Are African-American Studies Still Relevant?

John McWhorter asks the question, notes that the major imperatives that created such intellectual self-segregation no longer apply, and suggests:

It’s time that African-American Studies departments let go of the sixties imperative to defend blacks as eternal victims of racism. Black people can do their best even under imperfect conditions--and if that reality is irrelevant to an African-American Studies curriculum, then we must question the value of said curricula to those whom they purport to speak up for: real people in this real world. This real world which will never be perfect--even for descendants of African slaves.

Read the whole thing here.