It has been several weeks since Herman Cain surged ahead in the pack of Republican Presidential candidates. Since then we’ve seen a considerable increase in his press coverage — both positive and negative. One recent personal attack came from author and syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts, Jr.

In a column published on Oct. 16, Pitts argued that Cain fills a need in the conservative movement for a black leader who serves as an example to other black people of what they are doing wrong, and in doing so, justifies white beliefs.

“He thus neatly encapsulates what has become an article of faith for many white conservatives; namely, that it is they, not black and brown people, who are the true victims of bigotry … And now they find support for their idiocy in this Negro from Atlanta.”

Other critics of Cain are far less elegant. Take actress Janeane Garofalo, who made the circular argument back in September:

1) All conservatives are racist;

2) Cain is a black man liked by conservatives;

3) Support for Cain only further demonstrates that conservatives are racist by hiding behind a black man.

Pitts’s argument, however, is far more nuanced. He argues that the idea of success embodied by Herman Cain is a product of racial self-loathing. “African-Americans were psychologically maimed by this country, the expression of which can still be seen in the visceral self-loathing that afflicts too many. Meaning the black child who equates doing well in school with ‘acting white.’ Meaning the famous black man who bleaches his skin. Meaning the famous black woman who rationalizes her use of a certain soul-killing racial epithet. Meaning Herman Cain.”

Not everyone agrees.

The Root posted excerpts of a response to Pitts’s piece by writer and Editor of Blacksnob.com, Danielle Belton: she cannot say that she agrees with Pitts, “But I have known my fair share of Herman Cains in my lifetime, those ‘bootstrap’ individuals who lived through one familiar set of experiences, and instead of those experiences making him more empathetic and altruistic, they made him more self-centered and hardened.”

In her full piece, Belton expands on this “bootstrap” mentality: “It’s a great mindset for the advancement of self. Not-so-great for the advancement of a historically disadvantaged group of people. It reminds of a guy I used to date who hated most black people because he blamed the slaves for being slaves, not their captors for controlling their entire lives since birth and forcing them into labor.”

Both Pitts and Belton, though differing in conclusion, make the same assumption. Both agree that Cain’s conceptualization of being black in America is wrong, either in part or in whole.

But is Cain really wrong? Or, does he provide insight into what race could become in America?

Cain has been critiqued for his own distinction between being an African American and a “Black American,” as the latter phrase emphasizes his own uniquely American history and experience.

Using that phrase instead of “African American” also rhetorically separates Cain from the legacy of slavery his ancestors survived — a very important move.

Cain is not ignorant of the history of race in America. When he was a boy growing up in Tennessee, he and his family were forced to sit on the back of the bus. It would take a move toward stoicism for such experiences not to affect one’s point of view, towards the world and towards race relations in America.

But by stepping away from that legacy and all its implied victimization, Cain begins thinking from an entirely different starting point. This new starting point is extremely liberating because it focuses on individual experiences and not on any inherited racial, social, or economic legacy.

Cain is, in essence, channeling the spirit of Booker T. Washington.

In Washington’s famous 1895 address to the Atlanta Exposition, he stated that “progress in the enjoyment of all the privileges that will come to [blacks] must be the result of severe and constant struggle rather than of artificial forcing.”

Washington argued that equality, in a culture still plagued by the racism of Jim Crow, was best achieved by former slaves proving that they were just as able to fully participate in the economy as their white counterparts. Though some legal protection was necessary, it could only go so far. The heavy lifting, according to Washington, was left to each member of the black community to make the most of their opportunities and establish themselves as valuable members of society.

This thinking is not wrong, as Pitts and Belton suggest. Instead, it can be seen as extremely empowering for individuals. Instead of focusing on those elements of ourselves that were determined by where we came from, we are able to look ahead and decide what we wish to become.

It is a powerful fulfillment of one of America’s founding principles — individual liberty for all. It’s a ground-up approach that empowers communities and individuals to determine their own fates.