ABSTRACT
The choice of becoming a black intellectual is an act of self-imposed marginality; it assures a peripheral status in and to the black community. The general politicization of American intellectual life (in the academy and outside), along with the rightward ideological drift, constitutes a hostile climate for the making of black intellectuals. The paucity of black infrastructures for intellectual activity results, in part, from the inability of black intellectuals to gain respect and support from the black community—and especially the black middle class. For black intellectuals, the bourgeois model of intellectual activity is problematic. Among many black intellectuals, there is a knee-jerk reaction to the severe limitations of the bourgeois model (and capitalist society)—namely, to adopt the Marxist model. The major priority of black intellectuals should be the creation or reactivation of institutional networks that promote high-quality critical habits primarily for the purpose of black insurgency.
