When Conversations with White Conservatives Go Wrong

with John McWhorter

John and I talk plenty about the condescension of white liberal elites who parrot the latest pieties about “white supremacy” and “systemic racism.” It can be tough to take these self-conscious performances of allyship, especially in more intimate settings, like post-lecture receptions, where responding with an anti-woke rant would be inappropriate. One finds oneself nodding along, looking for an opportunity either to change the conversation or to leave it.

To be fair, social awkwardness around race matters isn’t the exclusive domain of white liberals. Even people who are ostensibly “on my side” on issues like affirmative action can, with the best of intentions, raise uncomfortable questions, make erroneous assumptions about my beliefs and feelings and experiences, or otherwise ask me to play a role I never signed up for. No, being a black conservative isn’t always easy, and yes, occasionally white conservatives can make it that much harder.

In this excerpt from our most recent subscriber-only Q&A session, John and I recount some cringeworthy moments in our encounters with white conservatives. To be clear, I wouldn’t characterize the incidents I describe here as “racist.” They’re the result of social ineptitude, clumsiness, and mild ignorance. Conservatives sometimes carry their own form of white guilt. Sometimes they’re looking for assurances from a black “ally” that their point of view isn’t actually racist, as though the approval of someone with my skin color could absolve them of whatever guilt they may feel. It’s not my job to offer such assurances. I don’t have the power to absolve anyone of anything. And when I’m asked to do it, the conversation can get a bit weird.

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This is an excerpt from Glenn and John’s latest Substack subscriber-only Q&A session. To get access to the full episode, as well as an ad-free podcast feed and other exclusive content and benefits, click below.

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GLENN LOURY: The next question here is from Zak, and it's really interesting, John. It's right down your alley.

JOHN MCWHORTER: Uh oh.

I think of this as your alley, anyway.

You have both exquisitely characterized the insufferable white liberal, the one who, at the cocktail party, will lecture all of those around about the black experience in America, while never having spent one day with or around black people. Well, I was wondering if you could tell us about that person's counterpart, the insufferable white conservative elite. What is that person like at a cocktail party?

I only put it on you, John, because you're so good at manufacturing these hypothetical situations, these conversations in context in which subtle microaggressive offense is given by the liberal partygoer.

I know what you mean. It's “Craig” at one of those think tank events. White conservative Craig is about 63. Fuck, I'm six years from it. But he's 63 and I'm talking to him and there's the white wine.

You know what I don’t like about Craig? I know Craig can’t help it. Actually, to tell you the truth, I find that this happens more with conservatives than with liberals, and people can put it where they want to. Craig thinks I grew up working class. I’ve noticed that there is that stereotype more from people on the right than the left. He thinks that he’s doing me a favor! Craig thinks that my mother took in washing or worked as a part-time reading teacher, and he thinks my father worked at the post office and that I must be the first generation in my family to go to college.

Craig is part of some foundation where it’s been put upon him to invite me to give the commencement address at some community college or something that he’s part of that’s doing good work. But he thinks that I’m going to connect with black kids from the hood who are the first generation getting a college degree—they’re going to find my pathway inspiring. As if they’re gonna find it inspiring listening to me talking about going to Montessori schools and tryings to teach myself German. And I have to gently say to Craig that I didn’t grow up that way. They’re not going to identify with me in the way that you’re talking about. I don’t have that story. And Craig is always surprised.

Craig also thinks—and this is where I've made my bed, and so I have to lie in it—Craig also tends to assume that I believe things that I don't. So I remember one Craig—his name was Howard Husock, by the way.

Oh God, you named him. I know Howard Husock!

Yeah.

Okay, I see. He must have really pissed you off.

Several times.

Howard “Craig” Husock.

Oh, he was at the Kennedy School. That's right.

Yeah, I knew him at the Kennedy School.

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One time he actually took me outside, and he said—he actually thought I would agree with this—he said, “You know that study about how black people don't do as well when they send in their resumes because people are biased against black names? Well, isn't the solution that black people should just stop giving their kids those names?”

Well, no, I don't agree with that! My mother's name was Schelysture. I mean, there's the whole Southern tradition of rather flowery names, and then you get the African names in the '60s. I don't think there's something wrong with somebody being named Imani, or even Shaniqua is fine. It's all I've ever known. But he actually expected me to say, “Why, yes, we should go back to having names like John and Glenn and William and Craig and Howard.” You just have get used to that sort of thing. And you know, life goes on.

How about you on that?

I was trying to think of how to respond. What are some of the things that annoy me? So one of them is telling me, “It must be terrible to be the only black conservative. How's that feel?” You know, wanting me to tell war stories about how I got beaten up. Not literally beaten up, but treated rudely. “What's it like being at Brown?”

Now, partly I can't distinguish between my racial identity and my Ivy League professor identity when they say something like that, because I will have given the talk and I will have criticized affirmative action or Black Lives Matter or something like that. And they want to know, “What's it like being up there in that world and having these opinions, which we didn't think any self-respecting black person—liberal or anybody—would have? And you have them. What's it like?”

I also get this thing of assuming that my background is probably more disadvantaged than it actually was. I get this thing of people having opinions that really are sketchy. For example, they're pro-cop. Just flat-out pro-cop. And they don't want to take responsibility for the opinion, so then they hedge it. They want to tell me, because they hope that I might share the view, and in sharing it give them a sense of relief, a kind of dispensation for having the view. “Yeah, I'm pro-cop, too.” So they're fishing. They're putting it out there and gauging, based on my response, whether or not to go another step further and another step further.

And what do they want from me? They want my blessing. They want my blessing for their contemptible or ill-considered or superficial, skin-deep thinking about some sensitive question. I feel aggressed against by that kind of manipulation.

Ooh, I've got it. I'm gonna add one to that, and I'm sure you've had this too. I'm gonna put this out there. I almost wish we were doing this on one of the actual shows, because I wish people would understand this. If you're in our position, especially at the more right-wing events, libertarian, one of the hardest things is that Craig often thinks that we want to hear his life story about racism. Have you ever noticed that he sits next to you, and he wants to tell you the story about how he never saw skin color, his parents raised him to x, y, and z?

He went to high school with black kids.

He had black friends. And then early in his career, he found himself attacked by certain black radicals, and he's being told that he's a racist. This story often goes on and on, because it's natural to humans. Like, I'm doing it right now. You go on longer than you think you're gonna go on. This person will sit there talking at you. It's been 20 minutes, and you would have to be really impolite to stop him. It's actually either a him or a her. Everybody does it.

They sit there telling you this story, and they're waiting for you to absolve them. It's like we're these Oprahs or something, and we're supposed to say, “No, you're not a racist.” And I understand it. I can put myself in their shoes. I know what they're getting at. I can imagine being white and coming up to “me” and doing this.

But I don't think they realize that, to us, it can't matter the way it does to them. And more to the point, they don't realize that if you've been doing this for a long time—this is the main thing—they don't realize that they're person number 605 who has come up with me with that story. Not to mention that we're written that story all the time as well. We can't do it. And I don't wanna call it a microaggression. I am always polite to people like this. But I wish many of them would know that I am never going to say, “Please, enough.” I'm a pretty good actor. But that's hard, because you've heard it so many times and there's nothing we can say. We're not Jesus. We're not Oprah. We're just there trying to do our jobs. That is the hardest thing. Oh Lord.

[Laughs] Jesus and Oprah in the same category. But no, we do not have the power to forgive you for your sins, which I think Oprah probably does have.

She does.

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