49 Comments

There is racism, but it's a smaller problem than promiscuity or crime. "Systemic Racism" is too often an excuse to avoid responsibility for a bad outcome due to bad behavior: sleeping around, committing crimes.

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The filthy maggot Jew swill yearn for the "good old days" of their Messiahs - Lenin and Stalin - who they helped murder FIFTY MILLION across Russia and Eastern Europe. But those surely do not count, since they were mostly only Goyim, eh??? Bernie's campaign claimed the gulags "paid a living wage." Bernie never repudiated that claim. Have the Jews repudiated Bernie? And where was the Jewish "Schindler" to help the Goyim avoid the gulags? NONEXISTENT!!!

Now not all Jews are evil. But a significant majority of them in the West sure are. 70-75%!!!

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Dr. Loury, I think one of the most salient points made was that "systemic racism" is actually not tied to racist sentiment. There is very little racist sentiment in the US today. Intrermarriage is common and no one cares. We have had a Black President and a Black Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Properly understood, systemic or (as I prefer to call it) institutional racism is about things being done by institutions - unrelated to the sentiments of the people who work in those institutions or the people who created those institutions. A major example - totally overlooked as we hunt for ever more microscopic micro-aggressions - is how the Social Security system works. The value of social security benefits is strongly connected to life expectancy. All else equal, people who live longer get a higher return on their payroll contributions. And people who die before retirement receive nothing. Now, Blacks live shorter lives. Corrected for income levels, they still live shorter lives. And that means that at any two people of different races but similar lifetime incomes, the Black person is subsidizing the white person. And the sums involved are large. I am not sure yet (I have a research intern cracking the numbers), but it appears that 40% of Blacks who contribute to Social Security fail to live long enough to qualify for retirement benefits - for whites, it is about 20%. All their payroll contributions are lost. And for a a male who dies at 60 after working for 40 years at a $50000 job, the value of the lost payroll contributions comes to $500,000 or more. That is the racial wealth gap being created by the Social Security system. And it is absurd to think that anyone designed in on purpose to work this way or serve this purpose. Its simply an mindless institution that needs to be fixed. Not hard to fix - at least conceptually. Either the families of people who die too young should receive a bequest from Social Security, or the system should be converted to private accounts liek 401Ks or IRAs. Or a combination of both these measures could be used.

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Bettina Love's POV, for me, presents serious problems. The attempt to combine Hip Hop and its variants with Neo-Marxist constructs is not constructive.

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Before I pose my question - please allow me a few minutes to present a little background information of one of your viewer/listener/substack contributors.

I describe myself as a former DFLer and a never Trumper. (In Minnesota the Democratic party is Democratic-Farmer-Labor)

Up until 2020 - I’ve voted for Democrats in every election, and I’ve was elected as a delegate to the state DFL convention in 2016 and in 2012.

My journey from an atheist, left leaning, liberal, democrat voter to my current politics has not been a straight line and will change based on new facts and ideas that I come across.

Aside from politics - I describe myself as a classical liberal, with libertarian leanings who strives towards the enlightenment ideals outlined by Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams.

I started listening to the Glenn Show after Sam Harris’s “Can We Pull Back From the Brink” episode; however, the drift of my thinking started long before this podcast and long before the George Floyd riots. Before the election of Donald Trump in 2016, I probably would have considered myself - Woke.

I believe that facts, and logic and reason are what changed my mind and pulled me back from the brink, and your shows and writings have helped me move along to a more enlightened state of being.

As far as belief in the supernatural, I used to be a believer in new age whoism; however, I had no qualms in leaving those goofy ideas.

I’ve noticed that Glenn Lowry describes himself as a former Baptist, but he seems distressed in that he has left the Baptist faith, whereas John McWhorter holds no such misgivings about his lack of religious conviction.

I’ve also noticed that Ayann Hirsi Ali no longer mentions that she is an atheist herself and does not correct those who assume that she is still a believer in Islam.

To my question, which is to both Professor Mcwhorter and Professor Lowry:

Why are (small c) conservatives reluctant to profess an absence of belief in the existence of deities?

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Charles Murray found when he tested the three different races on a standardized IQ test that Asians far surpassed Blacks and Caucasians. Caucasians performed marginally better than Blacks, however, when the Jewish cohort was eliminated from the Caucasian group, Blacks and Caucasians performed equally. IQ has no bearing on racial disparities seen in “white” countries.

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It's so, so nice to hear people who can address this all consuming issue with some thoughtfulness and nuance. "Systemic racism" is just a pejorative or a label. It's such an opaque term. It just doesn't advance anything. If you care about the actual inequities that exist and would like to see them narrowed, you just have to get below that vague conversation stopper and ask yourself what's really going on now, how we got where we are and, most importantly, what steps forward are actually going to help narrow the gap. Damning "whiteness" and accusing the nation and most of its citizens of "systemic racism" just isn't doing that. It might be psychologically satisfying for a certain type of person, but it's not a step towards a better, fairer country.

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The only systemic racism in this country is the morally depraved democrat party.

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Question for both Lowry and McWorter

Where is the discussion of individual action (and the consequences from choosing to take one action over another) re: systemic racism vs. racial inequities?

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ASIA FOR THE ASIANS, AFRICA FOR THE AFRICANS, WHITE COUNTRIES FOR EVERYONE!

If “anti-racists” are so unconcerned with race, how come they only have a problem with White Countries, White Cities, White Neighborhoods, White Workplaces, White schools?

I’ve never seen any “anti-racist” complain that any place is too brown and it has to become LESS brown to combat racism.

Who do they think they are kidding?

“Multiculturalism” = White Genocide

Anti-Racism is just a code word for anti-White.

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new topic: Is eliminating merit/standards productive or counter productive for blacks and Hispanics?

Governor of Oregon signs bill to eliminate the requirement to show proficiency in "essential learning skills" (reading, writing, and math) to earn HS diplomas in her state. Charles Boyle, a spokesman for the governor, said the new standards for graduation would help benefit the state’s "Black, Latino, Latinx, Indigenous, Asian, Pacific Islander, Tribal, and students of color."

If HS diplomas can no longer be used as a proxy for a minimum set of cognitive abilities, will that really benefit minorities or is something else going on? Qui bono?

thoughts....

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I have a suggestion for Glenn and John (alphabetical); Ask a medical doctor to tell you about localized prostrate cancer vs. other cancer (or advanced AIDS) that is systemic throughout the body. A doctor is expected to present evidence that the effect is systemic. The burden is upon the activist to demonstrate that their ideas are true. I am actually excited by the idea of a systemic problem -but haven’t seen the evidence for systemic racism. Unless one considers “wokeness” an example of a systemic racism problem ( as I do). If there were a systemic racism across the entire system (and I could be wrong), then it would manifest differently per the local culture of each institution or sub-system. In this scenario, individuals at the institution would need to behave in a cooperative manner to sustain it, or the institution or system would need built-in mechanisms that allow the racism to continue. A researcher would look for written policy or observe patterns of individual behavior that suggest an informal but enforced policy of discrimination. Email and telephone records would be useful in discovering patterns of interaction. This would be a good project for PhD students trained in quantitative analysis.

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I beg to differ with Glenn and John. I think it is very fair to conclude that American education is indeed racially biased. A detached observer might even call it "systemic racism" (I'm motioning my hands in circles :) .

American education systemically discriminates in favor of racial minorities other than Asians.....examples abound.

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Mr. Loury I listen to you as often as I can. I found myself disagreeing with you go on the discussion was related to blacks, Asians, and whites. My experiences have been that you have to look beyond language skills and understand their ability to solve problems and challenges. Some of the smartest and people I still admire are black people.

My question to you is that even though I do believe there is some level of Systemic Racism, we have to understand and appreciate that this systemic racism is also concerning in relation to black towards whites.

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Question for Dr. Loury and Dr. McWhorter:

Pseudoscience is a problem in America, from claims on supplements, crystal healing, chiropractic medicine, and so on. Why is this so prevalent in America, and do we teach pseudoscience in Academia?

I ask this because at the beginning of graduate school (plant molecular biology) I assumed most of my classmates would be relatively rational, evidence-based people but soon noticed many of my fellow students believe in a lot of woo/quackery. Also, the departments seemed to have a pattern in the woo they believed e.g. Ecologists were into hippy, mother earth, natural is better beliefs. Yet, most of these people graduated by producing and defending an evidence-based thesis. So what does this mean about Ph.D.'s ,are they hyper-focus people in a particular field, where critical thinking is not required? Or is it that Ph.D. standards have been lowered to the point anyone can get a Ph.D. title? Or is that Ph.D.'s are human and succumb to the foils and cognitive biases like everyone else?

This line of thought also made me wonder about Academia itself. For instance, the word theory gets thrown around a lot, e.g. Critical Race Theory, Literary Theory, and Theory Social Construction of Truth. Yet, these theories do not fit the definition of scientific theories where it's a model that has been rigorously verified by independent experiments and often has the power to predict outcomes. Personally, many of these soft sciences and humanities teach pseudoscientific information but are accepted because they have veneer truth due to coming from Academia. Do you agree with this assessment? How much of pseudoscience is taught and Academia, and should we remove these types of fields from it? Another way of putting it is, what is the benefit of degrees like "Gender Studies?" What kind of occupation do they produce besides more professors in said field? Having gender studies degree as a field makes less sense to me because sex, gender, behavior, etc are STEM fields, subjects that require vast biological knowledge rather than philosophical apologetics. Anyway, I am rambling. I respect you both a great deal.

Much love fellow humans.

Thomas Payne

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I tend to argue that racism was systemic at one time. It was actually built into the system in a real and deliberate way. That ended 56 years ago. Most of the troubles today are not the result of the current system. If you are upper middle class or wealthy, and black then you actually have a better chance than most whites in America. The trouble is that we haven't managed to offset the problems for the average person that existed before the system changed. This is a two way street. As a society we need to do better when it comes to investing in education for poor minority students. That's one side of the street. At the same time the poor, minority students have to buckle down and take their own education seriously. You can't educate an unwilling student. Education is the key to improvement. This was recognized by the Founders of our country. But a good education requires the work of students, parents, teachers, and administrators. In that order. A willing student will learn even if the parents and teachers present obstacles. A willing student with parents who encourage and support their kids will also overcome any educational shortcomings at the school. But if the students aren't willing and the parents don't care even the best teacher can accomplish nothing.

So yes, we need to do everything we can to help and erase the ugly legacies of Jim Crow. It can't be done unless it's a partnership.

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