Why do so many black students still perform so badly in school? McWhorter concludes that racism's ugliest legacy is the disease of defeatism that infects black America. He explores the main components of this virus with the aim of eradicating an epidemic and healing the community.

Why do so many African Americans--even comfortably middle-class ones--continue to see racism as a defining factor in their lives?

Columbia University linguistics professor John McWhorter, born at the dawn of the post-Civil Rights era, spent years trying to make sense of this question. In this book he dared to say the unsayable: racism's ugliest legacy is the disease of defeatism that has infected Black America. Losing the Race explores the three main components of this cultural virus: the cults of victimology, separatism, and anti-intellectualism that are making Black people their own worst enemies in the struggle for success. With Losing the Race, a bold new voice rises among Black intellectuals.