"My father was, professionally, a Hebrew scholar, and worked with Hebrew grammar. And my mother was a Hebrew teacher. My father sort of ran the Hebrew school system in the city of Philadelphia, and my mother taught in it. He taught in Hebrew College later. There's a Graduate University of Jewish Studies, Dropsie College, which he taught in."

"Actually, I happen to have been very lucky myself and gone to an experimental-progresive Deweyite school, from about the time I was age one-and-a-half to twelve [John Dewey was an American philosopher and educational reformer]. And there it was done routinely: children were encouraged to challenge everything, and you sort of worked on your own, you were supposed to think things through for yourself -- it was a real experience. And it was quite a striking change when it ended and I had to go to the city high school, which was the pride of the city school system. It was the school for academically-oriented kids in Philadelphia -- and it was the dumbest, most ridiculous place I've ever been, it was like falling into a black hole or something. For one thing, it was extremely competitive -- because that's one of the best ways of controlling people. So everybody was ranked, and you always knew exactly where you were: are you third in the class, or maybe did you move down to fourth? All this stuff is put into people's heads in various ways in the schools -- that you've got to beat down the person next to you, and just look out for yourself."

Ok, raised by teachers/scholars who even ran a school system, and went to a school which cultivated critical thinking. Surprising that he turned out to be such a successful academic...

No need to turn to racist theories, or cultural mysticism. Answers are quite simple, but not everyone wants to hear them.