Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) now stands for Division, Exclusion, and Inequity.
Affirmative action, and there is nothing even remotely affirming about it, is divisive, pitting one race against another in their fight to compete for a finite number of places at college,, inclusion has become exclusion with white and asian males deliberately kept out, and the college mismatch, dropouts, and changing majors (the usual results of bad AA policies) have led to more inequity than before.
(2) Beginnings of doubt, and the first faint stirring of misgiving
(3) Growing disenchantment, yet a loyalty to the cause coupled with ego prevents any public articulation, but the person starts to self-question
(4 Increasing anger, usually triggered by a personal circumstance, with the person feeling more emboldened to speak out (Many students and increasing numbers of faculty are in stages 3 and 4).
(5) ) Utter Disillusionment with all scales dropping in freefall, and the Truth emerges. The person then goes and votes for the other party. Quietly.
This substack is, unfortunately, another demonstration of intellectually lazy socio-political commentary. To wit, Ms. Barr has a long history of racist comments and diatribes. If there were just one, or two, or three perhaps your line of argument would hold water. However, her tweet about Jarret was just one of the latest. Please open your eyes, gents. Need to look at patterns of activity over time. Same applies to so many demonstrably nefarious folks being promoted as 'paragons of free speech' . Frankly, it's tiring. And it invites more irrational ponderings and speculations (like the drivel Steve P tapped out in this comment thread). And this reminds of Mr. Loury's pointing to sentiments that are, allegedly, widespread caters to the problematic criterion of social proof - a criterion more problematic now then ever, in this age of social media. Ideas, simply by dint of their being publicized, does not make them good ideas. To the contrary, we have more nonsense running hand in hand with sensible ideas then ever before. And this should remind us that, while one of the best things about the Web is that ANYBODY can contribute, one of the worse things about the web is, indeed, that ANYBODY can contribute.
I like the Duke and Dauphin from Huck Finn as opposed to Emperor’s New Clothes because it accounts for the possibility that some people will buy the con. Huck knows the Duke and Dauphin are liars cut from the same cloth as Tom Sawyer, but Jim is just hearing more of the same kind of lies he heard throughout his life as a slave, at least Huck assumes this, and they don’t have the conversation until long after the Duke and Dauphin are gone. Duke and Dauphin is a variation on New Clothes by way of the Royal Nonesuch. In this case, someone who claims to be a king, tells everyone there’s a high tragedy, and it’s really just him naked and painted. Everyone falls for it, no one wants to admit they fall for it, so the next night everyone who didn’t see the show falls for it all over again. You don’t know it’s a con, until you know it’s a con, and the mixture of rage and shame keeps the quiet. That is until it’s time to lead the Duke and Dauphin out on a rail. The Elect will be lead out on a rail someday, you can count on that like you can count on rain, a con can’t sell forever.
I think everything would work out alot better and everyone would be alot happier if we did not have a multicultural society and we had a raciallly and ethnically homogeneous society. This has been the case throughout all of history and we should end this multicultural experiment the sooner the better as it has been an abject failure.
On average, black Americans (at least ancestors of slaves) have been here longer than white Americans on average. It’s hard to get more American than that, unless one focuses only Native/First Nations groups. Black American culture is a huge part of American culture. We were (obviously very belatedly) on the right track at least for the most part until the past few to several years. We’re still on the right track in terms of interracial and inter-ethnic relationships and family formation. The problem isn’t the cultures of various ethnic groups. It’s twofold in my view. One, it’s the extreme reifying and essentializing of race in particular as the entirely inescapable, all-important variable. Two, it’s the elevation of these identities, within a new and apparently permanent caste hierarchy, not only as more fundamental and meaningful than our common bonds and commitments to each other as fellow citizens, but also alongside a frontal assault on the very meaning and basis of our shared country and system of government. Even referencing a shared country and common basis for belonging to the same polity and political project is coming under attack as inherently white supremacist and xenophobic, etc. This country has, does, and can continue to blend and integrate different cultures. What we can’t do is replace shared citizenship and a shared home with the notion our only meaningful identities are as separate and hostile tribes based on mostly superficial inherited, immutable, physical characteristics which are then presented as inextricable from set political views and interests fought over endlessly in zero-sum conflict. That’s where the identitarian left is taking us. And it’s no surprise the right-wing analogue sounds so similar: why can’t we have either one group with one culture, one set of views inherent to that group, or, at minimum, complete separation between groups and cultures. That’s obviously not possible, even if it were desirable. We’re one people with a lot of rich cultural and ethnic traditions mixed together and continuing to blend. We’re political citizens of one country and system. Not tribes vying for a blood-based dominance at the expense of other tribes. Rejecting and rooting out Jim Crow, segregation, and the attempts to dominate and terrorize an entire population by race, was essential to the successful continuation of the American project. The last thing we need is a reactionary effort to revive segregation and tribalism on the right, in response to growing swaths of the left pushing their own incredibly destructive, divisive version of the same.
A complicating factor is that almost all the public vitriol and condemnation has been in one direction for the past 10-15 years. While some people were forced to walk on eggshells, others hurled insults and blame with no accountability whatsoever. People may conclude their kindness has been taken for weakness. (And it probably was.)
I tend to agree. There was a time when it seemed like we (our country) had decided, pop-culturally, that one way to try and navigate the history of racism and first de jure and then statistical inequalities, was to (in a relatively light and seemingly harmless way) lampoon everything white as being hopelessly lame. Given that major part of the history of this country and its overhangs, it didn't seem such a terrible price to pay for being born with a certain complexion (and grossly-generalized ethno-racial heritage. It's not so unusual for a relatively powerless group to satirize even ridicule a relatively powerful one (even if many of the source of the ridicule weren't so powerless and most of the targets weren't so powerful. What came next, though, seemed less even notionally humorous and both nastier and more a part of a program: you have no culture; you have zero accomplishments that are your own - everything is stolen (and, worse, stolen and then commercialized and ruined). A good friend who was finishing a master's degree at The New School (and who has a biracial half-brother and was sympathetic to the some of the discourse around The New Jim Crow, etc) recited to me some of what he heard both from classmates and peers and students in various workshops he was part of outside of school: we love our music, our dance, our food, our women(!), our proud history of this and that). The clear implication from such people was white people have none of these things. The official white ethnic cuisine is Wonder Bread (or perhaps unlimited breadsticks at Olive Garden). All PoC ar noble strivers with both proud and distinctive traditions and an even brighter, almost inevitably victorious future (perhaps because that outcome was to be gradually mandated and engineered, and enforced?) White people had nothing but cultural poverty so profound it deserved vicious mockery. White was somehow both (hilarious) actual, profound poverty (all the tropes about toothless hillbillies at the milder end) - and, simultaneously, C-level suites, yachts, and (racist) country club memberships for all as a racial birthrite. White had become an epithet in and of itself. One could quickly ridicule and delegitimize anything or anyone simply by labeling it or them as white.
As just one example of how this played out at the urban, knowledge/creative class level, I'd been reading Josh Marshall's TPM (at least once most days and most of the stories and posts) since Fall 2002. As the site expanded and more and more recent graduates did stints there (seemingly all from elite liberal arts colleges or Ivies) and as Marshall himself focused more and more on The Coalition of the Ascendant and The Emerging Democratic Majority, the site began to feature at least once daily what I began to call "something a dumb redneck did today". Almost always by some patrician-looking recent college grad from an elite institution. It got so bad, Pro Publica
called out TPM for relentlessly, superficially mocking poor white people, in many cases just for being poor, culturally alien to the east coast media elite, and for suffering some failure or misfortune (maybe of character; maybe they just had the wrong views or party allegiance) which was usually portrayed as their just desserts. I completely stopped visiting the site around that time
Across much of American culture, high, low, and in between, there is now an open attack on all white people (at least the unfancy ones) simply for being white. And that means the inherited, immutable physical characteristics, though it's often presented disingenuously as "dismantling whiteness". And there's a giddiness, a smugness, a sense of singular culture license these days to these attacks. For example, Marc Lamont Hill's ridiculous (if clever in its nastiness) recitation of several of the things he loves about being black - and attempt to trap Chris Rufo into either appearing to advocate for a white racial identity, or conceding there was zero about which anyone born white could be proud. Of course when one tries to answer that they don't make a focus of walking around thinking of themselves as a white person let alone nurturing a specific racial pride, the response is always that that is itself an enormous privilege of being white: never having to think about one's race. To the extent any of that argument is true, a large part of it is simply based on growing up as part of a large majority. I'm sure Koreans at the very minimum feel like the naturally dominant group and center of culture and policy, in Korea. But the claim that white people alive in America today have never had to think about their race in a critical way is another feint and bluff. It's just laughable. It's similar to the ludicrous claim that virtually nothing honest about the history of slavery and Jim Crow has been taught in classrooms until very recently (and all of these racist white people want to purge even that). Tellingly, I'm seeing a number of very identiarian black writers arguing a direct connection between the horrific racially-motivated slaughter in Buffalo and any resistance to the divisive, demonizing curricula they demand be imposed nationwide. In all kinds of community hobby and volunteer groups, most as far away in focus from politics as one can imagine, I've seen a wave of usually upper-middle-class millennials enter the group and immediately begin haranguing (other) white people for being white and daring to have been active for so long and for having contributed so much (in a welcoming, egalitarian way!) Imagine showing up for a group event on a weekend morning, maybe the highlight of your day, and having a group photo distributed with the acid label: "_________ so white".Maybe your mom is in the hospital and your employer's been downsizing and your knees and back are hurting - but here's a chance to be social and do something positive and active. And you get slimed for how you were born. Your images individually and collectively have no meaning other than a horrible and oppressive whiteness the good people have to put up with. You could be the most progressive white person in town. That's sort of the point: there's no way for you to be active and present and visible and for it to be OK. It'd be hard to blame you if you didn't want to get out of bed the next weekend. And that's sort of the point, too: you have a responsibility to remove yourself and, even better, to be demoralized about something you can't control. If you do show up, your presence has been racialized as an inherent affront to more deserving people. The people pushing this demonization, whatever their own skin color, are not by and large disadvantaged or marginalized in any way. And their goal appears to be to make this kind of ridicule for existing, this actual effort to demoralize and marginalize people on the basis of skin color alone, something ubiquitous and inescapable.
When I see Chris Rufo (who is, beyond his invaluable muckrating and exposure of damning primary evidence, actually as much of a conservative culture warrior as he is an Enlightenment liberal) being giddily dared by Marc Lamont Hill to say anything positive about his heritage, I don't think of race or racial pride. I think of my family. Specific people who usually didn't have it so easy and who struggled to keep it together and sacrificed personally to make good choices for their kids and pass on some model of integrity to the following generations. That's what i'm proud of. It's just laughable - an obvious provocation - to say Americans of Italian or Russian or Irish heritage have no heritage, no ethnic inheritances, no culture. What we were busy doing was trying to share an American culture and one which belongs to and is enriched by all of us. None of this demonization of skin color people have no control over makes me want to elevate my own skin color or race, nor does it make me more hostile to anyone with a different complexion. But I do now call out this neo-racist toxicity to friends. A few years ago, it was hard to find a movie which had attracted more universal, lavish critical praise than Get Out. It's got something silly like a 100% positive critical response on Rotten Tomatoes. I was sure there had to be more to it. It couldn't all be based on just one supposedly satirical but obviously openly racist, hateful hook, a one trick conceit. But while staying with an ailing parent, I turned on cable TV and watched the last thirty or so minutes of it. Yep: all white people are sadistically murderous, enslaving, horror movie monsters - and the ones who act nice are even worse. Umm...fuck you? A friend recently mentioned that movie to briefly praise it. And I was equally brief but honest in reply: it's the shallowest of one trick ponies, and is based on pure racial hatred and scapegoating. Jordan Peele, whatever his talents, and his wife notwithstanding, appears to have a major personal problem with white people. That movie isn't satire. It isn't boldly countercultural. It's raining down group hatred from the commanding heights of pop culture. It's only deeper trick and i'm sure a very conscious one, is to get large numbers of younger people, particularly well-meaning white people to show up and laugh and cheer at all the inherently evil white people being - what's the term the left has become besotted with? - *held accountable* for their evil. The great catharsis of young black men running over and blowing up white people of all ages, sexes, *because we know they're all irredeemably bad*. That's literally all the movie is. But the reply of course would be: why are you so fragile? It's just a movie, can't you take a joke? Four hundred years of brutal oppression (as if I'm comparing the two) and this man wants to complain about a movie!
I wasn't gonna comment, because this I'm so late to the party. But this was really good. I made it all the Way through because-a that.
"All PoC ar noble strivers with both proud and distinctive traditions and an even brighter, almost inevitably victorious future (perhaps because that outcome was to be gradually mandated and engineered, and enforced?)"
Would just remove the question mark.
"To the extent any of that argument is true, a large part of it is simply based on growing up as part of a large majority."
This is something I wondered about, but dunno much about. There's always gonna be a tension between a large majority and a large minority, right? Dunno Korea, but assume that was Your point. But I don't see *anybody* trying to figure that out, and see how it can be ameliorated.
I agree with Substack Reader below, that it boils down to political strategy, in the end. And couldn't help but notice those at the very top-a the food chain (KenDiAngelo, Hannah-Jones and Coates, to name a few)... Well, they all cashed their chips in for fame and (mostly) fortune.
But I don't think it pays to overlook the Marxist aspect to this. The original Critical Race Theory outta the 80s. And up to the present time. There are people who wanna "dismantle the institutions" because-a their "systemic racism." Since "systemic racism" is a hoax, AFAIK, their ultimate motive is to tear down the society however they can and replace it with dreams.
Or, I should say, that's one motivation for destroying society, but not necessarily the only one.
You make some interesting points, but you need to throw in some paragraph breaks! I didn't make it all the way through because of eyestrain. The parts I got through were interesting, though.
Anyway, I think a lot of it is a deliberate political strategy. People will do just about anything for power and/or money, long term consequences be damned.
The weird thing is that there are lots of these ideas on the left as well as the right. The communism issue like they say here is still something that people will remain silent about even if they agree on any Marxist point of view. But, there is the whole women rights issue. Women who have been raped continue to remain silent on the issue. The poor will always feel embarrassed to ask for help. Exploited workers continue to remain silent out of fear of losing employment even when they are not being paid a fair wage.
We’re all animals - and I don’t need a biologist to confirm that. But trying to imply your political opponents are somehow subhuman and need to be “stamp[ed] out” is exactly the problem we’re trying to prevent: tribal dehumanization and demonization justifying increasingly totalizing and violent attempts to eliminate categories of people by race, creed, etc. Which, by the way, more and more even mainstream Democrats are trying to do in othering huge numbers of their fellow citizens as “insurrectionists”, “ultra-MAGA” people, “deplorables”, and of course “racists” and “white supremacists”, who must be increasingly marginalized from society, if not thrown in jail for their political views, or perhaps eliminated altogether.
Just remember, if someone at work says that a black woman invented the airplane, then don't argue about it, no matter how much valid evidence you have to the contrary. It's just not worth losing your job over and being placed on a no-hire list.
Where's Loopy's regular partner McWhore? Probably off fellating a white gentleman. Fridman should have stuck to AI. Now he's just another clown who propping up people like Loopy who are paid to peddle anti-Blackness. You'll never see on this podcast someone white who makes a career out of being anti-white. Same for an anti-russian russian. He's a joke.
And yet here YOU are, on Loury's blog. Who reads your blog? or books? Who's the real joke? A sick, twisted mind is revealed in the line "paid to peddle anti-Blackness". Maybe some people will laugh at Loury, he has his moments, but for all time no one will ever even have heard of you, Ronnie, because in truth, you're the joke.
Word on the street is you're requiring your students to read 'Persecution and the Art of Writing' (a good book no doubt but not his best), so you know the deal. The big ideas people, not the Kendis or the Hannah-Joneses, or even the McWhorters, but the Strausses, Barfields, and, perhaps on his best days, even the Lourys of this world are not going to come out and tell you what they really think about the Emperor, or his nakedness, but will conceal their actual views in ways that only intelligent readers will discern. No politician who has studied political philosophy, and who understands the essential difference between Aristotle and Machiavelli, can be foolish enough to grant to the masses that one needful but sorely lacking trait, civic virtue. And so the sheep will always need a shepherd...let's hope they pick the good one, the one that laid down his life for the sheep.
When you discussed the “spiral of silence” I could not help but think of Professor Timur Kuran’s work on Preference Falsification in this book Private Truths, Public Lies.
You may have come across this already, but if not I would highly encourage you, and any other listeners/readers that are interested in the topic, to read his work for an in-depth / analytical underpinning of the theory and for case studies and implications of such a phenomenon.
There is a kind of silent equilibrium that the left is exploiting.
Societies have to find a balance between truth and politeness. Thats a big part of what makes us civilized. We all internally profile strangers based on a hundred different (mainly) visual cues. Race is one of those cues along with age, sex, attractiveness, hygiene, class, and on and on. For example, Attractiveness and intelligence are negatively correlated in the uncontrolled inner workings of my brain. I didn’t choose this, it just is, and I am often proven wrong. I am white and grew up playing sports in a racially diverse area. My gut reaction to black skin is to assume they are more athletic than a similarly built white person. This is of course not always true, but I can’t deny I have the thought. If I was a cop would this gut assumption make me more fearful in a physical altercation? Maybe. I am ashamed to say I have a distrust of the very poor in an encounter on the street, but I also have a strong distrust of the wealthy when it comes to business dealings. These reactions can veer even further into the irrational. I might have a negative gut reaction to someone because they remind me of an old girlfriend that I can’t stand. Every single human does this. It is not a rational, well thought out profile, it is a snap-judgement and is entirely out of our immediate control.
So what we do for social cohesion is agree on an unspoken and unwritten contract of politeness and effort. We all pretend like we don’t know that we are all internally profiling each other. We can’t know the exact nature of others thoughts so we agree to judge each other by how well we moderate them, which is to say, we agree to judge each other by our words and actions. Then we make an effort to dilute these unwanted gut reactions by meeting more people. But there is a flaw to be exploited with this agreement. Everyone knows that everyone else is racist, but we don’t know how racist. Maybe race has become far less important over the last 60 years or maybe white people have just become better at hiding it. What the left does is shine a light on this fact, but only in regards to white people. So white people who are not openly racist are surely quietly racist, which is true to some extent. As evidence they point to the open racism of past white people. So instead of “wow, look how much less racist white people have become” its “wow, look at how much better at hiding their racism white people have become.”
The left has voided half of the politeness contract. So now, if you’re white, you must still be polite and give effort, but while you’re being polite you must also apologize for the inner racist thoughts we all know you’re having. Or if you are gong to speak on race at all you must first rattle off a list of qualifiers and admissions of guilt. The scary part is that once you tear up the politeness contract, millions of white people start to wonder why they continue trying, when they are getting none of the benefits of politeness and effort. It’s a no win situation.
The subconscious profiling we all do is based on our past experiences, and is usually rational, or partly rational. Stereotyping is an essential part of cognition, and our lives depend on it. Our first, and most critical, decision about a stranger is whether or not they are dangerous. Race sometimes correlates with cultural attributes, and it is the cultural attributes that are important, not the physical signs of race.
I agree, profiling the threat posed by a stranger is critical. If our ancestors had not quickly profiled for threat level, and erred on the side of caution, we wouldn’t be here. But its the evolutionarily advantageous strategy of erring on the side of caution that becomes a problem in a multi-cultural country of 330 million people. When in doubt we tend to put strangers in the threat category. Doubt often comes from lack of familiarity. Lack of familiarity is common in a highly segregated society. Thats why the current strategy of the left is so infuriating. The way to get rid of unhelpful racial stereotypes is to meet people of different races. That is far less likely when you are maximizing racial awkwardness by making race essential and handing out swift punishment for any missteps.
Yes I agree, perceiving another person as strange and dangerous can result from lack of experience with that type of person (although it also can result from bad experiences). In a more racially integrated society, there would probably be less negative racial stereotyping.
I also want to point out that it isn't skin color that matters, but the cultural attributes that may be associated with certain skin colors. A poor American black could be the same color as a highly educated Indian immigrant, and our stereotypes of each might be very different. How a person speaks and acts counts much more than skin color.
I’ve mentioned a mentor somewhere, Michael Carriger. Professor at Johnson County Community College. He has a story much more interesting than any womens talk. It’s all about not being allowed to teach a certain book, and an AP department walking out of a job. He’d be good to have on the show.
Glenn’s concern for the “Spiral of Silence” that functions like a social panopticon cause conservative self censorship and how the disingenuous use of bigotry is feeding the radicalization of the right. I actually agree with that. BUT I also feel that those black inner city Americans who were rioting where also victims of the “Spiral of Silence” as their grievances went unheard and seeing a police officer acquitted for killing unarmed black people set a terrible precedent. Instead this was seen as a failure of their culture and a lack of personal responsibility. Glenn’s bottom up concept of if everyone just fall in line a just act right all will be fine. I feel this conversation lacked an analysis of the systems and institutions that in my opinion have major impacts on societal outcomes. I feel economics often mistakes the map for the territory and often delivers unfavorable outcomes when implemented in the real world. The personal responsibility approach to addressing social issues is putting the cart in front of the horse if we do not address the system/institutional aspects first.
When were the grievances of protestors and rioters (to the extent the latter was even based on grievances) not heard? And does the death of every single unarmed black American in a police involved incident have to result in a conviction, no less for “killing” - no matter the specific facts of each situation? What about every death of every single unarmed white or Latino or Native/First Nations, or Asian American in a police involved incident? Does it only have to be every black person, because otherwise that one population will feel ignored or unheard? Isn’t the reality that cases involving non-black suspects who die in police involved incidents are actually the ones we’re much much less likely to ever hear about - because of the often publicly unchecked ascendence of a narrative that police killings of black men and unarmed black men in particular are rampant (a high proportion of white liberals - maybe progressives is a better term - in surveys have guessed the number is well over ten thousand per year). What about unarmed black suspects who nonetheless contributed in some way to risking their own lives by fighting cops, grabbing at police weapons, trying to force their way back into vehicles, etc? We can debate why a black suspect might rationally or irrationally fear police violence more and might tragically behave in a way more likely to result in such violence. It’s a tragedy that anyone should have to walk around feeling at heightened risk of mortal danger from law enforcement merely due to where they live or even worse the color of their skin. But again, isn’t part of the problem narratives? The false idea that a cop might well kill you if you’re black and don’t fight back. The perhaps understandable but genuinely harmful idea that to try to fight armed police who must assume mortal risk given they are armed and must in many cases be armed to do their jobs is somehow important to black manhood or noble resistance. I’ve been treated roughly by cops. Even my sweet mom as an older lady was treated quite rudely by cops on 2-3 occasions. I was once pulled over by cops at 18-19 six times in about six weeks for nonsense reasons like using a turn signal slightly late or slightly early. But I had the actual privilege of not being impacted by a history in which police really did harass and abuse black men in particular as a routine part of their jobs. And I had the arguable privilege of not being burdened by a false narrative from other white people and the left and the media that to move in public with my skin color meant certain and regular police abuse and the real risk they might kill me for no other reason. The former is a stain and a shadow from our history and we must ensure all our citizens are treated fairly by police and know they can be. But the latter is a needless, senseless, and too often very cynically manufactured and deployed falsehood and additional emotional and social burden - and it’s coming from the left. It’s coming from no small number of specific people I know personally, many of whom are white, all of whom I’m sure think they’re helping (even if there is a degree of self-promotion, personal branding, even a bit of narcissism involved). But what they’re doing is spreading lazy lies or falsehoods based on a species of very hardened, defensive ignorance. Others are spreading instrumental “symbolic truths” to drive a narrative and agenda. What all of these people are doing is feeding paranoia. They are effectively telling their friends, acquaintances, coworkers, neighbors, “yes I agree you are being hunted every day based only on your skin color - as a white person I am aware of the evil of other less woke white people and can confirm this evil is a common daily reality.” The reason I began with the question I did is there was undoubtedly a time in our history when rampant, routine police abuse - not just against the poor and shabby or powerless and vulnerable, but specifically against black Americans was not only a real phenomenon but one that was ignored. More recently it’s closer to the opposite. We may have climbed down a bit from the very peak but we’re still very close to the recent phenomenon of black Americans in particular being encouraged and incentivized to see every single petty quotidian inconvenience or rudeness solely through a racial lens, assume the very worst motives of anyone of another race who is involved, and confront that person while filming them, with the near-certainty The Washington Post will put even a dumb kerfuffle between two people having a bad day on their front page as another sure sign we still live in Jim Crow America. Even very smart lawyers I know think the actual numbers of unarmed black men who die in police involved incidents surely must be in the thousands each year. Plenty of very smart people I know responded to reports of Jussie Smollett’s hate hoax with pure childlike credulity and posted things like “no justice, no peace!” We’ve been treated to official media and politicians’ hagiographies of every black man and woman who dies in a police involved incident. Their lives mattered. Their deaths are tragedies, no doubt. But gold caskets and White House visits and statutes, statements from Vice Presidential candidate’s about being proud of violent criminals who threatened women and children, and loud even intimidating demands we all shout every such person’s name ad nauseam - these responses have become the norm. We need better police-community relations. The same huge majorities of black Americans who told Gallup a couple years ago that they want the same or a larger police presence in their communities also want (and absolutely deserve) to be treated with respect. I want to focus on ensuring all our people are both provided effective police protection and are treated with respect. But we’re so deep in a moral panic driven by a false narrative that police are inherently a routinely murderous presence in black Americans’ lives. That kind of phony recognition, that pandering form of being heard is not helping.
Thanks for your dissertation on the reality of perceived police brutality. May replay to Glenns statements was to criticize our current neoliberal monopoly capitalism. I have to admit I have not done any deliberate research or accurate statistics on killings of unarmed black citizens by police. I have no illusions that this is a specific threat. I would guess that this is a localized issue as no all departments are the same. HOWEVER I would think that police reform in poor performing departments is long overdue and we should have community boards that share oversight. Police unions and the Blue line have protected “bad” police for far to long. The militarization of police needs to stop. Tactics like no knock warrants, geo fencing and cell phone surveillance, stop and frisk, and forfeiture laws. Not to mention the over policing of poorer communities too basically shake people down just to fund the departments. I am concerned that the deindustrialization of American has left many cities and municipalities short on funds which can result is less that desirable training and equipping of the police force. The warrior cop mentality in which police who do not live in the communities they serve can become more a occupation force. Again these are OUTCOMES of a system. That very system is neoliberalism which has eliminated the middle class and continues to extract rather that circulate money in local economies. I can very that many police departments have been guilty of corruption and exploitation of there communities. Not mention a reduction of social services that have pushed extra duties police are not trained to perform. I really am not so much concerned about a racists cop more an incompetent one or one who is burnt out. Thanks again for taking the time to reply.
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) now stands for Division, Exclusion, and Inequity.
Affirmative action, and there is nothing even remotely affirming about it, is divisive, pitting one race against another in their fight to compete for a finite number of places at college,, inclusion has become exclusion with white and asian males deliberately kept out, and the college mismatch, dropouts, and changing majors (the usual results of bad AA policies) have led to more inequity than before.
The 5 stages of enlightenment:
(1) Implicitly believing the garbage
(2) Beginnings of doubt, and the first faint stirring of misgiving
(3) Growing disenchantment, yet a loyalty to the cause coupled with ego prevents any public articulation, but the person starts to self-question
(4 Increasing anger, usually triggered by a personal circumstance, with the person feeling more emboldened to speak out (Many students and increasing numbers of faculty are in stages 3 and 4).
(5) ) Utter Disillusionment with all scales dropping in freefall, and the Truth emerges. The person then goes and votes for the other party. Quietly.
This substack is, unfortunately, another demonstration of intellectually lazy socio-political commentary. To wit, Ms. Barr has a long history of racist comments and diatribes. If there were just one, or two, or three perhaps your line of argument would hold water. However, her tweet about Jarret was just one of the latest. Please open your eyes, gents. Need to look at patterns of activity over time. Same applies to so many demonstrably nefarious folks being promoted as 'paragons of free speech' . Frankly, it's tiring. And it invites more irrational ponderings and speculations (like the drivel Steve P tapped out in this comment thread). And this reminds of Mr. Loury's pointing to sentiments that are, allegedly, widespread caters to the problematic criterion of social proof - a criterion more problematic now then ever, in this age of social media. Ideas, simply by dint of their being publicized, does not make them good ideas. To the contrary, we have more nonsense running hand in hand with sensible ideas then ever before. And this should remind us that, while one of the best things about the Web is that ANYBODY can contribute, one of the worse things about the web is, indeed, that ANYBODY can contribute.
I like the Duke and Dauphin from Huck Finn as opposed to Emperor’s New Clothes because it accounts for the possibility that some people will buy the con. Huck knows the Duke and Dauphin are liars cut from the same cloth as Tom Sawyer, but Jim is just hearing more of the same kind of lies he heard throughout his life as a slave, at least Huck assumes this, and they don’t have the conversation until long after the Duke and Dauphin are gone. Duke and Dauphin is a variation on New Clothes by way of the Royal Nonesuch. In this case, someone who claims to be a king, tells everyone there’s a high tragedy, and it’s really just him naked and painted. Everyone falls for it, no one wants to admit they fall for it, so the next night everyone who didn’t see the show falls for it all over again. You don’t know it’s a con, until you know it’s a con, and the mixture of rage and shame keeps the quiet. That is until it’s time to lead the Duke and Dauphin out on a rail. The Elect will be lead out on a rail someday, you can count on that like you can count on rain, a con can’t sell forever.
I think everything would work out alot better and everyone would be alot happier if we did not have a multicultural society and we had a raciallly and ethnically homogeneous society. This has been the case throughout all of history and we should end this multicultural experiment the sooner the better as it has been an abject failure.
On average, black Americans (at least ancestors of slaves) have been here longer than white Americans on average. It’s hard to get more American than that, unless one focuses only Native/First Nations groups. Black American culture is a huge part of American culture. We were (obviously very belatedly) on the right track at least for the most part until the past few to several years. We’re still on the right track in terms of interracial and inter-ethnic relationships and family formation. The problem isn’t the cultures of various ethnic groups. It’s twofold in my view. One, it’s the extreme reifying and essentializing of race in particular as the entirely inescapable, all-important variable. Two, it’s the elevation of these identities, within a new and apparently permanent caste hierarchy, not only as more fundamental and meaningful than our common bonds and commitments to each other as fellow citizens, but also alongside a frontal assault on the very meaning and basis of our shared country and system of government. Even referencing a shared country and common basis for belonging to the same polity and political project is coming under attack as inherently white supremacist and xenophobic, etc. This country has, does, and can continue to blend and integrate different cultures. What we can’t do is replace shared citizenship and a shared home with the notion our only meaningful identities are as separate and hostile tribes based on mostly superficial inherited, immutable, physical characteristics which are then presented as inextricable from set political views and interests fought over endlessly in zero-sum conflict. That’s where the identitarian left is taking us. And it’s no surprise the right-wing analogue sounds so similar: why can’t we have either one group with one culture, one set of views inherent to that group, or, at minimum, complete separation between groups and cultures. That’s obviously not possible, even if it were desirable. We’re one people with a lot of rich cultural and ethnic traditions mixed together and continuing to blend. We’re political citizens of one country and system. Not tribes vying for a blood-based dominance at the expense of other tribes. Rejecting and rooting out Jim Crow, segregation, and the attempts to dominate and terrorize an entire population by race, was essential to the successful continuation of the American project. The last thing we need is a reactionary effort to revive segregation and tribalism on the right, in response to growing swaths of the left pushing their own incredibly destructive, divisive version of the same.
A complicating factor is that almost all the public vitriol and condemnation has been in one direction for the past 10-15 years. While some people were forced to walk on eggshells, others hurled insults and blame with no accountability whatsoever. People may conclude their kindness has been taken for weakness. (And it probably was.)
I tend to agree. There was a time when it seemed like we (our country) had decided, pop-culturally, that one way to try and navigate the history of racism and first de jure and then statistical inequalities, was to (in a relatively light and seemingly harmless way) lampoon everything white as being hopelessly lame. Given that major part of the history of this country and its overhangs, it didn't seem such a terrible price to pay for being born with a certain complexion (and grossly-generalized ethno-racial heritage. It's not so unusual for a relatively powerless group to satirize even ridicule a relatively powerful one (even if many of the source of the ridicule weren't so powerless and most of the targets weren't so powerful. What came next, though, seemed less even notionally humorous and both nastier and more a part of a program: you have no culture; you have zero accomplishments that are your own - everything is stolen (and, worse, stolen and then commercialized and ruined). A good friend who was finishing a master's degree at The New School (and who has a biracial half-brother and was sympathetic to the some of the discourse around The New Jim Crow, etc) recited to me some of what he heard both from classmates and peers and students in various workshops he was part of outside of school: we love our music, our dance, our food, our women(!), our proud history of this and that). The clear implication from such people was white people have none of these things. The official white ethnic cuisine is Wonder Bread (or perhaps unlimited breadsticks at Olive Garden). All PoC ar noble strivers with both proud and distinctive traditions and an even brighter, almost inevitably victorious future (perhaps because that outcome was to be gradually mandated and engineered, and enforced?) White people had nothing but cultural poverty so profound it deserved vicious mockery. White was somehow both (hilarious) actual, profound poverty (all the tropes about toothless hillbillies at the milder end) - and, simultaneously, C-level suites, yachts, and (racist) country club memberships for all as a racial birthrite. White had become an epithet in and of itself. One could quickly ridicule and delegitimize anything or anyone simply by labeling it or them as white.
As just one example of how this played out at the urban, knowledge/creative class level, I'd been reading Josh Marshall's TPM (at least once most days and most of the stories and posts) since Fall 2002. As the site expanded and more and more recent graduates did stints there (seemingly all from elite liberal arts colleges or Ivies) and as Marshall himself focused more and more on The Coalition of the Ascendant and The Emerging Democratic Majority, the site began to feature at least once daily what I began to call "something a dumb redneck did today". Almost always by some patrician-looking recent college grad from an elite institution. It got so bad, Pro Publica
called out TPM for relentlessly, superficially mocking poor white people, in many cases just for being poor, culturally alien to the east coast media elite, and for suffering some failure or misfortune (maybe of character; maybe they just had the wrong views or party allegiance) which was usually portrayed as their just desserts. I completely stopped visiting the site around that time
Across much of American culture, high, low, and in between, there is now an open attack on all white people (at least the unfancy ones) simply for being white. And that means the inherited, immutable physical characteristics, though it's often presented disingenuously as "dismantling whiteness". And there's a giddiness, a smugness, a sense of singular culture license these days to these attacks. For example, Marc Lamont Hill's ridiculous (if clever in its nastiness) recitation of several of the things he loves about being black - and attempt to trap Chris Rufo into either appearing to advocate for a white racial identity, or conceding there was zero about which anyone born white could be proud. Of course when one tries to answer that they don't make a focus of walking around thinking of themselves as a white person let alone nurturing a specific racial pride, the response is always that that is itself an enormous privilege of being white: never having to think about one's race. To the extent any of that argument is true, a large part of it is simply based on growing up as part of a large majority. I'm sure Koreans at the very minimum feel like the naturally dominant group and center of culture and policy, in Korea. But the claim that white people alive in America today have never had to think about their race in a critical way is another feint and bluff. It's just laughable. It's similar to the ludicrous claim that virtually nothing honest about the history of slavery and Jim Crow has been taught in classrooms until very recently (and all of these racist white people want to purge even that). Tellingly, I'm seeing a number of very identiarian black writers arguing a direct connection between the horrific racially-motivated slaughter in Buffalo and any resistance to the divisive, demonizing curricula they demand be imposed nationwide. In all kinds of community hobby and volunteer groups, most as far away in focus from politics as one can imagine, I've seen a wave of usually upper-middle-class millennials enter the group and immediately begin haranguing (other) white people for being white and daring to have been active for so long and for having contributed so much (in a welcoming, egalitarian way!) Imagine showing up for a group event on a weekend morning, maybe the highlight of your day, and having a group photo distributed with the acid label: "_________ so white".Maybe your mom is in the hospital and your employer's been downsizing and your knees and back are hurting - but here's a chance to be social and do something positive and active. And you get slimed for how you were born. Your images individually and collectively have no meaning other than a horrible and oppressive whiteness the good people have to put up with. You could be the most progressive white person in town. That's sort of the point: there's no way for you to be active and present and visible and for it to be OK. It'd be hard to blame you if you didn't want to get out of bed the next weekend. And that's sort of the point, too: you have a responsibility to remove yourself and, even better, to be demoralized about something you can't control. If you do show up, your presence has been racialized as an inherent affront to more deserving people. The people pushing this demonization, whatever their own skin color, are not by and large disadvantaged or marginalized in any way. And their goal appears to be to make this kind of ridicule for existing, this actual effort to demoralize and marginalize people on the basis of skin color alone, something ubiquitous and inescapable.
When I see Chris Rufo (who is, beyond his invaluable muckrating and exposure of damning primary evidence, actually as much of a conservative culture warrior as he is an Enlightenment liberal) being giddily dared by Marc Lamont Hill to say anything positive about his heritage, I don't think of race or racial pride. I think of my family. Specific people who usually didn't have it so easy and who struggled to keep it together and sacrificed personally to make good choices for their kids and pass on some model of integrity to the following generations. That's what i'm proud of. It's just laughable - an obvious provocation - to say Americans of Italian or Russian or Irish heritage have no heritage, no ethnic inheritances, no culture. What we were busy doing was trying to share an American culture and one which belongs to and is enriched by all of us. None of this demonization of skin color people have no control over makes me want to elevate my own skin color or race, nor does it make me more hostile to anyone with a different complexion. But I do now call out this neo-racist toxicity to friends. A few years ago, it was hard to find a movie which had attracted more universal, lavish critical praise than Get Out. It's got something silly like a 100% positive critical response on Rotten Tomatoes. I was sure there had to be more to it. It couldn't all be based on just one supposedly satirical but obviously openly racist, hateful hook, a one trick conceit. But while staying with an ailing parent, I turned on cable TV and watched the last thirty or so minutes of it. Yep: all white people are sadistically murderous, enslaving, horror movie monsters - and the ones who act nice are even worse. Umm...fuck you? A friend recently mentioned that movie to briefly praise it. And I was equally brief but honest in reply: it's the shallowest of one trick ponies, and is based on pure racial hatred and scapegoating. Jordan Peele, whatever his talents, and his wife notwithstanding, appears to have a major personal problem with white people. That movie isn't satire. It isn't boldly countercultural. It's raining down group hatred from the commanding heights of pop culture. It's only deeper trick and i'm sure a very conscious one, is to get large numbers of younger people, particularly well-meaning white people to show up and laugh and cheer at all the inherently evil white people being - what's the term the left has become besotted with? - *held accountable* for their evil. The great catharsis of young black men running over and blowing up white people of all ages, sexes, *because we know they're all irredeemably bad*. That's literally all the movie is. But the reply of course would be: why are you so fragile? It's just a movie, can't you take a joke? Four hundred years of brutal oppression (as if I'm comparing the two) and this man wants to complain about a movie!
I wasn't gonna comment, because this I'm so late to the party. But this was really good. I made it all the Way through because-a that.
"All PoC ar noble strivers with both proud and distinctive traditions and an even brighter, almost inevitably victorious future (perhaps because that outcome was to be gradually mandated and engineered, and enforced?)"
Would just remove the question mark.
"To the extent any of that argument is true, a large part of it is simply based on growing up as part of a large majority."
This is something I wondered about, but dunno much about. There's always gonna be a tension between a large majority and a large minority, right? Dunno Korea, but assume that was Your point. But I don't see *anybody* trying to figure that out, and see how it can be ameliorated.
I agree with Substack Reader below, that it boils down to political strategy, in the end. And couldn't help but notice those at the very top-a the food chain (KenDiAngelo, Hannah-Jones and Coates, to name a few)... Well, they all cashed their chips in for fame and (mostly) fortune.
But I don't think it pays to overlook the Marxist aspect to this. The original Critical Race Theory outta the 80s. And up to the present time. There are people who wanna "dismantle the institutions" because-a their "systemic racism." Since "systemic racism" is a hoax, AFAIK, their ultimate motive is to tear down the society however they can and replace it with dreams.
Or, I should say, that's one motivation for destroying society, but not necessarily the only one.
You make some interesting points, but you need to throw in some paragraph breaks! I didn't make it all the way through because of eyestrain. The parts I got through were interesting, though.
Anyway, I think a lot of it is a deliberate political strategy. People will do just about anything for power and/or money, long term consequences be damned.
The weird thing is that there are lots of these ideas on the left as well as the right. The communism issue like they say here is still something that people will remain silent about even if they agree on any Marxist point of view. But, there is the whole women rights issue. Women who have been raped continue to remain silent on the issue. The poor will always feel embarrassed to ask for help. Exploited workers continue to remain silent out of fear of losing employment even when they are not being paid a fair wage.
Democrats are simply morally depraved animals. Help stamp out the sick, perverted, America hating cult:
VOTE OUT ALL DEMOCRATS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We’re all animals - and I don’t need a biologist to confirm that. But trying to imply your political opponents are somehow subhuman and need to be “stamp[ed] out” is exactly the problem we’re trying to prevent: tribal dehumanization and demonization justifying increasingly totalizing and violent attempts to eliminate categories of people by race, creed, etc. Which, by the way, more and more even mainstream Democrats are trying to do in othering huge numbers of their fellow citizens as “insurrectionists”, “ultra-MAGA” people, “deplorables”, and of course “racists” and “white supremacists”, who must be increasingly marginalized from society, if not thrown in jail for their political views, or perhaps eliminated altogether.
Maybe not all of them are, and maybe not even most of them are. They've just been sold a bill of goods.
Just remember, if someone at work says that a black woman invented the airplane, then don't argue about it, no matter how much valid evidence you have to the contrary. It's just not worth losing your job over and being placed on a no-hire list.
Where's Loopy's regular partner McWhore? Probably off fellating a white gentleman. Fridman should have stuck to AI. Now he's just another clown who propping up people like Loopy who are paid to peddle anti-Blackness. You'll never see on this podcast someone white who makes a career out of being anti-white. Same for an anti-russian russian. He's a joke.
If you were trying to embarrass and delegitimize yourself entirely with just a few words, you’ve succeeded.
You are uncouth.
And yet here YOU are, on Loury's blog. Who reads your blog? or books? Who's the real joke? A sick, twisted mind is revealed in the line "paid to peddle anti-Blackness". Maybe some people will laugh at Loury, he has his moments, but for all time no one will ever even have heard of you, Ronnie, because in truth, you're the joke.
Word on the street is you're requiring your students to read 'Persecution and the Art of Writing' (a good book no doubt but not his best), so you know the deal. The big ideas people, not the Kendis or the Hannah-Joneses, or even the McWhorters, but the Strausses, Barfields, and, perhaps on his best days, even the Lourys of this world are not going to come out and tell you what they really think about the Emperor, or his nakedness, but will conceal their actual views in ways that only intelligent readers will discern. No politician who has studied political philosophy, and who understands the essential difference between Aristotle and Machiavelli, can be foolish enough to grant to the masses that one needful but sorely lacking trait, civic virtue. And so the sheep will always need a shepherd...let's hope they pick the good one, the one that laid down his life for the sheep.
Professor Loury,
When you discussed the “spiral of silence” I could not help but think of Professor Timur Kuran’s work on Preference Falsification in this book Private Truths, Public Lies.
You may have come across this already, but if not I would highly encourage you, and any other listeners/readers that are interested in the topic, to read his work for an in-depth / analytical underpinning of the theory and for case studies and implications of such a phenomenon.
There is a kind of silent equilibrium that the left is exploiting.
Societies have to find a balance between truth and politeness. Thats a big part of what makes us civilized. We all internally profile strangers based on a hundred different (mainly) visual cues. Race is one of those cues along with age, sex, attractiveness, hygiene, class, and on and on. For example, Attractiveness and intelligence are negatively correlated in the uncontrolled inner workings of my brain. I didn’t choose this, it just is, and I am often proven wrong. I am white and grew up playing sports in a racially diverse area. My gut reaction to black skin is to assume they are more athletic than a similarly built white person. This is of course not always true, but I can’t deny I have the thought. If I was a cop would this gut assumption make me more fearful in a physical altercation? Maybe. I am ashamed to say I have a distrust of the very poor in an encounter on the street, but I also have a strong distrust of the wealthy when it comes to business dealings. These reactions can veer even further into the irrational. I might have a negative gut reaction to someone because they remind me of an old girlfriend that I can’t stand. Every single human does this. It is not a rational, well thought out profile, it is a snap-judgement and is entirely out of our immediate control.
So what we do for social cohesion is agree on an unspoken and unwritten contract of politeness and effort. We all pretend like we don’t know that we are all internally profiling each other. We can’t know the exact nature of others thoughts so we agree to judge each other by how well we moderate them, which is to say, we agree to judge each other by our words and actions. Then we make an effort to dilute these unwanted gut reactions by meeting more people. But there is a flaw to be exploited with this agreement. Everyone knows that everyone else is racist, but we don’t know how racist. Maybe race has become far less important over the last 60 years or maybe white people have just become better at hiding it. What the left does is shine a light on this fact, but only in regards to white people. So white people who are not openly racist are surely quietly racist, which is true to some extent. As evidence they point to the open racism of past white people. So instead of “wow, look how much less racist white people have become” its “wow, look at how much better at hiding their racism white people have become.”
The left has voided half of the politeness contract. So now, if you’re white, you must still be polite and give effort, but while you’re being polite you must also apologize for the inner racist thoughts we all know you’re having. Or if you are gong to speak on race at all you must first rattle off a list of qualifiers and admissions of guilt. The scary part is that once you tear up the politeness contract, millions of white people start to wonder why they continue trying, when they are getting none of the benefits of politeness and effort. It’s a no win situation.
The subconscious profiling we all do is based on our past experiences, and is usually rational, or partly rational. Stereotyping is an essential part of cognition, and our lives depend on it. Our first, and most critical, decision about a stranger is whether or not they are dangerous. Race sometimes correlates with cultural attributes, and it is the cultural attributes that are important, not the physical signs of race.
I agree, profiling the threat posed by a stranger is critical. If our ancestors had not quickly profiled for threat level, and erred on the side of caution, we wouldn’t be here. But its the evolutionarily advantageous strategy of erring on the side of caution that becomes a problem in a multi-cultural country of 330 million people. When in doubt we tend to put strangers in the threat category. Doubt often comes from lack of familiarity. Lack of familiarity is common in a highly segregated society. Thats why the current strategy of the left is so infuriating. The way to get rid of unhelpful racial stereotypes is to meet people of different races. That is far less likely when you are maximizing racial awkwardness by making race essential and handing out swift punishment for any missteps.
Yes I agree, perceiving another person as strange and dangerous can result from lack of experience with that type of person (although it also can result from bad experiences). In a more racially integrated society, there would probably be less negative racial stereotyping.
I also want to point out that it isn't skin color that matters, but the cultural attributes that may be associated with certain skin colors. A poor American black could be the same color as a highly educated Indian immigrant, and our stereotypes of each might be very different. How a person speaks and acts counts much more than skin color.
I’ve mentioned a mentor somewhere, Michael Carriger. Professor at Johnson County Community College. He has a story much more interesting than any womens talk. It’s all about not being allowed to teach a certain book, and an AP department walking out of a job. He’d be good to have on the show.
I have listened to a lot of Lex's interviews, and a LOT of Glenn, and I have to say this may be the best I've heard from both of them.
You two really clicked.
I hope this is not the only time you guys get together!
Mr. Loury’s essay can sensibly be taken as a gift to those who believe in MLK’s dream.
Glenn’s concern for the “Spiral of Silence” that functions like a social panopticon cause conservative self censorship and how the disingenuous use of bigotry is feeding the radicalization of the right. I actually agree with that. BUT I also feel that those black inner city Americans who were rioting where also victims of the “Spiral of Silence” as their grievances went unheard and seeing a police officer acquitted for killing unarmed black people set a terrible precedent. Instead this was seen as a failure of their culture and a lack of personal responsibility. Glenn’s bottom up concept of if everyone just fall in line a just act right all will be fine. I feel this conversation lacked an analysis of the systems and institutions that in my opinion have major impacts on societal outcomes. I feel economics often mistakes the map for the territory and often delivers unfavorable outcomes when implemented in the real world. The personal responsibility approach to addressing social issues is putting the cart in front of the horse if we do not address the system/institutional aspects first.
When were the grievances of protestors and rioters (to the extent the latter was even based on grievances) not heard? And does the death of every single unarmed black American in a police involved incident have to result in a conviction, no less for “killing” - no matter the specific facts of each situation? What about every death of every single unarmed white or Latino or Native/First Nations, or Asian American in a police involved incident? Does it only have to be every black person, because otherwise that one population will feel ignored or unheard? Isn’t the reality that cases involving non-black suspects who die in police involved incidents are actually the ones we’re much much less likely to ever hear about - because of the often publicly unchecked ascendence of a narrative that police killings of black men and unarmed black men in particular are rampant (a high proportion of white liberals - maybe progressives is a better term - in surveys have guessed the number is well over ten thousand per year). What about unarmed black suspects who nonetheless contributed in some way to risking their own lives by fighting cops, grabbing at police weapons, trying to force their way back into vehicles, etc? We can debate why a black suspect might rationally or irrationally fear police violence more and might tragically behave in a way more likely to result in such violence. It’s a tragedy that anyone should have to walk around feeling at heightened risk of mortal danger from law enforcement merely due to where they live or even worse the color of their skin. But again, isn’t part of the problem narratives? The false idea that a cop might well kill you if you’re black and don’t fight back. The perhaps understandable but genuinely harmful idea that to try to fight armed police who must assume mortal risk given they are armed and must in many cases be armed to do their jobs is somehow important to black manhood or noble resistance. I’ve been treated roughly by cops. Even my sweet mom as an older lady was treated quite rudely by cops on 2-3 occasions. I was once pulled over by cops at 18-19 six times in about six weeks for nonsense reasons like using a turn signal slightly late or slightly early. But I had the actual privilege of not being impacted by a history in which police really did harass and abuse black men in particular as a routine part of their jobs. And I had the arguable privilege of not being burdened by a false narrative from other white people and the left and the media that to move in public with my skin color meant certain and regular police abuse and the real risk they might kill me for no other reason. The former is a stain and a shadow from our history and we must ensure all our citizens are treated fairly by police and know they can be. But the latter is a needless, senseless, and too often very cynically manufactured and deployed falsehood and additional emotional and social burden - and it’s coming from the left. It’s coming from no small number of specific people I know personally, many of whom are white, all of whom I’m sure think they’re helping (even if there is a degree of self-promotion, personal branding, even a bit of narcissism involved). But what they’re doing is spreading lazy lies or falsehoods based on a species of very hardened, defensive ignorance. Others are spreading instrumental “symbolic truths” to drive a narrative and agenda. What all of these people are doing is feeding paranoia. They are effectively telling their friends, acquaintances, coworkers, neighbors, “yes I agree you are being hunted every day based only on your skin color - as a white person I am aware of the evil of other less woke white people and can confirm this evil is a common daily reality.” The reason I began with the question I did is there was undoubtedly a time in our history when rampant, routine police abuse - not just against the poor and shabby or powerless and vulnerable, but specifically against black Americans was not only a real phenomenon but one that was ignored. More recently it’s closer to the opposite. We may have climbed down a bit from the very peak but we’re still very close to the recent phenomenon of black Americans in particular being encouraged and incentivized to see every single petty quotidian inconvenience or rudeness solely through a racial lens, assume the very worst motives of anyone of another race who is involved, and confront that person while filming them, with the near-certainty The Washington Post will put even a dumb kerfuffle between two people having a bad day on their front page as another sure sign we still live in Jim Crow America. Even very smart lawyers I know think the actual numbers of unarmed black men who die in police involved incidents surely must be in the thousands each year. Plenty of very smart people I know responded to reports of Jussie Smollett’s hate hoax with pure childlike credulity and posted things like “no justice, no peace!” We’ve been treated to official media and politicians’ hagiographies of every black man and woman who dies in a police involved incident. Their lives mattered. Their deaths are tragedies, no doubt. But gold caskets and White House visits and statutes, statements from Vice Presidential candidate’s about being proud of violent criminals who threatened women and children, and loud even intimidating demands we all shout every such person’s name ad nauseam - these responses have become the norm. We need better police-community relations. The same huge majorities of black Americans who told Gallup a couple years ago that they want the same or a larger police presence in their communities also want (and absolutely deserve) to be treated with respect. I want to focus on ensuring all our people are both provided effective police protection and are treated with respect. But we’re so deep in a moral panic driven by a false narrative that police are inherently a routinely murderous presence in black Americans’ lives. That kind of phony recognition, that pandering form of being heard is not helping.
Thanks for your dissertation on the reality of perceived police brutality. May replay to Glenns statements was to criticize our current neoliberal monopoly capitalism. I have to admit I have not done any deliberate research or accurate statistics on killings of unarmed black citizens by police. I have no illusions that this is a specific threat. I would guess that this is a localized issue as no all departments are the same. HOWEVER I would think that police reform in poor performing departments is long overdue and we should have community boards that share oversight. Police unions and the Blue line have protected “bad” police for far to long. The militarization of police needs to stop. Tactics like no knock warrants, geo fencing and cell phone surveillance, stop and frisk, and forfeiture laws. Not to mention the over policing of poorer communities too basically shake people down just to fund the departments. I am concerned that the deindustrialization of American has left many cities and municipalities short on funds which can result is less that desirable training and equipping of the police force. The warrior cop mentality in which police who do not live in the communities they serve can become more a occupation force. Again these are OUTCOMES of a system. That very system is neoliberalism which has eliminated the middle class and continues to extract rather that circulate money in local economies. I can very that many police departments have been guilty of corruption and exploitation of there communities. Not mention a reduction of social services that have pushed extra duties police are not trained to perform. I really am not so much concerned about a racists cop more an incompetent one or one who is burnt out. Thanks again for taking the time to reply.