The following is really long and kind of a stream of consciousness mess, but I can’t think of a better place to put than than among the other comments to this important and inspiring speech and post. I originally wrote this as part of a thread below one of John McWhorter’s Substack posts this past Summer (edited slightly to remove people’s names and correct a few typos):
E.W.RJun 19
This is such a great sub-thread and digression into topics like the idealized and actual purpose of what used to be called “civics” in primary and secondary education (ideally, both the foundations of some the philosophically grounded critical thinking M teaches undergraduates, combined with a truly diverse but ultimately unifying sense of what it means to be a citizen - maybe things like common care and social responsibility, built around empathy, as well as inculcating some idea of how delicate the balance is between authoritarianism and anarchy (how does our society work when/to the extent it does?)
F and M and others started a really fascinating discussion, below a different article some weeks ago, about the current fetish in elite circles for a self-flattering often shallow cosmopolitanism and some of the ironies or hypocrisies involved in seeking to impose it is as universal good. So, what do we teach young students about what their community is and means? What do they belong to and what represents them? What do we have in common not just normatively as humans and as just one particularly, aggressively obtrusive species, but, more practically, as people within what used to be called nation-states (not very fashionable these days, I know.) Do we in most practical areas of life have a better or more relevant alternative than our own geographic home, our own polity? As diminished as the governments of actual countries (those distinctly-colored shapes between oceans on an old-fashioned classroom or living room globe) may be in power or elite fashion, I’d argue there is not a single more relevant generally shared political and geographic locus of belonging. As accidentally, badly, or even as cynically as borders may have been drawn, and as much as power predominated over principle in drawing most; as contested as physical space and national and other identities are; as much as deeper natural and cultural history might transcend political borders, they are still for most of us all around the world as viable a mostly unifying source of common meaning and belonging as we have. Degrade, demean, or diminish the mensing of countries and citizenship too much and the hole at the heart of business class, MNC, NGO cosmopolitanism becomes clearer. Where is the representation? Where is the sense of place - of home? Too often, MNCs hollow and sell you out from within, while NGOs seek to plan and dictate your priorities from without.
I had this sort of dumb discussion many years ago over beers with an old friend about how part of the glue of both countries and relationships is at least mostly shared founding myths. (I should stop before this begins to sound too much like one of the would-be thoughtful scenes from a dismally shallow rom-com - you get the point.) But I do still genuinely think even a slightly pat or corny notion like patriotism (not national chauvinism or jingoism) is a far better alternative to racial particularism. And, that a citizenship-based inclusive and positive nationalism like ours (one of the rare countries that, in some ways like France, was founded explicitly at least in principle on a civic rather than an ethnic or “blood-based” nationalism) which has been imperfectly but almost uniquely open to legal immigration and voluntary assimilation - is far, far better as a shared and unifying principle than tribalism.
Even if this life is in the most literal physical sense or more abstract academic sense all randomness and chaos, that randomness and chaos has nonetheless delivered us to a specific place and time. And while it’s probably best for most of us to not paralyze ourselves dwelling on these abstractions, we do have to share in a practical, quotidian sense enough of a common working understanding and orientation of who we are and what we belong to to function peacefully and productively in a sprawling, wildly diverse, and complex modern technological society.
My foundational insight came at five sitting with my back against the garage door of my parents’ basic ranch house in a charmless, mostly tree-less working class suburb immediately north of Detroit. My parents’ marriage was collapsing in violent chaos and I was trying to make sense of it within the world (did the world make sense? Was there any larger sense of fairness built into it?) No and no. I could immediately picture children my age starving, and even younger kids born with terrible disabilities, given no chance at all. My very first years were spent in the wildly diverse microcosm of a downtown Detroit high rise (Diana Ross lived in the penthouse for a time). We had neighbors who had fled brutal dictatorships in Iraq and Iran. Other neighbors my mom referred to affectionately like any married couple she’d befriended, though these men couldn’t be married. In the apartments and condos around our own cramped one bedroom, were black judges and physicians. My pediatrician was black. So was a regionally notorious drug kingpin who reportedly bought my sister and me gifts at holidays. Our super was black. We lived in an largely enclosed world in which black and white residents were civil, and mostly very friendly neighbors. Even as a kid there were no illusions about the broader, larger reality of racial discrimination in metro Detroit and the history of much worse in the story and experience of our country. But there was an air in the city around us mostly of getting on and getting along - of not judging nice people on a silly basis, even if frustrations and tensions sometimes sometimes surfaced. But the painful recent history and fraught present hung there as both a common backdrop and internal question.
In the mostly dreary suburb we relocated to immediately north of the city proper there were no black neighbors. Even the appearance of one darker-skinned South Asian family visiting a local school was all it took to send panicked rumors flying. So in that simplified palette of black and white there was an early lesson in sharing an ugly history and a complicated present with people both unlike us - in the most superficial yet sometimes experiencially profound ways - who were nonetheless every iota as American as we were. In a foundational sense, to me, America was about a deep pride in us being together, black and white, and finding our way, however imperfectly, united under one banner, united in a shared pride in local music and sports, in quotidian daily habits - the mundane ups and downs of parenting, marriage, punching the clock - all encapsulated within that one building. In comparison, the white flight suburb was culturally impoverished, no matter how many Southern or Eastern European ethnicities were represented. It was too much about denying others and living in denial.
Of course the actual American palette and its collection of stories and contributions, stirring triumphs and horrific wrongs, is much more varied than that chiaroscuro of black and white (how about class as well?) I don’t shy away from wanting both elements in our civic education: honesty, recognition, inclusion, wrestling with the worst of what’s shaped not just history but actual lives; and, more than a little bit of e pluribus unum - more than a little of those positive and unifying national myths: “our story”, warts and all. Frederick Douglass and MLK made the best case: the best values underlying this national experiment, claimed and amplified at great sacrifice not least by those originally most excluded, were what it took to begin to redeem and extend their promise.
We need unifying stories. We need some positive myths and shared crowd symbols. The soft particularism of a citizenship-based nationalism, enriched and broadened by an ongoing tradition of immigration does not have to be built on negative integration or on demeaning or diminishing the value of those born outside our national borders. But to be born within them or to have chosen to join us here and participate in this shared polity has to mean something unique and positive. What black Americans have overcome and carved out here and given to our shared American culture must not be diminished. What historically despised, exploited, or ignored and excluded, impoverished but unyielding, radically egalitarian Scots-Irish immigrants have contributed to our national culture and ethos is a major part of our national story. The list is goes on and on. Andrew Sullivan, as a proud naturalized American citizen, makes this point a lot: Americans who are white simply don’t realize how culturally black they are. Black culture is American culture. Black history is American history. Our country is flawed and messy, but great. Our citizenship is a gift and a responsibility to each other. We’ve seen the grimly reductive, paranoid zero-sum antagonisms of the alternatives to this not only in the literal Balkans of Europe or Great Lakes region of Africa, but all around us at home in sharper relief every day.
Great post. I'm very sympathetic to some of the left's goals.
For example, I would like to end the drug war. I do believe we have a problem with over incarceration. I would eliminate or at least greatly reform qualified immunity. And I think it's a travesty that a black man is 8 times more likely to be wrongly convicted of murder than a white person.
In fact, even though I'm former military, I thought the taking a knee during the national anthem was a perfectly ok way to protest (opinions were pretty evenly split with my former military friends).
But the rhetoric and the narrative that the woke are pushing totally turns me off. Talking about white privledged or alleging racism because I don't agree with whatever the latest socialist policy is will not make us allies, and will make it WAY less likely for us to work together on things we do agree on.
I object to the narrative that the woke seems to be pushing. That we are a evil racist country to the core. Instead I believe the narrative should be a good country that has failed to live up to its ideals but is constantly trying to do better. In fact, a country that millions of people of all colors try to immigrate to each year, many of them literally risking their lives to get here.
That's the narrative that we should tell about ourselves, and that's the narrative that you can get bi-partisan agreement on.
Finally, I continue to believe that the society we should be striving for is one where people are judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. Dividing people up into racial affinity groups etc seems to be the exact opposite of what we are trying to achieve.
I'm very late to this but "blacks are 7-8 times more likely to be wrongfully convicted of murder than whites" number is false. Blacks make up 50-55% of all murder convictions and make up 50-55% of all murder exonerations. The 7-8X number assumes that blacks and whites commit murders at the same per capita rate when in fact blacks commit murders at a 7-8x higher per capita rate.
Read my comment. Blacks make up 50-55% of all murder convictions and make up 50-55% of all murder exonerations. Absolutely nothing racial is happening with the exonerations. The fact that blacks are 13% percent of the overall population is not relevant.
"Dividing people up into racial affinity groups etc seems to be the exact opposite of what we are trying to achieve."
This is something that has become amusing to me. Because, when you divide people up into groups, the first thing people are going to look for are patterns of differences between the groups. And they're going to find them.
Hi Mathew, I’m curious about the source of the “eight times more likely” statistic. Not saying I disagree - I don’t know. Certainly, if we controlled for poverty that ratio would be likely to decrease significantly (which is itself a testament to how disparate access to resources and adequate representation and fair treatment is for indigent and lower income defendants throughout our criminal justice system. But I’m curious to know what other factors and variables impact that outcome. Could it be that defendants who live in areas where there is much more criminal activity and police presence end up with prior convictions for other offenses which made it more likely there’ll be convicted of crimes they may not have committed? Is some of it residual prejudice by jurors? How do we get at this disparity as you report it and address it?
For what it’s worth, I did a lot of direct outreach and organizing over a Summer on a reform DA candidate’s campaign in Brooklyn a little eight years ago, in part because of concerns about disparate enforcement of very low level nonviolent drug offense - and the pattern and practice of a couple of corrupt senior detectives working with some incumbent prosecutors to simply convict whoever was easiest and most plausible as quickly as possible with little to no regard for actual guilt re: those crimes. So I’m with you in your concern. And share your frustration at how counterproductive it is for a now wildly, brazenly irresponsible calumny and slur-flinging identity left to try to bully and silence and smear people *who are some variety of actual liberals for goodness sake* simply for failure to show complete and instant fealty and deference re: every single issue of policy or values etc, which is always, always, to a beyond-cartoonish extent they seem to lack any self-awareness or sense of humor to perceive - about one thing only: “racism and white supremacy”
It stuck with me because that seemed to be a pretty large injustice.
Of course correlation and causality are not the same thing. Perhaps some of the disparity is from actual racism, but I'm sure a lot of it is from other factors. Such as income, crime in the area, prior convictions etc. "He already got busted for weed, of course he killed him" etc.
You might also be interested in a piece that Radly Balko did for Reason a number of years ago related to a Mississippi Coroner's malpractice
I will confess my concern about the situation is due at least in part to my exuberant youth. Where I may have had more fun than the law allows.
I was lucky enough to put that behind me (CPA, MBA etc) but I know everybody's not as lucky. Listening to Glenn makes me think I should contact my local prison and see if I can't provide help and encouragement to those trying to get their life back together. Not sure where I would find the time though...
How to help people in prison either get help or at least stay sane and build something of and within themselves? Last week, I made the very small step of meeting a woman who works with women who are incarcerated and their families. It was just to get coffee and give her a box of books to share. But I imagine there is a lot of need for all kinds of permitted resources and enrichment, maybe literacy help for some or tutoring for classes. A business and accounting background might help meet a crying need for financial literacy. Honestly, I didn’t grow up with much of that kind of social capital in my own family and had to learn the hard way as an adult. But there’s no doubt that in some communities there is a concentrated lack of financial know-how and even sense of agency and of the efficacy of good daily habits and long-term planning. It may be largely a socioeconomic phenomenon but it undoubtedly also tracks with race in many urban areas where there tends to be a lot of extremes of income and wealth
You may have provided the wrong link. The 8x figure in your link is for "homicide victims," not "wrongly convicted." The figure may be correct, but that article offers no supporting data. (Unless I missed something.)
Ha - yeah I was motivated in part because I liked a certain now widely accepted substance and even got busted at one point simply for having some in a friend’s car. Being able to go online and find an affordable lawyer admitted to that bar and recommended by reform groups - and, embarrassingly, having a girlfriend who fronted me the money to pay him until I could pay her back gave me the ability to get off with a fine and probation. I was still cuffed by the side of the road at 3am and thought one state trooper in particular was actually going to bash me in the head for the fun of it. I still had to explain that arrest record to prospective employers a few times over the years. But I could see how much of the process was about extracting a toll and subsidy from a benign passerby with no prior record to speak of. They all wanted their cut. And be being painstakingly polite and unassuming, while my lawyer worked with his counterpart at the prosecutor’s office, I got off relatively lightly. I was treated more or less like a young man who’d made a youthful error in judgment. Maybe the judge even saw a bit of a wayward but well-meaning grandson in me. I’m mind reading and speculating. But I also saw how many kids in more affluent parts of BK were seemingly continually on the way to furtively smoke, in the midst of smoking, or giggling having just come from smoking. And how much pot smoke I smelled coming from brownstones in enviable zip codes. Sure, the cops didn’t hassle those kids and and parents not only because they had more clout or didn’t fit a stereotype, but more materially because there were virtually no serious crimes, no assaults, or shootings, etc. in those areas. Maybe some of the parents were up to white collar malfeasance. But there was virtually no violent crime or guns to get off the streets. In other areas of course normal kids got swept up in routine stops and even harassment some heavy handed, and maybe for no more than walking down their own block, or being part of a boisterous crowd of teenagers. It’s a real dilemma and it’s hard to neatly draw that line of how to deter and enforce; how to find legal pretexts to get to the guns and find the violent offenders with warrants out and dangerous suspects.
Thank you Glenn! Your honest, pragmatic insight into this cauldron of race-hustling scumbags is needed now more than ever! We have to stop these mentally cave-dwelling Neanderthals(both white Liberal BLM supporting activists AND the militant black ‘antiracist’ Kendi/D’Angelo charlatans dead in their tracks! If we do not cut the head off this Medusa we’ll have a boiling underbelly of Whites desperately seeking to respond to their unjust accusers with the strongest, full throated and most importantly heavily ARMED response you could possibly imagine! And trust me, we’ve got ALL the guns and are well versed in both their use and maintenance. It would get UGLY for the Leftists real quickly. Let’s hope for their sake they don’t push this wounded animal(White people) into a corner......it would make our Civil War look like 5 year olds playing cops and robbers by comparison!
Beautiful speech; articulate, poetic and impassioned. A voice of Reason. I follow your work so it’s not new to me, but always refreshing as I work in higher education and am surrounded by the Woke. At one time I considered myself far Left but have found myself gradually shift toward center. Sometimes I’m not sure who I am anymore. I’ve lost many friends by airing my views – even thoughtfully.
I see you as a bridge, attempting to reconcile your love for black people, your community with your love for America, your home. I think speeches like this by intelligent, reflective persons are most important – and touching. The extremes are so loud right now that there is the fear that “the center cannot hold.” But the center must hold – we must hold to the center, says Lao Tzu, the middle way says the Buddha. To my mind your speech serves to strengthen this essential space.
I had an initial concern about the part of your speech that focused on the backlash of white people, fearing articulating it may encourage it. But on reflection, I agree it must be said as it’s a natural reaction that needs to be addressed up front. As has been stated many times, CRT/BLM/Woke thinking and rhetoric is fodder for its opponent, fueling an equal impassioned reaction that will mirror and eventually destroy both sides if each is left to its own myopia. I appreciated your grave warning to the potentially “tempted” audience that a white backlash would be detrimental – for all. A better but more difficult way, and what you promote, indeed demonstrate, is to burst the bubbles of deluded isolation and actually talk; we may not be so different.
May I suggest that being too timid to choose a side is to underestimate the political moment we are in. Too many good, supposedly smart people tie themselves in knots trying to avoid finding or saying anything positive about Trump, who is a national populist of which black patriotism could be a significant and welcome part. If you are still afraid of saying positive things about Trump (which essays of this sort always sidestep) it is because you have been, like all of us, indoctrinated (made afraid) by the media and all the “liberal” Democrats around you, in spite of yourself.
Really, a moment’s genuine consideration of the significance of, for example, the enormity of the Russia collusion narrative should disabuse any reasoning person of the notion that their response to Trump has been anything but the manufacture of the media—perhaps, adhering to a kernel of class disgust—and profoundly reinforced by the threat of ostracism from our peers. Yes, I was a Democrat a few years ago…
I offer the possibility that: No white backlash is coming in America because the America Firsters (1 Understand that blacks are legacy Americans—they are us. 2) Share conservative values of family and faith 3) And mostly: America Firsters know for a fact that they are not being labeled “racist” by black people, and the derision they experience comes from the media, academics and other whites. Not blacks. National Populism believes in natural law, equality for everybody, consent of the governed, the promise of the Declaration, a new skepticism of globalism, strong borders and tariffs to restore the jobs of working and middle class people. What in the hell is wrong with that?
At Princeton there is a celebrated classics professor Dr. Dan-el Padilla Peralta who now seeks to destroy and banish the classics as the roots and sinews of "white supremacy". But there was a time when Dr. Padilla Peralta was a lover of the same classics.
I wonder if Dr. Padilla Peralta began seeing himself not as a scholar, but as a black activist and anti-racist. Viewing his enterprise as a scholar, the patrimony and matrimony that are the classics, were his, as they are any other person's, whoever or whatever they might be.
But once the primary lense became race, Did he begin to see that the only avenue open to him was to destroy and resent them?
One of my favorite points Glenn makes is when he describes his love of older Russian literature. The problems of the human condition are universal. We find both greater empathy and psychological perspective as well as self-knowledge when we inhabit the experience of other human beings across space and time and culture.
I actually spell both Black and White capitalized, when referring to the races. It doesn’t make sense to not he consistent. This amongst many other things, makes me somewhat of an oddball.
That’s fair. This was part of the focus of one of John McWhorter’s posts when it his Substack was active. I keep both lower case out of consistency and equal standing. And because of the leveling, egalitarian ideal that we are all equal and some should not be conferred preferential titles from birth or by category. The individual human being matters far more than whether they are black or white.
Yeah. I'm not liable to bow down to peer pressure. I lower case "w" to highlight this fact: (And before You call me a racist, THINK about it for a bit.) Today, a LARGE percentage of what goes on in America is being decided by a SMALL number of Black Supremists. For a few examples:
The thug M. Coates. THe inimitable M. Hannah-Jones. Can't leave out M. Crenshaw and crew. The money grubber M. DiAngelo. (And, yeah: OBVIOUS (to me anyway) the MAJORITY of Black Supremists are caucasian.) I won't dignify Kendi with a "M."
The media and the left dream up these nasty ideas that all of one kind of skin color person feels the same.... like all Italians like Pizza, or are affiliated with mafia. All people from the Netherlands eat cheese and cookies all day (well, okay they do) or All so and so's carry three guns and a machete
The media has been doing this for decades. They encourage division
I am so glad I found your blog.
We are all the same, and different. We are individuals. Not everyone likes or should be expected to like the things I like (hoarding and collecting fabrics, sewing all day, making family heirlooms, had 4 sewing machines in constant working order ready and used, hate cooking food and other such non-sense)
My dad is 98 and he says, we are all weirdos to someone else
I’m paraphrasing, in parts, a longer comment I posted to the YouTube clip very shortly after it went up earlier this afternoon. It was thoughtful and polite, if pointed, and it was removed. It’s getting harder and harder to trust that Big Tech won’t simply quash opinions it doesn’t like.
I’m a lifelong liberal who has literally never voted for a Republican. But if I’d been voting in Virginia last week I’d have voted for Republicans for all of the major statewide offices. One of the crowning moral commitments that attracted me to the Democratic Party from the time I was a teenager was its focus on equal rights and fairness (equal standing, dignity, and opportunity for all). I remember Lee Atwater; I know what actual “dog whistle politics” is. And I also know gaslighting when I hear it. The cultural left that now dominates our major institutions as well as the Democratic Party has turned that commitment to equality absolutely on its head. And is lying about it and trying to intimidate, censor, bait, smear, and ruin anyone who says that the emperor has no clothes.
I am probably a bit older than you. I was a teenager in the '60s and remember having the same view as you of the Democratic Party with Hubert Humphrey, Gene McCarthy, McGovern, the Kennedys and LBJ. Then I got too busy with life and kids and earning a living to pay close attention. Now that I am older, retired and have the time to study politics and history I have come to understand that the Democratic Party is and has been (since the early part of the 20th century) about expanding the scope and size of government while reducing accountability and checks and balances. They have been true unwavering progressives for a hundred years. See "America Transformed, The Rise and Legacy of American Progressivism" by Ronald J. Pestrito. We are living today with the rotten fruits of their labors with unaccountable bureaucracies made up of over educated elites dominating government and our lives.
Do you have any particular blacks and whites in mind? In 2021, overall, class, socioeconomic status, geography, family and community, etc. matter far, far more. And let’s be honest: while some white families have been privileged for several generations and have hoarded and passed much of that down, we have also had a number of forms of open de jure and more informal types of discrimination that have favored blacks (including those from families that need no help at all) as well as members of virtually any group other than working class and working poor whites (based on “diversity”). Is there some residual informal discrimination against black Americans? Yes. But most of it is a class or cultural discrimination. I’m not being facetious when I ask to whom in particular you’re referring. Because individual and class and community circumstances matter far more.
Why is the mediabn family wealth for Whites more than ten times as much as the median wealth for Blacks? I think that is pretty much proof of discrimination right there. If you want a pile of research I can provide that as well.
"Why is the mediabn family wealth for Whites more than ten times as much as the median wealth for Blacks?"
Because historically white families had a lot more wealth. That wealth tends to be passed on.
So absent a policy that took a lot of that wealth and gave it directly to black families. It will take a long time to achieve equality of that. It doesn't say anything about current discrimination.
In addition to material wealth, those upper class white families passed on a lot of social capital. For example, my wife and I both have our MBA's. So we are better able to teach our children what they would need to get ahead, than say a family where no one had ever been to college.
Finally of course there's the factor that many poor black kids are trapped in horrible schools. But due to the Democrats being in the pocket of the teachers unions, any attempts to get school choice passed are very hard to do.
I think that the fact that Blacks have less generational wealth and are far more likely to be forced to live in poor neighborhoods with lacking social services including schools would a priori be proof that our society is racist.
Somehow you take this as evidence that everything is just fine and working as intended.
We take the same set of facts and reach opposite conclusions. I do appreciate your honest assessment of the current situation though.
"Somehow you take this as evidence that everything is just fine and working as intended"
No. my point was that wealth difference isn't proof of current discrimination. But "could" largely be attributed to past discrimination.
What to do about it is a different question. Obviously that's why affirmative action programs were put in place decades ago. Because a lot of people wanted to make up for past discrimination. Clearly that wasn't enough.
But honest question what would be? And what would be the metrics to let you know that we could end those programs?
Personally I think you're going to get further now days with class based instead of raced based programs. It's going to be easier to get broad based buy in. And there's not going to be the same stigma attached to people that benefit from those programs.
Plus as I mentioned elsewhere I'm very open to significant criminal justice reform. Ending the war on drugs, reforming or eliminating qualified immunity etc.
There is some intergenerational overhang from when discrimination was gross and truly systemic. There’s no doubt about that. But you asked if I thought blacks and whites were treated equally in the US today. I’m far from a sociologist, economist, demographer, or historian (alas). But I’d guess if you look on the lower end of that median you’ll find far, far more commonality. If you’re arguing proof of past discrimination there’s absolutely no doubt - I’m with you. But we have to know what discrimination and when it occurred and whom it affected and how - as well as how those effects
…crossed generations. There are so many variables that impact wealth other than whether one’s ancestors were black or white.
I don’t want to be dismissive btw that there might be some present day discrimination here and there in forms that really impacts people materially as well as psychologically. If a real estate agent or mortgage lender or hiring or rental manager treats one of my fellow citizens unfairly based on skin color - that person’s own prejudice or stereotypes - that makes me angry. It’s hugely important we don’t excuse that. I just don’t think it’s remotely as common as it used to be. On the other hand, we’ve had various forms of affirmative action for over fifty years, and rather than phasing them out as Justice O’Connor believed we’d do within a generation when she cast her swing vote, we’re now speeding toward enforced equal outcomes, Kendi-style with no room for effort, merit, or any other variables.
The racial gap in income, wealth and almost all other areas is just as large as it was when MLK was assassinated. We aren't speeding towards anything at all.
Dr. Loury had an entire conversation on the derivation of median wealth...and there were question. But apparently the discrepancies between black and white occur above the 50th percentile and are much smaller below.
Also, compare median wealth of Hispanics and Asian to other groups.
BTW, don't forget that everyone, regardless of color, has benefited profusely by the history of slavery.
It is important to note that Asians are the most wealthy racial group in America. This is a fact. They are much wealthier than whites. Has nothing to do with skin color, discrimination, privilege or any other nonsense. Just hard work.
Median isn't average. Median means half the people in that group have less and half more. 10x is a pretty huge gap at the median, no matter how you slice the figures.
Me? I would group people according to ONE statistic, because it's the one I"m most familiar with: WEALTH.
We all know about the top 10%. But most don't even give a consideration to the poor people in the bottom HALF. Who own a whopping TWO (2) percent of the wealth.
Anyone up to any good would look to do ONE thing and that's to help the poor.
NEVER happen. Because of the powers that be, primarily the WOKE.
You're picking on the wrong guy, dude. Golden NON-Rule #1:
Epictetus:
Happiness and freedom begin with a clear understanding of one principle: Some things are within our control, and some things are not. It is only after you have faced up to this fundamental rule and learned to distinguish between what you can and can't control that inner tranquility and outer effectiveness become possible.
#2:
It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.
No, the media doesn't control ME. I don't watch cable. (TV still in box for over a year.) Don't read the papers very much. Got SUBSCRIPTIONS to NYT, WaPo, USA Today. Don't read them hardly EVER. Lately taken to reading some conservative views, with a jaundiced eye.
If You haven't figured out that whites are being discriminated against or, rather, in particular white MALES are for decades?
Then You, "my fine furred friend," ARE being controlled by the media.
Well, that's what happens when I just shoot from the hip like I do. When I say "prevailing culture and politics," You can take that to mean in virtually ALL the institutions power in the U.S. I'm trying to think of an institution that ISN"T discriminatory against whites. Academia. Biden. Government in general. Corporations. Non-profits. Loooong day. Just saying, woke rules. Or hadn't You noticed?
Just lately. And when I say "mostly" I'm talking about the prevailing culture and politics. MOST people, from what I understand and experience, just try to get by more than thinking about racial issues 24/7.
TYTY. Nice way to end the day. Looks promising. On the list. Just hafta get through the 1000 in front of it first. (Seriously, gotta get back reading whittling down a few before I buy it. May even read it. Who knows. ;) TY.
TYTY. I couldn't say enough about what You say the solution is. BEYOND race. TRANSCEND race. UNLEARN race. Again, TY.
I may be overbold, but I think I understand Black people better than You understand white people. MOST white people are NOT gonna take on white supremist ideas, for ANY reason or prompting.
What they (or, I guess I SHOULD say, we) in particular do NOT like is being TOLD we're racist, when we aren't. When we're TOLD we need to ATONE for what our great-great-some-odd-great grandfathers did. When we're TOLD we need to PAY UP. For what reason? Other than vengeance, pure and simple. To be TOLD we're racists, for the simple reason that we won't vote for Democrats, REGARDLESS of how woke the Democrats are.
So I don't think BLM or any-a the rest of them should change their posture because it would be in their best interests. (Well, BLM would first hafta disavow their Marxist roots, which isn't likely.)
Maybe I'm just weird. (Well.. Actually there's no MAYBE about THAT. ;) But I don't know any white people trying to justify their whiteness based on the contributions of European Enlightment on down. I take that back. Me and just about 98% of whites don't hang out with the kind-a white supremists that WOULD say such a stupid thing.
I don't ask Blacks to justify their Blackness. (Long story.) Don't KNOW of many white people that do, but ICBW. But I do NOT understand why being white automatically makes me a villain in this delusional story. ME. PERSONALLY. And spread that view to most white people. Who made the decision that Blacks do NOT represent their race, and they should be treated as INDIVIDUALS. But blanket indictments of whites is okay-fine? In particular, white, male, heterosexuals. Guilty as charged, if that's the criteria and individuality doesn't come into play at ALL.
And I'll carry it a step further. Democrats as a whole, no matter what color, seem to think that all Republicans are white racists. Just stands to reason, apparently. Explains how McAuliffe (however You spell it) got voted down, right?
My only suggestion? Doesn't matter. Seeing the surface of semi-truths prevail, or I wouldn't waste so much time posting on Substacks. Luckily for MOST, I can't spend the time or I would.
APPOLOGIZE, of course. SURE I offended some or most. NEVER my intention. Intention to shed light, not heat. Sometimes do better than others, is all.
Almost forgot. Still TYTY, Professor Loury. Got me to thinkin'. :)
"A little about me, tho nobody'd prolly be interested:"
Voted Dem since McGovern in '72. Voted for Biden. NEVER will again. Nor Trump, if that's not obvious.
Saw "To Kill a Mockingbird" when I was about five. BIG impact on my life.
Teenage brat, hated my Dad. From 15 to 19 worked for a Black man and alongside his son. "Heck" YEAH he was my role model. NEVER talked about race. NEVER did anything socially. Other than eat lunch together every day. Me? Just listened. What did I get from that? Just reaffirmed what I somewhat knew. People are people.
Never even thought of him as my mentor until a couple days ago. Sure WAS!
Biracial niece and nephew? Just people.
Still learning all the unique WAYS people are people. Based on... What d'ya think?
Black people deserve reparations because the wealth of their labor was stolen for a dozen generations and then they labored under Jim Crow for another five and still suffer some prejudice today.
It probably won’t happen for a number of reasons, but something like free college just might be possible.
More politically likely is general anti-poverty programs that will tend to help Blacks more because they are more likely to be poor.
I’m down with your last suggestion if those programs are well designed - structure, incentives, etc. We badly need demonstrated family hardship and socioeconomically-based outreach, mentoring, support and preferences rather than persisting in things like wildly advantaging the offspring of upper middle class black professionals in affluent zip codes or the progeny of elite immigrants, due solely to skin color. We also need to ban legacy admissions and preferential admissions and scholarships for athletes (a lot more privileged kids on tennis and golf and swim teams). The athletes coming from actual hardship will be helped on those criteria. But think of the combination of entitled upper class clout and donations and the athletic departments that half control many colleges. Talk about politically difficult. You won’t be surprised I oppose skin color reparations or even those based and traced somehow to specific family histories. We’ve already had fifty-plus years of affirmative action in admissions and hiring; small business set-asides and mandates in government contracting; racially exclusive scholarships and mentoring programs. We need to find a way to give what John McWhorter calls the approx 1/3 of black Americans who are struggling today the support that truly help prepare and lift and motivate. We’d do well to consider much the same in areas like Appalachia and parts of the US with endemic poverty and disadvantage among American Indians.
Oh LOR' ha MERCY. There's really no bottom to how woke Your views are.
And free college tuition? As if academia hasn't failed ENOUGH and that's largely why the country is IN the state it's in? Yeah, throw them more MONEY. Just read book covering liberalism from 1920 on. Ah. No point.
If money would solve social problems, we'd have very few problems today. It HASN"T. It DOESN"T. But if we keep throwing MORE money, it eventually WILL. We didn't throw ENOUGH money. DId make a big enough COMMITMENT. IT WILL WORK THIS TIME.
Apply a little logic on these views, before You accuse others of not doing so.
While I am sure you would prefer go back to the prelapsarian paradise where 10 year olds worked in mines, women couldn't vote, poverty rate among seniors was above 60% and Blacks were routinely lynched, I would not.
Social security is the greatest anti-poverty program America has ever invented.
Lor' ha MERCY. I wasn't gonna write today, just read. But when You make such an arse outta Yerself, I just have to point it out. Me? Dem since McGovern. You?
Referring to the peace and aliveness he felt before destroying a great relationship, Bob Dylan wrote: "Once I held mountains in the palm of my hands, and rivers which flowed through every day. I must have been mad. I never knew what I had, till I threw it all away."
All those years and all the sweat and all the humble pie and the disappointment and the glacial progress and the heartbreak to build a society at least aspirationally directed toward a world beyond color. This essay gives me the chill of a cold wind. May we please not go there.
A monumental speech/ loved it! Must have been very hot there in Orlando that day
The following is really long and kind of a stream of consciousness mess, but I can’t think of a better place to put than than among the other comments to this important and inspiring speech and post. I originally wrote this as part of a thread below one of John McWhorter’s Substack posts this past Summer (edited slightly to remove people’s names and correct a few typos):
E.W.RJun 19
This is such a great sub-thread and digression into topics like the idealized and actual purpose of what used to be called “civics” in primary and secondary education (ideally, both the foundations of some the philosophically grounded critical thinking M teaches undergraduates, combined with a truly diverse but ultimately unifying sense of what it means to be a citizen - maybe things like common care and social responsibility, built around empathy, as well as inculcating some idea of how delicate the balance is between authoritarianism and anarchy (how does our society work when/to the extent it does?)
F and M and others started a really fascinating discussion, below a different article some weeks ago, about the current fetish in elite circles for a self-flattering often shallow cosmopolitanism and some of the ironies or hypocrisies involved in seeking to impose it is as universal good. So, what do we teach young students about what their community is and means? What do they belong to and what represents them? What do we have in common not just normatively as humans and as just one particularly, aggressively obtrusive species, but, more practically, as people within what used to be called nation-states (not very fashionable these days, I know.) Do we in most practical areas of life have a better or more relevant alternative than our own geographic home, our own polity? As diminished as the governments of actual countries (those distinctly-colored shapes between oceans on an old-fashioned classroom or living room globe) may be in power or elite fashion, I’d argue there is not a single more relevant generally shared political and geographic locus of belonging. As accidentally, badly, or even as cynically as borders may have been drawn, and as much as power predominated over principle in drawing most; as contested as physical space and national and other identities are; as much as deeper natural and cultural history might transcend political borders, they are still for most of us all around the world as viable a mostly unifying source of common meaning and belonging as we have. Degrade, demean, or diminish the mensing of countries and citizenship too much and the hole at the heart of business class, MNC, NGO cosmopolitanism becomes clearer. Where is the representation? Where is the sense of place - of home? Too often, MNCs hollow and sell you out from within, while NGOs seek to plan and dictate your priorities from without.
I had this sort of dumb discussion many years ago over beers with an old friend about how part of the glue of both countries and relationships is at least mostly shared founding myths. (I should stop before this begins to sound too much like one of the would-be thoughtful scenes from a dismally shallow rom-com - you get the point.) But I do still genuinely think even a slightly pat or corny notion like patriotism (not national chauvinism or jingoism) is a far better alternative to racial particularism. And, that a citizenship-based inclusive and positive nationalism like ours (one of the rare countries that, in some ways like France, was founded explicitly at least in principle on a civic rather than an ethnic or “blood-based” nationalism) which has been imperfectly but almost uniquely open to legal immigration and voluntary assimilation - is far, far better as a shared and unifying principle than tribalism.
Even if this life is in the most literal physical sense or more abstract academic sense all randomness and chaos, that randomness and chaos has nonetheless delivered us to a specific place and time. And while it’s probably best for most of us to not paralyze ourselves dwelling on these abstractions, we do have to share in a practical, quotidian sense enough of a common working understanding and orientation of who we are and what we belong to to function peacefully and productively in a sprawling, wildly diverse, and complex modern technological society.
My foundational insight came at five sitting with my back against the garage door of my parents’ basic ranch house in a charmless, mostly tree-less working class suburb immediately north of Detroit. My parents’ marriage was collapsing in violent chaos and I was trying to make sense of it within the world (did the world make sense? Was there any larger sense of fairness built into it?) No and no. I could immediately picture children my age starving, and even younger kids born with terrible disabilities, given no chance at all. My very first years were spent in the wildly diverse microcosm of a downtown Detroit high rise (Diana Ross lived in the penthouse for a time). We had neighbors who had fled brutal dictatorships in Iraq and Iran. Other neighbors my mom referred to affectionately like any married couple she’d befriended, though these men couldn’t be married. In the apartments and condos around our own cramped one bedroom, were black judges and physicians. My pediatrician was black. So was a regionally notorious drug kingpin who reportedly bought my sister and me gifts at holidays. Our super was black. We lived in an largely enclosed world in which black and white residents were civil, and mostly very friendly neighbors. Even as a kid there were no illusions about the broader, larger reality of racial discrimination in metro Detroit and the history of much worse in the story and experience of our country. But there was an air in the city around us mostly of getting on and getting along - of not judging nice people on a silly basis, even if frustrations and tensions sometimes sometimes surfaced. But the painful recent history and fraught present hung there as both a common backdrop and internal question.
In the mostly dreary suburb we relocated to immediately north of the city proper there were no black neighbors. Even the appearance of one darker-skinned South Asian family visiting a local school was all it took to send panicked rumors flying. So in that simplified palette of black and white there was an early lesson in sharing an ugly history and a complicated present with people both unlike us - in the most superficial yet sometimes experiencially profound ways - who were nonetheless every iota as American as we were. In a foundational sense, to me, America was about a deep pride in us being together, black and white, and finding our way, however imperfectly, united under one banner, united in a shared pride in local music and sports, in quotidian daily habits - the mundane ups and downs of parenting, marriage, punching the clock - all encapsulated within that one building. In comparison, the white flight suburb was culturally impoverished, no matter how many Southern or Eastern European ethnicities were represented. It was too much about denying others and living in denial.
Of course the actual American palette and its collection of stories and contributions, stirring triumphs and horrific wrongs, is much more varied than that chiaroscuro of black and white (how about class as well?) I don’t shy away from wanting both elements in our civic education: honesty, recognition, inclusion, wrestling with the worst of what’s shaped not just history but actual lives; and, more than a little bit of e pluribus unum - more than a little of those positive and unifying national myths: “our story”, warts and all. Frederick Douglass and MLK made the best case: the best values underlying this national experiment, claimed and amplified at great sacrifice not least by those originally most excluded, were what it took to begin to redeem and extend their promise.
We need unifying stories. We need some positive myths and shared crowd symbols. The soft particularism of a citizenship-based nationalism, enriched and broadened by an ongoing tradition of immigration does not have to be built on negative integration or on demeaning or diminishing the value of those born outside our national borders. But to be born within them or to have chosen to join us here and participate in this shared polity has to mean something unique and positive. What black Americans have overcome and carved out here and given to our shared American culture must not be diminished. What historically despised, exploited, or ignored and excluded, impoverished but unyielding, radically egalitarian Scots-Irish immigrants have contributed to our national culture and ethos is a major part of our national story. The list is goes on and on. Andrew Sullivan, as a proud naturalized American citizen, makes this point a lot: Americans who are white simply don’t realize how culturally black they are. Black culture is American culture. Black history is American history. Our country is flawed and messy, but great. Our citizenship is a gift and a responsibility to each other. We’ve seen the grimly reductive, paranoid zero-sum antagonisms of the alternatives to this not only in the literal Balkans of Europe or Great Lakes region of Africa, but all around us at home in sharper relief every day.
Great post. I'm very sympathetic to some of the left's goals.
For example, I would like to end the drug war. I do believe we have a problem with over incarceration. I would eliminate or at least greatly reform qualified immunity. And I think it's a travesty that a black man is 8 times more likely to be wrongly convicted of murder than a white person.
In fact, even though I'm former military, I thought the taking a knee during the national anthem was a perfectly ok way to protest (opinions were pretty evenly split with my former military friends).
But the rhetoric and the narrative that the woke are pushing totally turns me off. Talking about white privledged or alleging racism because I don't agree with whatever the latest socialist policy is will not make us allies, and will make it WAY less likely for us to work together on things we do agree on.
I object to the narrative that the woke seems to be pushing. That we are a evil racist country to the core. Instead I believe the narrative should be a good country that has failed to live up to its ideals but is constantly trying to do better. In fact, a country that millions of people of all colors try to immigrate to each year, many of them literally risking their lives to get here.
That's the narrative that we should tell about ourselves, and that's the narrative that you can get bi-partisan agreement on.
Finally, I continue to believe that the society we should be striving for is one where people are judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. Dividing people up into racial affinity groups etc seems to be the exact opposite of what we are trying to achieve.
I'm very late to this but "blacks are 7-8 times more likely to be wrongfully convicted of murder than whites" number is false. Blacks make up 50-55% of all murder convictions and make up 50-55% of all murder exonerations. The 7-8X number assumes that blacks and whites commit murders at the same per capita rate when in fact blacks commit murders at a 7-8x higher per capita rate.
That's not relevant to the question. We are talking about exonerations i.e. Were wrongfully convicted
Read my comment. Blacks make up 50-55% of all murder convictions and make up 50-55% of all murder exonerations. Absolutely nothing racial is happening with the exonerations. The fact that blacks are 13% percent of the overall population is not relevant.
"Dividing people up into racial affinity groups etc seems to be the exact opposite of what we are trying to achieve."
This is something that has become amusing to me. Because, when you divide people up into groups, the first thing people are going to look for are patterns of differences between the groups. And they're going to find them.
Hi Mathew, I’m curious about the source of the “eight times more likely” statistic. Not saying I disagree - I don’t know. Certainly, if we controlled for poverty that ratio would be likely to decrease significantly (which is itself a testament to how disparate access to resources and adequate representation and fair treatment is for indigent and lower income defendants throughout our criminal justice system. But I’m curious to know what other factors and variables impact that outcome. Could it be that defendants who live in areas where there is much more criminal activity and police presence end up with prior convictions for other offenses which made it more likely there’ll be convicted of crimes they may not have committed? Is some of it residual prejudice by jurors? How do we get at this disparity as you report it and address it?
For what it’s worth, I did a lot of direct outreach and organizing over a Summer on a reform DA candidate’s campaign in Brooklyn a little eight years ago, in part because of concerns about disparate enforcement of very low level nonviolent drug offense - and the pattern and practice of a couple of corrupt senior detectives working with some incumbent prosecutors to simply convict whoever was easiest and most plausible as quickly as possible with little to no regard for actual guilt re: those crimes. So I’m with you in your concern. And share your frustration at how counterproductive it is for a now wildly, brazenly irresponsible calumny and slur-flinging identity left to try to bully and silence and smear people *who are some variety of actual liberals for goodness sake* simply for failure to show complete and instant fealty and deference re: every single issue of policy or values etc, which is always, always, to a beyond-cartoonish extent they seem to lack any self-awareness or sense of humor to perceive - about one thing only: “racism and white supremacy”
Sure I remember it from an old reason.com article
https://reason.com/2017/08/16/african-americans-8x-more-likely-victim2/
It stuck with me because that seemed to be a pretty large injustice.
Of course correlation and causality are not the same thing. Perhaps some of the disparity is from actual racism, but I'm sure a lot of it is from other factors. Such as income, crime in the area, prior convictions etc. "He already got busted for weed, of course he killed him" etc.
You might also be interested in a piece that Radly Balko did for Reason a number of years ago related to a Mississippi Coroner's malpractice
https://reason.com/2007/10/08/csi-mississippi/
I will confess my concern about the situation is due at least in part to my exuberant youth. Where I may have had more fun than the law allows.
I was lucky enough to put that behind me (CPA, MBA etc) but I know everybody's not as lucky. Listening to Glenn makes me think I should contact my local prison and see if I can't provide help and encouragement to those trying to get their life back together. Not sure where I would find the time though...
Not to mention my kids don't know yet, lol
How to help people in prison either get help or at least stay sane and build something of and within themselves? Last week, I made the very small step of meeting a woman who works with women who are incarcerated and their families. It was just to get coffee and give her a box of books to share. But I imagine there is a lot of need for all kinds of permitted resources and enrichment, maybe literacy help for some or tutoring for classes. A business and accounting background might help meet a crying need for financial literacy. Honestly, I didn’t grow up with much of that kind of social capital in my own family and had to learn the hard way as an adult. But there’s no doubt that in some communities there is a concentrated lack of financial know-how and even sense of agency and of the efficacy of good daily habits and long-term planning. It may be largely a socioeconomic phenomenon but it undoubtedly also tracks with race in many urban areas where there tends to be a lot of extremes of income and wealth
You may have provided the wrong link. The 8x figure in your link is for "homicide victims," not "wrongly convicted." The figure may be correct, but that article offers no supporting data. (Unless I missed something.)
https://seattlemedium.com/innocent-blacks-seven-times-more-likely-to-be-wrongfully-convicted-of-murder-than-innocent-whites/
Sorry my mistake here's a more recent link
7 instead of 8 times though
Ha - yeah I was motivated in part because I liked a certain now widely accepted substance and even got busted at one point simply for having some in a friend’s car. Being able to go online and find an affordable lawyer admitted to that bar and recommended by reform groups - and, embarrassingly, having a girlfriend who fronted me the money to pay him until I could pay her back gave me the ability to get off with a fine and probation. I was still cuffed by the side of the road at 3am and thought one state trooper in particular was actually going to bash me in the head for the fun of it. I still had to explain that arrest record to prospective employers a few times over the years. But I could see how much of the process was about extracting a toll and subsidy from a benign passerby with no prior record to speak of. They all wanted their cut. And be being painstakingly polite and unassuming, while my lawyer worked with his counterpart at the prosecutor’s office, I got off relatively lightly. I was treated more or less like a young man who’d made a youthful error in judgment. Maybe the judge even saw a bit of a wayward but well-meaning grandson in me. I’m mind reading and speculating. But I also saw how many kids in more affluent parts of BK were seemingly continually on the way to furtively smoke, in the midst of smoking, or giggling having just come from smoking. And how much pot smoke I smelled coming from brownstones in enviable zip codes. Sure, the cops didn’t hassle those kids and and parents not only because they had more clout or didn’t fit a stereotype, but more materially because there were virtually no serious crimes, no assaults, or shootings, etc. in those areas. Maybe some of the parents were up to white collar malfeasance. But there was virtually no violent crime or guns to get off the streets. In other areas of course normal kids got swept up in routine stops and even harassment some heavy handed, and maybe for no more than walking down their own block, or being part of a boisterous crowd of teenagers. It’s a real dilemma and it’s hard to neatly draw that line of how to deter and enforce; how to find legal pretexts to get to the guns and find the violent offenders with warrants out and dangerous suspects.
Anyway, thanks for the links!
Thank you Glenn! Your honest, pragmatic insight into this cauldron of race-hustling scumbags is needed now more than ever! We have to stop these mentally cave-dwelling Neanderthals(both white Liberal BLM supporting activists AND the militant black ‘antiracist’ Kendi/D’Angelo charlatans dead in their tracks! If we do not cut the head off this Medusa we’ll have a boiling underbelly of Whites desperately seeking to respond to their unjust accusers with the strongest, full throated and most importantly heavily ARMED response you could possibly imagine! And trust me, we’ve got ALL the guns and are well versed in both their use and maintenance. It would get UGLY for the Leftists real quickly. Let’s hope for their sake they don’t push this wounded animal(White people) into a corner......it would make our Civil War look like 5 year olds playing cops and robbers by comparison!
Beautiful speech; articulate, poetic and impassioned. A voice of Reason. I follow your work so it’s not new to me, but always refreshing as I work in higher education and am surrounded by the Woke. At one time I considered myself far Left but have found myself gradually shift toward center. Sometimes I’m not sure who I am anymore. I’ve lost many friends by airing my views – even thoughtfully.
I see you as a bridge, attempting to reconcile your love for black people, your community with your love for America, your home. I think speeches like this by intelligent, reflective persons are most important – and touching. The extremes are so loud right now that there is the fear that “the center cannot hold.” But the center must hold – we must hold to the center, says Lao Tzu, the middle way says the Buddha. To my mind your speech serves to strengthen this essential space.
I had an initial concern about the part of your speech that focused on the backlash of white people, fearing articulating it may encourage it. But on reflection, I agree it must be said as it’s a natural reaction that needs to be addressed up front. As has been stated many times, CRT/BLM/Woke thinking and rhetoric is fodder for its opponent, fueling an equal impassioned reaction that will mirror and eventually destroy both sides if each is left to its own myopia. I appreciated your grave warning to the potentially “tempted” audience that a white backlash would be detrimental – for all. A better but more difficult way, and what you promote, indeed demonstrate, is to burst the bubbles of deluded isolation and actually talk; we may not be so different.
May I suggest that being too timid to choose a side is to underestimate the political moment we are in. Too many good, supposedly smart people tie themselves in knots trying to avoid finding or saying anything positive about Trump, who is a national populist of which black patriotism could be a significant and welcome part. If you are still afraid of saying positive things about Trump (which essays of this sort always sidestep) it is because you have been, like all of us, indoctrinated (made afraid) by the media and all the “liberal” Democrats around you, in spite of yourself.
Really, a moment’s genuine consideration of the significance of, for example, the enormity of the Russia collusion narrative should disabuse any reasoning person of the notion that their response to Trump has been anything but the manufacture of the media—perhaps, adhering to a kernel of class disgust—and profoundly reinforced by the threat of ostracism from our peers. Yes, I was a Democrat a few years ago…
I offer the possibility that: No white backlash is coming in America because the America Firsters (1 Understand that blacks are legacy Americans—they are us. 2) Share conservative values of family and faith 3) And mostly: America Firsters know for a fact that they are not being labeled “racist” by black people, and the derision they experience comes from the media, academics and other whites. Not blacks. National Populism believes in natural law, equality for everybody, consent of the governed, the promise of the Declaration, a new skepticism of globalism, strong borders and tariffs to restore the jobs of working and middle class people. What in the hell is wrong with that?
At Princeton there is a celebrated classics professor Dr. Dan-el Padilla Peralta who now seeks to destroy and banish the classics as the roots and sinews of "white supremacy". But there was a time when Dr. Padilla Peralta was a lover of the same classics.
I wonder if Dr. Padilla Peralta began seeing himself not as a scholar, but as a black activist and anti-racist. Viewing his enterprise as a scholar, the patrimony and matrimony that are the classics, were his, as they are any other person's, whoever or whatever they might be.
But once the primary lense became race, Did he begin to see that the only avenue open to him was to destroy and resent them?
One of my favorite points Glenn makes is when he describes his love of older Russian literature. The problems of the human condition are universal. We find both greater empathy and psychological perspective as well as self-knowledge when we inhabit the experience of other human beings across space and time and culture.
I actually spell both Black and White capitalized, when referring to the races. It doesn’t make sense to not he consistent. This amongst many other things, makes me somewhat of an oddball.
That’s fair. This was part of the focus of one of John McWhorter’s posts when it his Substack was active. I keep both lower case out of consistency and equal standing. And because of the leveling, egalitarian ideal that we are all equal and some should not be conferred preferential titles from birth or by category. The individual human being matters far more than whether they are black or white.
Yeah. I'm not liable to bow down to peer pressure. I lower case "w" to highlight this fact: (And before You call me a racist, THINK about it for a bit.) Today, a LARGE percentage of what goes on in America is being decided by a SMALL number of Black Supremists. For a few examples:
The thug M. Coates. THe inimitable M. Hannah-Jones. Can't leave out M. Crenshaw and crew. The money grubber M. DiAngelo. (And, yeah: OBVIOUS (to me anyway) the MAJORITY of Black Supremists are caucasian.) I won't dignify Kendi with a "M."
Like I said: Tired. Who could possibly FORGET the impassioned Marxist, M. Cullors.
Thank you for sharing this.
The media and the left dream up these nasty ideas that all of one kind of skin color person feels the same.... like all Italians like Pizza, or are affiliated with mafia. All people from the Netherlands eat cheese and cookies all day (well, okay they do) or All so and so's carry three guns and a machete
The media has been doing this for decades. They encourage division
I am so glad I found your blog.
We are all the same, and different. We are individuals. Not everyone likes or should be expected to like the things I like (hoarding and collecting fabrics, sewing all day, making family heirlooms, had 4 sewing machines in constant working order ready and used, hate cooking food and other such non-sense)
My dad is 98 and he says, we are all weirdos to someone else
I’m paraphrasing, in parts, a longer comment I posted to the YouTube clip very shortly after it went up earlier this afternoon. It was thoughtful and polite, if pointed, and it was removed. It’s getting harder and harder to trust that Big Tech won’t simply quash opinions it doesn’t like.
I’m a lifelong liberal who has literally never voted for a Republican. But if I’d been voting in Virginia last week I’d have voted for Republicans for all of the major statewide offices. One of the crowning moral commitments that attracted me to the Democratic Party from the time I was a teenager was its focus on equal rights and fairness (equal standing, dignity, and opportunity for all). I remember Lee Atwater; I know what actual “dog whistle politics” is. And I also know gaslighting when I hear it. The cultural left that now dominates our major institutions as well as the Democratic Party has turned that commitment to equality absolutely on its head. And is lying about it and trying to intimidate, censor, bait, smear, and ruin anyone who says that the emperor has no clothes.
I am probably a bit older than you. I was a teenager in the '60s and remember having the same view as you of the Democratic Party with Hubert Humphrey, Gene McCarthy, McGovern, the Kennedys and LBJ. Then I got too busy with life and kids and earning a living to pay close attention. Now that I am older, retired and have the time to study politics and history I have come to understand that the Democratic Party is and has been (since the early part of the 20th century) about expanding the scope and size of government while reducing accountability and checks and balances. They have been true unwavering progressives for a hundred years. See "America Transformed, The Rise and Legacy of American Progressivism" by Ronald J. Pestrito. We are living today with the rotten fruits of their labors with unaccountable bureaucracies made up of over educated elites dominating government and our lives.
Ah well... PAST dinner hour. Just wanna close out by saying I got distracted, and You said it very simply, clearly, and fairly.
Now, to SOME people, that's three strikes AGAINST You. But I appreciate it, is all I'm capable of. Hope it's good 'nuff. :)
Do you think Blacks and Whites are treated equally in America?
Do you have any particular blacks and whites in mind? In 2021, overall, class, socioeconomic status, geography, family and community, etc. matter far, far more. And let’s be honest: while some white families have been privileged for several generations and have hoarded and passed much of that down, we have also had a number of forms of open de jure and more informal types of discrimination that have favored blacks (including those from families that need no help at all) as well as members of virtually any group other than working class and working poor whites (based on “diversity”). Is there some residual informal discrimination against black Americans? Yes. But most of it is a class or cultural discrimination. I’m not being facetious when I ask to whom in particular you’re referring. Because individual and class and community circumstances matter far more.
Why is the mediabn family wealth for Whites more than ten times as much as the median wealth for Blacks? I think that is pretty much proof of discrimination right there. If you want a pile of research I can provide that as well.
Why is there such a tremendous wealth gap?
"Why is the mediabn family wealth for Whites more than ten times as much as the median wealth for Blacks?"
Because historically white families had a lot more wealth. That wealth tends to be passed on.
So absent a policy that took a lot of that wealth and gave it directly to black families. It will take a long time to achieve equality of that. It doesn't say anything about current discrimination.
In addition to material wealth, those upper class white families passed on a lot of social capital. For example, my wife and I both have our MBA's. So we are better able to teach our children what they would need to get ahead, than say a family where no one had ever been to college.
Finally of course there's the factor that many poor black kids are trapped in horrible schools. But due to the Democrats being in the pocket of the teachers unions, any attempts to get school choice passed are very hard to do.
I think that the fact that Blacks have less generational wealth and are far more likely to be forced to live in poor neighborhoods with lacking social services including schools would a priori be proof that our society is racist.
Somehow you take this as evidence that everything is just fine and working as intended.
We take the same set of facts and reach opposite conclusions. I do appreciate your honest assessment of the current situation though.
"Somehow you take this as evidence that everything is just fine and working as intended"
No. my point was that wealth difference isn't proof of current discrimination. But "could" largely be attributed to past discrimination.
What to do about it is a different question. Obviously that's why affirmative action programs were put in place decades ago. Because a lot of people wanted to make up for past discrimination. Clearly that wasn't enough.
But honest question what would be? And what would be the metrics to let you know that we could end those programs?
Personally I think you're going to get further now days with class based instead of raced based programs. It's going to be easier to get broad based buy in. And there's not going to be the same stigma attached to people that benefit from those programs.
Plus as I mentioned elsewhere I'm very open to significant criminal justice reform. Ending the war on drugs, reforming or eliminating qualified immunity etc.
There is some intergenerational overhang from when discrimination was gross and truly systemic. There’s no doubt about that. But you asked if I thought blacks and whites were treated equally in the US today. I’m far from a sociologist, economist, demographer, or historian (alas). But I’d guess if you look on the lower end of that median you’ll find far, far more commonality. If you’re arguing proof of past discrimination there’s absolutely no doubt - I’m with you. But we have to know what discrimination and when it occurred and whom it affected and how - as well as how those effects
…crossed generations. There are so many variables that impact wealth other than whether one’s ancestors were black or white.
I don’t want to be dismissive btw that there might be some present day discrimination here and there in forms that really impacts people materially as well as psychologically. If a real estate agent or mortgage lender or hiring or rental manager treats one of my fellow citizens unfairly based on skin color - that person’s own prejudice or stereotypes - that makes me angry. It’s hugely important we don’t excuse that. I just don’t think it’s remotely as common as it used to be. On the other hand, we’ve had various forms of affirmative action for over fifty years, and rather than phasing them out as Justice O’Connor believed we’d do within a generation when she cast her swing vote, we’re now speeding toward enforced equal outcomes, Kendi-style with no room for effort, merit, or any other variables.
The racial gap in income, wealth and almost all other areas is just as large as it was when MLK was assassinated. We aren't speeding towards anything at all.
You wanna simple answer to that? Numbers don't tell the Truth of the matter.
Dr. Loury had an entire conversation on the derivation of median wealth...and there were question. But apparently the discrepancies between black and white occur above the 50th percentile and are much smaller below.
Also, compare median wealth of Hispanics and Asian to other groups.
BTW, don't forget that everyone, regardless of color, has benefited profusely by the history of slavery.
It is important to note that Asians are the most wealthy racial group in America. This is a fact. They are much wealthier than whites. Has nothing to do with skin color, discrimination, privilege or any other nonsense. Just hard work.
Median isn't average. Median means half the people in that group have less and half more. 10x is a pretty huge gap at the median, no matter how you slice the figures.
Go ahead and point me to the article if you don't mind, I am curious what he has to say about that.
If you are trying to claim that poor Whites have it about as bad as poor Blacks, I think there is a good case for that.
But that doesn't mean there isn't obvious economic and discrimination going on. In fact, it sort of reinforces the argument, at least to me.
https://youtu.be/iNIWRImceKQ
It’s discussed in some depth here and in Dr. Loury and McWhorter’s subsequent discussion.
Yeah, it WOULD reinforce the argument, to YOU. Controlled, like I said below.
I LIKE that: "PROFUSELY!"
Me? I would group people according to ONE statistic, because it's the one I"m most familiar with: WEALTH.
We all know about the top 10%. But most don't even give a consideration to the poor people in the bottom HALF. Who own a whopping TWO (2) percent of the wealth.
Anyone up to any good would look to do ONE thing and that's to help the poor.
NEVER happen. Because of the powers that be, primarily the WOKE.
Sometimes. Animal Farm: "Some are just MORE equal than others."
Do you think discrimination tends to be anti-White mostly?
LOR' ha MERCY, I'm tired. Typing is tiring after mebbe 13 hours of it.
The Media that CONTROLS what people believe? Social and mainstream. One the MAIN ones and I forgot. Ah well...
The media controls you? Really? Did they control you into believing that Whites are discriminated against???
You're picking on the wrong guy, dude. Golden NON-Rule #1:
Epictetus:
Happiness and freedom begin with a clear understanding of one principle: Some things are within our control, and some things are not. It is only after you have faced up to this fundamental rule and learned to distinguish between what you can and can't control that inner tranquility and outer effectiveness become possible.
#2:
It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.
No, the media doesn't control ME. I don't watch cable. (TV still in box for over a year.) Don't read the papers very much. Got SUBSCRIPTIONS to NYT, WaPo, USA Today. Don't read them hardly EVER. Lately taken to reading some conservative views, with a jaundiced eye.
If You haven't figured out that whites are being discriminated against or, rather, in particular white MALES are for decades?
Then You, "my fine furred friend," ARE being controlled by the media.
Well, that's what happens when I just shoot from the hip like I do. When I say "prevailing culture and politics," You can take that to mean in virtually ALL the institutions power in the U.S. I'm trying to think of an institution that ISN"T discriminatory against whites. Academia. Biden. Government in general. Corporations. Non-profits. Loooong day. Just saying, woke rules. Or hadn't You noticed?
Oh please. Do you need research studies? Blacks are discriminated against in almost all areas of US society. The military being the notable exception.
Your gonna BEG me. Please don't work on me.
Just lately. And when I say "mostly" I'm talking about the prevailing culture and politics. MOST people, from what I understand and experience, just try to get by more than thinking about racial issues 24/7.
Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals.
It is all in there.
TYTY. Nice way to end the day. Looks promising. On the list. Just hafta get through the 1000 in front of it first. (Seriously, gotta get back reading whittling down a few before I buy it. May even read it. Who knows. ;) TY.
Amazing speech. Well said sir.
TYTY. I couldn't say enough about what You say the solution is. BEYOND race. TRANSCEND race. UNLEARN race. Again, TY.
I may be overbold, but I think I understand Black people better than You understand white people. MOST white people are NOT gonna take on white supremist ideas, for ANY reason or prompting.
What they (or, I guess I SHOULD say, we) in particular do NOT like is being TOLD we're racist, when we aren't. When we're TOLD we need to ATONE for what our great-great-some-odd-great grandfathers did. When we're TOLD we need to PAY UP. For what reason? Other than vengeance, pure and simple. To be TOLD we're racists, for the simple reason that we won't vote for Democrats, REGARDLESS of how woke the Democrats are.
So I don't think BLM or any-a the rest of them should change their posture because it would be in their best interests. (Well, BLM would first hafta disavow their Marxist roots, which isn't likely.)
Maybe I'm just weird. (Well.. Actually there's no MAYBE about THAT. ;) But I don't know any white people trying to justify their whiteness based on the contributions of European Enlightment on down. I take that back. Me and just about 98% of whites don't hang out with the kind-a white supremists that WOULD say such a stupid thing.
I don't ask Blacks to justify their Blackness. (Long story.) Don't KNOW of many white people that do, but ICBW. But I do NOT understand why being white automatically makes me a villain in this delusional story. ME. PERSONALLY. And spread that view to most white people. Who made the decision that Blacks do NOT represent their race, and they should be treated as INDIVIDUALS. But blanket indictments of whites is okay-fine? In particular, white, male, heterosexuals. Guilty as charged, if that's the criteria and individuality doesn't come into play at ALL.
And I'll carry it a step further. Democrats as a whole, no matter what color, seem to think that all Republicans are white racists. Just stands to reason, apparently. Explains how McAuliffe (however You spell it) got voted down, right?
My only suggestion? Doesn't matter. Seeing the surface of semi-truths prevail, or I wouldn't waste so much time posting on Substacks. Luckily for MOST, I can't spend the time or I would.
APPOLOGIZE, of course. SURE I offended some or most. NEVER my intention. Intention to shed light, not heat. Sometimes do better than others, is all.
Almost forgot. Still TYTY, Professor Loury. Got me to thinkin'. :)
"A little about me, tho nobody'd prolly be interested:"
Voted Dem since McGovern in '72. Voted for Biden. NEVER will again. Nor Trump, if that's not obvious.
Saw "To Kill a Mockingbird" when I was about five. BIG impact on my life.
Teenage brat, hated my Dad. From 15 to 19 worked for a Black man and alongside his son. "Heck" YEAH he was my role model. NEVER talked about race. NEVER did anything socially. Other than eat lunch together every day. Me? Just listened. What did I get from that? Just reaffirmed what I somewhat knew. People are people.
Never even thought of him as my mentor until a couple days ago. Sure WAS!
Biracial niece and nephew? Just people.
Still learning all the unique WAYS people are people. Based on... What d'ya think?
Black people deserve reparations because the wealth of their labor was stolen for a dozen generations and then they labored under Jim Crow for another five and still suffer some prejudice today.
It probably won’t happen for a number of reasons, but something like free college just might be possible.
More politically likely is general anti-poverty programs that will tend to help Blacks more because they are more likely to be poor.
I’m down with your last suggestion if those programs are well designed - structure, incentives, etc. We badly need demonstrated family hardship and socioeconomically-based outreach, mentoring, support and preferences rather than persisting in things like wildly advantaging the offspring of upper middle class black professionals in affluent zip codes or the progeny of elite immigrants, due solely to skin color. We also need to ban legacy admissions and preferential admissions and scholarships for athletes (a lot more privileged kids on tennis and golf and swim teams). The athletes coming from actual hardship will be helped on those criteria. But think of the combination of entitled upper class clout and donations and the athletic departments that half control many colleges. Talk about politically difficult. You won’t be surprised I oppose skin color reparations or even those based and traced somehow to specific family histories. We’ve already had fifty-plus years of affirmative action in admissions and hiring; small business set-asides and mandates in government contracting; racially exclusive scholarships and mentoring programs. We need to find a way to give what John McWhorter calls the approx 1/3 of black Americans who are struggling today the support that truly help prepare and lift and motivate. We’d do well to consider much the same in areas like Appalachia and parts of the US with endemic poverty and disadvantage among American Indians.
Oh LOR' ha MERCY. There's really no bottom to how woke Your views are.
And free college tuition? As if academia hasn't failed ENOUGH and that's largely why the country is IN the state it's in? Yeah, throw them more MONEY. Just read book covering liberalism from 1920 on. Ah. No point.
If money would solve social problems, we'd have very few problems today. It HASN"T. It DOESN"T. But if we keep throwing MORE money, it eventually WILL. We didn't throw ENOUGH money. DId make a big enough COMMITMENT. IT WILL WORK THIS TIME.
Apply a little logic on these views, before You accuse others of not doing so.
While I am sure you would prefer go back to the prelapsarian paradise where 10 year olds worked in mines, women couldn't vote, poverty rate among seniors was above 60% and Blacks were routinely lynched, I would not.
Social security is the greatest anti-poverty program America has ever invented.
Lor' ha MERCY. I wasn't gonna write today, just read. But when You make such an arse outta Yerself, I just have to point it out. Me? Dem since McGovern. You?
Beautifully put Glenn, this deserves a wide audience
Referring to the peace and aliveness he felt before destroying a great relationship, Bob Dylan wrote: "Once I held mountains in the palm of my hands, and rivers which flowed through every day. I must have been mad. I never knew what I had, till I threw it all away."
All those years and all the sweat and all the humble pie and the disappointment and the glacial progress and the heartbreak to build a society at least aspirationally directed toward a world beyond color. This essay gives me the chill of a cold wind. May we please not go there.
Bravo, Glenn