John McWhorter & Tyler Austin Harper – How the Race Game Is Played
John McWhorter & Tyler Austin Harper – How the Race Game Is Played
Appears in this episode
On this week’s episode, John and I are joined by Tyler Austin Harper, assistant professor of environmental studies at Bates College. Recently, Tyler has published a couple of pieces on race and affirmative action that caught our attention, because they seemed, well, pretty reasonable. It’s refreshing to hear his critiques of current affirmative action practices and poisonous white “antiracism” coming from a black progressive college professor, even if he does have three names (I kid).
We begin by asking Tyler to explain his concept of “racial gamification” in college admissions, which incentivize students to calibrate their racial self-presentation in dubious ways. He sees this as a violation of the spirit of affirmative action, as it does more for wealthy students than it does for the underprivileged. But as he sees it (and John concurs), more people share our skepticism than progressive black elites would have you believe. Tyler is also a believer in colorblindness, at least at the interpersonal level. He notes that some of his white peers who are overly anxious about their own implicit biases now act a little strangely toward their black friends and colleagues, resulting in an awkward and alienating overemphasis on race in social situations. Interestingly, despite his incisive thinking on race matters, Tyler’s scholarly work has nothing to do with race. And finally, I solicit John’s advice on my conversation with my next guest, Sabrina Salvati.
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0:00 Tyler’s concept of “racial gamification”
6:30 Affirmative action in spirit and practice
13:18 Why can’t we just determine admissions based on academic merit alone?
19:17 The fading popularity of “traditional” affirmative action
22:47 Re-weighting and funding the admissions process
32:28 How can we get white “allies” to act normal around black people?
38:23 Can we have interpersonal colorblindness without political colorblindness?
44:42 Tyler’s scholarly work about the end of humanity
48:10 Glenn prepares for his conversation with Sabrina Salvati
Recorded September 10, 2023
Links and Readings
Tyler’s Atlantic piece, “I’m a Black Professor. You Don’t Need to Bring That Up.”
Roland Fryer’s NYT piece, “How to Fix College Admissions Now”
Glenn’s conversation with Jay Caspian Kang
Jimmy Dore’s interview with Cornel West
John McWhorter & Tyler Austin Harper – How the Race Game Is Played
I think the thesis of this week’s guest was basically Goodhart’s law: “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure”.
If no one gamed affirmative action, it would work a lot better, but human nature means that the minute people know that being black is preferred, everyone who has one mixed-race uncle will check the box on their application for “black”.
This years ERAS application (this is what recently graduated medical doctors use to apply for training as a resident or a fellow) included a new section which was basically “tell us about a difficult situation you faced during your education”. Previously, there was just one open-ended personal statement, and there was a suggestion and an incentive to use it to talk about how tough you’ve had it, which is certainly what I did.
I actually think there’s some potential benefit to this new approach. By cordoning off the “life is tough” section, it frees up the personal statement to be less “gamified” around victimhood. Thus, I used mine to talk about intellectual interests and career goals. The “life challenges” essay was also optional, and I’m sure admissions committees don’t look to it first, if at all. It was also a very short character limit, only a paragraph or two short paragraphs at most, so you have to make your point and you can’t ramble on (this is also a profound disincentive to use character-intensive social justice newspeak).