The Too Visible Man (review of Colored People: A Memoir, by Henry Louis Gates Jr.)

IT ISN’T necessary to approve of the way a system works in order to recognize the skills of those who use it to their maximum advantage. A good case in point is Henry Louis Gates Jr., of whom I first became aware in 1981, when he, as a 30-year-old assistant professor at Yale, received a “genius” grant from the Mac-Arthur Foundation. A year later, a picture of Mr. Gates holding a copy of a book entitled Our Nig, written in 1859 by a free woman of color named Harriet E. Wilson, appeared in newspapers throughout the country. Mr. Gates

Mr. Toledano is a lawyer in Gulfport, Mississippi.

BT

About the Author

Ben C. Toledano

IT ISN’T necessary to approve of the way a system works in order to recognize the skills of those who use it to their maximum advantage. A good case in point is Henry Louis Gates Jr., of whom I first became aware in 1981, when he, as a 30-year-old assistant professor at Yale, received a “genius” grant from the Mac-Arthur Foundation. A year later, a picture of Mr. Gates holding a copy of a book entitled Our Nig, written in 1859 by a free woman of color named Harriet E. Wilson, appeared in newspapers throughout the country. Mr. Gates

Mr. Toledano is a lawyer in Gulfport, Mississippi.