Could have done without the comedians. The flippant use of the N-word (something Glenn and John abhor)was totally unnecessary. And, the idea that the January 6th morons would have been treated differently if they had been black is completely idiotic, especially in light of the fact that BLM supporters waged war on our major cities for months with impunity.
This is a big improvement over the first comedy club presentation that included several comedians all vying for attention and laughs. I appreciate Glenn and John getting the ball rolling without interruption along with their attempt to politely call Sherrod and the other comedian out about statements made that were not backed up with facts.
The comedians were more emotionally reactive than introspective which leads me to think that if there is another comedy club gathering there could be someone available to act as facillitator between the comedians and Glenn and John's subject matter. In an ideal world such a person might be Wayne Brady or similar type due to his comic sensibilities, intelligence, and understanding of nuance and facts. It would compel the comedians to seriously address the issues at hand and perhaps think about the possibility of including some of what they learned into their act.
As a native New Yorker (no longer living there), I would certainly come up from the mid-atlantic area to attend the next one.
Thank you Glenn for all that you do because trying to get black folks and white liberals to honestly analyze victim narratives and disengage in pity parties is a tough mountain to climb, and yet the two of you have advanced the bar higher than most.
I just listened to the full episode while out on a ride, and I have to agree with John. The first part with you and J was evidence-based; the second part was about anecdotes and wise-cracking. Unfortunately, when John tried to engage the comedians in a more serious fact-based discussion, all he got was a red herring (e.g., John: "What about poor whites in Fishtown?" Comedian: "I asked my (middle-class) white friends in NYC and they never had any trouble with the police!"). With that being said, I will never not listen to an episode of TGS (that would be sacrilegious!) and I look forward to seeing how the comedy-show format develops. Unrelated: have you thought about some TGS merch ("Glenn and John: the black guys at TGS") with a drawing of your and John's face? I have dreams of wearing a TGS hoodie to my next faculty meeting, just to stir the pot ;p
No didn’t like this at all. Calling audience members “bitch” .. and the over the top foul mouths is just indicative of the absolute disrespect for decency. Comedian or not..know the forum and your audience. Their experiences and perception is their reality and nothing will change it ...clearly..
AND NOOOO .. white women walking in the hood is not safe regardless of date in history .. women can’t even walk down stairs from their work in New York.. or men for that matter..
One’s experience becomes the banter for all and pretty soon it’s the reality of the entire community. They make sure it stays their reality by self fulling the narrative with disrespect towards police, running from the police, “not paying the peeing on the street ticket” and then having a warrant” and they were all in there for “the same reasons.” Why can’t they talk about going to court so you don’t get a warrant and following the law... nope “all the people who were in the jail were black” and “we were arrested” for the same thing. Which essentially makes our narrative fact.
The narrative is further cemented as fact by the Democrats and the legacy media. I question whether that alliance is healthy for any of the three. It's hard to imagine it is in any way healthy for a society or a democracy.
In your Q & A John mentioned how it would be nice to have comedians who are not leftists. You may have hear of Ryan Long (and his comedy partner, whose name escapes me). He's a Canadian comedian who lives in NYC and does weekly YT videos. One of his best videos is about how woke and racists share many beliefs. I think he would make a great addition to the Comedy Cellar panel.
I was at this event. I definitely agree the format doesn’t work well like this. The comedians deflected any real discussion of the issues with a combination of fallacies and outdated racial humor. Fried chicken jokes? Dunking on and sleeping with white guys girlfriends? This type of lazy humor was hardly funny in the 90s, let alone today. I think it’s a crutch by a lot of comedians today because it dares the audience to withhold laughter and go against the comedians underlying message that explicit racism against blacks is prevalent everywhere and basically the same as it was in the 60s. I felt more like an ideological hostage than a willing participant once the comedians hopped on stage.
The cab joke right at the top was funny. Otherwise, Glenn and John were much more entertaining than the professionals, just by being themselves.
I finally caught up on last month's Q&A. I'd be interested in John's suggestion to put the comedians on first and then follow up with the more substantive portion. Bottom line: they need better comedians. Self-deprecation is probably an important ingredient.
John seems to think that not paying attention to the comments here is some kind of badge of honor. It's actually disrespectful to those who listen to or read the posts and take the time to share their thoughts.
I disagree .. he and Glenn give us the topic and discuss ..As the audience we can discuss further thru comments and I enjoy reading the comments. I doubt either of them want to get on here and explain themselves further. Who has time for that. Glenn stated he reads the comments to make sure they are civil, very rarely does he comment back. Seems to me the question and answer session they do once a month is the place they elaborate.
I don't think it's disrespectful of John not to read the comments, though I am disappointed that he doesn't. Maybe he simply doesn't have time or maybe he doesn't want to be sucked into fruitless arguments.
John has previously talked about not engaging with comments on Twitter or his NYT column either. It's nothing personal. It has everything to do with a keeping a level head, and considering how prolific he is, I don't see how he would have the time anyway.
Some accuse John of arrogance on occasion. I would rather praise him for it.
I've read a number of intimate accounts of online writers in which they describe what it's like to read online comments. All described it as being jarring, often threatening, and more of a blight on their lives than a source of illumination.
Undoubtedly, people regularly drop valuables down the drains in their sinks. But that won't make it rewarding to go prospecting in the sewers.
I think John is showing some satisfaction in his decision to avoid drinking from the toxic firehose that is called "online discussion." That you describe that very reasonable choice as "disrespectful" reveals a lack of empathy for the downside of being an online personality. It's not all love and insight around here. (And it almost invariably includes death threats.)
In my opinion, John McWhorter carries on in a consistently respectful fashion. Your own remarks are often well-crafted and insightful. This one struck me as inapposite and even disappointing (which reflects my generally positive regard for your comments).
I don't know what Twitter or Facebook or TikTok is like. I don't participate. I understand it to be the cesspool that you describe. Personally I've never seen a death threat or anything remotely resembling one in a substack comment.
Maybe I'm old fashioned but when substack authors specifically say "we would like to hear what you think" I take them at face value. John's comments make one feel like a sucker.
I'm not a fan of this initiative. Trying to have a serious discussion about race in a comedy club in NYC/Greenwich Village (A capitol of woke) with comedians that have learned long ago that foul language and playing to their audience's biases assures laughs and making them uncomfortable means not being invited back.
There may be a venue where comedy can help facilitate serious discussions on race, but the Comedy Cellar is not it.
The composition of the audience is not clear from the recording. Based on the scattered laughter and the off-camera questions from audience members, we can assume that at least a decent portion of the crowd were drawn to the event to see Glenn and John, and not the professional comedians.
I agree that this session didn't go very well, but not enough to dispense with the concept entirely. In my opinion the comedians were made to look like buffoons -- maybe that was the whole point!
I assume an audience at a comedy club in Greenwich Village is going to be largely 20-50 yr old woke New Yorkers with some out of town visitors as well. In other words. John's "Elect". I know NYC and the Village, I grew up there.
I agree the approach to finding an intersection between comedy and a race discussion is worthwhile. I just don't think this is the best venue.
Just to clarify, the event sold out well in advance, which means that anyone with a ticket knew they were coming to see Glenn and John specifically. I was there, and the vibe in the room was very enthusiastic. The audio mix on the video and podcast might not reflect that, as our editor tamped down the audience volume.
Thanks for the clarification Mark. I would have been there myself but travel from NM to NY during the summer is well out of my comfort zone. And then there is dealing with the nightmare that NY has become. How would you describe the demographics of the audience?
The first part of the video was pretty standard back and forth by Glenn and John on the usual topics, which I guess was designed to provoke a back and forth with the comedians and the audience. The comedians' contribution was inconsequential and what little audience interaction was between the comedians and the audience. Frankly the comedians could have been left out and Glenn and John should have gone directly to a Q&A/discussion with the audience. Or maybe one comedian can do a 10 minute provocative routine on race up front which could have become the subject of discussion between G&J and the audience.
It was a little hard to see who was there—dark club. But I think it skewed a little younger than I expected. The table next to me looked like they were in they were in their mid-20s at most and very enthusiastic. I saw a number of other similar tables. It also seemed fairly racially / ethnically diverse. Again, hard to tell, but it definitely wasn't a room full of white people. I chatted with a few people and eavesdropped a bit. A woman sitting at my table was a self-described superfan and a liberal professor in her mid-50s at a very liberal college in the city in the city, the guy sitting behind me was a FedSoc-affiliated lawyer. Hopefully that gives you some sense of things.
I grew up mostly in the Southwest (Phoenix and Tucson). There's no place like the desert. Santa Fe is especially gorgeous. Enjoy those monsoons!
This seems a natural place to renew my suggestion for a survey of Glenn Show subscribers to get a feel for the demographic mix therein, as well as the distribution of subscribers' opinions on a variety of political issues. I suggested this in the last Q&A thread, and the idea seemed to have been well received by others.
I suspect that such a survey would show a much greater variety of thought than one would guess from many TGS comments sections. I hope so!
Why am I so curious about this? I think in part it's because in the past few years I've watched so many intelligent, charismatic, heterodox people develop a paying internet audience... only to then end up utterly captured by that same audience - or at least what they took to be their paying audience, based on a nonrepresentative sample. (It's good to know the *actual* composition of one's audience.) Mercifully, I see no evidence of that happening to Glenn, but at times when I read through the comments here, they remind me of the sorts of things written by the internet crazies who probably helped drive some of these other once sensible people over the edge.
Agreed on Santa Fe. I lived there for a couple of years, and it's a remarkable place - summer monsoons and all.
Last week John seemed less than enthusiastic about how this went, but I thought it went well and John came across fine. I sensed his exasperation at one point when he was rapid-fire interrupted, but the format is such that there will be some rough edges. I also liked that the comedians quite frequently spoke seriously rather than merely shoehorning their act into the format.
Okay, one of the underlying ideas of this experiment is that comedians say things that would otherwise go unspoken. I thought the two Kareems bit was such a moment. One of the punchlines was that people reacted to Kareem being shot at school with, "Well, somebody needed to shoot Kareem." Two things jumped out at me, and perhaps Glenn and John could discuss them in the future.
1. Does that same attitude apply to the gang shootings? I've often wondered about that. Many, many years ago, there was a town with a "bully" who terrorized the citizens. (For the record, all involved in this incident were white.) Eventually the townspeople confronted the man. He wound up shot to death. No one would say anything, and that was the end of the story. With the gang shootings, there is a lot of collateral damage, but if you put that aside, does the community react to the shootings with, "Somebody needed to shoot Kareem"?
2. Why does "somebody needed to shoot Kareem" turn into "Kareem was the greatest person in the world" when a cop shoots Kareem? (The Grand Rapids shooting a few months back is an apt example of that, and it looks like the current situation in Ohio may be, as well.)
I had a totally different take on the Kareem joke, which, in my mind, fell flat. I heard it as a kind of comedic punching up, where the point was to illustrate that whites are morally weaker. That is to say that white shooters are crazy and indiscriminate, while blacks kill with a specific target for vengeance or honor. However, unless invoked in clear act of self-defense, the implication that the latter killing is somehow morally justifiable relative to any other killing is absurd. Maybe the humor was lost on me, but it didn't appear that Sharrod was kidding. That is, he intended to line the joke with some basic truths as he understands them.
I'm not sure that whites being over-represented in mass murders is necessarily used to highlight their moral weakness relative to Blacks. If empirically speaking whites are in fact over-represented in such murders, I do think there are probably interesting sociological reasons why the kid who shoots up a school and kills dozens of people is disproportionately more likely to be white than Black. So I think it's an interesting phenomenon worth noting and trying to understand. That's also what I assumed Sherrod was referring to when he tried to deflect some of the criticism of Black violence.
That being said, these mass murders are basically just a drop in the ocean and obviously overall per capita homicide rates are still far higher in this country among Blacks than among whites, the difference being perhaps as high as an order of magnitude.
There's definitely something going on, and I'm sure there is research out there. The mass shooting cases vary, but on the spectrum of murder, the perpetrators skew toward legally insane relative to the more common "cold-blooded" killings that occur in context of poverty or gang activity. I mentioned serial killers in my response to your other comment, almost all of whom are white.
In any case, I'm not inclined to give Sharrod Small the credit needed to conclude that he was attempting to bring awareness to an "interesting sociological" phenomenon, but maybe that's just me. I've heard the argument so many times before as a deflection of criticism, and the notion circulates widely in the form of online memes. We clearly both agree that these mass murders, though horrendous, represent a small percentage of all homicides, the majority of which can be attributed to black-on-black violence, and that the latter doesn't get the scrutiny it deserves. That's where I think the morality play comes in: we are meant to understand that somehow when white people kill, it is much worse, or that poor blacks shouldn't be held to same standards of humanity.
Right, that was the point of the main joke. What struck me was the one-liner within the main joke. It stood out because it's something I've mulled over before, and it's not something I've heard discussed. While in the joke the two Kareems were schoolmates, the point easily translates to regular street violence. Maybe "snitches get stitches" isn't the entire story.
I don't want to overanalyze, but I thought it was a good example of the premise Dr. Loury first laid out when he announced these events.
Gotcha. Yeah, I was disappointed not to see it called out by Glenn. I thought immediately of Sowell's *Black Rednecks*.
Overall, the comics exhibited a kind of hip-hop braggadocio ("I dunked on you and fucked your girl", the constant interjections, etc.) that was difficult to engage with seriously and smacked of a mentality in which street violence might be glorified. I guess I just expected Glenn to have selected comedians who were above it. At the very least, given the popularity of this kind of posturing in comedy and music, it was a good demonstration of how easily honor culture and the ideas that go with it are reinforced.
I wrote this on another comment page but will just quickly repeat that I think it would be fun if you guys talked about the history of Black comedy (film, TV, live performance, etc.) and used that as a launching point to talk about contemporary issues. It would suit the venue, comedians love talking about comedy history, and with John's expertise it would be so incredibly informative and fun.
This is a great idea, Suzen. It would be wonderful to get Roland Fryer involved in this, too, given his specific interest (and even participation) in stand-up comedy.
I also wonder if some of these Glenn Show/Comedian mashups would work better if they began with everyone watching a few clips of great comedians to break the ice and then start talking. (A bit like Fryer's idea of having his grad student assistants watch Richard Pryor to generate ideas.) While it's fairly easy for comedians to wave aside the opening thoughts of a couple of academics like Glenn and John, I'm guessing they'd be more likely to engage with them if they were initially loosened up by giants in their own field on the order of Pryor or Dave Chapelle.
While I'm no expert in comedy, a few obvious potential "icebreakers" come to my mind:
I would love for them to get even more history, and talk about whether Sandford and Son or Good Times would be made today, Blaxploitation movies, Black entertainers in the age of Blackface, Song of the South (progressive? regressive?), etc. And yeah, of course, Richard Pryor and other amazing groundbreaking comedians. It is interesting to look at it all in a far-off time frame and compare it to today.
Some people have a tendency to universalize for their identity group their personal lived experience. For instance if a Black man (descendant of slaves, or 'foundational') has frequent run-ins with the cops as he grows up in an urban part of USA, he can over time start believing that all other Black men in the country experience the same, even if this may not necessarily true for other Black men (say immigrants from Africa or the Caribbean) growing up in the same neighbourhood.
There is no single homogenous Black experience. Yet activist groups like Black Lives Matter premise their actions on this assumption. It is true, as Prof. Loury pointed out, that many perpetrators of violent crime happen to be Black and that police, who are not unaware of this fact, frequently use more force than necessary when dealing with any Black person they encounter. But this does not mean that all Black people have a fear of being randomly gunned down by White police every time they step out of their homes.
While Black people can and should speak candidly on their own personal experiences with the police, they should also be cognizant of the fact that not all Blacks have scary police stories to tell.
Indeed. It is common for people to seek input on contentious issues from their family, friends, colleagues, neighbours, etc. But often the people we associate with have similar views on these issues, which reinforces confirmation bias. If Jon had asked strangers or people he knew would have had contrary opinions, the responses he got may have contradicted or opposed his views. This kind of thing is done even in academia, where researchers are very selective on who and where they seek information from for fear of finding out they are wrong.
I was present at the Comedy Cellar for the event and definitely enjoyed it overall. I do have to say that I did find the mixture of serious panel discussion and comedy to be slightly incongruous, especially when Sherrod would try to dismiss some of Glenn's serious points by making a wisecrack. I think Jon Laster took the discussion a little more seriously.
Personally, I didn't mind that the comedians were left of center on the issue of race and policing (or at least left of my own views on the matter) as I believe that having opposing viewpoints actually makes for a livelier conversation. I do wonder though if trying to mix comedy with serious discussion is necessarily the optimal format for these sorts of live events. It is possible that in the future these events are held at the Comedy Cellar but don't necessarily have to involve comedians? Or is that frowned upon given the venue? Personally, I went there to hear Glenn and John pontificate upon the important social issues of the day. I didn't necessarily go there for stand-up comedy in this particular instance for whatever it's worth.
All that being said, it was a blast to see Glenn and John in person and I can't complain too much. I felt like I was in the presence of true rock stars. Is it wishful thinking on my part to imagine The Black Guys on tour one of these days?
As an aside, I should point out my personal view on the matter which is that I'm skeptical of poverty being a significant causal factor for things such as crime. Mainland China has had pretty low per capita homicide rates despite being relatively poor for much of the past 30-40 years. Even more relevant, from what I've seen the correlation between SES and outcomes such as crime or academic achievement has been relatively insignificant in the East Asian cultural sphere compared to the correlation in other regions or contexts. There hasn't been that much difference in terms of per capita violent crime or academic achievement in recent decades between China and wealthier places in East Asia such as Japan, South Korea or Taiwan or Singapore in Southeast Asia. In fact, in some instances mainland China has outperformed the other wealthier places on these metrics.
Given that some type of correlation between SES and life outcomes is normally observed in many contexts, the fact that this correlation seems to be weakened among a particular ethnic group strikes me as a non-trivial empirical observation that deserves some explanation for anyone serious about the particular issue of crime.
I think one of the largest drivers of crime in our country is our failed war on drugs. Drug dealers must resort to violence to gain/protect market share.
Also, I think relative poverty probably does play a factor. If most are poor it's just a fact of life. But if you believe you are stuck being poor and don't see a way out besides drugs I think that will tempt a lot of people.
When I was a private in the army 20+ years ago. I made about $1000 a month. I could make that in one evening selling at the club having a good time. And that's doing small time stuff.
John and Glenn humiliated these comedians, both of whom (I except the laconic Nimesh) relied on anecdotes, hypotheticals, and in the case of Sherrod Small, insipient gay jokes.
As Seth B points out below, two independent conversations took place. This is in many ways a microcosm for the way these issues play out at large. John and Glenn make cogent arguments. The comedians, meanwhile, are way cooler, and their cocky mic control resonates with a different audience.
Please do continue the comedy club experiment. Indeed, if I were nearby, I would love to attend. But please find guests who, while holding opposing views, are worthy of your company on the stage.
I had always read that even though Blacks committed homicides at a far higher rate per capita than whites overall, that whites were disproportionately over-represented in mass shootings like the one we just had yesterday in Highland Park by Robert Crimo, who judging from pictures appears to be a white guy. But I guess I had also heard some pushback against the notion that whites were in fact over-represented in mass shootings so was curious where the matter stood empirically.
I think that was the gist of the joke Sherrod was making about how a Black kid would just shoot one other Black kid instead of the entire school. Admittedly, joking that half the school would've felt that the one kid who got shot deserved it did make some people in the crowd slightly uncomfortable and I gathered by Glenn's reaction that he was a little skeptical of that sentiment as well, but all good. I think it could've been an interesting point to debate, i.e. possible white over-representation in the kinds of mass shootings that seem to grab the national attention.
One of the themes of the discussion seemed to be how the cops tended to have a bias against Blacks relative to non-Blacks. I was thinking about John and Glenn's recent discussion during the monthly Q&A of Roland Fryer's study concluding that even though all else being equal cops don't kill Blacks at higher rates than non-Blacks, they do treat Blacks more roughly in their interactions. This kind of empirical result certainly lends credence to the idea that Blacks don't get a fair shake in their interaction with the police, although I'm sure the critics will counter-argue that perceptions of Blacks by the cops are informed by and large by the disproportionate amount of violence committed by the group as a whole and hence to some extent justified.
One thing that I was thinking about during the entire conversation about race and policing was how in sports Black athletes seem to be viewed differently than white athletes when it comes to violence during play. I remember actually watching the Malice in the Palace back when it occurred in 2004 between the Pistons and the Pacers and in the aftermath there was this notion that when Black players fought in basketball or football it was emblematic of thug culture but that in baseball or hockey, where they actually let the players fight it out, brawling was just an instance of boys being boys. Obviously baseball and hockey are majority white in terms of player composition, i.e. MLB is something like 75-80% percent white and the NHL is around 95% white I believe.
I think you are implying is that that attitudes toward violence in football & basketball is racially biased. I think in the NFL & NBA actual fights seem unexpected, more aggressive and real, and maybe there really is a "thug mentality". In the MLB it usually is some guys clearing the benches and swatting flies & in the NHL, besides it's been part of the game for years, the participants are so heavily padded and helmeted to be rarely harmful.
"In the MLB, the report said 38 percent of all players as of Opening Day 2022 were players of color, a 0.4 percent increase over 2021's numbers. About 28.5 percent of those players were Hispanic or Latino, 1.9 percent were Asian players, and less than 1 percent were Hawaiian/Pacific Islander or Native American."
"While Black players made up about 18 percent of all MLB rosters when TIDES first began assessing the league's demographic data in 1991, Black players represented only 7.2 percent of all MLB players at the start of the current season."
Sherrod's joke about school shootings was one of many misses. And he knew he missed because he repeated the punchline in a desperate attempt to right the ship.
I've heard the point about white representation in mass shootings (indeed, serial killings as well) from my friends further to the left who want to racialize gun control. It's never gone through for me. I believe their goal is to level the moral playing field. It comes off as a kind of schoolyard taunt, like "I know you are but what am I".
I agree that Glenn and John could have picked up the "police harassment" thread, and that harassment was being conflated on stage with real violence. Again, Jon Laster's delivery on his gun-to-the-head anecdote ruined it for me. He was bragging and pleading victim simultaneously, and he didn't bother to elaborate or qualify the incident. Are we to understand that NYPD just go around pointing guns at people's heads for no reason? Clearly, perceptions matter, but this kind of histrionics does nothing to get to the core of the problem.
Race in sports would be an interesting topic for Glenn and John to broach. (Oddly, John always seems to avoid discussion of anything sports-related. Too plebeian maybe.) Football is a ridiculous sport in my opinion, and yes, it is designed to breed "thugs". There's no other game where for the majority of men on the playing field, the object is to throw other men violently to the ground. I'm not sure that the public perception of basketball is the same. Firstly, it's a different class of athlete, and secondly, most basketball players are thoughtful and soft-spoken. Both sports are problematic due to the amount of physical contact they entail, which invariably leads to scuffles.
The answer to all of it, of course, is to strictly enforce codes of conduct across the board. Some measure of violence in professional sports has always been tolerated because it attracts fans. The notion is preposterous that until very recently, you could, as an act of retaliation and with intent to harm, hurl a baseball at someone's head as part of some ancient ritual.
I think John confessed on a recent podcast with Glenn and Matt Taibbi that he wasn't into sports at all, so that probably explains in part why the topic is never broached between Glenn and John. That and the fact that to two Ivy League academics sports might just be too plebian as you say.
In any case, on the entire topic of unfair stereotyping of Black males and that sort of thing, I did find the comparison of perceptions of violence in basketball and football versus perceptions of violence in baseball and hockey to be interesting. If I'm remembering correctly that was one of points raised in the aftermath of the entire Malice in the Palace incident way back in the day. We don't seem to care all that much that in hockey white guys are basically encouraged to fight one another or that even today deliberating throwing a baseball at an opposing batter is considered a legitimate part of the code of honor of MLB if done in retaliation.
So I do think there are instances where legitimate claims can be made that all else being truly equal there's residual bias or negativity towards Blacks relative to non-Blacks. That's why the Roland Fryer study concluding that Blacks were more likely to be treated roughly by the police all else being equal didn't surprise me that much. I think there's a large body of social commentary offered by those like Sherrod and others that highlight the anti-Black biases that might exist in society today.
I guess my own thought has always been that while I certainly can't condone outright bias, I can certainly understand that perceptions and stereotypes don't arise out of a vacuum and that to a non-trivial extent perceptions of particular groups are based off of observed group differences in behaviors and outcomes in the aggregate. This is a point that Glenn has forcefully emphasized as well.
I agree: all the training and social commentary in the world can't completely undo ingrained biases that arise from observed behavior. Particularly when it hinges on some aspect of self-preservation, bias seems like an essential component of human nature. In my experience, new arrivals to the United States harbor stronger biases than native whites (often revealing them matter-of-factly), and I think this is a testament to your claim above.
While anti-black bias is typically invoked as presenting in other groups, I think it would be interesting to explore the stereotypes that black people keep about their own kin. I imagine it's a touchy subject. How do these self-stereotypes affect development and social cohesion within the black community?
Oof. That might as well have been billed as Glenn and John live at a Park Slope birthday party.
Were the comedians even present during the first part of the show? When they took the stage, they engaged with nothing that John or Glenn had said in their long prelude to what was, I thought, supposed to be the main event. I didn't expect them to agree - but in that case, I had hoped they'd at least engage. Pushback, whether in a bantering spirit or in a more serious tone would have been welcome, but there wasn't even any of that.
This just felt like two independent conversations - first a Glenn and John primer, followed by... something akin to an NPR broadcast, only slightly funnier. The "looking over the shoulder" phenomenon of which John spoke was in evidence throughout.
I do wish Glenn or John (or an audience member) had asked Jon Laster *why* the police - black policemen, as he noted - had once put guns to his head. I also wish the comedians had asked John and Glenn about *their* experiences being harrased by the police for no reason, since that's an experience that they seem certain that almost all black people share. For all I know, John and Glenn do have such stories. Or maybe they don't. But why not ask when that topic was being discussed?
Sorry to grouch. Even though I think this one didn't work, I do really like the idea behind these Glenn Show / comedy club crossovers.
I'm 100% in agreement. Within moments of the comedians taking the stage the police were represented in the time-honored fashion as a racist force bent on persecution rather than the 60% non-white force they are and the fact, thanks to research by Roland Fryer, that while there are more interactions between police and young black men (because guess what guys; profiling works on everything from street crime to rape to serial murderers) police are a lot let likely to draw/fire upon a black suspect. I was waiting for John or Glenn to say to the one comedian who saw himself in George Floyd's position, yeah, IF you spent the morning "hooping" to the point of collapse and then passed a counterfeit note!!!! But that response never came...
Could have done without the comedians. The flippant use of the N-word (something Glenn and John abhor)was totally unnecessary. And, the idea that the January 6th morons would have been treated differently if they had been black is completely idiotic, especially in light of the fact that BLM supporters waged war on our major cities for months with impunity.
The Zimmermann suit was thrown out earlier this year: https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/594737-george-zimmerman-lawsuit-against-trayvon-martin-parents-dismissed/.
This is a big improvement over the first comedy club presentation that included several comedians all vying for attention and laughs. I appreciate Glenn and John getting the ball rolling without interruption along with their attempt to politely call Sherrod and the other comedian out about statements made that were not backed up with facts.
The comedians were more emotionally reactive than introspective which leads me to think that if there is another comedy club gathering there could be someone available to act as facillitator between the comedians and Glenn and John's subject matter. In an ideal world such a person might be Wayne Brady or similar type due to his comic sensibilities, intelligence, and understanding of nuance and facts. It would compel the comedians to seriously address the issues at hand and perhaps think about the possibility of including some of what they learned into their act.
As a native New Yorker (no longer living there), I would certainly come up from the mid-atlantic area to attend the next one.
Thank you Glenn for all that you do because trying to get black folks and white liberals to honestly analyze victim narratives and disengage in pity parties is a tough mountain to climb, and yet the two of you have advanced the bar higher than most.
I just listened to the full episode while out on a ride, and I have to agree with John. The first part with you and J was evidence-based; the second part was about anecdotes and wise-cracking. Unfortunately, when John tried to engage the comedians in a more serious fact-based discussion, all he got was a red herring (e.g., John: "What about poor whites in Fishtown?" Comedian: "I asked my (middle-class) white friends in NYC and they never had any trouble with the police!"). With that being said, I will never not listen to an episode of TGS (that would be sacrilegious!) and I look forward to seeing how the comedy-show format develops. Unrelated: have you thought about some TGS merch ("Glenn and John: the black guys at TGS") with a drawing of your and John's face? I have dreams of wearing a TGS hoodie to my next faculty meeting, just to stir the pot ;p
I was disappointed that we heard so little from Nimesh.
No didn’t like this at all. Calling audience members “bitch” .. and the over the top foul mouths is just indicative of the absolute disrespect for decency. Comedian or not..know the forum and your audience. Their experiences and perception is their reality and nothing will change it ...clearly..
AND NOOOO .. white women walking in the hood is not safe regardless of date in history .. women can’t even walk down stairs from their work in New York.. or men for that matter..
One’s experience becomes the banter for all and pretty soon it’s the reality of the entire community. They make sure it stays their reality by self fulling the narrative with disrespect towards police, running from the police, “not paying the peeing on the street ticket” and then having a warrant” and they were all in there for “the same reasons.” Why can’t they talk about going to court so you don’t get a warrant and following the law... nope “all the people who were in the jail were black” and “we were arrested” for the same thing. Which essentially makes our narrative fact.
The narrative is further cemented as fact by the Democrats and the legacy media. I question whether that alliance is healthy for any of the three. It's hard to imagine it is in any way healthy for a society or a democracy.
In your Q & A John mentioned how it would be nice to have comedians who are not leftists. You may have hear of Ryan Long (and his comedy partner, whose name escapes me). He's a Canadian comedian who lives in NYC and does weekly YT videos. One of his best videos is about how woke and racists share many beliefs. I think he would make a great addition to the Comedy Cellar panel.
He also completely nails media bias. His video skewering Fox News & CNN coverage of protests & riots from summer of 2020 was brilliant:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiYZ__Ww02c
Yes!
I was at this event. I definitely agree the format doesn’t work well like this. The comedians deflected any real discussion of the issues with a combination of fallacies and outdated racial humor. Fried chicken jokes? Dunking on and sleeping with white guys girlfriends? This type of lazy humor was hardly funny in the 90s, let alone today. I think it’s a crutch by a lot of comedians today because it dares the audience to withhold laughter and go against the comedians underlying message that explicit racism against blacks is prevalent everywhere and basically the same as it was in the 60s. I felt more like an ideological hostage than a willing participant once the comedians hopped on stage.
The cab joke right at the top was funny. Otherwise, Glenn and John were much more entertaining than the professionals, just by being themselves.
I finally caught up on last month's Q&A. I'd be interested in John's suggestion to put the comedians on first and then follow up with the more substantive portion. Bottom line: they need better comedians. Self-deprecation is probably an important ingredient.
I like the live format and comedians are fine, but not these. The first group was funnier and more interesting.
John seems to think that not paying attention to the comments here is some kind of badge of honor. It's actually disrespectful to those who listen to or read the posts and take the time to share their thoughts.
I disagree .. he and Glenn give us the topic and discuss ..As the audience we can discuss further thru comments and I enjoy reading the comments. I doubt either of them want to get on here and explain themselves further. Who has time for that. Glenn stated he reads the comments to make sure they are civil, very rarely does he comment back. Seems to me the question and answer session they do once a month is the place they elaborate.
I don't think it's disrespectful of John not to read the comments, though I am disappointed that he doesn't. Maybe he simply doesn't have time or maybe he doesn't want to be sucked into fruitless arguments.
Disrespectful? To not read people's comments when/where they choose to write them?
John has a duty to do that, does he?
Says Mark Silbert, keeper of some kind of list miscellaneous obligations, shibboleths, and insufficiently heard commenters?
And to think that, even after these very remarks, John may be ignorant of this. Where does he get off like that?
John? John?
:-)
Frankly I couldn't care less if John looks at the comments or not. It's the arrogance of bragging about it that bugs me.
As for BWhatt, you might try occasionally adding some value as opposed to slinging personal insults.
John has previously talked about not engaging with comments on Twitter or his NYT column either. It's nothing personal. It has everything to do with a keeping a level head, and considering how prolific he is, I don't see how he would have the time anyway.
Some accuse John of arrogance on occasion. I would rather praise him for it.
I've read a number of intimate accounts of online writers in which they describe what it's like to read online comments. All described it as being jarring, often threatening, and more of a blight on their lives than a source of illumination.
Undoubtedly, people regularly drop valuables down the drains in their sinks. But that won't make it rewarding to go prospecting in the sewers.
I think John is showing some satisfaction in his decision to avoid drinking from the toxic firehose that is called "online discussion." That you describe that very reasonable choice as "disrespectful" reveals a lack of empathy for the downside of being an online personality. It's not all love and insight around here. (And it almost invariably includes death threats.)
In my opinion, John McWhorter carries on in a consistently respectful fashion. Your own remarks are often well-crafted and insightful. This one struck me as inapposite and even disappointing (which reflects my generally positive regard for your comments).
I appreciate your explanation.
I don't know what Twitter or Facebook or TikTok is like. I don't participate. I understand it to be the cesspool that you describe. Personally I've never seen a death threat or anything remotely resembling one in a substack comment.
Maybe I'm old fashioned but when substack authors specifically say "we would like to hear what you think" I take them at face value. John's comments make one feel like a sucker.
I'm not a fan of this initiative. Trying to have a serious discussion about race in a comedy club in NYC/Greenwich Village (A capitol of woke) with comedians that have learned long ago that foul language and playing to their audience's biases assures laughs and making them uncomfortable means not being invited back.
There may be a venue where comedy can help facilitate serious discussions on race, but the Comedy Cellar is not it.
The composition of the audience is not clear from the recording. Based on the scattered laughter and the off-camera questions from audience members, we can assume that at least a decent portion of the crowd were drawn to the event to see Glenn and John, and not the professional comedians.
I agree that this session didn't go very well, but not enough to dispense with the concept entirely. In my opinion the comedians were made to look like buffoons -- maybe that was the whole point!
I assume an audience at a comedy club in Greenwich Village is going to be largely 20-50 yr old woke New Yorkers with some out of town visitors as well. In other words. John's "Elect". I know NYC and the Village, I grew up there.
I agree the approach to finding an intersection between comedy and a race discussion is worthwhile. I just don't think this is the best venue.
Just to clarify, the event sold out well in advance, which means that anyone with a ticket knew they were coming to see Glenn and John specifically. I was there, and the vibe in the room was very enthusiastic. The audio mix on the video and podcast might not reflect that, as our editor tamped down the audience volume.
Thanks for the clarification Mark. I would have been there myself but travel from NM to NY during the summer is well out of my comfort zone. And then there is dealing with the nightmare that NY has become. How would you describe the demographics of the audience?
The first part of the video was pretty standard back and forth by Glenn and John on the usual topics, which I guess was designed to provoke a back and forth with the comedians and the audience. The comedians' contribution was inconsequential and what little audience interaction was between the comedians and the audience. Frankly the comedians could have been left out and Glenn and John should have gone directly to a Q&A/discussion with the audience. Or maybe one comedian can do a 10 minute provocative routine on race up front which could have become the subject of discussion between G&J and the audience.
It was a little hard to see who was there—dark club. But I think it skewed a little younger than I expected. The table next to me looked like they were in they were in their mid-20s at most and very enthusiastic. I saw a number of other similar tables. It also seemed fairly racially / ethnically diverse. Again, hard to tell, but it definitely wasn't a room full of white people. I chatted with a few people and eavesdropped a bit. A woman sitting at my table was a self-described superfan and a liberal professor in her mid-50s at a very liberal college in the city in the city, the guy sitting behind me was a FedSoc-affiliated lawyer. Hopefully that gives you some sense of things.
I grew up mostly in the Southwest (Phoenix and Tucson). There's no place like the desert. Santa Fe is especially gorgeous. Enjoy those monsoons!
This seems a natural place to renew my suggestion for a survey of Glenn Show subscribers to get a feel for the demographic mix therein, as well as the distribution of subscribers' opinions on a variety of political issues. I suggested this in the last Q&A thread, and the idea seemed to have been well received by others.
I suspect that such a survey would show a much greater variety of thought than one would guess from many TGS comments sections. I hope so!
Why am I so curious about this? I think in part it's because in the past few years I've watched so many intelligent, charismatic, heterodox people develop a paying internet audience... only to then end up utterly captured by that same audience - or at least what they took to be their paying audience, based on a nonrepresentative sample. (It's good to know the *actual* composition of one's audience.) Mercifully, I see no evidence of that happening to Glenn, but at times when I read through the comments here, they remind me of the sorts of things written by the internet crazies who probably helped drive some of these other once sensible people over the edge.
Agreed on Santa Fe. I lived there for a couple of years, and it's a remarkable place - summer monsoons and all.
They could definitely use more contemplative comics who have actually done their homework.
Last week John seemed less than enthusiastic about how this went, but I thought it went well and John came across fine. I sensed his exasperation at one point when he was rapid-fire interrupted, but the format is such that there will be some rough edges. I also liked that the comedians quite frequently spoke seriously rather than merely shoehorning their act into the format.
Okay, one of the underlying ideas of this experiment is that comedians say things that would otherwise go unspoken. I thought the two Kareems bit was such a moment. One of the punchlines was that people reacted to Kareem being shot at school with, "Well, somebody needed to shoot Kareem." Two things jumped out at me, and perhaps Glenn and John could discuss them in the future.
1. Does that same attitude apply to the gang shootings? I've often wondered about that. Many, many years ago, there was a town with a "bully" who terrorized the citizens. (For the record, all involved in this incident were white.) Eventually the townspeople confronted the man. He wound up shot to death. No one would say anything, and that was the end of the story. With the gang shootings, there is a lot of collateral damage, but if you put that aside, does the community react to the shootings with, "Somebody needed to shoot Kareem"?
2. Why does "somebody needed to shoot Kareem" turn into "Kareem was the greatest person in the world" when a cop shoots Kareem? (The Grand Rapids shooting a few months back is an apt example of that, and it looks like the current situation in Ohio may be, as well.)
Where is Jack Reacher when we need him?
I had a totally different take on the Kareem joke, which, in my mind, fell flat. I heard it as a kind of comedic punching up, where the point was to illustrate that whites are morally weaker. That is to say that white shooters are crazy and indiscriminate, while blacks kill with a specific target for vengeance or honor. However, unless invoked in clear act of self-defense, the implication that the latter killing is somehow morally justifiable relative to any other killing is absurd. Maybe the humor was lost on me, but it didn't appear that Sharrod was kidding. That is, he intended to line the joke with some basic truths as he understands them.
I'm not sure that whites being over-represented in mass murders is necessarily used to highlight their moral weakness relative to Blacks. If empirically speaking whites are in fact over-represented in such murders, I do think there are probably interesting sociological reasons why the kid who shoots up a school and kills dozens of people is disproportionately more likely to be white than Black. So I think it's an interesting phenomenon worth noting and trying to understand. That's also what I assumed Sherrod was referring to when he tried to deflect some of the criticism of Black violence.
That being said, these mass murders are basically just a drop in the ocean and obviously overall per capita homicide rates are still far higher in this country among Blacks than among whites, the difference being perhaps as high as an order of magnitude.
There's definitely something going on, and I'm sure there is research out there. The mass shooting cases vary, but on the spectrum of murder, the perpetrators skew toward legally insane relative to the more common "cold-blooded" killings that occur in context of poverty or gang activity. I mentioned serial killers in my response to your other comment, almost all of whom are white.
In any case, I'm not inclined to give Sharrod Small the credit needed to conclude that he was attempting to bring awareness to an "interesting sociological" phenomenon, but maybe that's just me. I've heard the argument so many times before as a deflection of criticism, and the notion circulates widely in the form of online memes. We clearly both agree that these mass murders, though horrendous, represent a small percentage of all homicides, the majority of which can be attributed to black-on-black violence, and that the latter doesn't get the scrutiny it deserves. That's where I think the morality play comes in: we are meant to understand that somehow when white people kill, it is much worse, or that poor blacks shouldn't be held to same standards of humanity.
Right, that was the point of the main joke. What struck me was the one-liner within the main joke. It stood out because it's something I've mulled over before, and it's not something I've heard discussed. While in the joke the two Kareems were schoolmates, the point easily translates to regular street violence. Maybe "snitches get stitches" isn't the entire story.
I don't want to overanalyze, but I thought it was a good example of the premise Dr. Loury first laid out when he announced these events.
Gotcha. Yeah, I was disappointed not to see it called out by Glenn. I thought immediately of Sowell's *Black Rednecks*.
Overall, the comics exhibited a kind of hip-hop braggadocio ("I dunked on you and fucked your girl", the constant interjections, etc.) that was difficult to engage with seriously and smacked of a mentality in which street violence might be glorified. I guess I just expected Glenn to have selected comedians who were above it. At the very least, given the popularity of this kind of posturing in comedy and music, it was a good demonstration of how easily honor culture and the ideas that go with it are reinforced.
I wrote this on another comment page but will just quickly repeat that I think it would be fun if you guys talked about the history of Black comedy (film, TV, live performance, etc.) and used that as a launching point to talk about contemporary issues. It would suit the venue, comedians love talking about comedy history, and with John's expertise it would be so incredibly informative and fun.
This is a great idea, Suzen. It would be wonderful to get Roland Fryer involved in this, too, given his specific interest (and even participation) in stand-up comedy.
I also wonder if some of these Glenn Show/Comedian mashups would work better if they began with everyone watching a few clips of great comedians to break the ice and then start talking. (A bit like Fryer's idea of having his grad student assistants watch Richard Pryor to generate ideas.) While it's fairly easy for comedians to wave aside the opening thoughts of a couple of academics like Glenn and John, I'm guessing they'd be more likely to engage with them if they were initially loosened up by giants in their own field on the order of Pryor or Dave Chapelle.
While I'm no expert in comedy, a few obvious potential "icebreakers" come to my mind:
Eddie Murphy's "White Like Me" from SNL
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_LeJfn_qW0),
Chris Rock's "Black People vs. N*****", which I think he later had misgivings about, or perhaps Rock's "How Not to Get Your Ass Kicked by the Police"
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3PJF0YE-x4)
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEvMc-K8XHY)
Even some bits from comics who aren't black would be fun to discuss, such as Bill Burr on white guilt (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjJlE2BxQfA), or from an earlier age, Lenny Bruce's famous "Are There Any N****** here Tonight?" (https://youtu.be/IaRqDc41IFQ)
I would love for them to get even more history, and talk about whether Sandford and Son or Good Times would be made today, Blaxploitation movies, Black entertainers in the age of Blackface, Song of the South (progressive? regressive?), etc. And yeah, of course, Richard Pryor and other amazing groundbreaking comedians. It is interesting to look at it all in a far-off time frame and compare it to today.
That sounds so great. Hopefully soon!
I like this a lot, thanks!
A great session!
Some people have a tendency to universalize for their identity group their personal lived experience. For instance if a Black man (descendant of slaves, or 'foundational') has frequent run-ins with the cops as he grows up in an urban part of USA, he can over time start believing that all other Black men in the country experience the same, even if this may not necessarily true for other Black men (say immigrants from Africa or the Caribbean) growing up in the same neighbourhood.
There is no single homogenous Black experience. Yet activist groups like Black Lives Matter premise their actions on this assumption. It is true, as Prof. Loury pointed out, that many perpetrators of violent crime happen to be Black and that police, who are not unaware of this fact, frequently use more force than necessary when dealing with any Black person they encounter. But this does not mean that all Black people have a fear of being randomly gunned down by White police every time they step out of their homes.
While Black people can and should speak candidly on their own personal experiences with the police, they should also be cognizant of the fact that not all Blacks have scary police stories to tell.
That was a good moment when John asked Jon Laster how he had selected for the responses he solicited for his police harassment narrative project.
Indeed. It is common for people to seek input on contentious issues from their family, friends, colleagues, neighbours, etc. But often the people we associate with have similar views on these issues, which reinforces confirmation bias. If Jon had asked strangers or people he knew would have had contrary opinions, the responses he got may have contradicted or opposed his views. This kind of thing is done even in academia, where researchers are very selective on who and where they seek information from for fear of finding out they are wrong.
I was present at the Comedy Cellar for the event and definitely enjoyed it overall. I do have to say that I did find the mixture of serious panel discussion and comedy to be slightly incongruous, especially when Sherrod would try to dismiss some of Glenn's serious points by making a wisecrack. I think Jon Laster took the discussion a little more seriously.
Personally, I didn't mind that the comedians were left of center on the issue of race and policing (or at least left of my own views on the matter) as I believe that having opposing viewpoints actually makes for a livelier conversation. I do wonder though if trying to mix comedy with serious discussion is necessarily the optimal format for these sorts of live events. It is possible that in the future these events are held at the Comedy Cellar but don't necessarily have to involve comedians? Or is that frowned upon given the venue? Personally, I went there to hear Glenn and John pontificate upon the important social issues of the day. I didn't necessarily go there for stand-up comedy in this particular instance for whatever it's worth.
All that being said, it was a blast to see Glenn and John in person and I can't complain too much. I felt like I was in the presence of true rock stars. Is it wishful thinking on my part to imagine The Black Guys on tour one of these days?
As an aside, I should point out my personal view on the matter which is that I'm skeptical of poverty being a significant causal factor for things such as crime. Mainland China has had pretty low per capita homicide rates despite being relatively poor for much of the past 30-40 years. Even more relevant, from what I've seen the correlation between SES and outcomes such as crime or academic achievement has been relatively insignificant in the East Asian cultural sphere compared to the correlation in other regions or contexts. There hasn't been that much difference in terms of per capita violent crime or academic achievement in recent decades between China and wealthier places in East Asia such as Japan, South Korea or Taiwan or Singapore in Southeast Asia. In fact, in some instances mainland China has outperformed the other wealthier places on these metrics.
Given that some type of correlation between SES and life outcomes is normally observed in many contexts, the fact that this correlation seems to be weakened among a particular ethnic group strikes me as a non-trivial empirical observation that deserves some explanation for anyone serious about the particular issue of crime.
I think one of the largest drivers of crime in our country is our failed war on drugs. Drug dealers must resort to violence to gain/protect market share.
Also, I think relative poverty probably does play a factor. If most are poor it's just a fact of life. But if you believe you are stuck being poor and don't see a way out besides drugs I think that will tempt a lot of people.
When I was a private in the army 20+ years ago. I made about $1000 a month. I could make that in one evening selling at the club having a good time. And that's doing small time stuff.
John and Glenn humiliated these comedians, both of whom (I except the laconic Nimesh) relied on anecdotes, hypotheticals, and in the case of Sherrod Small, insipient gay jokes.
As Seth B points out below, two independent conversations took place. This is in many ways a microcosm for the way these issues play out at large. John and Glenn make cogent arguments. The comedians, meanwhile, are way cooler, and their cocky mic control resonates with a different audience.
Please do continue the comedy club experiment. Indeed, if I were nearby, I would love to attend. But please find guests who, while holding opposing views, are worthy of your company on the stage.
I had always read that even though Blacks committed homicides at a far higher rate per capita than whites overall, that whites were disproportionately over-represented in mass shootings like the one we just had yesterday in Highland Park by Robert Crimo, who judging from pictures appears to be a white guy. But I guess I had also heard some pushback against the notion that whites were in fact over-represented in mass shootings so was curious where the matter stood empirically.
I think that was the gist of the joke Sherrod was making about how a Black kid would just shoot one other Black kid instead of the entire school. Admittedly, joking that half the school would've felt that the one kid who got shot deserved it did make some people in the crowd slightly uncomfortable and I gathered by Glenn's reaction that he was a little skeptical of that sentiment as well, but all good. I think it could've been an interesting point to debate, i.e. possible white over-representation in the kinds of mass shootings that seem to grab the national attention.
One of the themes of the discussion seemed to be how the cops tended to have a bias against Blacks relative to non-Blacks. I was thinking about John and Glenn's recent discussion during the monthly Q&A of Roland Fryer's study concluding that even though all else being equal cops don't kill Blacks at higher rates than non-Blacks, they do treat Blacks more roughly in their interactions. This kind of empirical result certainly lends credence to the idea that Blacks don't get a fair shake in their interaction with the police, although I'm sure the critics will counter-argue that perceptions of Blacks by the cops are informed by and large by the disproportionate amount of violence committed by the group as a whole and hence to some extent justified.
One thing that I was thinking about during the entire conversation about race and policing was how in sports Black athletes seem to be viewed differently than white athletes when it comes to violence during play. I remember actually watching the Malice in the Palace back when it occurred in 2004 between the Pistons and the Pacers and in the aftermath there was this notion that when Black players fought in basketball or football it was emblematic of thug culture but that in baseball or hockey, where they actually let the players fight it out, brawling was just an instance of boys being boys. Obviously baseball and hockey are majority white in terms of player composition, i.e. MLB is something like 75-80% percent white and the NHL is around 95% white I believe.
I think you are implying is that that attitudes toward violence in football & basketball is racially biased. I think in the NFL & NBA actual fights seem unexpected, more aggressive and real, and maybe there really is a "thug mentality". In the MLB it usually is some guys clearing the benches and swatting flies & in the NHL, besides it's been part of the game for years, the participants are so heavily padded and helmeted to be rarely harmful.
"In the MLB, the report said 38 percent of all players as of Opening Day 2022 were players of color, a 0.4 percent increase over 2021's numbers. About 28.5 percent of those players were Hispanic or Latino, 1.9 percent were Asian players, and less than 1 percent were Hawaiian/Pacific Islander or Native American."
"While Black players made up about 18 percent of all MLB rosters when TIDES first began assessing the league's demographic data in 1991, Black players represented only 7.2 percent of all MLB players at the start of the current season."
Newsweek 5/19/22 Meaghan Roos
I'm guessing the 75-80% number must be counting Hispanic whites as white.
Sherrod's joke about school shootings was one of many misses. And he knew he missed because he repeated the punchline in a desperate attempt to right the ship.
I've heard the point about white representation in mass shootings (indeed, serial killings as well) from my friends further to the left who want to racialize gun control. It's never gone through for me. I believe their goal is to level the moral playing field. It comes off as a kind of schoolyard taunt, like "I know you are but what am I".
I agree that Glenn and John could have picked up the "police harassment" thread, and that harassment was being conflated on stage with real violence. Again, Jon Laster's delivery on his gun-to-the-head anecdote ruined it for me. He was bragging and pleading victim simultaneously, and he didn't bother to elaborate or qualify the incident. Are we to understand that NYPD just go around pointing guns at people's heads for no reason? Clearly, perceptions matter, but this kind of histrionics does nothing to get to the core of the problem.
Race in sports would be an interesting topic for Glenn and John to broach. (Oddly, John always seems to avoid discussion of anything sports-related. Too plebeian maybe.) Football is a ridiculous sport in my opinion, and yes, it is designed to breed "thugs". There's no other game where for the majority of men on the playing field, the object is to throw other men violently to the ground. I'm not sure that the public perception of basketball is the same. Firstly, it's a different class of athlete, and secondly, most basketball players are thoughtful and soft-spoken. Both sports are problematic due to the amount of physical contact they entail, which invariably leads to scuffles.
The answer to all of it, of course, is to strictly enforce codes of conduct across the board. Some measure of violence in professional sports has always been tolerated because it attracts fans. The notion is preposterous that until very recently, you could, as an act of retaliation and with intent to harm, hurl a baseball at someone's head as part of some ancient ritual.
I think John confessed on a recent podcast with Glenn and Matt Taibbi that he wasn't into sports at all, so that probably explains in part why the topic is never broached between Glenn and John. That and the fact that to two Ivy League academics sports might just be too plebian as you say.
In any case, on the entire topic of unfair stereotyping of Black males and that sort of thing, I did find the comparison of perceptions of violence in basketball and football versus perceptions of violence in baseball and hockey to be interesting. If I'm remembering correctly that was one of points raised in the aftermath of the entire Malice in the Palace incident way back in the day. We don't seem to care all that much that in hockey white guys are basically encouraged to fight one another or that even today deliberating throwing a baseball at an opposing batter is considered a legitimate part of the code of honor of MLB if done in retaliation.
So I do think there are instances where legitimate claims can be made that all else being truly equal there's residual bias or negativity towards Blacks relative to non-Blacks. That's why the Roland Fryer study concluding that Blacks were more likely to be treated roughly by the police all else being equal didn't surprise me that much. I think there's a large body of social commentary offered by those like Sherrod and others that highlight the anti-Black biases that might exist in society today.
I guess my own thought has always been that while I certainly can't condone outright bias, I can certainly understand that perceptions and stereotypes don't arise out of a vacuum and that to a non-trivial extent perceptions of particular groups are based off of observed group differences in behaviors and outcomes in the aggregate. This is a point that Glenn has forcefully emphasized as well.
Very well said, Yan.
I agree: all the training and social commentary in the world can't completely undo ingrained biases that arise from observed behavior. Particularly when it hinges on some aspect of self-preservation, bias seems like an essential component of human nature. In my experience, new arrivals to the United States harbor stronger biases than native whites (often revealing them matter-of-factly), and I think this is a testament to your claim above.
While anti-black bias is typically invoked as presenting in other groups, I think it would be interesting to explore the stereotypes that black people keep about their own kin. I imagine it's a touchy subject. How do these self-stereotypes affect development and social cohesion within the black community?
Oof. That might as well have been billed as Glenn and John live at a Park Slope birthday party.
Were the comedians even present during the first part of the show? When they took the stage, they engaged with nothing that John or Glenn had said in their long prelude to what was, I thought, supposed to be the main event. I didn't expect them to agree - but in that case, I had hoped they'd at least engage. Pushback, whether in a bantering spirit or in a more serious tone would have been welcome, but there wasn't even any of that.
This just felt like two independent conversations - first a Glenn and John primer, followed by... something akin to an NPR broadcast, only slightly funnier. The "looking over the shoulder" phenomenon of which John spoke was in evidence throughout.
I do wish Glenn or John (or an audience member) had asked Jon Laster *why* the police - black policemen, as he noted - had once put guns to his head. I also wish the comedians had asked John and Glenn about *their* experiences being harrased by the police for no reason, since that's an experience that they seem certain that almost all black people share. For all I know, John and Glenn do have such stories. Or maybe they don't. But why not ask when that topic was being discussed?
Sorry to grouch. Even though I think this one didn't work, I do really like the idea behind these Glenn Show / comedy club crossovers.
I'm 100% in agreement. Within moments of the comedians taking the stage the police were represented in the time-honored fashion as a racist force bent on persecution rather than the 60% non-white force they are and the fact, thanks to research by Roland Fryer, that while there are more interactions between police and young black men (because guess what guys; profiling works on everything from street crime to rape to serial murderers) police are a lot let likely to draw/fire upon a black suspect. I was waiting for John or Glenn to say to the one comedian who saw himself in George Floyd's position, yeah, IF you spent the morning "hooping" to the point of collapse and then passed a counterfeit note!!!! But that response never came...