Marc Lamont Hill’s List of Overrated Black People will be a recurring feature at NewsReal as more figures emerge to be added. In David Horowitz’s kick-off to the series he explained the intent and why it’s not necessary to have corresponding lists of overrated white people, overrated conservatives, overrated leftists, overrated Jews, overrated right-handed people and so forth:

Barack Obama is a man of several obvious talents but a track record worthy of a Nobel Prize is not one of them (and being president probably isn’t either). Of course there are plenty of over-rated whites — Al Gore, an empty-headed, truth-challenged blowhard whose  politically correct prejudices got him a Nobel, an Oscar, and an opera at La Scala is obviously one.  But it is blacks who have suffered the most from affirmative action prizes and unearned promotions. We are launching this list as a service both to the African American community and the country at large, since this ongoing hypocrisy and the double-standards it supports hurt us all.

The critical difference here is that in those other groups there are not policies put in place to produce overrated people to the detriment of the group as a whole.

Part 1: Michael Eric Dyson

Part 2: Melissa Harris-Lacewell

Part 3: Spike Lee

Part 3 continued: Spike Lee