This week John and I are joined by Coleman Hughes, podcaster, writer, and now author of the forthcoming book The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America. Coleman recently gave a TED Talk about the central ideas in his book, but faced pushback from TED employees, who took umbrage at his, to my mind, quite reasonable advocacy for colorblind public policy. The result was a seemingly interminable back-and-forth between Coleman and TED, which had refused to promote the video of his talk. We have him on to discuss the affair.
In the second part of the conversation, we shift our attention to Israel-Gaza. Over a thousand Israelis are dead, thousands more are injured, and many others are presumed to be hostages following Hamas’s monstrous coordinated attacks on October 7. Israeli retaliation has taken the lives of several thousand Gazans, and a humanitarian crisis is looming as Israel has told over a million Gaza residents to evacuate from the north to the south of the territory. We can only guess what the costs of this latest conflict will be—in blood, treasure, and geopolitical disruption. The situation will change from day to day, but the three of us offer our thoughts as they stood one week in.
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0:00 The blowback from Coleman’s TED Talk
8:50 Did TED intentionally throttle promotion for Coleman’s talk?
17:08 John’s trouble with TED while promoting Woke Racism
20:21 Coleman’s forthcoming book, The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America
29:17 Race in public and private life
43:49 Closure on the TED affair
45:14 What are the goals of each side in the Israel-Palestine conflict?
51:58 Will the Israeli military response simply restart the cycle of violence and resentment?
1:02:15 The threat of post-October 7 overreaction
Links and Readings
Coleman’s Substack, Coleman’s Corner
Coleman’s podcast, Conversations with Coleman
Coleman’s forthcoming book, The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America
Coleman’s conversation with Glenn Greenwald about the TED Talk
Coleman’s TED Talk, “A Case for Color Blindness”
Coleman’s Free Press piece, “Why Is TED Scared of Color Blindness”
Coleman’s conversation with Jamelle Bouie
Geroge Packer’s Atlantic piece, “Israel Must Not React Stupidly”
John McWhorter & Coleman Hughes – The Colorblindness Controversy and Israel-Hamas