Is It OK to "Speak as a Black Man"?
with John McWhorter
Occasionally, John and I preface a remark with the phrase, “As a black man …” And yet we’ve both declared many, many times that we believe that race should play a far less important role in how individuals understand their own identity than it currently does. What gives? In this excerpt from our most recent Substack subscriber-only Q&A session, a commenter asks us whether we’re contradicting ourselves.
As has become my habit, I posted this comment to the Youtube channel as well...
It seems to me that John asserted, with some persuasive logic, that the phrase, "as a Black man" does, in fact, provide a type of epistemic authority. To Glenn's point, it is only that this knowledge does not invalidate other knowledge, regardless of how gained. Every opinion has a nexus. If I have an opinion borne of my "black experience" so what? I can still relish and/or more highly value and/or vigorously promote an epistemic basis that includes more than just my blackness. Hopefully, that made some sense!
If I gave my opinion publicly about some matter of race or culture, and prefaced my remarks with “ as a white man...”. I suspect I would be branded a white supremacist almost immediately. Anyone watching John and Glenn can already see that they’re black. The statement serves only to add heft to what would surely be an otherwise specious statement. I’m not a fan.