Kennedy's 'Sellout' Sells Readers Short

Grammy-nominated rapper KRS-One put United States Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on blast when, on his 1992 album “Sex and Violence”—he proclaimed: “You want to see the devil, take a look at Clarence Thomas.” Thomas, who now serves as the nation’s second-ever African American on the country’s highest court, has been billed as the quintessential black sellout in America because of his conservative (read: unfavorable) stance on affirmative action, his officiation of Rush Limbaugh’s wedding, and other acts deemed worthy of the label racial treason.

But according to a new book by Harvard Law Professor Randall Kennedy, applying the label of racial treason is not a simple matter. Not only is the designation “sellout” complicated in defining the criteria for citizenship in Black America, but, Kennedy claims in “Sellout: The Politics of Racial Betrayal,” the deployment of this term harms rather than protects the African American community. While Kennedy succeeds in illustrating the difficulties that exist when trying to apply the title of sellout, he fails to adequately present that loaded term’s consequences. In the end, Kennedy’s insistence on complicating the circumstances under which we can use “sellout” raises more questions than he provides answers to.

In “Sellout,” Kennedy sets out to describe the various ways in which African Americans have been labeled sellouts in historical and contemporary contexts. Kennedy exposes the dynamics of traditional forms of race betrayal—including marrying a white person, passing, “acting white,” and opposing affirmative action—and, in doing so, shows that labeling someone a sellout to a community based on a scientific myth does damage to the social bonds of the black community. According to Kennedy, Black America is “wildly heterogeneous” and applying a monochromatic standard of blackness to African Americans is harmful to the existence of varying viewpoints and ideologies expressed by members of the community. Ultimately, Kennedy argues, such a stringent test strains the ties that hold African Americans together for collective action.

Kennedy espouses a pluralistic vision that allows for the diverse ideological differences that can be found within the boundaries of Black America. According to him, these differences could provide solutions to the problems that plague African Americans. Indeed, he asserts that unwillingness to acknowledge the ideological diversity of the black community homogenizes what is an extremely heterogeneous community and that neither “open nor veiled references to racial loyalty or disloyalty point the way toward reliable answers to such questions.”

But Kennedy does not eschew the responsibility that comes along with group affiliation. While Kennedy holds the view that “all Negroes should be voluntary Negroes, blacks by choice, African Americans with a recognized right to resign from the race,” he maintains that he sees no reason why an African American should not have their citizenship in Black America “revoked if he chooses a course of conduct that convincingly demonstrates the absence of even a minimal community allegiance.” According to Kennedy, this conduct would include revealing the secrets of a black organization you work for merely out of purposes of self-promotion or supporting a policy that is seriously harmful to African Americans—not merely casting a vote for a Republican in the next election.

Although Kennedy establishes that there are probably very few true race traitors in America—Kennedy himself admits that none come to mind—he fails to engage readers in the conversation of what his analysis really means for the black community. Throughout the book, his arguments fall flat because of his conception of Black America. If the requirement for citizenship in Black America is only a matter of choice—Kennedy asserts that people “ought to be permitted presumptively to enter and exit racial categories at their choosing, even if the choices made clash with conventional understandings of racial classification”—then does racial treason really exist?

Ultimately, Kennedy’s undertaking can be summed up with one word: grapple. Indeed, Kennedy wrestles with the validity of the idea that an African American can be held accountable by a group that is merely a social construction. He flip-flops between declaring that black people can be punished for betraying their group and encouraging black students “not [to] permit an inflated conception of racial obligation to weigh them down.”

In the end, readers are left wondering what exactly they’re supposed to glean from Kennedy’s nearly 200-page struggle with history, racial self-determination, and the concept of selling out. We do learn that Clarence Thomas isn’t really a sellout and that the search for one will not prove useful in helping us achieve racial equality. But what exactly are we to do with our newfound knowledge that when we call someone a sellout, we’re merely fighting shadows?

—Staff writer Laura A. Moore can be reached at lamoore@fas.harvard.edu.