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Book Review: Losing the Race: Sabotage in Black America by John H. McWhorter. New York: Free Press.2000. $24.00. Reviewed by Martha Maxwell, 10.21.2000. While the federal government, has spent enough money on Black education since the 1960s to transform Zimbabwe into Brunei according to the author, Black student achievement is still below that of whites. McWhorter, a Black linguistics professor at UC Berkeley argues that it's the fault of the Black culture which clings to outmoded concepts of victimization, racism, and anti-intellectualism to explain low achievement. Recounting his own experiences with affirmative action as a student at Rutgers, Stanford and as a professor at Cornell and Berkeley, he describes how at very young ages, Black children who do well in school are taunted and teased by their peers for acting like whitey or being an oreo and Black parents do not insist that their children earn high grades in school. Although Affirmative Action efforts have improved the economic, educational and social standards of Blacks he says that the Black culture fails to recognize these changes and todays Black middle and upper class students give the same reasons for their low achievement that were used in the 60s - racism, poverty, poor schools, even though they themselves have not experienced these problems. Although times have changed, the excuses remain the same. While the truth is that the percentage of Blacks living in poverty has dropped to less than 25%, fewer live in ghettos, and more attend good schools. Those who attend selective colleges are rarely from poverty homes, yet their grades are lower than those of whites. He contends that although racism is not dead it certainly is as manageable as other biases that immigrants face - certainly not what it was like in the 1960s. This book will undoubtedly be considered controversial by Black intellectuals since it bodes no quarter in insisting that the Black culture is still holding back the progress of Black students today. Black separatism is still strong, he says, citing - O. J.. Simpson, Al Sharpton and Farrakhan and even Carl Rowan's comments about former DC Mayor Barry, Yes, he's a druggie but he's our druggie. Examples like this suggest that Blacks expect to be judged by separate moral standards as well as different standards for academic work. McWhorter sees the cure as dropping all vestiges of affirmative action and challenging Black students by giving them that same opportunity to compete in academics as everyone else. He feels that continuing to give Blacks an edge protects them from trying. His solution may be easier said than done, implying as it does that Black students need tough love, not tolerance. Knowing this, how will you change your approach to working with Black=20 students? --------------