefferson slave and baby-mama; favored coalition-building in early 1800s as diplomatic means to freedom. Became neocon after decision to return to America and slavery rather than stay in Paris.

ERNEST EVERETT JUST Early-20th-century American biophysicist. Pioneer in fertilization and cell development. Remained obscure because he didn't invent peanut butter. Appears on 1995 Black Heritage stamp.

BAYARD RUSTIN Nonviolent activist who organized 1963 March on Washington. Condemned as "known homosexual" by Strom Thurmond before the march, to little effect.

ADRIENNE KENNEDY Award-winning playwright rejected by Black Arts Movement for creating multiracial plots and surreal, symbolist images. With Maria Irene Fornes and Sam Shepard, changed the face of theater.

ERNEST THOMAS A/K/A RAJ (from What's Happening!!) From 1976 to '79, led motley clique of very uncool African Americans. Tutored college basketball player, lied about age in order to date model.

RITA DOVE U.S. poet laureate 1993-95. Won 1987 Pulitzer Prize for collection Thomas and Beulah. Avoided popularity by eschewing dialect.

HENRY LOUIS GATES JR. West Virginia-born public intellectual. After testifying in favor of 2 Live Crew, created prestigious African American Studies department at Harvard during 1990s. Traveled around Africa for six-hour PBS special while wearing khaki shorts, polo shirt, and glasses. —J.H.