Obviously super late but I could not help thinking about the Alabama voting rights case, Merrill v. Milligan I think. If there are race hustlers then there are also post-race hustlers who are willing to say that since there is no more racism we will ignore the highly racially polarized voting pattern which should allow a district where Black voters could elect a candidate of choice according to the 1982 VRA and give white voters the same political power they have always had. Also since there is no more racism politics will continue to be about things which directly affect white middle-class voters even if problems such as poverty/economic inequality and the criminal justice system which affect everyone stagnate out of public view.
Blacks today are not victims of the legacy of slavery. They are victims of the legacy of liberalism/the great society/social policies of the 50s in the 60s. Shelby steele
Saying that black people today are victims of the legacy of slavery is a statement of white supremacy because it assumes black people are not capable of overcoming problems without outside/government help, the help of the white liberal
Tribal people are incapable of developing a settled and prosperous society because the principles of meritocracy will not be decided on their skills but on their tribal or ethnic associations with someone else, like under Marxism including America under progressivism and feudal Europe. Marxism’s message will always be easier to convert people because I appeals to the most guttural/amygdaloid human emotions such as envy, injustice, rage, jealousy, etc. Understanding individual freedom is a multi-step process and requires higher brain functioning, and thus is much more difficult to achieve in the general population es especially where the education system has been taken over by a Marxist based thespec Especially where the education system and culture have been taken over by a Marxist-based theology.
There's an old joke about a psychiatrist giving a Rorschach test to a client. With every blink blot, the client sees a picture of sex. The psychiatrist is really concerned, and tells the client it is unsettling that every picture reminds him of sex. The client responds, "Me! You're the one with all the dirty pictures!"
Sooo, maybe not everything that is seen as a racial incident is really a racial incident. And maybe not every racial incident is a case of a White man oppressing a black man. Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin are both cases where what people "saw" is not even a little bit like what was really there. And Nick Sandman and Kye Rittenhouse were both judged guilty by the ink-blot readers, in spite of the fact that simply paying attention to the videos proved they were not.
Yes, there's racism. So, what's your point? Why is the above discussion focused only on discrimination against blacks by Whites, and not about ALL discrimination? Why has the civil war been all but erased from any discussion concerning slavery? HOW could the civil war be erased from any discussion of slavery? Because it doesn't fit the narrative. You know the narrative: All Whites are guilty of discrimination of all blacks. Period. The only distinction is that those whites who recognize it are Woke, and those who don't are White supremacists.
And, what of interracial marriage? You know, like Barak Obama? Back in the day, the true White supremacists tried to make distinctions concerning how much black blood a person had. Through all of the time of slavery, there were in fact many legitimate mixed-race unions. Not in the deep south, but they had them. Of course, in the south there were slave women with children fathered by their White masters. That's a whole other story, and a very long one. Still, there were legitimate marriages of black and White. It took well over a century, but those marriages were finally recognized by the Supreme Court. Great! The races are coming together! Oops. Along came Obama, with the chance to be the poster boy for mixed race marriages. He blew it. Instead, he denigrated the White side of the family that raised him, while praising the "victimized" black side of the family that abandoned him.
Balck solidarity is a form of isolationism. No one who practices it has any right to complain about being isolated.
The project of individualism will always be in tension with the project of state welfare because the individual is ultimately unknowable, and yet the state must organize data about individuals in abstract and summarized ways that necessarily obscure and omit the depth of said individuals in order to do basic planning. In short, both factions of the debate are correct.
I think it can be done. I have many foundational reasons to believe this, but I'll give you a trivial anecdote. I live in a "black" neighborhood, no BLM signs here, ha. I visited some friends neighbors yesterday and their daughter was over with her 10 month old baby. She was named "Italy" after her great grandmother who was Italian. If you dig on race, you would call her and her child "black" but for me, it was a moment that crystallized a lot of how our shared humanity is what's at stake here. I used to call myself "multiracial" but after having Kmele in my ear for a few years, human works great for me. All the things of value in my opinion are cultural and ethnic. Aside from the biological fiction at root, I haven't seen "race" used productively ever - it's always a tool to enrich some charlatan and divide everyone else.
Mass cross cultural immigration is unpopular around the world, and if Elites continue ignoring this it is likely to lead to further populist-nationalist backlashes, not cosmopolitan harmony. A look at the historical record shows that conflict between different groups has been common throughout human history. Tribalism is the default mode of human political organization. The world’s largest land empire,that of the Mongols, was a tribal organization. But tribalism is hard to abandon, again suggesting that an evolutionary change may be required. Cooperative defense by tribal peoples is universal and ancient and it is bound to have boosted the genetic fitness of those who acted to further the interests of their group. Under such circumstances it would be odd indeed if natural selection did not mold the human mind to be predisposed to ethnocentrism. People organize politically around some aspects of shared identity. Humans are designed to be tribal. We are wired to organize ourselves socially into in-groups (our own group) and out-groups (others' groups), and to organize ourselves cognitively so that our reasoning processes and even our sensory perceptions support in-group solidarity.
I suspect that a major reason why people like Shelby and Kmele are downplaying the relevance of race is that race is oftentimes used by Black Americans as a crutch to absolve oneself of personal responsibility. In such cases, racial identity is surely a net negative.
On the other hand, I agree with Glenn. Transracial humanism is a nice idea but it might not only be ahistorical but also anti-scientific. I’ve yet to see evidence that human beings have managed to shed their inherent tribalism on any meaningful level. Personally, I don’t find race as interesting as I do culture, but there’s obviously a tight correlation between culture and race or at the very least between culture and ethnicity. It’s hard to talk about Chinese culture independent of Chinese people just as it’s hard to talk about African American culture independent of African Americans and their historical experiences. Because of that tight linkage, I think race will always remain relevant even if the distinctions that we find the most interesting are the cultural ones as opposed to superficial phenotypic differences among different ethnic groups.
I agree with other commenters here. While we often dismiss the left's obsession with intersectionality, there's definitely truth to the notion that as human beings we have multiple and overlapping identities. I may be first and foremost a human being and a citizen of the world, but I'm also an American and someone who's ethnically Chinese. These different identities all manifest themselves and play an important role in terms of defining who I am.
Only had time to read. Sorry. Agreed with all four, and virtually all the 37 comments so far. I was gonna quote M Kmele Foster, but it would involve quoting just about all-a it. So, instead, quote this from M Shelby Steele:
"You're fighting a straw man. We would never throw it over. How could you? Why would you want to? I've been studying black American culture all my life. I love it. It is ... there's gotta be a word stronger than “identification.” It has made me who I am. I'm grateful for it. And yet, the world works by evolution. It evolves. It transforms. We won our long fight against racism. For example, in 1964, when the Civil Rights Bill was passed—what is that, 60, 70 years ago—we won. It wasn't manifested in reality yet entirely, but increasingly we have just become more and more and more and more free.
"And at this point, it seems to me, we are balking in the face of freedom. We are intimidated by what it asks of us."
Everyone, AFAIK, is on the same highway to heaven. It's just that there's 8 billion on- and exit-ramps.
I think most everyone can treat individuals as individuals, when they're dealing one-on-one. At least I believe that. When You get three people together, You got a group. And then so on to the millions.
How much One tenders to the group identity is a choice. A balance. Sometimes more comfortable than others. Me? I like one-on-one "conversations," like this one. Thank You (and Happy Thanksgiving) to all.
Excellent discussion! I could not disagree with any one of you. But the problem I have with the discussion of 'race' in this country today is the talking around the huge 'elephant' in the room' of 'Systemic Racism'. No doubt 'Systemic Racism' still exists as it has existed here in what is now the US for the past 400 years. It is certainly less in your face today than in the past, thanks to Abraham Lincoln and MLK especially, along with the excellent efforts of so many others. But the Right and its Conservative Leaders (many of whom are Black) does itself no favors and worse, no favors to our black brothers and sisters when we fail to address the continuing existence of 'Systemic Racism'! And most especially the early, middle and late progenitors of same, specifically and loudly!
Yes, 'Systemic Racism' has always existed in the US in numerous ways. Currently two huge examples are the structurally terrible, (and some would say purposefully so), Public School Systems across this nation! And the 'Black Lives Matter/Defund the Police' movements. Both 'systems' are terribly racist, yet they are both supported by our black brothers and sisters politically ... 90% of the time! Yes Democrat Party and your MSM, Big Education, Big Business, Hollywood and Silicone Valley acolytes, ... I am talking to you.
You folks are the promulgaters of todays 'Systemic Racism' just as you have always been for the past 400 years. Yet you successfully avoid taking any responsibility here (You lie constantly!), by throwing shade on the Right! And until the real leaders of the Black Community stand up and begin to hold the Democrat Party and their ilk responsible for their racist sins, I am afraid we will never end Racism in America!
Bottom line, what I am saying here is this. Defeat the Democrat Party at all levels of society for they are the 'elephant in the room' that has sponsored our nations 'Systemic Racism now for 400 years. Of course these folks have many other deficiencies that we would all be better off if they did not exist! But that is another story.
Should other groups engage in a similar form of collective solidarity and, where needed, uplift, which is based on and focuses on common ethnoracial, cultural, and, in some cases, geographic experiences and perspectives? I understand it can sound audacious if not clueless to suggest the group at the center of this discussion can or should just cast off any sense of deeply-rooted black identity as if it were an item of clothing one had physically outgrown. Not after hundreds of years of blackness being imposed as a negative identity in every horrific way imaginable. But I can’t help thinking of what John McWhorter has sometimes said. To paraphrase: when we discuss disparities and struggles within the black community, we’re not really talking about black Americans as a totality, at least not in 2022. We’re talking about approximately 1/3 of black Americans who live in somewhat isolated, insular, dominantly black, low income neighborhoods, most often in bigger cities. These are the people Robert Woodson is so admirably focused on working with to build positive, community-led organizations, informed and driven by people with a personal and local knowledge and stake in the problems they’re confronting and solutions they’re not only proposing, but exemplifying. Robert Woodson doesn’t work with Glenn Loury because Glenn Loury needs help, but because Glenn Loury gives a damn and knows a lot and is in a position to help some of the community-led organizations Robert Woodson has helped to build. I don’t know much of anything else about these gutsy women’s personal politics, but I agree that there are few rejoinders and criticisms more powerful than when Tamir Rice’s mother and the mothers of other young men lost to fatal encounters with police, speak up and shame BLM for their phony, selfish, greedy exploitation of their sons’ deaths and their fundamental unseriousness regarding most aspects of the challenges facing these women’s communities. When rioting was destroying parts of Minneapolis two years ago, nothing stopped me cold like seeing an older, disabled black woman crying because all the local stores she relied on for her essentials were burned down or gated and abandoned, or smashed and looted. She was scared and didn’t know what to do or where to go. There is a real moral authority there nothing and no one exogenous can dismiss. At a time when there is such overwhelming cultural and financial and institutional emphasis on bureaucratic, top-down policies imposed from without, policies which have too often proven inadequate at best, no one can seriously begrudge the sincere personal commitment of people like Dr. Loury to pitch in. We all ought to care - when it comes to any of our struggling fellow Americans. I just rewatched Mario Cuomo’s speech at the 1984 Democratic National Convention. We cannot live and thrive as a civic nation when we ignore or abandon the suffering of other Americans, as the problems of some anonymous, atomized individuals, irrelevant to ourselves. And RFK and Jesse Jackson, to his credit, were seldom more powerful and compelling than when they spoke up for more than one race, one group, and instead insisted we see the common humanity and care equally about people as apparently, superficially different than black Americans living in endemic poverty in inner cities, and white Americans living in geographic isolation and deep intergenerational poverty in Appalachia. One could extend this analysis and sense of solidarity to other groups, too, of course. My guess is a lot of Robert Woodson’s community-driven approach is also what’s likely to be most relevant, compelling, and effective in these other contexts as well. As someone whose (much older) grandparents grew up as sharecroppers in eastern Kentucky, who ended their schooling in the third and fourth grades, do I have a special responsibility to contributing to community-led organizations in Appalachia? Ironically, I was born in Detroit, and my early view of the world was one of black and white Americans living next door to each other (in our high-rise at least) and mostly getting along quite beautifully. Due to where I’ve lived since, I’ve done far more work related to the concerns of urban black American communities than I have in or related to my now somewhat distant Appalachian heritage. According to JD Vance, his grandparents moving to Middletown, Ohio in search of opportunity was enough to make him an outsider when they’d return to visit in the Summer, no matter how much close family remained as deeply-rooted there as before.
To return to my opening question: as demographics change with accelerating speed, as intersectionality and equity are imposed with ever more force in ever more institutions and contexts, as white Americans report sharply more pessimistic attitudes re: their own futures and the future of this country compared with black, Latino and other Americans, and as life expectancy among white Americans actually continues to decline, especially within that most dreaded and derided cohort of aging white men, due to deaths of despair - fentanyl, alcohol, cigarettes, loneliness, isolation, depression, utter loss of meaning, purpose, community, hope, how should we as Americans, and how should I, as the son of a man born and raised in Appalachia who faced his own death of despair at only fifty-two, regard the need for empowerment among profoundly struggling, and, if we’re being honest, grossly demonized lower-working class and impoverished white Americans? The only (presumably) white people I’ve personally encountered who had an kind of time for white identity politics have been mostly ignored idiots commenting anonymously here and there online. Half of them could be bots or troll farm accounts for all I know. I can’t stand most forms of identitarianism and white identitarianism is among the dumbest and least constructive. And not just for the blindingly obvious historical and contextual reasons. But a lot of white Americans comprise a population in free-fall, and so many started in awfully bleak circumstances to begin with. At the same time, they are increasingly being scapegoated for everything and defined out of our polity - out of having any moral standing at all - by the major party I had always supported. Elites absolutely cannot wait until more of them die off, as soon and in as much misery as possible. Virtually no one cares that so many can no longer afford to form stable families or have and raise children in a stable environment. If you saw Chuck Schumer’s stunningly blunt admission the other day, elites have no concern whatsoever about why struggling Americans, black or white, can’t have kids at the rate so many would desperately love to. There zero concern or even curiosity. Schumer’s solution and pledge is that Democrats will, beginning with DACA, seek to legalize and offer full citizenship to every single illegal immigrant in the US (and presumably any who want to come, with no limit). He openly stated this applies to all illegal immigrants, “however many there are” (Twenty million? Thirty million? Who knows!) This is a very overt declaration by the Majority Leader of the US Senate that struggling Americans who can no longer afford to responsibly form families and have kids, no matter how much they want to, should and will be replaced, “to keep the American Dream alive”. I can’t help thinking of the legacy Americans, black and white and every other group, who have given so much to this country. And to many in charge, they don’t deserve help and support and community-led resources (as well as federal policies re: immigration and trade, etc). They deserve to be replaced by people who have been able to leverage a subsidized illegal immigrant model for family formation and having and raising kids. That’s not a model that can work for American citizens. My instinct is that investment and uplift for all of our struggling citizens is best grounded in the solidarity of civic nationalism and positive, inclusive, unifying patriotism. But the very notion and meaning of citizenship has been grossly degraded over the past decades, and quite intentionally, often from an overt ideological basis. Even the most benign patriotism has been ever more widely ridiculed and dismissed as anachronistic and actively contemptible. So is our only realistic option for uplift and community building a special at times localized ethno-racial solidarity? The black American historical experience is obviously unique in profound ways. But in 2022, with race essentialism and zero-sum tribalism, separatism, and new supposedly oppression-based hierarchies of group status and standing increasingly dominant throughout elite culture and most of our institutions, does it make sense for the at-heart universalists, individualists, and humanists among us to continue to give racial identity and solidarity primacy in our organizing efforts? If it’s an effective strategic counter to the shibboleths of left identitarianism to say, “No, we’re black and we live here and you don’t speak for us or understand the kind of constructive support we need. Your distant fantasies are making things worse”, for how long? When and how will we know when we don’t need to resort to in-group appeals and rationales? And yes, I’m concerned that, as the material fortunes and standing of already badly struggling white Americans continue to plummet, as identity insult after insult is piled on top of material and spiritual suffering, as gross open discrimination against already struggling white Americans becomes ubiquitous in the name of “equity”, there will be ever more resort to and exploitation of a toxic and hostile white identitarianism. How much and for how long do we want groups who suffer hardship and mistreatment to respond with racially conscious appeals which imply a negative integration rather than the solidarity of shared citizenship?
Bingo. We are all Americans, native born or naturalized through the proper channels. While it is quite natural to gravitate toward some shared ethno-cultural identity-Irish, Italian, German, Mexican, African, in the end we are all here in this country and struggle for the same basics-food, shelter, security. Meanwhile, the elite politicians continue to try to divide us so as to deflect from the fact that they are not providing solutions to these basic problems.
Don't confuse the European immigrants of the pre-1965 days with what we have now -- a multicultural and multi-ethnic democracy. LBJ changed the immigration laws in 1965 and that makes all the difference.
National Bureau of Economic Research NBER Working Paper No. 21079
Issued in April 2015, Revised in September 2019
This research advances the hypothesis and establishes empirically that interpersonal population diversity, rather than fractionalization or polarization across ethnic groups, has been pivotal to the emergence, prevalence, recurrence, and severity of intra-societal conflicts. Exploiting an exogenous source of variations in population diversity across nations and ethnic groups, as determined predominantly during the exodus of humans from Africa tens of thousands of years ago, the study demonstrates that population diversity, and its impact on the degree of diversity within ethnic groups, has contributed significantly to the risk and intensity of historical and contemporary civil conflicts. The findings reflect the contribution of population diversity to the non-cohesivnesss of society, as reflected partly in the prevalence of mistrust, the divergence in preferences for public goods and re-distributive policies, and the degree of fractionalization and polarization across ethnic, linguistic, and religious groups.
Hey E.W.R., this was the best comment/essay I have read all year. TYVM for articulating the other form of racism that is so rampant and under-reported. I pray Glenn will address it with his broad connections and audience. Please do keep writing and fighting the good fight for all Americans. Happy Thanksgiving: you earned it.
Thank you so much for extending such a kind and generous reply! I hope you’re having a wonderful Thanksgiving. I’m thankful for this community - where a major scholar and public intellectual asks difficult questions in conversation with other leading lights, and thoughtful people who love our country (and who might have thought of ourselves not so long ago as occupying quite different places on the political map) can join together in sharing ideas and experiences and in figuring out how to best move forward together. I hope everyone, including our generous hosts, are having a wonderful Thanksgiving, too.
Many thanks for your reply. I agree with you that women (not only white women), Black people and maybe simply people in general have inherited certain survival strategies from the past and are now trying to cope in a new situation.
I think, however, that by "white women" you mean middle-class white women. Many white women had to work outside home, at least as long as they were unmarried. "In 1840, about 10 percent of free women held jobs, climbing to 15 percent in 1870 (when all African-American women would have been included in the totals for the first time) and to 24 percent by 1920." http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-349-27698-1_6
I would add that the phenomenon of single white women is not recent - even in the 19th century there were white women who never married and did not have children.
I agree more with Shelby because it seems to me that a) blacks are a bigger threat to blacks than non-blacks (as evidenced by the overwhelming majority of black on black violence), b) straight white males are by law (Affirmative Action) not given equal protections as others, and c) mass media (eg CNN, MSNBC, NYT, WAPO) regularly vilify straight white males in a way they would never do to others. The racism thst does exist is bias against whites.
Obviously super late but I could not help thinking about the Alabama voting rights case, Merrill v. Milligan I think. If there are race hustlers then there are also post-race hustlers who are willing to say that since there is no more racism we will ignore the highly racially polarized voting pattern which should allow a district where Black voters could elect a candidate of choice according to the 1982 VRA and give white voters the same political power they have always had. Also since there is no more racism politics will continue to be about things which directly affect white middle-class voters even if problems such as poverty/economic inequality and the criminal justice system which affect everyone stagnate out of public view.
Blacks today are not victims of the legacy of slavery. They are victims of the legacy of liberalism/the great society/social policies of the 50s in the 60s. Shelby steele
Saying that black people today are victims of the legacy of slavery is a statement of white supremacy because it assumes black people are not capable of overcoming problems without outside/government help, the help of the white liberal
Tribalism a threat to civilized society….
Tribal people are incapable of developing a settled and prosperous society because the principles of meritocracy will not be decided on their skills but on their tribal or ethnic associations with someone else, like under Marxism including America under progressivism and feudal Europe. Marxism’s message will always be easier to convert people because I appeals to the most guttural/amygdaloid human emotions such as envy, injustice, rage, jealousy, etc. Understanding individual freedom is a multi-step process and requires higher brain functioning, and thus is much more difficult to achieve in the general population es especially where the education system has been taken over by a Marxist based thespec Especially where the education system and culture have been taken over by a Marxist-based theology.
There's an old joke about a psychiatrist giving a Rorschach test to a client. With every blink blot, the client sees a picture of sex. The psychiatrist is really concerned, and tells the client it is unsettling that every picture reminds him of sex. The client responds, "Me! You're the one with all the dirty pictures!"
Sooo, maybe not everything that is seen as a racial incident is really a racial incident. And maybe not every racial incident is a case of a White man oppressing a black man. Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin are both cases where what people "saw" is not even a little bit like what was really there. And Nick Sandman and Kye Rittenhouse were both judged guilty by the ink-blot readers, in spite of the fact that simply paying attention to the videos proved they were not.
Yes, there's racism. So, what's your point? Why is the above discussion focused only on discrimination against blacks by Whites, and not about ALL discrimination? Why has the civil war been all but erased from any discussion concerning slavery? HOW could the civil war be erased from any discussion of slavery? Because it doesn't fit the narrative. You know the narrative: All Whites are guilty of discrimination of all blacks. Period. The only distinction is that those whites who recognize it are Woke, and those who don't are White supremacists.
And, what of interracial marriage? You know, like Barak Obama? Back in the day, the true White supremacists tried to make distinctions concerning how much black blood a person had. Through all of the time of slavery, there were in fact many legitimate mixed-race unions. Not in the deep south, but they had them. Of course, in the south there were slave women with children fathered by their White masters. That's a whole other story, and a very long one. Still, there were legitimate marriages of black and White. It took well over a century, but those marriages were finally recognized by the Supreme Court. Great! The races are coming together! Oops. Along came Obama, with the chance to be the poster boy for mixed race marriages. He blew it. Instead, he denigrated the White side of the family that raised him, while praising the "victimized" black side of the family that abandoned him.
Balck solidarity is a form of isolationism. No one who practices it has any right to complain about being isolated.
The project of individualism will always be in tension with the project of state welfare because the individual is ultimately unknowable, and yet the state must organize data about individuals in abstract and summarized ways that necessarily obscure and omit the depth of said individuals in order to do basic planning. In short, both factions of the debate are correct.
I think it can be done. I have many foundational reasons to believe this, but I'll give you a trivial anecdote. I live in a "black" neighborhood, no BLM signs here, ha. I visited some friends neighbors yesterday and their daughter was over with her 10 month old baby. She was named "Italy" after her great grandmother who was Italian. If you dig on race, you would call her and her child "black" but for me, it was a moment that crystallized a lot of how our shared humanity is what's at stake here. I used to call myself "multiracial" but after having Kmele in my ear for a few years, human works great for me. All the things of value in my opinion are cultural and ethnic. Aside from the biological fiction at root, I haven't seen "race" used productively ever - it's always a tool to enrich some charlatan and divide everyone else.
Mass cross cultural immigration is unpopular around the world, and if Elites continue ignoring this it is likely to lead to further populist-nationalist backlashes, not cosmopolitan harmony. A look at the historical record shows that conflict between different groups has been common throughout human history. Tribalism is the default mode of human political organization. The world’s largest land empire,that of the Mongols, was a tribal organization. But tribalism is hard to abandon, again suggesting that an evolutionary change may be required. Cooperative defense by tribal peoples is universal and ancient and it is bound to have boosted the genetic fitness of those who acted to further the interests of their group. Under such circumstances it would be odd indeed if natural selection did not mold the human mind to be predisposed to ethnocentrism. People organize politically around some aspects of shared identity. Humans are designed to be tribal. We are wired to organize ourselves socially into in-groups (our own group) and out-groups (others' groups), and to organize ourselves cognitively so that our reasoning processes and even our sensory perceptions support in-group solidarity.
"You use the venom of the snake to create the anti-venom."
I love Bob Woodson's words of wisdom. Can we turn that into a t-shirt?
I suspect that a major reason why people like Shelby and Kmele are downplaying the relevance of race is that race is oftentimes used by Black Americans as a crutch to absolve oneself of personal responsibility. In such cases, racial identity is surely a net negative.
On the other hand, I agree with Glenn. Transracial humanism is a nice idea but it might not only be ahistorical but also anti-scientific. I’ve yet to see evidence that human beings have managed to shed their inherent tribalism on any meaningful level. Personally, I don’t find race as interesting as I do culture, but there’s obviously a tight correlation between culture and race or at the very least between culture and ethnicity. It’s hard to talk about Chinese culture independent of Chinese people just as it’s hard to talk about African American culture independent of African Americans and their historical experiences. Because of that tight linkage, I think race will always remain relevant even if the distinctions that we find the most interesting are the cultural ones as opposed to superficial phenotypic differences among different ethnic groups.
I agree with other commenters here. While we often dismiss the left's obsession with intersectionality, there's definitely truth to the notion that as human beings we have multiple and overlapping identities. I may be first and foremost a human being and a citizen of the world, but I'm also an American and someone who's ethnically Chinese. These different identities all manifest themselves and play an important role in terms of defining who I am.
Only had time to read. Sorry. Agreed with all four, and virtually all the 37 comments so far. I was gonna quote M Kmele Foster, but it would involve quoting just about all-a it. So, instead, quote this from M Shelby Steele:
"You're fighting a straw man. We would never throw it over. How could you? Why would you want to? I've been studying black American culture all my life. I love it. It is ... there's gotta be a word stronger than “identification.” It has made me who I am. I'm grateful for it. And yet, the world works by evolution. It evolves. It transforms. We won our long fight against racism. For example, in 1964, when the Civil Rights Bill was passed—what is that, 60, 70 years ago—we won. It wasn't manifested in reality yet entirely, but increasingly we have just become more and more and more and more free.
"And at this point, it seems to me, we are balking in the face of freedom. We are intimidated by what it asks of us."
Everyone, AFAIK, is on the same highway to heaven. It's just that there's 8 billion on- and exit-ramps.
I think most everyone can treat individuals as individuals, when they're dealing one-on-one. At least I believe that. When You get three people together, You got a group. And then so on to the millions.
How much One tenders to the group identity is a choice. A balance. Sometimes more comfortable than others. Me? I like one-on-one "conversations," like this one. Thank You (and Happy Thanksgiving) to all.
Excellent discussion! I could not disagree with any one of you. But the problem I have with the discussion of 'race' in this country today is the talking around the huge 'elephant' in the room' of 'Systemic Racism'. No doubt 'Systemic Racism' still exists as it has existed here in what is now the US for the past 400 years. It is certainly less in your face today than in the past, thanks to Abraham Lincoln and MLK especially, along with the excellent efforts of so many others. But the Right and its Conservative Leaders (many of whom are Black) does itself no favors and worse, no favors to our black brothers and sisters when we fail to address the continuing existence of 'Systemic Racism'! And most especially the early, middle and late progenitors of same, specifically and loudly!
Yes, 'Systemic Racism' has always existed in the US in numerous ways. Currently two huge examples are the structurally terrible, (and some would say purposefully so), Public School Systems across this nation! And the 'Black Lives Matter/Defund the Police' movements. Both 'systems' are terribly racist, yet they are both supported by our black brothers and sisters politically ... 90% of the time! Yes Democrat Party and your MSM, Big Education, Big Business, Hollywood and Silicone Valley acolytes, ... I am talking to you.
You folks are the promulgaters of todays 'Systemic Racism' just as you have always been for the past 400 years. Yet you successfully avoid taking any responsibility here (You lie constantly!), by throwing shade on the Right! And until the real leaders of the Black Community stand up and begin to hold the Democrat Party and their ilk responsible for their racist sins, I am afraid we will never end Racism in America!
Bottom line, what I am saying here is this. Defeat the Democrat Party at all levels of society for they are the 'elephant in the room' that has sponsored our nations 'Systemic Racism now for 400 years. Of course these folks have many other deficiencies that we would all be better off if they did not exist! But that is another story.
PS - I just wrote a comment here moments ago, but it went into a black hole. Can you extricate it for me? Thanks! Roger Rule
Should other groups engage in a similar form of collective solidarity and, where needed, uplift, which is based on and focuses on common ethnoracial, cultural, and, in some cases, geographic experiences and perspectives? I understand it can sound audacious if not clueless to suggest the group at the center of this discussion can or should just cast off any sense of deeply-rooted black identity as if it were an item of clothing one had physically outgrown. Not after hundreds of years of blackness being imposed as a negative identity in every horrific way imaginable. But I can’t help thinking of what John McWhorter has sometimes said. To paraphrase: when we discuss disparities and struggles within the black community, we’re not really talking about black Americans as a totality, at least not in 2022. We’re talking about approximately 1/3 of black Americans who live in somewhat isolated, insular, dominantly black, low income neighborhoods, most often in bigger cities. These are the people Robert Woodson is so admirably focused on working with to build positive, community-led organizations, informed and driven by people with a personal and local knowledge and stake in the problems they’re confronting and solutions they’re not only proposing, but exemplifying. Robert Woodson doesn’t work with Glenn Loury because Glenn Loury needs help, but because Glenn Loury gives a damn and knows a lot and is in a position to help some of the community-led organizations Robert Woodson has helped to build. I don’t know much of anything else about these gutsy women’s personal politics, but I agree that there are few rejoinders and criticisms more powerful than when Tamir Rice’s mother and the mothers of other young men lost to fatal encounters with police, speak up and shame BLM for their phony, selfish, greedy exploitation of their sons’ deaths and their fundamental unseriousness regarding most aspects of the challenges facing these women’s communities. When rioting was destroying parts of Minneapolis two years ago, nothing stopped me cold like seeing an older, disabled black woman crying because all the local stores she relied on for her essentials were burned down or gated and abandoned, or smashed and looted. She was scared and didn’t know what to do or where to go. There is a real moral authority there nothing and no one exogenous can dismiss. At a time when there is such overwhelming cultural and financial and institutional emphasis on bureaucratic, top-down policies imposed from without, policies which have too often proven inadequate at best, no one can seriously begrudge the sincere personal commitment of people like Dr. Loury to pitch in. We all ought to care - when it comes to any of our struggling fellow Americans. I just rewatched Mario Cuomo’s speech at the 1984 Democratic National Convention. We cannot live and thrive as a civic nation when we ignore or abandon the suffering of other Americans, as the problems of some anonymous, atomized individuals, irrelevant to ourselves. And RFK and Jesse Jackson, to his credit, were seldom more powerful and compelling than when they spoke up for more than one race, one group, and instead insisted we see the common humanity and care equally about people as apparently, superficially different than black Americans living in endemic poverty in inner cities, and white Americans living in geographic isolation and deep intergenerational poverty in Appalachia. One could extend this analysis and sense of solidarity to other groups, too, of course. My guess is a lot of Robert Woodson’s community-driven approach is also what’s likely to be most relevant, compelling, and effective in these other contexts as well. As someone whose (much older) grandparents grew up as sharecroppers in eastern Kentucky, who ended their schooling in the third and fourth grades, do I have a special responsibility to contributing to community-led organizations in Appalachia? Ironically, I was born in Detroit, and my early view of the world was one of black and white Americans living next door to each other (in our high-rise at least) and mostly getting along quite beautifully. Due to where I’ve lived since, I’ve done far more work related to the concerns of urban black American communities than I have in or related to my now somewhat distant Appalachian heritage. According to JD Vance, his grandparents moving to Middletown, Ohio in search of opportunity was enough to make him an outsider when they’d return to visit in the Summer, no matter how much close family remained as deeply-rooted there as before.
To return to my opening question: as demographics change with accelerating speed, as intersectionality and equity are imposed with ever more force in ever more institutions and contexts, as white Americans report sharply more pessimistic attitudes re: their own futures and the future of this country compared with black, Latino and other Americans, and as life expectancy among white Americans actually continues to decline, especially within that most dreaded and derided cohort of aging white men, due to deaths of despair - fentanyl, alcohol, cigarettes, loneliness, isolation, depression, utter loss of meaning, purpose, community, hope, how should we as Americans, and how should I, as the son of a man born and raised in Appalachia who faced his own death of despair at only fifty-two, regard the need for empowerment among profoundly struggling, and, if we’re being honest, grossly demonized lower-working class and impoverished white Americans? The only (presumably) white people I’ve personally encountered who had an kind of time for white identity politics have been mostly ignored idiots commenting anonymously here and there online. Half of them could be bots or troll farm accounts for all I know. I can’t stand most forms of identitarianism and white identitarianism is among the dumbest and least constructive. And not just for the blindingly obvious historical and contextual reasons. But a lot of white Americans comprise a population in free-fall, and so many started in awfully bleak circumstances to begin with. At the same time, they are increasingly being scapegoated for everything and defined out of our polity - out of having any moral standing at all - by the major party I had always supported. Elites absolutely cannot wait until more of them die off, as soon and in as much misery as possible. Virtually no one cares that so many can no longer afford to form stable families or have and raise children in a stable environment. If you saw Chuck Schumer’s stunningly blunt admission the other day, elites have no concern whatsoever about why struggling Americans, black or white, can’t have kids at the rate so many would desperately love to. There zero concern or even curiosity. Schumer’s solution and pledge is that Democrats will, beginning with DACA, seek to legalize and offer full citizenship to every single illegal immigrant in the US (and presumably any who want to come, with no limit). He openly stated this applies to all illegal immigrants, “however many there are” (Twenty million? Thirty million? Who knows!) This is a very overt declaration by the Majority Leader of the US Senate that struggling Americans who can no longer afford to responsibly form families and have kids, no matter how much they want to, should and will be replaced, “to keep the American Dream alive”. I can’t help thinking of the legacy Americans, black and white and every other group, who have given so much to this country. And to many in charge, they don’t deserve help and support and community-led resources (as well as federal policies re: immigration and trade, etc). They deserve to be replaced by people who have been able to leverage a subsidized illegal immigrant model for family formation and having and raising kids. That’s not a model that can work for American citizens. My instinct is that investment and uplift for all of our struggling citizens is best grounded in the solidarity of civic nationalism and positive, inclusive, unifying patriotism. But the very notion and meaning of citizenship has been grossly degraded over the past decades, and quite intentionally, often from an overt ideological basis. Even the most benign patriotism has been ever more widely ridiculed and dismissed as anachronistic and actively contemptible. So is our only realistic option for uplift and community building a special at times localized ethno-racial solidarity? The black American historical experience is obviously unique in profound ways. But in 2022, with race essentialism and zero-sum tribalism, separatism, and new supposedly oppression-based hierarchies of group status and standing increasingly dominant throughout elite culture and most of our institutions, does it make sense for the at-heart universalists, individualists, and humanists among us to continue to give racial identity and solidarity primacy in our organizing efforts? If it’s an effective strategic counter to the shibboleths of left identitarianism to say, “No, we’re black and we live here and you don’t speak for us or understand the kind of constructive support we need. Your distant fantasies are making things worse”, for how long? When and how will we know when we don’t need to resort to in-group appeals and rationales? And yes, I’m concerned that, as the material fortunes and standing of already badly struggling white Americans continue to plummet, as identity insult after insult is piled on top of material and spiritual suffering, as gross open discrimination against already struggling white Americans becomes ubiquitous in the name of “equity”, there will be ever more resort to and exploitation of a toxic and hostile white identitarianism. How much and for how long do we want groups who suffer hardship and mistreatment to respond with racially conscious appeals which imply a negative integration rather than the solidarity of shared citizenship?
Bingo. We are all Americans, native born or naturalized through the proper channels. While it is quite natural to gravitate toward some shared ethno-cultural identity-Irish, Italian, German, Mexican, African, in the end we are all here in this country and struggle for the same basics-food, shelter, security. Meanwhile, the elite politicians continue to try to divide us so as to deflect from the fact that they are not providing solutions to these basic problems.
Don't confuse the European immigrants of the pre-1965 days with what we have now -- a multicultural and multi-ethnic democracy. LBJ changed the immigration laws in 1965 and that makes all the difference.
National Bureau of Economic Research NBER Working Paper No. 21079
Issued in April 2015, Revised in September 2019
This research advances the hypothesis and establishes empirically that interpersonal population diversity, rather than fractionalization or polarization across ethnic groups, has been pivotal to the emergence, prevalence, recurrence, and severity of intra-societal conflicts. Exploiting an exogenous source of variations in population diversity across nations and ethnic groups, as determined predominantly during the exodus of humans from Africa tens of thousands of years ago, the study demonstrates that population diversity, and its impact on the degree of diversity within ethnic groups, has contributed significantly to the risk and intensity of historical and contemporary civil conflicts. The findings reflect the contribution of population diversity to the non-cohesivnesss of society, as reflected partly in the prevalence of mistrust, the divergence in preferences for public goods and re-distributive policies, and the degree of fractionalization and polarization across ethnic, linguistic, and religious groups.
Yeah, another *fine* one, E.W.R.
Hey E.W.R., this was the best comment/essay I have read all year. TYVM for articulating the other form of racism that is so rampant and under-reported. I pray Glenn will address it with his broad connections and audience. Please do keep writing and fighting the good fight for all Americans. Happy Thanksgiving: you earned it.
Thank you so much for extending such a kind and generous reply! I hope you’re having a wonderful Thanksgiving. I’m thankful for this community - where a major scholar and public intellectual asks difficult questions in conversation with other leading lights, and thoughtful people who love our country (and who might have thought of ourselves not so long ago as occupying quite different places on the political map) can join together in sharing ideas and experiences and in figuring out how to best move forward together. I hope everyone, including our generous hosts, are having a wonderful Thanksgiving, too.
Racism is human nature. If it weren't, it wouldn't be universal.
Many thanks for your reply. I agree with you that women (not only white women), Black people and maybe simply people in general have inherited certain survival strategies from the past and are now trying to cope in a new situation.
I think, however, that by "white women" you mean middle-class white women. Many white women had to work outside home, at least as long as they were unmarried. "In 1840, about 10 percent of free women held jobs, climbing to 15 percent in 1870 (when all African-American women would have been included in the totals for the first time) and to 24 percent by 1920." http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-349-27698-1_6
I would add that the phenomenon of single white women is not recent - even in the 19th century there were white women who never married and did not have children.
I agree more with Shelby because it seems to me that a) blacks are a bigger threat to blacks than non-blacks (as evidenced by the overwhelming majority of black on black violence), b) straight white males are by law (Affirmative Action) not given equal protections as others, and c) mass media (eg CNN, MSNBC, NYT, WAPO) regularly vilify straight white males in a way they would never do to others. The racism thst does exist is bias against whites.