Wow! You guys got it and said it! Really courageous. Here is how I would sum it; many blacks, Dems and woke cling to demagoguery bc the data doesn’t match their conclusions and bc it’s so hard for them to admit they depend on their government jobs and government welfare. They are over represented in abortions, crime, welfare and government jobs. Hard to look that shit in the mirror. Btw come to Philly and see first hand!
This is activism. It is not problem solving. It's not even problem discussion. The idea of unpacking issues to get at the underlying causes is anathema to activism. This means that generations from now will be hearing the exact same rhetoric. Activism has no desire to "fix" an issue. Most activists couldn't say what the fix would look like anyway. They are invested in perpetuating the problem or worse, the appearance of a problem. Doing so gives them a pulpit. For the DeAngelo wing, it's how they make a living. For Dyson, it's how he gets invited on tv shows and to conferences. If race was no longer an issue, what would those two and others like them do for their next grift?
John notes that the discussion is barely changed from the mid 1960s. Is any sane person honestly suggesting that nothing has changed since then? Seriously? In the 60s, the country was full of people who had used the "colored only" fountains, facilities, and entryways. There is no one being forced to do that today. In some places, we have the exact opposite going on - areas that are declared as hands-off to white people, as if discrimination is okay if pointed in the other direction, which by the way, pretty much defines affirmative action. Using race as the evaluation criteria is not okay simply because it's used to benefit the "correct" race.
If you want to be taken seriously, then live by the standards that apply to everyone else. That also includes the criticism. There can be no hiding behind race or gender when appropriate criticism is leveled. This persisted throughout Obama's presidency, as if none of predecessors - or his successor, for that matter - ever heard a discouraging word. Of course, they did. They all did. It's part of the job. Criticizing Obama was no more racist than was criticizing Trump or Bush or Clinton or anyone else. You will know when society has made progress on the identity front when a person of some group, any group, is called out for an action or words and no one mentions that person's identity status as an excuse or a deflection.
As John McWhorter has pointed out in his book "Woke Racism", CRT/DIE has now become a religion, but a very fundamental one. If you don't worship at the altar of anti-racism and/or diversity, or even the Climate altar, you will be chastised, vilified, and cancelled. Now the government is espousing these religions and instead of being free to practice or not practice a particular religion or believe in a particular God, you are being compelled to practice and follow the DIE, Transgender and Climate religions.
I went to this talk with Professor John Baugh. First time in a room with a flesh and blood linguist. He talked about the bias of accents with renters and home buyers. He talked about the loss of language during slavery. He took the opportunity to shame anyone who might think slavery wasn’t that bad. The most notable thing was that nobody asked him any good questions. One guy talked about intellectual property law in the, “it’s time for black people to get our own!” sermon, one guy quoted the Bible in front of his kids, one guy amusingly enough suggested whites start talking like blacks as an act of understanding....it was called the 19990s and the 2000s my friend.... I miss em too....anyways I bring up the loss of language during slavery. I say I’m glad he’s brought up, it truly demonstrates a loss beyond comprehension. It’s easy to dismiss the whole concept as racist with this understanding. However, the last hundred years has been the story of Wright, Baldwin, and Angelou; there are many others, I could make a list but I don’t have to. How do we reconcile African American literature as a product of the English language with larger Western Civilization? He complimented my question, added Zora Neale Hurston to the list of writers, and then said something to the effect of, “sometimes when you look outside it’s raining, and sometimes it’s not. Especially in the age of social media.” I like Tolstoy is mine better.
I watch just a bit of tv. When commercials come on with Black people in them, they seem to be carrying on dancing so much of the time. I don't see that as much with Hispanic/Asian/White people.
My imagination or is this something others have noticed?
How about a dialog with John where you discuss the economics of discrimination from the perspectives of Becker, Arrow, and Phelps? In particular, in the Kendi-DiAngelo "all group disparities are due to racism" framework, why are their followers so unsuccessful at arbitraging the racists out of business?
When freedom means expulsion from the meaning you've spent your life making, then freedom is hell. Instincts compel us to seek connections with coalitions of others. Once accepted into the group, one strives to achieve approval and acclaim. Their life depends on the status they achieve. Literally, studies have shown this. "Status syndrome"-a wealthy smoker just one rung below the very top of the status game was more likely to fall ill, as a result of their habit, than the smoker one rung above them. Their life is invested in the con through way of status. If you give up the con, what are you? Race hucksters. To be anything different would take true courage on their part. And they're not courageous. Courage necessitates honesty. It's why some black people in history such as MLK are truly courageous and apart. The content of one's character, not the color of one's skin. It's something I grew up with as a white kid and have never forgot understanding when I was very young without instruction because it seemed like it could be no other way. Not corrupted by adulthood. The simplicity of the sentiment is the why of its importance. It's so simple one matured should not have to state it. And certainly not question or defend it. Those who do feel compelled are hucksters. They are full of shit, and always will be. Some devolve, not evolve.
I’m an affirmative action baby and thank God for that! Unlike Loury and McWhorter, I am not the best or the brightest. I am the second best and second brightest and, because of affirmative action, I have gotten what I merit: a tenure track position at a second-rate university. Discrimination is real, and documented. Without an attempt on the part of my university to hire more women my options would have been at best secretarial. I was the second woman hired for a tenure track position in my department and the first to get tenure—to get a job commensurate to my qualifications, which a comparably qualified second-rate male would have gotten.
Racial discrimination is also real and documented. The best and brightest may beat the system but the second best and brightest, like myself, will not have options comparable to second-rate white males. Government intervention, through the enforcement of passive non-discrimination regulations and the promotion of affirmative action policies, gives second-rate minorities and second-rate women like myself parity with second-rate white males. I don’t have the ability to teach at a first-rate R1 university, much as I wish, and much as I am committed to research and have enjoyed some success. But I can do better than typing and filing or K-12 teaching, which would have been my only options without the enforcement of equal opportunity regulations and the commitment of my university to diversifying the composition of my department which, prior to my arrival, consisted of 17 tenure-track and tenured faculty members, all white males.
1) You’re tenure-track faculty? Regardless of the various writers’ points of view, virtually every other commenter I’ve read on this site would seem more qualified for such a post, based on the rigor of their arguments and quality of their prose.
2) What decade or even century do you think this is? There are now sixty-eight men in graduate and professional programs for every one hundred women and the ratio of women to men in undergrad is 40:60 - with the gap is both increasing. Meanwhile, guess how many men die on the job per every one hundred women: thousands and thousands upon thousands.
3) Gross preferences for women have been in place for over two generations. My mother was born in 1940 and, yes, for women of that generation it took unusual determination and support to crack and truly ascend within certain professions. And she was still a supervisor within a large federal agency by her late twenties with just a bachelor’s degree.
4) Is every comment from you going to be some version of: affirmative action is awesome and forever necessary, because I’m terminally mediocre and look how much I benefited? Combined with some laughably anachronistic assertion these are still the bad old days for women?
Thank-you E.W.R. for providing a robust response with relevant data. Indeed Affirmative Action now discriminates against those already suffering significantly from racism and sexism: white men.
That you get to enjoy mediocrity because of Affirmative Action is yet another good reason practices and policies that discriminate on the basis of race and sex should be eliminated as immoral, racist and sexist.
Sorry but affirmative action is discrimination based on race and gender and that makes it racist and sexist. Hard truth. AA causes other innocent people to suffer bc of their race or sex. Two wrongs don’t make a right.
Like Biden? Of course we can and should. But be honest: straight white men have no Affirmative Action legislation and institutions to get them hired and promoted (since 1964 btw). It has been legally unfair since 1964.
I'm talking about in the workplace, Libertarian. Mediocre white men can still rise pretty far. The rest of us have to OVER-perform to get half as far. As to your example of President Biden, he attained his high office due to the votes of millions of his fellow Americans. It's not the same situation at all-- unless you want to take into account former presidents like George W. Bush ...or the m ost recent ex-president, now retired in Florida
I saw just the opposite in 20+ years working for 2 Fortune 50 Big Pharma’s. Mediocre women and blacks were hired and promoted over white males strictly due to woke Affirmative Action. Affirmative Action has for decades rewarded lesser qualified. But it is hard to admit to being black/female privileged.
Firms and other non-state actors regularly discriminate against women and minorities. Mostly unintentionally, but discrimination is documented. Applicants with the same credentials are treated differently in virtue of race and sex. Affirmative action is a remedy to ongoing sexism and racism, aimed at ameliorating ongoing discrimination.
I agree that discrimination based on race or sex is unfair and immoral. So, how to you propose to address ongoing discrimination in hiring, promotion, access to credit, and other places where it occurs? I'm all ears.
Ok - please read this position from the Economist September 2018. “Affirmative action should be based on class, not race”. I would add; eliminate laws that discriminate on basis of race/sex. Prosecute where actors discriminate based on race/sex. I appreciate that mine is not a robust reply but that doesn’t mean that affirmative action isn’t racist and sexist. It does mean I’m not very articulate:D.
John is joking, but this is it. This is exactly it. Only it's not white "people," it's white liberals of a certain type. A type who's always hungry to feel morally superior to other white people, or to be seen as such. They NEED the urban black underclass to remain poor, poorly educated, and on the wrong side of the law. How else are they going to so easily signal their virtue?
I think that line from John is classic. Just as powerful as when he uses animals as a metaphor to describe the way blacks are seen by others. The other day someone on YouTube used Queen Elizabeth's II corgi dogs as another metaphor. It's the way certain groups view blacks. It's sad, but it's true. The books by Shelby Steele go in depth as to why this is so.
Keeping communities on the wrong side of the law also keeps em on the other side of the block . Gentrified types know it wether they ever acknowledge it or not.
This is America’s walk through the wilderness. How is this explained? Certainly not by economics, race theory, DEI or affirmative action. Psychosis, maybe, the racial warriors are hurting their supposed beneficiaries.
Fantastic excerpt. I tend to side with John on what might motivate a student to embrace such a worldview. I don't think it's necessarily insecurity that drives them, but rather the performative stance those students feel is expected of them. A stance guaranteeing hearty praise.
The mention of the New York Times made reminded me of the New York Times piece a few days ago about about the white woman, Black man, and Golden Retriever in Brooklyn's Prospect Park. If you can access the article, it's worth reading. Particularly the comments.
A brief sample: "Real-world ethics question: In a well-used city park, a man with a history of erratic behavior attacks a dog and its owner with a stick; five days later, the dog dies. The man is Black, the dog owner white; the adjoining neighborhood is famously progressive, often critical of the police and jail system. At the same time, crime is up in the neighborhood, with attacks by emotionally disturbed people around the city putting some residents on edge. In a dog-loving, progressive enclave, where pushing law and order can clash with calls for social justice, what’s the right thing to do? How do you protect the public without furthering injustice against this man?"
Furthering injustice? If you say so...
I mentioned the comments because, astonishingly, all of the top-voted comments are calling for, without qualification, the arrest and incarceration of the man. The Times article bravely clings to wokeness, but the progressive NY Times readers are having none of it. The daily horrors against humans didn't move them, but the dog is the straw that broke the camel's back.
One last thing, which I've tried before to shape into a Q&A question. Is not the exaggeration and constant focus on "injustice" a continuing get-out-the-vote strategy for Democrats? If Democrats lose the near monolithic electoral support of Blacks, they will cease to be competitive in presidential elections. I suggest that is the reason underlying John's observation about the practice of exaggeration:
"a critical mass of white people, instead of just a few fellow travelers, are now adopting that way of looking at race issues, too, and giving it their imprimatur."
I read, reluctantly, and with some frustration Freddie deBoer’s piece on this incident and affluent Brownstone Brooklyn’s reaction to it. He at least acknowledges there has to be some kind of effective public police force (if only for “random” crimes between strangers like this one) but he prefaces and conditions that most basic acknowledgment with so many tedious, extraordinarily exaggerated concessions to what the affluent cultural left willfully, ignorantly make believes about policing in places like NYC in 2022, even that brief comment is hard to take. deBoer has apparently lived in Park Slope for a couple years and so has some perspective regarding how ridiculous so many of the infamously selfish, self-regarding, actually profoundly privileged people in that area really are. Having lived in Park Slope and Windsor Terrace for almost ten years, and been part of a number of community groups, I know the type well. (Overheard just walking down 7th Avenue near 1st Street one evening: middle aged woman on her phone, at the threshold of her front door, shout-talking for anyone in the vicinity: “Hopefully, while I’m there, I’ll have a chance to stop by DAVOS!!!”) I also spent some time about the years ago working on campaigns related to ending excessive force and over- policing everyone within certain neighborhoods. The present mentality in places like Park Slope seems to assume and require asserting that typical policing in NYC in 2022 is akin to the most heavy-handed behavior and policies of the Giuliani years. It’s delusional. But like the demagoguery of the race debate itself, reality isn’t so important. The NYPD Commissioner is a black woman. The police force is spectacularly diverse. At least one officer in Queens wears a slightly modified uniform to comply with his Sikh faith. I’ve interacted plenty with NYPD officers over the years and the image of some burly racist (and of course, white) thug doesn’t fit. I’m a little over six feet and most cops I’ve spoken with come up to my shoulders at most. There are a lot of women on the force and virtually every ethnicity in the city is represented. Virtually all cops I’ve dealt with have been calm, polite, and a professional. This notion that to call the police when you need help is to immediately invite brutes from some anachronistic era to begin brutalizing any and all (holy, noble, childlike) “people of color” in the vicinity is just laughable. Take one often stressful issue so many NYers know too well: expensive, tenuous housing situations of questionable legality. Who are you going to call when a building owner or their cronies literally invade your living space? A rival gang or warlord? Do you just wait for your civil court date? The NYPD is a generally very well-trained and highly-professional police force whose officers know the city extremely well and act calmly and with a sense of proportion. But it’s apparently essential as part of the affluent denizens’ of these neighborhoods need to competitively broadcast cutting-edge, left-wing pseudo-virtue, and thus status, to other within that milieu, that they have to pretend that even acknowledging the occasional need for a police response is to somehow license near-genocide against “marginalized communities of color”. A violently mentally ill man, actively and actually making the park scary and physically dangerous for every other resident can literally beat to death about the gentlest type of dog on the planet, with zero provocation (maybe he was bravely “confronting whiteness” - ask the too-often-ridiculous people of Park Slope: it’s everyone’s foremost duty to be loudly and proactively “confronting whiteness” on a continual basis). And to even talk about in other than certain tones with certain priorities (acknowledging and “centering” the needs and lived experiences of the “unhoused individual of color”) is to be a virulent racist and white supremacist seeking to weaponize the newest manifestation of antebellum slave patrols in order to crush an already oppressed man and everyone like him for simply existing. I do wonder what’s being said though within the most trusted private conversations, those not taking place entirely in postmodern jargon. My guess is there’s some real consternation at how chaotic and genuinely unsafe some areas have become, including for women and dogs just peacefully living their truths. Perhaps any conflicted feelings are cause to compensate by hiring and promoting even more DEI consultants at work.
Agh! Love your writing E.W.R.! Direct and humorous and insightful. I am not sure if the Woke will ever be able to recognize their own hypocrisy. Some truths are just too much for weak minded people to even acknowledge let alone accept.
This was by far one of my favorite responses in 2021, and it sums up the Glenn and John tandem for all these years since the fall season of 2007 when they began their crusade. The Glenn show goes where no other intellectual will go.
There are human beings across this country and this world, who do not take black Americans seriously enough to hold them to real standards like everyone else. It's disgusting!!! People warned me about this stigma a long time ago, and I was fortunate enough to realize it before it was too late. The people who make grade school arguments for the misbehavior of blacks would never hold their own children to those same standards!!! This has been the main problem for several generations. Now you see the price that is paid.
During their last episode of 2018, entitled-What is Third Wave Anti-Racism?, Glenn went in depth about this issue. Most of these black intellectuals are ashamed about the failures and pathology of the black subculture. And that's why they make these childish claims.
Once again, I welcome my fellow subscribers to agree or disagree with me. The link of that older, but great episode is below. Glenn begins to explain at 12:57. Thanks!!
Hey Glenn, John. I think you will appreciate this. https://www.newsweek.com/democrats-are-losing-black-men-moynihan-report-explains-why-opinion-1751712?amp=1
Wow! You guys got it and said it! Really courageous. Here is how I would sum it; many blacks, Dems and woke cling to demagoguery bc the data doesn’t match their conclusions and bc it’s so hard for them to admit they depend on their government jobs and government welfare. They are over represented in abortions, crime, welfare and government jobs. Hard to look that shit in the mirror. Btw come to Philly and see first hand!
More race bating by an American hating, morally depraved, democrat party RASCIST! Nothing new about the spewing of his sewage.
This is activism. It is not problem solving. It's not even problem discussion. The idea of unpacking issues to get at the underlying causes is anathema to activism. This means that generations from now will be hearing the exact same rhetoric. Activism has no desire to "fix" an issue. Most activists couldn't say what the fix would look like anyway. They are invested in perpetuating the problem or worse, the appearance of a problem. Doing so gives them a pulpit. For the DeAngelo wing, it's how they make a living. For Dyson, it's how he gets invited on tv shows and to conferences. If race was no longer an issue, what would those two and others like them do for their next grift?
John notes that the discussion is barely changed from the mid 1960s. Is any sane person honestly suggesting that nothing has changed since then? Seriously? In the 60s, the country was full of people who had used the "colored only" fountains, facilities, and entryways. There is no one being forced to do that today. In some places, we have the exact opposite going on - areas that are declared as hands-off to white people, as if discrimination is okay if pointed in the other direction, which by the way, pretty much defines affirmative action. Using race as the evaluation criteria is not okay simply because it's used to benefit the "correct" race.
If you want to be taken seriously, then live by the standards that apply to everyone else. That also includes the criticism. There can be no hiding behind race or gender when appropriate criticism is leveled. This persisted throughout Obama's presidency, as if none of predecessors - or his successor, for that matter - ever heard a discouraging word. Of course, they did. They all did. It's part of the job. Criticizing Obama was no more racist than was criticizing Trump or Bush or Clinton or anyone else. You will know when society has made progress on the identity front when a person of some group, any group, is called out for an action or words and no one mentions that person's identity status as an excuse or a deflection.
As John McWhorter has pointed out in his book "Woke Racism", CRT/DIE has now become a religion, but a very fundamental one. If you don't worship at the altar of anti-racism and/or diversity, or even the Climate altar, you will be chastised, vilified, and cancelled. Now the government is espousing these religions and instead of being free to practice or not practice a particular religion or believe in a particular God, you are being compelled to practice and follow the DIE, Transgender and Climate religions.
I went to this talk with Professor John Baugh. First time in a room with a flesh and blood linguist. He talked about the bias of accents with renters and home buyers. He talked about the loss of language during slavery. He took the opportunity to shame anyone who might think slavery wasn’t that bad. The most notable thing was that nobody asked him any good questions. One guy talked about intellectual property law in the, “it’s time for black people to get our own!” sermon, one guy quoted the Bible in front of his kids, one guy amusingly enough suggested whites start talking like blacks as an act of understanding....it was called the 19990s and the 2000s my friend.... I miss em too....anyways I bring up the loss of language during slavery. I say I’m glad he’s brought up, it truly demonstrates a loss beyond comprehension. It’s easy to dismiss the whole concept as racist with this understanding. However, the last hundred years has been the story of Wright, Baldwin, and Angelou; there are many others, I could make a list but I don’t have to. How do we reconcile African American literature as a product of the English language with larger Western Civilization? He complimented my question, added Zora Neale Hurston to the list of writers, and then said something to the effect of, “sometimes when you look outside it’s raining, and sometimes it’s not. Especially in the age of social media.” I like Tolstoy is mine better.
Question:
I watch just a bit of tv. When commercials come on with Black people in them, they seem to be carrying on dancing so much of the time. I don't see that as much with Hispanic/Asian/White people.
My imagination or is this something others have noticed?
Glenn:
How about a dialog with John where you discuss the economics of discrimination from the perspectives of Becker, Arrow, and Phelps? In particular, in the Kendi-DiAngelo "all group disparities are due to racism" framework, why are their followers so unsuccessful at arbitraging the racists out of business?
When freedom means expulsion from the meaning you've spent your life making, then freedom is hell. Instincts compel us to seek connections with coalitions of others. Once accepted into the group, one strives to achieve approval and acclaim. Their life depends on the status they achieve. Literally, studies have shown this. "Status syndrome"-a wealthy smoker just one rung below the very top of the status game was more likely to fall ill, as a result of their habit, than the smoker one rung above them. Their life is invested in the con through way of status. If you give up the con, what are you? Race hucksters. To be anything different would take true courage on their part. And they're not courageous. Courage necessitates honesty. It's why some black people in history such as MLK are truly courageous and apart. The content of one's character, not the color of one's skin. It's something I grew up with as a white kid and have never forgot understanding when I was very young without instruction because it seemed like it could be no other way. Not corrupted by adulthood. The simplicity of the sentiment is the why of its importance. It's so simple one matured should not have to state it. And certainly not question or defend it. Those who do feel compelled are hucksters. They are full of shit, and always will be. Some devolve, not evolve.
I’m an affirmative action baby and thank God for that! Unlike Loury and McWhorter, I am not the best or the brightest. I am the second best and second brightest and, because of affirmative action, I have gotten what I merit: a tenure track position at a second-rate university. Discrimination is real, and documented. Without an attempt on the part of my university to hire more women my options would have been at best secretarial. I was the second woman hired for a tenure track position in my department and the first to get tenure—to get a job commensurate to my qualifications, which a comparably qualified second-rate male would have gotten.
Racial discrimination is also real and documented. The best and brightest may beat the system but the second best and brightest, like myself, will not have options comparable to second-rate white males. Government intervention, through the enforcement of passive non-discrimination regulations and the promotion of affirmative action policies, gives second-rate minorities and second-rate women like myself parity with second-rate white males. I don’t have the ability to teach at a first-rate R1 university, much as I wish, and much as I am committed to research and have enjoyed some success. But I can do better than typing and filing or K-12 teaching, which would have been my only options without the enforcement of equal opportunity regulations and the commitment of my university to diversifying the composition of my department which, prior to my arrival, consisted of 17 tenure-track and tenured faculty members, all white males.
1) You’re tenure-track faculty? Regardless of the various writers’ points of view, virtually every other commenter I’ve read on this site would seem more qualified for such a post, based on the rigor of their arguments and quality of their prose.
2) What decade or even century do you think this is? There are now sixty-eight men in graduate and professional programs for every one hundred women and the ratio of women to men in undergrad is 40:60 - with the gap is both increasing. Meanwhile, guess how many men die on the job per every one hundred women: thousands and thousands upon thousands.
3) Gross preferences for women have been in place for over two generations. My mother was born in 1940 and, yes, for women of that generation it took unusual determination and support to crack and truly ascend within certain professions. And she was still a supervisor within a large federal agency by her late twenties with just a bachelor’s degree.
4) Is every comment from you going to be some version of: affirmative action is awesome and forever necessary, because I’m terminally mediocre and look how much I benefited? Combined with some laughably anachronistic assertion these are still the bad old days for women?
Thank-you E.W.R. for providing a robust response with relevant data. Indeed Affirmative Action now discriminates against those already suffering significantly from racism and sexism: white men.
I'm terminally mediocre! And I enjoy my mediocrity.
That you get to enjoy mediocrity because of Affirmative Action is yet another good reason practices and policies that discriminate on the basis of race and sex should be eliminated as immoral, racist and sexist.
Sorry but affirmative action is discrimination based on race and gender and that makes it racist and sexist. Hard truth. AA causes other innocent people to suffer bc of their race or sex. Two wrongs don’t make a right.
Then, can we stop promoting mediocre white men ?
Like Biden? Of course we can and should. But be honest: straight white men have no Affirmative Action legislation and institutions to get them hired and promoted (since 1964 btw). It has been legally unfair since 1964.
I'm talking about in the workplace, Libertarian. Mediocre white men can still rise pretty far. The rest of us have to OVER-perform to get half as far. As to your example of President Biden, he attained his high office due to the votes of millions of his fellow Americans. It's not the same situation at all-- unless you want to take into account former presidents like George W. Bush ...or the m ost recent ex-president, now retired in Florida
I saw just the opposite in 20+ years working for 2 Fortune 50 Big Pharma’s. Mediocre women and blacks were hired and promoted over white males strictly due to woke Affirmative Action. Affirmative Action has for decades rewarded lesser qualified. But it is hard to admit to being black/female privileged.
Firms and other non-state actors regularly discriminate against women and minorities. Mostly unintentionally, but discrimination is documented. Applicants with the same credentials are treated differently in virtue of race and sex. Affirmative action is a remedy to ongoing sexism and racism, aimed at ameliorating ongoing discrimination.
Sorry. Discrimination based on race or sex is necessarily racist and sexist. Doesn’t matter the color or sex. It is not equal, fair or moral.
I agree that discrimination based on race or sex is unfair and immoral. So, how to you propose to address ongoing discrimination in hiring, promotion, access to credit, and other places where it occurs? I'm all ears.
Ok - please read this position from the Economist September 2018. “Affirmative action should be based on class, not race”. I would add; eliminate laws that discriminate on basis of race/sex. Prosecute where actors discriminate based on race/sex. I appreciate that mine is not a robust reply but that doesn’t mean that affirmative action isn’t racist and sexist. It does mean I’m not very articulate:D.
Fair. I agree class rather than race should be the primary consideration. But race does figure. consider this: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/18/realestate/housing-discrimination-maryland.html And this still leaves over discrimination against women which is real and not a matter of class.
Thank-you and Fair question and please give me a little time to reply so that I are it as compelling and pragmatic as I can.
“ Because white people like it when we jam.”
Hahahahaha!
"Because white people like it when we jam."
John is joking, but this is it. This is exactly it. Only it's not white "people," it's white liberals of a certain type. A type who's always hungry to feel morally superior to other white people, or to be seen as such. They NEED the urban black underclass to remain poor, poorly educated, and on the wrong side of the law. How else are they going to so easily signal their virtue?
I think that line from John is classic. Just as powerful as when he uses animals as a metaphor to describe the way blacks are seen by others. The other day someone on YouTube used Queen Elizabeth's II corgi dogs as another metaphor. It's the way certain groups view blacks. It's sad, but it's true. The books by Shelby Steele go in depth as to why this is so.
Keeping communities on the wrong side of the law also keeps em on the other side of the block . Gentrified types know it wether they ever acknowledge it or not.
This is America’s walk through the wilderness. How is this explained? Certainly not by economics, race theory, DEI or affirmative action. Psychosis, maybe, the racial warriors are hurting their supposed beneficiaries.
Fantastic excerpt. I tend to side with John on what might motivate a student to embrace such a worldview. I don't think it's necessarily insecurity that drives them, but rather the performative stance those students feel is expected of them. A stance guaranteeing hearty praise.
The mention of the New York Times made reminded me of the New York Times piece a few days ago about about the white woman, Black man, and Golden Retriever in Brooklyn's Prospect Park. If you can access the article, it's worth reading. Particularly the comments.
A brief sample: "Real-world ethics question: In a well-used city park, a man with a history of erratic behavior attacks a dog and its owner with a stick; five days later, the dog dies. The man is Black, the dog owner white; the adjoining neighborhood is famously progressive, often critical of the police and jail system. At the same time, crime is up in the neighborhood, with attacks by emotionally disturbed people around the city putting some residents on edge. In a dog-loving, progressive enclave, where pushing law and order can clash with calls for social justice, what’s the right thing to do? How do you protect the public without furthering injustice against this man?"
Furthering injustice? If you say so...
I mentioned the comments because, astonishingly, all of the top-voted comments are calling for, without qualification, the arrest and incarceration of the man. The Times article bravely clings to wokeness, but the progressive NY Times readers are having none of it. The daily horrors against humans didn't move them, but the dog is the straw that broke the camel's back.
One last thing, which I've tried before to shape into a Q&A question. Is not the exaggeration and constant focus on "injustice" a continuing get-out-the-vote strategy for Democrats? If Democrats lose the near monolithic electoral support of Blacks, they will cease to be competitive in presidential elections. I suggest that is the reason underlying John's observation about the practice of exaggeration:
"a critical mass of white people, instead of just a few fellow travelers, are now adopting that way of looking at race issues, too, and giving it their imprimatur."
I read, reluctantly, and with some frustration Freddie deBoer’s piece on this incident and affluent Brownstone Brooklyn’s reaction to it. He at least acknowledges there has to be some kind of effective public police force (if only for “random” crimes between strangers like this one) but he prefaces and conditions that most basic acknowledgment with so many tedious, extraordinarily exaggerated concessions to what the affluent cultural left willfully, ignorantly make believes about policing in places like NYC in 2022, even that brief comment is hard to take. deBoer has apparently lived in Park Slope for a couple years and so has some perspective regarding how ridiculous so many of the infamously selfish, self-regarding, actually profoundly privileged people in that area really are. Having lived in Park Slope and Windsor Terrace for almost ten years, and been part of a number of community groups, I know the type well. (Overheard just walking down 7th Avenue near 1st Street one evening: middle aged woman on her phone, at the threshold of her front door, shout-talking for anyone in the vicinity: “Hopefully, while I’m there, I’ll have a chance to stop by DAVOS!!!”) I also spent some time about the years ago working on campaigns related to ending excessive force and over- policing everyone within certain neighborhoods. The present mentality in places like Park Slope seems to assume and require asserting that typical policing in NYC in 2022 is akin to the most heavy-handed behavior and policies of the Giuliani years. It’s delusional. But like the demagoguery of the race debate itself, reality isn’t so important. The NYPD Commissioner is a black woman. The police force is spectacularly diverse. At least one officer in Queens wears a slightly modified uniform to comply with his Sikh faith. I’ve interacted plenty with NYPD officers over the years and the image of some burly racist (and of course, white) thug doesn’t fit. I’m a little over six feet and most cops I’ve spoken with come up to my shoulders at most. There are a lot of women on the force and virtually every ethnicity in the city is represented. Virtually all cops I’ve dealt with have been calm, polite, and a professional. This notion that to call the police when you need help is to immediately invite brutes from some anachronistic era to begin brutalizing any and all (holy, noble, childlike) “people of color” in the vicinity is just laughable. Take one often stressful issue so many NYers know too well: expensive, tenuous housing situations of questionable legality. Who are you going to call when a building owner or their cronies literally invade your living space? A rival gang or warlord? Do you just wait for your civil court date? The NYPD is a generally very well-trained and highly-professional police force whose officers know the city extremely well and act calmly and with a sense of proportion. But it’s apparently essential as part of the affluent denizens’ of these neighborhoods need to competitively broadcast cutting-edge, left-wing pseudo-virtue, and thus status, to other within that milieu, that they have to pretend that even acknowledging the occasional need for a police response is to somehow license near-genocide against “marginalized communities of color”. A violently mentally ill man, actively and actually making the park scary and physically dangerous for every other resident can literally beat to death about the gentlest type of dog on the planet, with zero provocation (maybe he was bravely “confronting whiteness” - ask the too-often-ridiculous people of Park Slope: it’s everyone’s foremost duty to be loudly and proactively “confronting whiteness” on a continual basis). And to even talk about in other than certain tones with certain priorities (acknowledging and “centering” the needs and lived experiences of the “unhoused individual of color”) is to be a virulent racist and white supremacist seeking to weaponize the newest manifestation of antebellum slave patrols in order to crush an already oppressed man and everyone like him for simply existing. I do wonder what’s being said though within the most trusted private conversations, those not taking place entirely in postmodern jargon. My guess is there’s some real consternation at how chaotic and genuinely unsafe some areas have become, including for women and dogs just peacefully living their truths. Perhaps any conflicted feelings are cause to compensate by hiring and promoting even more DEI consultants at work.
Agh! Love your writing E.W.R.! Direct and humorous and insightful. I am not sure if the Woke will ever be able to recognize their own hypocrisy. Some truths are just too much for weak minded people to even acknowledge let alone accept.
Thank you! I just saw this. Also, sorry to all who waded through all the typos and run-on sentences.
The Losing Hand
This was by far one of my favorite responses in 2021, and it sums up the Glenn and John tandem for all these years since the fall season of 2007 when they began their crusade. The Glenn show goes where no other intellectual will go.
There are human beings across this country and this world, who do not take black Americans seriously enough to hold them to real standards like everyone else. It's disgusting!!! People warned me about this stigma a long time ago, and I was fortunate enough to realize it before it was too late. The people who make grade school arguments for the misbehavior of blacks would never hold their own children to those same standards!!! This has been the main problem for several generations. Now you see the price that is paid.
During their last episode of 2018, entitled-What is Third Wave Anti-Racism?, Glenn went in depth about this issue. Most of these black intellectuals are ashamed about the failures and pathology of the black subculture. And that's why they make these childish claims.
Once again, I welcome my fellow subscribers to agree or disagree with me. The link of that older, but great episode is below. Glenn begins to explain at 12:57. Thanks!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWHQOSzU_Ug&t=683s