Last week, I recorded a conversation with Winkfield Twyman Jr. and Jennifer Richmond for the podcast The Dissidents. Ostensibly, this is a discussion of my memoir, Late Admissions: Confessions of a Black Conservative, but we end up venturing far beyond the confines of the book. I liked the conversation so much that I asked them if I could cross-post it here. And if you get as much out of it as I do, check out Winkfield and Jennifer’s book,
Winkfield lost me in his opening , “This is a great book” Had Winkfield opened with “The authenticity of Late Admissions: Confessions of a Black Conservative, chronicling Glenn’s life from his early years in south side Chicago to where Glen is currently is………making it a compelling read an important honest portrayal of what can go on behind the scenes of one’s public persona against the current backdrop of the racial divide in all it’s forms presenting as a great book for our time in the racial discussion. To say it’s a great book out of the gate is to miss the point and loose the listener…. I guareentee you ‘great’ are not the first words out of most readers mouths and to suggest that not only misses the point but looses the impact this book can potentially have among the many disjointed discussions of the day. Will I listen to the rest… The position of words matter so certainly not now with everything else going on around us…..and time at a premium.
For what purpose? JD Vance is one of the least interesting figures in American politics. He's just another shapeshifting, opportunistic grifter. The only thing remotely interesting about Vance is the depth of his shamelessness.
JD Vance is a fundamentally unserious person who abases himself on a daily basis to demonstrate his fealty to a man he previously compared to Hitler before he realized that swearing an allegiance to Trump is the easiest way to advance in the current incarnation of the GOP. I’ll reserve comment on what your admiration for a person like that says, but again: why on earth would an interview with such a person be of any interest to all but the most devoted MAGAs? Vance doesn’t even believe the abject nonsense he is peddling, but for some reason you do.
The reason I'm commenting to u again is, the reality that negativity in politics sells, has drowned out reasoned deliberations to such an extent that the truth is worst than just lost that even when truth surfaces no one seems to be able to see it in the thick of corruption
If you weren't just repeating what you heard and knew and read for yourself ( it's called doing your homework)... but hey your in good company even Bari Weis made the mistake (everyone is human right?) when she couldn't define the negative words she used when talking to Rogan about Tulsi....
Conversations between "buddies" can be nuanced ( but God forbid anyone consider context... maybe that's the problem in general... if we consider context then we can't use another person's words ti fit the narrative we've probably been lying to ourselves about and won't be able to interpret what anyone says in the light that suits our own narrative.... tiresome... just tiresome ... what does "fundamentally unserious mean" the serious discussion is to know the context of which your speaking and address with some humility that your not God can't know what everyone means when they are talking to someone else . Arrogance doesn't play very well especially when you're saying very little to support your distain making yourself sound more like a jealous peer. Even DJT didn't want to run... Again if you did the most modest bit of homework that's so obvious... Trump said in the 80's politics is a mean business and certainly he has a whole host of things he could be doing rather than taking all these disingenuous
attacks... Sad really...But perhaps necessary actually.
It's finally exposing the truth about the human condition at its core: corrupt in need of transformation.
About Vance... read the context in which that comment was made. "As a country we put ourselves in this position" because politics is so terribly corrupt because the heart is deceitfully wicked. In the quietness of your own thoughts and mind surely you must see this... if you gave half the chance to people, in direct measure to how you negatively you judge them you would see this... please take some time to self reflect... True self reflection is the most powerful tool we have that can be exercised in the privacy of our own minds... It's time that all of us self reflect, self assess not just you... At our base we all start with pride so woefully broken that we start by manipulating ourselves trying to repair that broken pride without the proper resources, without a true moral compass to emulate. So to the point that we set up the thread mill of self soothing that presents in so many varied forms but all ultimately stacking in layers that distort any understanding of self evaluation.... You tell me what the alternatives for that dilemna is ... that's the solution we need everything else is simply a difference of opinion and clearly that's not going very well.
broken sense of ourselves and rather than being truthful about that we spending our time
the truth about how we all go about manipulatingour own corrupt pride the root of all evil
I think JD Vance has a remarkable story of overcoming the kinds of adversities Glenn talks about all the time in which Glenn wants them to focus less on what they do not have and work hard to pull themselves out of deeply troubled circumstances as Vance accomplished. I think it would be a robust conversation of shared ideas. Absolutely. I understand a grifter to be a fraudster/scammer , what evidence do u have for saying such a thing? And lastly who would you propose of similar stature to be a good interviewee with Glenn
When I hear experiences similar to Glenn’s…I’m reminded that insecurity lies , I believe, in us all. Understanding insecurity as fundamental to the human condition,explains so much.. The need, whether within, or apart from us, for safety…Didn’t Maslow lay that out in his hierarchy of needs….These experiences of ‘faith’, the type of which Glenn addresses., imagine who one knows deep within, for whatever reason, that there is an Omniscient, Omnipotent and Omnipresent God capable of doing ANYTHING. Consider the lengths people go to access that reality for whatever noble desire that something would happen….Considering where these ideas may come from….the reasonable explanation of course is the Bible or someone they ‘believe’ knows the Bible. How many of those folks take the time to study the words written in the book these ideas came from and read it for themselves….study it to understand and go further than their immediate circles….They say they believe God can do these things….well where did you get that information. In a book, btw, an ancient book. Written in the vernacular of its day, the language of its day, embedded with timeless principles and truths using very specific language …. Language, context,grammatical meaning from its day…..applied today….but can only be understood by understanding its context….Once that happens honestly authentically and exhaustively…Word by word, sentence by sentence, chapter by chapter book by book among the 66 books and 40 authors …Then have the discussion…anything short of that is feigning resolution and the easy way out skepticism.
I read Glenn's book, Late Admissions: Confessions of a Black Conservative. I wasn't surprised by Glenn's less than stellar younger years. Young people with exceptional IQ can still be immature gitts. Glenn reminded be of the character Will Hunting in 'Good Will Hunting' but without the 'white guilt'. Incredibly he may suffer from 'black guilt'. Many of us slithered through our younger years and in later years wondered how we survived. Senator J.D Vance 'Hillbilly Ellegy' is another fine example, there are many. My advice to Glenn is to forgive himself all past peccadilloes, as far as I know he never advocated for the assassination of a POTUS, or any other such thing. He should accept the gift of life and good fortune that the God of the universe bestowed upon him. Follow the dictates in the Desiderata, smell the coffee and the roses. Be happy.
John McWhorter should be prosecuted. It is a crime to call for the assassination of a President. It is NOT free-speech to encourage violence. An academic suggesting that murder is a good solution indicates indecent, immoral bankruptcy and intellectual vacancy. The 'black guys' image on the Glenn Show has been destroyed and black stereotypical perspectives can now be applied to John McWhorter. John should resign.
Glen, It would be interesting to hear you and John McWhorter engage in a deep discussion of this early book on the topic:
The Racialization of America
(St. Martin's Press, New York, 1993)
by Yehudi O. Webster
An African-American Professor at CSU Los Angeles
EXCERPTS
" [It] is neither race nor racism that bedevils American society, but rather that racial classification enjoys a privileged status in social studies. American society is being tied in painful knots by virtue of legislative, social scientific, and media practices of racially classiflying persons...
"This official racial classification was never benign. The collection of occupational data by race in 1890 coincided with the imposition of jim crowism. Contemporarily, racial classification serves various Republican and Democratic electoral interests. The creation and manipulation of "blacks" and "whites" are long standing practices....
"Social scientists, legislators, entrepreneurs and publicists use racial classification to generate a racial ethos that is then claimed to be the basis of their practices ... official racial classification and studies of racial experiences do nothing but render social problems insoluble. Racial solutions, such as busing, affirmative action, black power, and multiculturalism, are bound to fail, because they heighten the very racial awareness that is said to have led to "racial problems" in the first place."
Is he still around, still teaching, available for interview? Has it been updated? Multiple bureaucracies have been established and funded related to racialization. Can they be broken & /or dismantled?
Winkfield lost me in his opening , “This is a great book” Had Winkfield opened with “The authenticity of Late Admissions: Confessions of a Black Conservative, chronicling Glenn’s life from his early years in south side Chicago to where Glen is currently is………making it a compelling read an important honest portrayal of what can go on behind the scenes of one’s public persona against the current backdrop of the racial divide in all it’s forms presenting as a great book for our time in the racial discussion. To say it’s a great book out of the gate is to miss the point and loose the listener…. I guareentee you ‘great’ are not the first words out of most readers mouths and to suggest that not only misses the point but looses the impact this book can potentially have among the many disjointed discussions of the day. Will I listen to the rest… The position of words matter so certainly not now with everything else going on around us…..and time at a premium.
Glenn, think about interviewing JD Vance….Im surprised you haven’t or did I miss it
For what purpose? JD Vance is one of the least interesting figures in American politics. He's just another shapeshifting, opportunistic grifter. The only thing remotely interesting about Vance is the depth of his shamelessness.
Grifter? Oh I’m sorry I didn’t realize your typo….You meant Gifter….I agree…
JD Vance is a fundamentally unserious person who abases himself on a daily basis to demonstrate his fealty to a man he previously compared to Hitler before he realized that swearing an allegiance to Trump is the easiest way to advance in the current incarnation of the GOP. I’ll reserve comment on what your admiration for a person like that says, but again: why on earth would an interview with such a person be of any interest to all but the most devoted MAGAs? Vance doesn’t even believe the abject nonsense he is peddling, but for some reason you do.
The reason I'm commenting to u again is, the reality that negativity in politics sells, has drowned out reasoned deliberations to such an extent that the truth is worst than just lost that even when truth surfaces no one seems to be able to see it in the thick of corruption
If you weren't just repeating what you heard and knew and read for yourself ( it's called doing your homework)... but hey your in good company even Bari Weis made the mistake (everyone is human right?) when she couldn't define the negative words she used when talking to Rogan about Tulsi....
Conversations between "buddies" can be nuanced ( but God forbid anyone consider context... maybe that's the problem in general... if we consider context then we can't use another person's words ti fit the narrative we've probably been lying to ourselves about and won't be able to interpret what anyone says in the light that suits our own narrative.... tiresome... just tiresome ... what does "fundamentally unserious mean" the serious discussion is to know the context of which your speaking and address with some humility that your not God can't know what everyone means when they are talking to someone else . Arrogance doesn't play very well especially when you're saying very little to support your distain making yourself sound more like a jealous peer. Even DJT didn't want to run... Again if you did the most modest bit of homework that's so obvious... Trump said in the 80's politics is a mean business and certainly he has a whole host of things he could be doing rather than taking all these disingenuous
attacks... Sad really...But perhaps necessary actually.
It's finally exposing the truth about the human condition at its core: corrupt in need of transformation.
About Vance... read the context in which that comment was made. "As a country we put ourselves in this position" because politics is so terribly corrupt because the heart is deceitfully wicked. In the quietness of your own thoughts and mind surely you must see this... if you gave half the chance to people, in direct measure to how you negatively you judge them you would see this... please take some time to self reflect... True self reflection is the most powerful tool we have that can be exercised in the privacy of our own minds... It's time that all of us self reflect, self assess not just you... At our base we all start with pride so woefully broken that we start by manipulating ourselves trying to repair that broken pride without the proper resources, without a true moral compass to emulate. So to the point that we set up the thread mill of self soothing that presents in so many varied forms but all ultimately stacking in layers that distort any understanding of self evaluation.... You tell me what the alternatives for that dilemna is ... that's the solution we need everything else is simply a difference of opinion and clearly that's not going very well.
broken sense of ourselves and rather than being truthful about that we spending our time
the truth about how we all go about manipulatingour own corrupt pride the root of all evil
I think JD Vance has a remarkable story of overcoming the kinds of adversities Glenn talks about all the time in which Glenn wants them to focus less on what they do not have and work hard to pull themselves out of deeply troubled circumstances as Vance accomplished. I think it would be a robust conversation of shared ideas. Absolutely. I understand a grifter to be a fraudster/scammer , what evidence do u have for saying such a thing? And lastly who would you propose of similar stature to be a good interviewee with Glenn
Glenn is a national treasure.
On religion an d skepticism see this:
https://history.yale.edu/publications/they-flew-history-impossible
When I hear experiences similar to Glenn’s…I’m reminded that insecurity lies , I believe, in us all. Understanding insecurity as fundamental to the human condition,explains so much.. The need, whether within, or apart from us, for safety…Didn’t Maslow lay that out in his hierarchy of needs….These experiences of ‘faith’, the type of which Glenn addresses., imagine who one knows deep within, for whatever reason, that there is an Omniscient, Omnipotent and Omnipresent God capable of doing ANYTHING. Consider the lengths people go to access that reality for whatever noble desire that something would happen….Considering where these ideas may come from….the reasonable explanation of course is the Bible or someone they ‘believe’ knows the Bible. How many of those folks take the time to study the words written in the book these ideas came from and read it for themselves….study it to understand and go further than their immediate circles….They say they believe God can do these things….well where did you get that information. In a book, btw, an ancient book. Written in the vernacular of its day, the language of its day, embedded with timeless principles and truths using very specific language …. Language, context,grammatical meaning from its day…..applied today….but can only be understood by understanding its context….Once that happens honestly authentically and exhaustively…Word by word, sentence by sentence, chapter by chapter book by book among the 66 books and 40 authors …Then have the discussion…anything short of that is feigning resolution and the easy way out skepticism.
I read Glenn's book, Late Admissions: Confessions of a Black Conservative. I wasn't surprised by Glenn's less than stellar younger years. Young people with exceptional IQ can still be immature gitts. Glenn reminded be of the character Will Hunting in 'Good Will Hunting' but without the 'white guilt'. Incredibly he may suffer from 'black guilt'. Many of us slithered through our younger years and in later years wondered how we survived. Senator J.D Vance 'Hillbilly Ellegy' is another fine example, there are many. My advice to Glenn is to forgive himself all past peccadilloes, as far as I know he never advocated for the assassination of a POTUS, or any other such thing. He should accept the gift of life and good fortune that the God of the universe bestowed upon him. Follow the dictates in the Desiderata, smell the coffee and the roses. Be happy.
John McWhorter should be prosecuted. It is a crime to call for the assassination of a President. It is NOT free-speech to encourage violence. An academic suggesting that murder is a good solution indicates indecent, immoral bankruptcy and intellectual vacancy. The 'black guys' image on the Glenn Show has been destroyed and black stereotypical perspectives can now be applied to John McWhorter. John should resign.
Glen, It would be interesting to hear you and John McWhorter engage in a deep discussion of this early book on the topic:
The Racialization of America
(St. Martin's Press, New York, 1993)
by Yehudi O. Webster
An African-American Professor at CSU Los Angeles
EXCERPTS
" [It] is neither race nor racism that bedevils American society, but rather that racial classification enjoys a privileged status in social studies. American society is being tied in painful knots by virtue of legislative, social scientific, and media practices of racially classiflying persons...
"This official racial classification was never benign. The collection of occupational data by race in 1890 coincided with the imposition of jim crowism. Contemporarily, racial classification serves various Republican and Democratic electoral interests. The creation and manipulation of "blacks" and "whites" are long standing practices....
"Social scientists, legislators, entrepreneurs and publicists use racial classification to generate a racial ethos that is then claimed to be the basis of their practices ... official racial classification and studies of racial experiences do nothing but render social problems insoluble. Racial solutions, such as busing, affirmative action, black power, and multiculturalism, are bound to fail, because they heighten the very racial awareness that is said to have led to "racial problems" in the first place."
Is he still around, still teaching, available for interview? Has it been updated? Multiple bureaucracies have been established and funded related to racialization. Can they be broken & /or dismantled?
I'm so glad you're getting more air time on other programs, Glenn! Looking forward to listening to this conversation.