May 24, 2026 — CBS News
John McWhorter, New York Times columnist, bestselling author, linguist and Columbia University professor, is comfortable courting controversy. He says what he thinks on subjects from race and language to pop culture — and sometimes offends people along the way.
A recent example: in a Times opinion piece about The Golden Girls, McWhorter praised three of the sitcom’s stars and admitted he was never fond of the Sophia character. “Honestly, I was never crazy about the Sophia character,” he said, laughing. “I wouldn’t have wanted to hang out with Sophia.” That bluntness is typical of a writer who has long preferred clear, sometimes contrarian takes to polite consensus.
McWhorter grew up in Mount Airy, Philadelphia, in a mixed middle-class neighborhood. The son of Temple University employees — a social work teacher and a student administrator — he remembers himself as a “nerdy little kid” who loved lists and the printed page. He read early and widely; at eight he could recite all the presidents’ wives and delighted in academic curiosities that didn’t always win him friends. “I was the little professor,” he says, and likens himself to Linus from Peanuts.
His academic path was eclectic: an undergraduate degree in French, a master’s in American studies and a Ph.D. in linguistics. McWhorter’s work often blends scholarly rigor with a public voice, especially on race. His 2000 book Losing the Race sparked debate because readers interpreted it as blaming Black people for their own difficulties. McWhorter disputes that caricature; his point was that after centuries of degradation and abrupt legal advances, Black communities could be left uncertain about practical next steps. He argues grievance can become an end in itself rather than a spur to constructive planning.
Because of that book and his frank commentary, many labeled him conservative. McWhorter rejects that label: he describes himself as a “cranky liberal.” He says he has never voted Republican and that his differences with the left arise from seeing the political center on racial issues move sharply leftward.
Beyond academics and columns, McWhorter is a self-taught pianist and a student of musical theater history. That curiosity has led him to his latest project: reconstructing Early to Bed, a long-forgotten 1940s Broadway musical with music by jazz great Fats Waller. The work has become a family endeavor — his older daughter, Dahlia, sings one of the songs — and McWhorter says part of his motivation was simple: “I am strange and nobody else was gonna do it.”
At 60, he embraces being hard to categorize: professor, provocateur, author, impresario. “People just see me as me,” he says, and that, he adds, is preferable to being mistaken for someone else. Story produced by Kay Lim. Editor: George Pozderec.