JOHN MCWHORTER, linguist, cultural commentator, is a William Simon Fellow, Columbia University.

He is the author of Doing Our Own Thing: The Degradation of Language and Music and Why We Should, Like, Care. He was widely consulted by the media during the Oakland Ebonics controversy of 1997, and has written a book on dialects and Black English, The Word on the Street. He is also the author of Authentically Black, The Power of Babel, and Losing the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America and has written two books on creoles. He has also taught on the history of black musical theatre.

He has written on race issues for City Journal, The New Republic, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post, and appeared on Dateline NBC, Politically Incorrect, Talk of the Nation, and Good Morning America.

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