Glenn tells us, "I sense no boundaries on the color blindness fetish.'
Well, rather unusually (I suppose the exception that proves the rule): Glenn is simply wrong in his 'sensing'.
All of us, probably Mr. Hughes also, have a whole collection of 'boundaries' that we typically use/imply/apply when speaking of 'color blindness'. (Nor would we categorize the idea of 'color blindness' as a fetish, meaning a notion which possesses magical or transcendent power).
Color blindness, much like 'gender blindness'...or 'size blindness'.... or 'physical handicap blindness'....or or or or, does not mean that we do not see color, or gender, or size, or the wheelchair that just rolled in the door. Rather it means, we see it, we are aware of it, and we consciously make no effort to weight that superficial factoid -- positively or negatively -- in any ensuing discussion or decision. That's all it means.
An individual applies for a job I've advertised. I invite them for an interview because their paper qualifications are sufficient to justify that interview. They enter my office...or Glenn's office...or anyone's office who is so hiring. IMMEDIATELY we notice and are aware of the fact that this individual, let's call them 'Pat' is: a beautiful, young, slim, sexually attractive, short, brunette female, with glasses, who's under-dressed for the interview, speaks with a slight Southern drawl, and has cold hands as we shake hers. She's also Black. We are blind to none of that. And yet we intend to dismiss it all (as much as is humanly possible) as we evaluate her (and how she interviews) for the job at hand.
That's really all there is to color blindness.
If we hire her, and we're asked, a few days later, "Who's this Pat person you just hired?' I may very well say, pointing out into the work area: "Pat's the young Black woman walking over to the copy machine. Suzie is the tall Blonde walking next to her." At that point color is simply an easy identifier. If both Suzie and Pat are young, and Black, then I may say, "Pat's the short one." But our use of demographic qualities as descriptors does not mean we're any less colorblind when it comes to hiring, firing, promotions, and the presentation of opportunities.
So, no, Mr. Loury, we are not 'boundaryless' when it comes to 'colorblindness'. All that is meant by the term is that it should never be used (color, that is) as a separator or reason to discriminate...just as we should not use sex, or physical capability, or weight, or shoe size (unless such qualities are actually pertinent to the job at hand).
Really pretty simple.
As for 'race or ethnic consciousness' being used to more fully appreciate when we are as human beings living in the 21st century. Sure, why not? Eventually even that will probably go away.
20 generations back, we each have about 2M some direct, bloodline ancestors. How many of those 2M names do we know? Maybe 100? Maybe .005% of our 20 generation ancestral total? So how much do we even know (let alone appreciate) of how far we ourselves have come from where we were? The obvious & inevitable answer: we don't. No one does, really.
And so we inevitably, if not in this generation, then the next, or the one after that -- stand by ourselves, connected to our parents and grandparents...and intellectually aware that we are the result of hundreds/thousands of generations of family-making/world-changing of which we know almost nothing. That's life.
Is "race" scientifically valid? I don't mean in the political or cultural sense. I mean in the ancient and modern sense. Ancient as factual as distinct from the philosophical and political sciences. Modern as experimentally repeatable and verifiable. If so, how? What is the criteria? If not, should we acknowledge that race is a social construct rather than a scientific variable worthy of classification?
It seems to me that John has built a strawman. Does anyone use "colorblind" to mean that they don't see color? I don't know of anyone. People I know mean by that phrase that color is one of many characteristics of a person that are noted and passed on from in favor of more meaningful characteristics. We all see what there is to see; sex, color, physical form, handicaps amd many more. They form the initial tapestry. But there are other characteristics which are far more important; integrity, skills, interests, personality and the like. None of those are fetishized and each has it's place in defining an individual.
The discussion about the fetish of colorblindness could benefit from some clarity about it’s intent with respect to the concepts of race and ethnicity. When some people talk about the ideal of colorblindness, they harken to the ideal expressed by Martin Luther King to judge people not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I believe most people subscribe to this notion and, for many, this is what they mean by colorblindness. Many people who believe in this ideal also tack on the corresponding idea that in a colorblind world, race doesn’t matter in how we treat one another.
If this is the ideal of a colorblind society, I believe it would be useful to clarify or modify what we mean by race and its relationship to ethnicity. When we talk about a black race in the United States, we often comingle two ideas where the discussion of colorblindness would be better served by keeping these ideas quite separate. I would suggest we reserve the term “race” to refer to the social construct where we group people according to their body features and/or notions about their biological ancestry. Race, in this sense, is a concept applied to individuals by others with the intent of treating them differently simply by their physical characteristics or their biological inheritance, factors over which an individual has no control. This is the pernicious concept of race that has done so much damage and for which there is no scientific basis. When we talk about “blackness” or “black identity” we are talking about an ethnicity which is based in culture. This particular culture is certainly tied to our history where the pernicious concept of race found it’s application in slavery, but should be understood to be distinct from the idea of race. An individual’s ethnicity is something that can classify or group them, but it can be embraced, celebrated or possibly rejected as an individual decides. I think a colorblind society rejects the pernicious sense of race but can allow people to embrace or not embrace their ethnicity as they wish. African Americans have good reason to celebrate their accomplishments and take pride in their culture. A colorblind society should certainly accommodate this.
Keeping the notion of race distinct from ethnicity would be very helpful in discussions about race in the current social and political climate in the United States. Race is a social construct which, I would argue, has no social value and should be considered a bad idea to be put in the trash bin of history. We should be educating our children that the concept is scientifically bogus and a bad idea to use as a basis for human thought and interaction. Instead, we are teaching children that race is very important and a major determinant in how we should treat people. We would all be better served if we embraced the idea of a colorblind society that accommodates the celebration of Afro-American culture and ethnicity.
When I was a small child in Baltimore in the 1950's, the city neighborhoolds were largely broken up by ethnic identities - Greek, Polish, Italian .... Once the kids mixed in high school they intermarried and the ethnics dissolved into the larger popalation. That is happening to some degree already and should be strongly encouraged. I see a lot of the children of mixed marriages in the tech community, although the represented population subgroups tend to be a subset of the larger set. I see a reasonable degree of outmarriage in my own family as well.
Frankly, my prefered description of my ethnic heritage is "American Mutt" or "American Mongrel".
One of my favorite novels of all time is The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man" by James Weldon Johnson, originally published anonymously. The ending paragraphs (by the white-passing narrator) are incredibly poignant and relevant to this conversation:
"It is difficult for me to analyze my feelings concerning my present position in the world. Sometimes it seems to me that I have never really been a Negro, that I have been only a privileged spectator of their inner life; at other times I feel that I have been a coward, a deserter, and I am possessed by a strange longing for my mother's people.
Several years ago I attended a great meeting in the interest of Hampton Institute at Carnegie Hall. The Hampton students sang the old songs and awoke memories that left me sad. Among the speakers were R.C. Ogden, ex-Ambassador Choate, and Mark Twain; but the greatest interest of the audience was centered in Booker T. Washington, and not because he so much surpassed the others in eloquence, but because of what he represented with so much earnestness and faith. And it is this that all of that small but gallant band of colored men who are publicly fighting the cause of their race have behind them. Even those who oppose them know that these men have the eternal principles of right on their side, and they will be victors even though they should go down in defeat. Beside them I feel small and selfish. I am an ordinarily successful white man who has made a little money. They are men who are making history and a race. I, too, might have taken part in a work so glorious.
My love for my children makes me glad that I am what I am and keeps me from desiring to be otherwise; and yet, when I sometimes open a little box in which I still keep my fast yellowing manuscripts, the only tangible remnants of a vanished dream, a dead ambition, a sacrificed talent, I cannot repress the thought that, after all, I have chosen the lesser part, that I have sold my birthright for a mess of pottage."
And on a different matter, Is plagiarism a quasi-norm for people in DEI positions? Academia in general?
"NEW: The chief diversity officer of Columbia University's medical school, Alade McKen, plagiarized extensively in his doctoral dissertation, lifting huge chunks of material without attribution.
Two pages in the dissertation come directly from Wikipedia"
I work in the tech sector. It is my impression that the largest fraction of the workforce is foreign born, and the next largest fraction is native born with at least one foreign born parent. The second generation has a lot of intermarriage and it looks like the third will have more. There are a lot of complaints within the field of a wide variety of discrimination by foreign born managers - and this is totally independent of the American white-black issue. A lot of the sourth Indians are darker than many African Americans, so I have a real problem with the term white-black, which has been superceeded by the change in ethnic sources of the population subgroups. So in the end I have to side with the colorblindness side. It isn't a simple white - black issue - and I would note that the African population subgroups are widely variable as well.
There is a lot to unpack in Glenn's use of "narrating my life through a racial lens." I feel like there is a disconnect between what people like Coleman Hughes mean when they "fetishize" colorblindness and what Glenn (and to a much lesser extent John) experience when they consider colorblindness in its eventual realization. To put what I am trying to say into (hopefully) clearer focus, let us consider one of the most-quoted phrases in Dr. King's admonition. "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
In my analysis, that statement has nothing--not a damned thing--to do with colorblindness or not narrating one's life through a racial lens, or any of that. Life fried chicken? Eat up! Prefer sushi? Raw is best, in my view. Enjoy old videos of James Brown dancing? Me too. Feel "some kind of way" about the history of slavery and what it means to your current life? That makes two of us. So. Effing. What?
What we want, and what I would think would be inarguable, is this. One, judge people one-at-a-time. (Sure, a book cover tells you something about the book, but only a fool decides about every book by every cover.) Two, expect the best of people, i.e., meritocracy, regardless of their cultural heritage. Want this job as a nuclear physicist? Your ass better be able to do math. And so on...
My post has gone on much too long but let me end with this. "Post-racial" does not mean "no races exist" or whatever. It means that what I expect and receive from a person is not always, or even mostly, something I can AUTOMATICALLY deduce from their race. In contrast, when I see a woman, I know. (And I like that.) Similarly, when I see a man, I know. I like that too. When I see a "white man" what should I expect, outside that which is pertinent to being a man? Who the hell knows? Same for everyone else. And that's okay. (Yes, I know we currently live in a time when gender fluidity is all the rage. That makes NOT jumping to a conclusion more important, not less, does it not?)
While I am somewhat hesitant to share my own writing, I have thought about this issue quite a bit, dating back to when I wrote for an online libertarian website. Here is one such piece, dating back to 2007: https://www.lewrockwell.com/2007/04/wilton-alston/tell-me-again/. It covers my feelings on this issue and saves me the time of repeating, or attempting to repeat, them here. Hopefully, it is helpful.
This is, obviously, a fascinating and multi-layered subject. Thanks for continuing to enrich the conversation, guys!
Having just finished reading Coleman's book, I'm in agreement with Glenn that colorblindness has almost become a fetish for some in the heterodox sphere. Interestingly enough, many of its strongest proponents seem to be Black. My guess is that they feel similarly to John that Black identity has often been used to promote an oppositional mindset that has been detrimental to Black progress. Yet to downplay the Black American experience because of that fact seems to me to be throwing out the baby with the bathwater. No other group of people are told that in order to sustain progress, they have to eschew their own cultural and racial heritage.
For what it's worth, and summarizing my sentiments from prior comments, I believe that people like Coleman underestimate the extent to which race, culture and biology are intertwined. John Mearsheimer makes this point forcefully in his book The Great Delusion, in arguing against the philosophy of liberal universalism. Contrary to what John McWhorter stated in his discussion with Glenn, it's not at all clear to me that the future of global civilization lies in transracial humanism. The Clash of Civilizations as espoused by Samuel Huntington seems like the far more prescient prediction of 21st century geopolitics than Francis Fukuyama's The End of History. The idea that human beings are essentially interchangeable parts of a larger homogeneous whole may turn out to be one of the great delusions of the modern day West, one that may ultimately lead to the West's own demise.
This issue reminds me of what was called the Jewish question. William Breit , a professor of mine in graduate school, knew Clarence Ayers quite well, having been a student of his at Texas as an undergraduate. Ayers was founder of the Texas school of institutional economics. I read a book by Ayers in early 1982 at Breit’s recommendation to get some idea of the thinking of institutional economists. The book, whose title I do not recall, presented Ayers idea of an ideal society which basically meant that everyone had a certain
It’s a goal not a fetish.
Glenn tells us, "I sense no boundaries on the color blindness fetish.'
Well, rather unusually (I suppose the exception that proves the rule): Glenn is simply wrong in his 'sensing'.
All of us, probably Mr. Hughes also, have a whole collection of 'boundaries' that we typically use/imply/apply when speaking of 'color blindness'. (Nor would we categorize the idea of 'color blindness' as a fetish, meaning a notion which possesses magical or transcendent power).
Color blindness, much like 'gender blindness'...or 'size blindness'.... or 'physical handicap blindness'....or or or or, does not mean that we do not see color, or gender, or size, or the wheelchair that just rolled in the door. Rather it means, we see it, we are aware of it, and we consciously make no effort to weight that superficial factoid -- positively or negatively -- in any ensuing discussion or decision. That's all it means.
An individual applies for a job I've advertised. I invite them for an interview because their paper qualifications are sufficient to justify that interview. They enter my office...or Glenn's office...or anyone's office who is so hiring. IMMEDIATELY we notice and are aware of the fact that this individual, let's call them 'Pat' is: a beautiful, young, slim, sexually attractive, short, brunette female, with glasses, who's under-dressed for the interview, speaks with a slight Southern drawl, and has cold hands as we shake hers. She's also Black. We are blind to none of that. And yet we intend to dismiss it all (as much as is humanly possible) as we evaluate her (and how she interviews) for the job at hand.
That's really all there is to color blindness.
If we hire her, and we're asked, a few days later, "Who's this Pat person you just hired?' I may very well say, pointing out into the work area: "Pat's the young Black woman walking over to the copy machine. Suzie is the tall Blonde walking next to her." At that point color is simply an easy identifier. If both Suzie and Pat are young, and Black, then I may say, "Pat's the short one." But our use of demographic qualities as descriptors does not mean we're any less colorblind when it comes to hiring, firing, promotions, and the presentation of opportunities.
So, no, Mr. Loury, we are not 'boundaryless' when it comes to 'colorblindness'. All that is meant by the term is that it should never be used (color, that is) as a separator or reason to discriminate...just as we should not use sex, or physical capability, or weight, or shoe size (unless such qualities are actually pertinent to the job at hand).
Really pretty simple.
As for 'race or ethnic consciousness' being used to more fully appreciate when we are as human beings living in the 21st century. Sure, why not? Eventually even that will probably go away.
20 generations back, we each have about 2M some direct, bloodline ancestors. How many of those 2M names do we know? Maybe 100? Maybe .005% of our 20 generation ancestral total? So how much do we even know (let alone appreciate) of how far we ourselves have come from where we were? The obvious & inevitable answer: we don't. No one does, really.
And so we inevitably, if not in this generation, then the next, or the one after that -- stand by ourselves, connected to our parents and grandparents...and intellectually aware that we are the result of hundreds/thousands of generations of family-making/world-changing of which we know almost nothing. That's life.
Is "race" scientifically valid? I don't mean in the political or cultural sense. I mean in the ancient and modern sense. Ancient as factual as distinct from the philosophical and political sciences. Modern as experimentally repeatable and verifiable. If so, how? What is the criteria? If not, should we acknowledge that race is a social construct rather than a scientific variable worthy of classification?
It seems to me that John has built a strawman. Does anyone use "colorblind" to mean that they don't see color? I don't know of anyone. People I know mean by that phrase that color is one of many characteristics of a person that are noted and passed on from in favor of more meaningful characteristics. We all see what there is to see; sex, color, physical form, handicaps amd many more. They form the initial tapestry. But there are other characteristics which are far more important; integrity, skills, interests, personality and the like. None of those are fetishized and each has it's place in defining an individual.
The discussion about the fetish of colorblindness could benefit from some clarity about it’s intent with respect to the concepts of race and ethnicity. When some people talk about the ideal of colorblindness, they harken to the ideal expressed by Martin Luther King to judge people not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I believe most people subscribe to this notion and, for many, this is what they mean by colorblindness. Many people who believe in this ideal also tack on the corresponding idea that in a colorblind world, race doesn’t matter in how we treat one another.
If this is the ideal of a colorblind society, I believe it would be useful to clarify or modify what we mean by race and its relationship to ethnicity. When we talk about a black race in the United States, we often comingle two ideas where the discussion of colorblindness would be better served by keeping these ideas quite separate. I would suggest we reserve the term “race” to refer to the social construct where we group people according to their body features and/or notions about their biological ancestry. Race, in this sense, is a concept applied to individuals by others with the intent of treating them differently simply by their physical characteristics or their biological inheritance, factors over which an individual has no control. This is the pernicious concept of race that has done so much damage and for which there is no scientific basis. When we talk about “blackness” or “black identity” we are talking about an ethnicity which is based in culture. This particular culture is certainly tied to our history where the pernicious concept of race found it’s application in slavery, but should be understood to be distinct from the idea of race. An individual’s ethnicity is something that can classify or group them, but it can be embraced, celebrated or possibly rejected as an individual decides. I think a colorblind society rejects the pernicious sense of race but can allow people to embrace or not embrace their ethnicity as they wish. African Americans have good reason to celebrate their accomplishments and take pride in their culture. A colorblind society should certainly accommodate this.
Keeping the notion of race distinct from ethnicity would be very helpful in discussions about race in the current social and political climate in the United States. Race is a social construct which, I would argue, has no social value and should be considered a bad idea to be put in the trash bin of history. We should be educating our children that the concept is scientifically bogus and a bad idea to use as a basis for human thought and interaction. Instead, we are teaching children that race is very important and a major determinant in how we should treat people. We would all be better served if we embraced the idea of a colorblind society that accommodates the celebration of Afro-American culture and ethnicity.
When I was a small child in Baltimore in the 1950's, the city neighborhoolds were largely broken up by ethnic identities - Greek, Polish, Italian .... Once the kids mixed in high school they intermarried and the ethnics dissolved into the larger popalation. That is happening to some degree already and should be strongly encouraged. I see a lot of the children of mixed marriages in the tech community, although the represented population subgroups tend to be a subset of the larger set. I see a reasonable degree of outmarriage in my own family as well.
Frankly, my prefered description of my ethnic heritage is "American Mutt" or "American Mongrel".
One of my favorite novels of all time is The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man" by James Weldon Johnson, originally published anonymously. The ending paragraphs (by the white-passing narrator) are incredibly poignant and relevant to this conversation:
"It is difficult for me to analyze my feelings concerning my present position in the world. Sometimes it seems to me that I have never really been a Negro, that I have been only a privileged spectator of their inner life; at other times I feel that I have been a coward, a deserter, and I am possessed by a strange longing for my mother's people.
Several years ago I attended a great meeting in the interest of Hampton Institute at Carnegie Hall. The Hampton students sang the old songs and awoke memories that left me sad. Among the speakers were R.C. Ogden, ex-Ambassador Choate, and Mark Twain; but the greatest interest of the audience was centered in Booker T. Washington, and not because he so much surpassed the others in eloquence, but because of what he represented with so much earnestness and faith. And it is this that all of that small but gallant band of colored men who are publicly fighting the cause of their race have behind them. Even those who oppose them know that these men have the eternal principles of right on their side, and they will be victors even though they should go down in defeat. Beside them I feel small and selfish. I am an ordinarily successful white man who has made a little money. They are men who are making history and a race. I, too, might have taken part in a work so glorious.
My love for my children makes me glad that I am what I am and keeps me from desiring to be otherwise; and yet, when I sometimes open a little box in which I still keep my fast yellowing manuscripts, the only tangible remnants of a vanished dream, a dead ambition, a sacrificed talent, I cannot repress the thought that, after all, I have chosen the lesser part, that I have sold my birthright for a mess of pottage."
And on a different matter, Is plagiarism a quasi-norm for people in DEI positions? Academia in general?
"NEW: The chief diversity officer of Columbia University's medical school, Alade McKen, plagiarized extensively in his doctoral dissertation, lifting huge chunks of material without attribution.
Two pages in the dissertation come directly from Wikipedia"
https://twitter.com/aaronsibarium/status/1763192727762509855
I work in the tech sector. It is my impression that the largest fraction of the workforce is foreign born, and the next largest fraction is native born with at least one foreign born parent. The second generation has a lot of intermarriage and it looks like the third will have more. There are a lot of complaints within the field of a wide variety of discrimination by foreign born managers - and this is totally independent of the American white-black issue. A lot of the sourth Indians are darker than many African Americans, so I have a real problem with the term white-black, which has been superceeded by the change in ethnic sources of the population subgroups. So in the end I have to side with the colorblindness side. It isn't a simple white - black issue - and I would note that the African population subgroups are widely variable as well.
There is a lot to unpack in Glenn's use of "narrating my life through a racial lens." I feel like there is a disconnect between what people like Coleman Hughes mean when they "fetishize" colorblindness and what Glenn (and to a much lesser extent John) experience when they consider colorblindness in its eventual realization. To put what I am trying to say into (hopefully) clearer focus, let us consider one of the most-quoted phrases in Dr. King's admonition. "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
In my analysis, that statement has nothing--not a damned thing--to do with colorblindness or not narrating one's life through a racial lens, or any of that. Life fried chicken? Eat up! Prefer sushi? Raw is best, in my view. Enjoy old videos of James Brown dancing? Me too. Feel "some kind of way" about the history of slavery and what it means to your current life? That makes two of us. So. Effing. What?
What we want, and what I would think would be inarguable, is this. One, judge people one-at-a-time. (Sure, a book cover tells you something about the book, but only a fool decides about every book by every cover.) Two, expect the best of people, i.e., meritocracy, regardless of their cultural heritage. Want this job as a nuclear physicist? Your ass better be able to do math. And so on...
My post has gone on much too long but let me end with this. "Post-racial" does not mean "no races exist" or whatever. It means that what I expect and receive from a person is not always, or even mostly, something I can AUTOMATICALLY deduce from their race. In contrast, when I see a woman, I know. (And I like that.) Similarly, when I see a man, I know. I like that too. When I see a "white man" what should I expect, outside that which is pertinent to being a man? Who the hell knows? Same for everyone else. And that's okay. (Yes, I know we currently live in a time when gender fluidity is all the rage. That makes NOT jumping to a conclusion more important, not less, does it not?)
While I am somewhat hesitant to share my own writing, I have thought about this issue quite a bit, dating back to when I wrote for an online libertarian website. Here is one such piece, dating back to 2007: https://www.lewrockwell.com/2007/04/wilton-alston/tell-me-again/. It covers my feelings on this issue and saves me the time of repeating, or attempting to repeat, them here. Hopefully, it is helpful.
This is, obviously, a fascinating and multi-layered subject. Thanks for continuing to enrich the conversation, guys!
Having just finished reading Coleman's book, I'm in agreement with Glenn that colorblindness has almost become a fetish for some in the heterodox sphere. Interestingly enough, many of its strongest proponents seem to be Black. My guess is that they feel similarly to John that Black identity has often been used to promote an oppositional mindset that has been detrimental to Black progress. Yet to downplay the Black American experience because of that fact seems to me to be throwing out the baby with the bathwater. No other group of people are told that in order to sustain progress, they have to eschew their own cultural and racial heritage.
For what it's worth, and summarizing my sentiments from prior comments, I believe that people like Coleman underestimate the extent to which race, culture and biology are intertwined. John Mearsheimer makes this point forcefully in his book The Great Delusion, in arguing against the philosophy of liberal universalism. Contrary to what John McWhorter stated in his discussion with Glenn, it's not at all clear to me that the future of global civilization lies in transracial humanism. The Clash of Civilizations as espoused by Samuel Huntington seems like the far more prescient prediction of 21st century geopolitics than Francis Fukuyama's The End of History. The idea that human beings are essentially interchangeable parts of a larger homogeneous whole may turn out to be one of the great delusions of the modern day West, one that may ultimately lead to the West's own demise.
This issue reminds me of what was called the Jewish question. William Breit , a professor of mine in graduate school, knew Clarence Ayers quite well, having been a student of his at Texas as an undergraduate. Ayers was founder of the Texas school of institutional economics. I read a book by Ayers in early 1982 at Breit’s recommendation to get some idea of the thinking of institutional economists. The book, whose title I do not recall, presented Ayers idea of an ideal society which basically meant that everyone had a certain