The Jefferson's reference in the accompanying picture is spot on. Nothing was more hilarious than that pained smile commingled with barely concealed disgust when George Jefferson had to deal with a white person he didn't like. The audience got it then. I certainly did.
I love all your references to TV shows from the 1970s that I also watched avidly and that contributed to my childhood understanding about racism (among many other influences). What are your thoughts on Barney Miller (not the character, but the show)?
Which groups are demeaned and marginalized by Electism? Is there a priority of caring about the impact on these groups?
John makes a compelling case on how Electism (aka CRT) demeans and marginalizes black people. He then says that he doesn't care so much about how it impacts white people.
The Jodi Shaw case at Smith is an example of CRT demeaning and marginalizing a white person. She is fighting back. Does John think this is worth caring about?
The case of Gabrielle Clark, a poor black mother of a blond hair blue eyed white boy slammed by CRT in a Las Vegas Charter School, is worth paying attention to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=solhjLMVj_I&feature=youtu.be She is fighting back. Does John think this is worth caring about?
I think he cares, but doesn’t want the book to be read as a paean to the unjust characterization of white people. It will be quickly discredited if that is it’s only point. His more important point is that the new politics are not helping anyone, white or black, and are unfairly maligning anyone who has any reasonable quibble with it as it grows more and more ideological and excessive, yes while destroying lives.
Fair points. The offenders are both non-black and black. The harmed are also both non-black and black. Parsing whose harm matters more is not constructive. Fighting back is the responsibility of all who value liberal values irrespective of race.
People would of couses be seriously mistaken to think McWhorter’s main purpose is to defend white people from reverse racism or charges of racism. However, I believe many whites are sensitive to these concerns and following McWhorter for that reason, as his writings do give such folks a mental defense mechanism against the essentialist, us-versus-them attitudes of some of the new anti-racist ideologies. Coming from a black man, McWhorter buttresses their ability to say to themselves, “I am not crazy and I am not racist.”
As a black person myself, I would articulate McWhorter’s purpose (if I am not mis-reading it) as to argue that certain very specific ideologies, which many black people and other minorities do not actually hold and are arguably incoherent and counter-productive, are being promulgated as the only and only truth and being sold to well meaning people as their one and only way to be an “ally” and as the way for black people to hold white people to account. Lately, based on the recent best-sellers, it is taking the form of encouraging white people to self-identify more strongly as “ white” and with “white privilege,” “whiteness.” In other words, to embrace essentialism almost the way a hardened racist would, but with opposite intent.
This is of dubious value and a 180 from “I have a Dream.” It invites a degree of illogic, inconsistency and cognitive dissonance that can immediately confuse and eventually turn away people who are sympathetic to the problems in black america and discussions of racism. Because those who disagree reasonable fear being called racist at worst and racially “fragile” at best, this is shutting down productive conversation. Most well-meaning people will go on pretending the emperor has clothes no matter what they hear, and the reactionaries on the right side of the political spectrum will cite the more ridiculous of these trends as arguments for why we should do nothing at all to address underlying issues or to pronounce racism and bias a fairy tale. This is why it is counterproductive
Touche. Isn't it puzzling: suppose one does not believe that race is ontologically real (as opposed to socially constructed). Suppose such a person is white; so there is no appeal for them in listening to the Nazi recruiter who tries to flatter them about Aryan superiority. Why would it be any more appealing when the other side (nominally, the other side) tries to damn them by saying "all whites are Nazis"? If I don't believe in the first place that birth is destiny, why would I then choose the version of birth/destiny that which pronounces me wicked without the slightest chance of redemption? " . . . to embrace essentialism almost the way a hardened racist would, but with the opposite intent." Exactly. With the opposite intent -- and with even less appeal. And certainly "a 180 from 'I have a Dream'!" And isn't this all curious?
If we apply this logic to a real world example, is a modern day pogrom such as the Crown Heights Riot, somehow more justifiable then the pogroms that took place in the Russian Empire because in the former example the perpetrators were "punching up"? (By the way pogroms aren't by definition state sponsored, as many of them actually were not). Are antisemitic acts perpetrated by African Americans which unfortunately are not statistically insignificant and have claimed several lives, more excusable because of the perceived power dynamics since Jews in present day US have acquired the "taint and priveledge of whiteness"?
I've been thinking a lot about the redefinition of racism since my (then) high school aged daughter dropped it on my in 2015. I can understand it and I don't completely disagree that racism always requires some aspect of punching down (the example that always pops to my mind is how milquetoast 'Cracker' is--it has no weight , but then again, that's just me who has only been called a Cracker, Honkey or White Devil a few dozen times, usually by poor knuckleheads that I feel mostly sorry for). I wonder though, if the problem here is that the power distributions aren't clear. For instance, your colleague at U fo I ( I think) that was fired because he wrote n***** and people had heart-palpitations, was clearly not the one with the power. The underlying problem with defining 'racism' as a phenomenon based in power dynamics is that you create a situation where who is racist can change one day from the next and doesn't leave us with a useful heuristic. I'd say this may be especially true because we already have class-war dynamics for describing punching-down, so why do we need more?
The Elect, as I understand the definition, are able to do what they do specifically because they have power. No?
I think we should reject the lazy excuse-making and weak analytical utility of that "punching up/punching down" dichotomy.
A) Some people "down" need to get punched. Just sayin'...
B) It's a blunt instrument. On the single occasion somebody was (kind of aggressively) insisting on the "new" definition of racism, I told them "Fuck you, buddy, maybe you didn't notice, but I ain't up." The bloated, amorphous generalizations need to make that "punching down" argument are a worse way to interact with real people than, say, NOT pretending the individuals you meet are defined by a single word "race". This goes both ways.
As John has ironically pointed out, there is no rationality in the ideology of the Church of the Awoken, thus figuring out a logic, other than that of power and faith, that would explain how the racism of Florida Man is evil but the racism of Barack Obama is pardonable is a futile exercise. It seems John is not fully aware of his own indoctrination.
Power is what The Elect seek; and they don't seek just any power; they seek totalitarian power. But they insist that they do so to save the powerless. When they wield power, it becomes purified by their enlightened understanding and the courses they took in Critical Literary Theory.
I would love to hear how you figure Barrack Obama - half-white president raised by white grandparents with a largely white administration - is “racist.” I tend to think less charitably about the logical faculties of anyone who reaches that conclusion as I would of any of the Elect.
Oh, and one more thing. I am black and white as well. My father is black and my mother is white, just as Obama's. But I certainly do not exempt myself from the possibility of being a racist. I'd consider that exemption, on those grounds, to be... well racist. I know of people who are mixed race and work in largely white environments that are racist. You should probably not have any prejudice against the logical faculties of anyone simply because they suspect someone who has that background is racist. Racists come in the color of the rainbow.
I appreciate the question. I can understand how a person might be perplexed based on how I wrote my comment.
I actually suspect Obama isn’t racist. While he has lent his approval and enabled the cultivation of racist organizations like BLM, has supported the work of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture which embraces Woke ideology, supported the use of Woke sensitivity training in the government, approves of modern affirmative action policies for the black middle class, encouraged irrational racial resentment in some of his speeches, I just suspect that is because he is a Machiavellian politician, and a masterful one, and doesn’t actually believe or feel the way some of the people and organizations he has supported do. I don't think he is a Christian either, but he pretends he is. Politicians often have a habit of presenting themselves in a certain way and supporting things simply to gain power and influence.
But that is beside the point of my comment. Whether Obama is or isn’t racist isn’t the point. The point is that because Obama is black, the Woke definition of racism that places the aggregate abstract political power of an individual’s racial demographic they are a part of as the determining factor of whether a person can be racist, and the one that John used in his post, would imply that Obama, despite being the [ex] Commander In Chief of the United States of America, could not be racist. According to Woke ideology, and despite all their bs about intersectionality, because Obama is black he would be “punching up” at Florida Man.
I recommend people watch Coleman Hughes's recent interview with Shelby and Eli Steele about the Steeles' documentary "What Killed Michael Brown?" Thought-provokiNg discussion of the shifting roles of oppressor and victim in our times. Seems relevant to the question of who is punching in what direction.
I must admit to having never heard the term "neoracist" before, and thus not minding whether it stays in the subtitle or not. And the reasoning behind the decision to exclude it--it has a generally understood meaning that is not what The Elect is about--makes sense.
What I fear does not make sense is your apparent endorsement of the Elect's slogan "racism is about punching down." Other commentators have tackled this aspect of your post extremely well, even brilliantly, but I just want to add my voice to theirs in surprise and dismay--surely you don't mean that racism is only that.
Racism affects some groups more than others, of course, but it is also a universal evil, and that is the moral ground upon which the argument to end it should stand. Perhaps your book is not making that argument, but that surprises me, because without that, what philosophical or moral underpinning does it really have?
I dislike any such definition of racism, ones that depend on social status or class, because I think the damage done to and by people by racism is INTERNAL FIRST. It damages people whose poor thought processes (or inability to properly assess life experiences) lead them to hatred, and it damages their victims if they act upon it.
And that has nothing to do with "up", "down" or "sideways".
I have to admit that I'm a bit skeptical of at least some of Jodi Shaw's take. Not that I think she's lying, but we're only seeing her side, and there's the possibility of misunderstanding or misreading or even misremembering in her part.
According to her, her supervisor objected to it on the grounds of "cultural appropriation," but the phrase "cultural appropriation" can mean multiple things. At times it is used to say, "Stay in your cultural lane; foreign cultural practices are off limits, period!", which is of course illiberal and often downright racist. However, it's also used as a label for adopting a caricature of some cultural practice. It's hard to say which meaning he had in mind.
It might also be that the supervisor thought that a library orientation in rap form would inevitably look embarrassing -- like it was trying too hard to be "cool" -- and used the objection of "cultural appropriation" as a pretense for his real objection.
I noticed that Shaw said she spent months on her orientation rap program only to be shot down. Ideally, if there was such a high possibility of failure, she should have had a chance to present a rough proposal before sinking in all that time an effort. If she did have such a chance and didn't take it, that would be on her. If she didn't, that would point to a management problem. Just from her word alone, it's hard to tell which.
So, in other words you think it is okay to bully and harass others who don't support your political opinion?
Because that's what this is about. It is not about the truth, but simply about a group of people who share a certain political agenda and ruthlessly dismiss, exclude and persecute the minorities which they suspect not to stay fully behind the party line.
What you are writing is what conformists always do: to apologize power and replace the responsibility from the perpetrators to the victims.
You wouldn't dare to question any account that plays in a different choice of skin colors. No, Mrs. Shaw is the one here, who stood against a hostile majority, lost and you just punched her down, spit her in the face and told her, she had better conformed like she is supposed to do, because having a different opinion is of course racism.
Thank you for your reply. You made good points and I deserve some of the accusations. Maybe the Elect are trying to do such an argument, but they never do consistent arguments, so I reject that allegation.
Nevertheless: in the case of Jodie Shaw the point was never that she did anything wrong, she only thought wrongly and that was the reason why she had to resign.
If you come up with excuses that only if she somehow had better played her employers and conceded to make this point or that point earlier, friendlier, better, then you make excuses for bullying, because her fault was that she didn't want to be told what top to think and what to feel and most of all she hated it to get constantly told what others think and feel and she was forbidden to question these assumptions, because she is "white".
That's what she told us in the video, and that's what she wrote in her resignation letter.
Before you question her motivations, find evidence in what she says.
"If you come up with excuses that only if she somehow had better played her employers and conceded to make this point or that point earlier, friendlier, better, then you make excuses for bullying ..."
Thing is, the points I made were about none of those things. They were about why I should be cautious about taking Shaw's complaints at face value. I was not even subtle about this; to quote myself: "I have to admit that I'm a bit skeptical of at least some of Jodi Shaw's take. Not that I think she's lying, but we're only seeing her side, and there's the possibility of misunderstanding or misreading or even misremembering in her part."
Even the point about Shaw wasting months on the orientation rap was related to credibility. If she did indeed sink in all that time when she had the opportunity to cut her losses much sooner and start over, that would cast doubt on her judgment. The catch, as I pointed out, is that it's not clear if that's the case (i.e. the possibility of a "management problem" that I spoke of).
So far, what I see is someone who definitely had a questionable idea (an orientation rap, yeesh!) shot down, and who might also have some legit grievances as well. That she already had a dodgy idea that she still seems to take very seriously is a reason to be cautious about the rest of her complaints.
A valid enough point, but the President's corporo-academic response was a substanceless word salad; "full of buzz and jargon, signifying nothing". Such eructations cannot be engaged, they are the intellectual equivalent of the tarbaby in the Old Remus story, and by design.
But my understanding is that her complaint was more about the critical race theory sensitivity training required by res life staff (after she worked for the library) where she was asked to reflect on her race in front of colleagues, and when she declined, she was shamed for it and accused of using “white fragility” as a power play (not for the library rap story).
She resigned rather than take a settlement so that she can go to court. It will be interesting to see how it goes.
I grew up in a rough part of queens with my poor white mother. Then part of suburban Long Island with my wealth Colombian immigrant father, I live in Brooklyn now. I have a perspective shaped by a unique experience. I have to say, I really “get it” despite most people really disliking that sentiment. I used to make fun of whites for everything as recently as 4 or 5 years ago. Literally all the time. Most times not in such good spirits lol. But then I saw things that clearly crossed the line. I have maybe made 3 white jokes since then. I feel like making them now pushes conversations down a dark road literally on a dime. I saw groups of color during the riots talking about “let’s go fuck up and burn down the white neighborhood LOL”.. an attempt to organize destroying a lower middle class mixed neighborhood where my mother now currently lives and rents out 4/5ths of her own house and lives in a garage because she can’t afford it since her 3rd husband died from lung cancer. The attempt was thwarted with many police and several helicopters, Im sure you can find it if you searched for it online - or maybe not because the media is the media. My mother texting me screenshots of the attempted effort in terrified tears was certainly an experience I would never have thought I would live to see.
Even before that I felt a growing sense that my mother and my little sister were in danger when I saw anti-white rhetoric all over social media, in private amongst friends. Something is deeply off. None of my family were alive and shouldn’t have to answer for inherited guilt they do not deserve.
When I came across you, a fellow liberal and brilliant respectable human being willing to stand up against this, I like many have felt a sense of relief, brotherhood, understanding.. kindred spirits? I would go so far as to call you a hero on several occasions. You and Glen for your amazing conversations which I still enjoy. I generally still agree with everything you are saying, and I understand proportionality, but in the 21st century, seeing the kinds of horrendous things being aimed at white people (I can’t believe I’m defending white people, and I certainly don’t feel white, and I’m not even sure what the hell that would feel like), I truly feel a little stupid for getting my hopes up that someone such as yourself took this issue seriously from all directions. And no, it’s not just because you’re a black man. I don’t tend to think of things in that way. You’re just clearly brilliant and craft amazing arguments. You represent precisely the kind of values and mode of being that runs counter to the narrative that tries to destroy civil society. I’m not ignorant to your early work, I think your position makes sense. Still an awesome ally to have, and perhaps this take is the take that we need because THAT is what’s missing and it’s completely true. It is anti black in every way. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t fearful and upset by yet another prominent person not seeing the dark shit happening. It would have been great for someone to see what’s coming out of of people and directed at people like my poor lonely mother. It makes me legitimately sad.
I swear so much would change if popular discourse directed anger at “wealthy whites” rather than “whites.” I swear to god, when people are using anti-white rhetoric, they people they are picturing are 1% of whites - upperclass or higher, suburban, in positions of power, anti-redistribution, pro-wall street, strongly against Bernie Sanders, disproportionately cis, straight, and male. Somehow that 1% of powerful whites is what “white” refers to now. I attribute this to Ta-Nehisi Coates who writes like all the evils of racism, classism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, imperialism, etc. are explained by this abstract, pseudo-religious force called “whiteness.”
Again this is the problem with the new "anti-racism" and adjacent ideologies. It is elevating race above all else, and then treating individual people as mere caricatures, interchangeable cardboard cutouts of some tokenized stereotype of what and how people of that race are supposed to be.
So if you're white? You automatically ARE rich, suburban, out of touch, right-wing, actively anti-black racist and willing to do anything to preserve your unearned advantages in the system. You are soulless, capitalist, subsisting on chemical additives, no personal relationships, all this. Eating mayonnaise out of jars.
If you're black? You automatically ARE poor, grew up in a disinvested urban neighborhood, went to bad schools, can't quite deal with modern workplace expectations but hey it's okay because you were traumatized and get a pass. But you're authentic, strong family bonds, nourished at home with love on storytelling, wise, heroically overcoming, accepting.
(To put it extremely crudely).
The problem is that we aren't ever supposed to talk about class, or income disparities. So you get absurd articles about how some random white person who maybe doesn't want to open a business in an extremely blighted neighborhood is "racist" (complete with "they just don't want to interact with black people" "they don't want to live next to black people") rather than, doesn't want to take a risk on a blighted neighborhood that has suffered decades of disinvestment, like any number of other people (including middle class black people).
The specific history of the US, including racism, including overtly racist laws and lending practices, has led to a situation where race and class are intertwined.
HOWEVER, you can't just take race and make it a stand-in for class.
A lot of those overtly racist practices have ended long ago. And yet, the blight remains, because it's baked in as economic disparities, which compound.
Just as we have had various race-blind laws that impact non-white people more, because they were (and are) a greater percentage poor, we can have new laws and new investment that happens to impact the "black and brown" more, because again targeting the poor, this time for GOOD effects. But we need to talk about class, and poverty, and not always paint it as a race thing, or active personal "racism" in the headlines 24/7. We need to talk about both things, for actual equity to happen.
But that of course takes real money. Personal navel-gazing and putting on a hairshirt, or requiring that of other people, having essentially a religious revival, is free. People can feel good about their pure hearts even while nothing actually gets improved on the ground.
The other pernicious thing about insisting we use a simplistic "race only" lens to talk about class is that it ends up reinforcing stereotypes, particularly of the tokenized minorities. How is it helping anyone to constantly consider them to be a cardboard cutout of a sob story?
I feel I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that woman who was shot for saying all lives matter, or Marquise Love and company dragging that white guy out of his crashed truck to roundhouse kick him in the head while screaming “black lives matter”. The only reason we know about it is because the right wing reported it, which allowed the left to brush it off as propaganda. Sure you could point to cop shootings, but it strikes me as a whole other level of problem when the public is united in normalizing, excusing, or brushing off this kind of race based violence. That it’s at the level of the general public to me points to the idea that it’s a much bigger problem. Or at least, a growing problem.
If a thing is evil, it is evil for every single individual who lives and every single individual can be judged against that standard. If the standard is based on the color of one’s skin then we have made them the “other” and not of “us.” At that point anything is both possible and permissible. There is nothing but power, and war.
Once again we see our media having a pernicious influence on the culture, while pocketing checks from the people who own everything.
The legacy media are doing (and have done) horrible damage to the country, but also to individuals who deserve better. I know a lot of old people who, by dint of their lifelong habit of getting news from prominent national print sources and major TV networks, are completely irrational, and believe more slanted, misrepresented and contrafactual things than they did when they were 18, or 8. I mean smart people who have had respectable careers! It is truly sad to see.
It is hard for me to take, for instance, the name of the CNN show "Reliable Sources" as less of a personal affront than Brian Stelter spitting in my Cheerios or kicking my dog. I know I should be more measured and rational in response, but it really is a provocation.
"I must disappoint. I am fully on board with the idea that racism is about who is up versus down. "
You have definitely disappointed me. While, it would be obvious that a racist with more power could cause more damage than a racist with less power, it is no less a moral vice for someone with less power to be racist than someone with more power; albeit a greater moral crime may be committed by someone with more power. As was grotesquely demonstrated with regard to the Rwandan genocide, if people with less power but with deep racist sentiments acquire power, there can be horrific consequences. And when we aren't talking about political power, even individual racists who belong to a racial group with less power as a whole can inflict substantial harm on innocent people due to their racist sensibilities. A racist with a gun, albeit not capable of redlining swaths of people, can still kill. It doesn't matter if a white person is "up" in some abstract estimation of generalized racial power of their group -- the concrete power of any particular white person probably won't be protective against a bullet nor are they any more deserving of that bullet. Or -- just a racist with a twitter account can still potentially destroy an innocent person's livelihood -- whether or not they belong to the racial group with more overall aggregate political power (assuming the racial group is even conspiring together to use that power, which in the U.S. today is not occurring with regard to most white people).
While it is true that in some sense "Black racism against whites is, at least at its foundation, about resentment at being abused" -- it doesn't apply to all individual black people(it simply is not the case that today all racist black people have experienced substantial racist abuse themselves), nor does historical causation somehow absolve black people from the moral duty to develop themselves and overcome the bigotry they may have inherited from history. I am surprised you would express this sentiment when one of your biggest gripes with the "Elect" is that they portray black people as desperately fragile. It seems you still feel you must protect black people from the moral responsibility of not being racist by using the same strategy of the "The Elect" that you resent--verbal legerdemain.
"Racism punches down." Pff, it punches every direction. Down may cause more damage at times, but it is no more or less racist. There is simply more momentum when punching down. With enough force though, one can resist gravity.
It is just bizarre that you seem to be trying to separate the neoracists or the elect, or whatever we wish to call them, by racial lines. Robin Diangelo and Ibram Kendi are equally neoracists. Robin Diangelo doesn't deserve more moral admonishment than Ibram Kendi because she is white. That is exactly the ideology that they are pushing. Are you sure you aren't a member of The Elect yourself? Just forgot about your membership or are you envious of their stature in The Church?
And why would you compare George Jefferson and Archie Bunker? This isn't the 50s; isn't that a refrain you have been making? Yes, they are dated references. How about comparing Louis Farrakhan and Richard Spencer? The former is still an honored character by many neoracists and many powerful Democrats; the latter is a pariah by both political parties. You do not think black people being racist against white people can be as equally reprehensible? It must mean that you are generalizing history rather than judging individual cases. There are some clearly reprehensible instances of black people being racist against white people; one must be blind to not acknowledge that. One needn't therefore conclude that the historical scales of racism from black people to white people is therefore equal. But any individual white person isn't responsible for that scale, nor is any individual black person morally entitled to demand personal reparations for that imbalance.
I think it makes sense that your book is intended to look at how neoracists are racist toward black people, but it is ridiculous not to acknowledge that neoracists are racist against white people too. The ideology that is being pushed by those such as Diangelo and Kendi is universally racist, insofar as it contributes to the continued tribalism of people based on race, rejects moral individualism, embraces moral collectivism, and reinforces psychological barriers that people have when it comes to developing emotional bonds, trust, and respect with people who don't share their own perceived race. Unfortunately, it seems that some of that ideology still appeals to you.
Yes it is unpardonable for black people to be racist; albeit not all racism is equal. George Jefferson is not Jefferson Davis. But yet, the sin of racism requires repentance. It is not incomprehensible of course that some black people are racist. We have a history of racial hatred directed toward our ancestors, and it makes sense that our ancestors have passed down racial resentment and hatred due to that. But black people are no less morally bound to transcend irrational generational hatred than all people. That is a supremely virtuous path, and it is indeed *racist* to discourage black people from taking that path by making them agentless pawns of "community leaders" and "intellectuals". Do you take black people to be so fragile that such a a path would destroy us?
"Can black people be racist?"
Yes. Deplorably so. Suggesting they cannot is racist. Neoracist, particularly. That black people cannot be racist is the first tenet of the New Church of the Woke. And it is no doubt morally seductive to many black people just as the notion of the substitutional redemption of sins is to many humans in general. Yet, both are decadent. It seems you may just be a reformer in the church and not a true heretic.
It's too bad one can't follow commenters on Substack. I saw some contributions you made over on Bari Weiss' stack, and your ability to elucidate these issues seems consistently phenomenal. Thank you for it!
I appreciate the sentiment Tytonidaen (and everyone else who has responded similarly to my comment). I am considering actually starting my own stack. If I do, I'll let you all know.
Here is a little more background about me: my occupation--I am a software engineer--takes up a lot of my time with work and practice, but writing has been something I've wanted to do since high school. In fact, I have a B.A. in Philosophy. Considered academia, but then... well, I saw the writing on the wall, and just like that guy who John mentions in his post that chose not to enter academia because of the atmosphere, I also decided to avoid it for the same reason. I figured I'd have to sell out to rise in the ranks. If I ever wanted tenure, I felt I'd have to keep my mouth shut about the growing orthodoxy that was developing. And that was back in 2005! Now I have read about my alma mater, UCLA, infected by the Church of the Awoken itself -- not standing up to fanatics and race hustlers who want to vicariously use the suffering of other black people to get an academic break. Its pathetic.
Academia -- I now discourage people from even going to college unless their known intended career depends on it. Most of the taxes our public colleges now receive are not deserved and tuitions are ridiculous. Its become a racket. My philosophy degree, while I certainly did benefit from the practice and the atmosphere, was not a wise use of time and money-- if I could time travel back to my teenage self, I'd train myself in software engineering, which requires no degree(I have no Computer Science degree), and rely on a library, good friends, and generous mentors to learn all I did in college. I wouldn't be able to replace the few professors I really appreciated, but maybe I'd have just crashed their courses for the enjoyment. They wouldn't have cared.
I'd certainly read it, if you did! My husband is a software engineer, and we both seriously considered either academia or high school teaching, and we likewise didn't go into it for the reasons you describe. And I definitely would have skipped my college debt, if I'd known then what I do now. Though, as you said, I would've missed the few truly great profs I had. College was in the aughts for us, as well -- so many similarities!
I don't entirely understand it, but I feel like our cohort may have been at the tail-end of something, in which there were at least vestiges of institutional sanity remaining. I am eternally thankful I was done with my schooling before this all took off quite so thoroughly and openly. Though, in college, there were *definitely* some disconcerting and/or bizarre instances that I remember noticing at the time but writing off as surely just errant fringe stuff. Wish I could've been right on that score.
But! And, here, I come to the most important point, a warm and furry greeting to Casper and Shadow (such cute names!) from our kitty, Luna! : D
Your college era was also at the tail end of optimism about the positive effects of the Internet. We were moving from creators, mad geniuses, revolutionaries and innovators and towards MBAs, accountants and the investment class (though there are fine people on both sides).
What I'm loving about this thread is that we can have a nuanced discussion, and consider different points of view. It's a relief. I really appreciate Jeff Peoples discussion here. I think we can acknowledge the way race has played into power dynamics (and punching down), while at the same time recognizing that racism can cut many ways. I salute John McWhorter and Jeff Peoples. Considering both of these arguments enriches my understanding of the issues.
After reading this, I feel like I should delete my clumsy comment with the same spirit! I feel like John is falling right into The Elite's trap. "It's a white system; therefore, ALL whites have power and other races have none." What about blacks that do have power? Black supervisors, teachers, cops, government officials...presidents? Can those individuals be racist while they hold positions of powers over whites?
John repeatedly takes positions like this in his writing and interviews/discussions. It seems to me that he is paranoid about being considered a traitor to his race or, heaven forbid, a Conservative. He has lived most of his adult life within the cloistered walls of the elite Academy that he seems to critique and love at the same time.
Now I find a lot of John says and writes interesting and insightful but he comes across as more than a bit duplicitous at times.
I have to admit, despite my personal comment I made, I had flashes of worry that John might not be quite the ally I thought he was. I get a sense that if he reads comments at all, he reads ones like mine and maybe feels like he made a mistake not clarifying he’s not a “white ally”, as if being an ally against racism could be racialized. Maybe I’m just butthurt and reading too much into it. It just seems to me now after reading this that he feels the idea of white people suffering is silly or nbd.
I do not find John duplicitous. I detect that it is very hard to find the "right" point of view , and to do so consistently, when everything about race today is so FRAUGHT - somebody is going to disagree, object, even call you names, no matter what you say. And maybe you feel one way today, and you see another point of view tomorrow - especially if you yourself are mixed race, and/or your family is. I very happily give him a lot of slack, because whatever he writes, he makes me think.
Maybe duplicitous was a bit strong. I just think he needs to get out of his elite NY city Columbia Ivy League bubble a bit to broaden his perspective a bit.
Honestly, I would ditch the word "Elect" entirely. Because that word puts the focus on a particular group of intellectuals, it will allow many to casually dismiss the book as an expression of petty bitterness and infighting.
The central theme - that these ideas are actually racist against Black people - is far more compelling. Better to find a title that focuses on that.
Sowell called the same people, pre-"woke" era, The Anointed, in his book "The Vision of the Anointed". They are indeed self-anointed, and self-elected and despite the skin color of some of them, have little to do with me.
I'm white and it actually had never occurred to me that neoracism would refer to black against white racism, which I agree is both more understandable and not central to the current debate. The white fragility, antiracist agenda has always struck me as offensively racist against nonwhites: the suggestions that Black people somehow can't pass tests, show up on time, or meet other social and intellectual standards, so we have to lower or take away those standards for them; that Black people are so exquisitely sensitive that their feelings have to be tiptoed around to a greater degree; and that they have so little agency that it is entirely up to white people to fix their lives/society for them (which is not to deny that whites have responsibility as well). Most of the Black people I know — and those of every other color — are a lot stronger, smarter and more ambitious than that.
How many Black adolescents have ever been taunted for being "schoolboy"? The implication being if one is not ghetto, one is a race-traitor. (Maybe a wimp into the bargain.) Isn't this exactly what the anti-racist agenda taunts by saying that teaching math to (or grading) Students of Color is inappropriate? It is popular to quote Audre Lorde: "the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house." But is this even true? I can take down a house with a standard set of carpentry tools. If I am forced to reinvent toolboxes just because the old ones are tainted by association, with what kind of tools will I be left? (And why even call them tools at all?) Thank goodness Thurgood Marshall did not think this way about the tools of logic in the practice of law, else we'd still have separate drinking fountains.
John addresses this phenomenon, statistically, anecdotally and from personal experience in his book "Losing the Race". While conceding the nasty thread of anti-intellectualism in white schools as well (one of the several characteristics that led to me being bullied for years in public schools). He notes, realistically, that it's even worse in predominantly black schools.
Yep, exactly. I'm white and I read neoracism as the twisted insistence that we undo our efforts for a colorblind society, and then double down on defining ourselves by the color of our skin. End of story.
Oh but I'm totally confused by the new subtitle. I keep reading it and not understanding. I might just be dumb or uninformed, but would it be too much to ask for further explanation?
The Jefferson's reference in the accompanying picture is spot on. Nothing was more hilarious than that pained smile commingled with barely concealed disgust when George Jefferson had to deal with a white person he didn't like. The audience got it then. I certainly did.
I love all your references to TV shows from the 1970s that I also watched avidly and that contributed to my childhood understanding about racism (among many other influences). What are your thoughts on Barney Miller (not the character, but the show)?
This questions seem to be:
Which groups are demeaned and marginalized by Electism? Is there a priority of caring about the impact on these groups?
John makes a compelling case on how Electism (aka CRT) demeans and marginalizes black people. He then says that he doesn't care so much about how it impacts white people.
The Jodi Shaw case at Smith is an example of CRT demeaning and marginalizing a white person. She is fighting back. Does John think this is worth caring about?
The case of Gabrielle Clark, a poor black mother of a blond hair blue eyed white boy slammed by CRT in a Las Vegas Charter School, is worth paying attention to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=solhjLMVj_I&feature=youtu.be She is fighting back. Does John think this is worth caring about?
I think he cares, but doesn’t want the book to be read as a paean to the unjust characterization of white people. It will be quickly discredited if that is it’s only point. His more important point is that the new politics are not helping anyone, white or black, and are unfairly maligning anyone who has any reasonable quibble with it as it grows more and more ideological and excessive, yes while destroying lives.
Fair points. The offenders are both non-black and black. The harmed are also both non-black and black. Parsing whose harm matters more is not constructive. Fighting back is the responsibility of all who value liberal values irrespective of race.
Exactly!
People would of couses be seriously mistaken to think McWhorter’s main purpose is to defend white people from reverse racism or charges of racism. However, I believe many whites are sensitive to these concerns and following McWhorter for that reason, as his writings do give such folks a mental defense mechanism against the essentialist, us-versus-them attitudes of some of the new anti-racist ideologies. Coming from a black man, McWhorter buttresses their ability to say to themselves, “I am not crazy and I am not racist.”
As a black person myself, I would articulate McWhorter’s purpose (if I am not mis-reading it) as to argue that certain very specific ideologies, which many black people and other minorities do not actually hold and are arguably incoherent and counter-productive, are being promulgated as the only and only truth and being sold to well meaning people as their one and only way to be an “ally” and as the way for black people to hold white people to account. Lately, based on the recent best-sellers, it is taking the form of encouraging white people to self-identify more strongly as “ white” and with “white privilege,” “whiteness.” In other words, to embrace essentialism almost the way a hardened racist would, but with opposite intent.
This is of dubious value and a 180 from “I have a Dream.” It invites a degree of illogic, inconsistency and cognitive dissonance that can immediately confuse and eventually turn away people who are sympathetic to the problems in black america and discussions of racism. Because those who disagree reasonable fear being called racist at worst and racially “fragile” at best, this is shutting down productive conversation. Most well-meaning people will go on pretending the emperor has clothes no matter what they hear, and the reactionaries on the right side of the political spectrum will cite the more ridiculous of these trends as arguments for why we should do nothing at all to address underlying issues or to pronounce racism and bias a fairy tale. This is why it is counterproductive
Touche. Isn't it puzzling: suppose one does not believe that race is ontologically real (as opposed to socially constructed). Suppose such a person is white; so there is no appeal for them in listening to the Nazi recruiter who tries to flatter them about Aryan superiority. Why would it be any more appealing when the other side (nominally, the other side) tries to damn them by saying "all whites are Nazis"? If I don't believe in the first place that birth is destiny, why would I then choose the version of birth/destiny that which pronounces me wicked without the slightest chance of redemption? " . . . to embrace essentialism almost the way a hardened racist would, but with the opposite intent." Exactly. With the opposite intent -- and with even less appeal. And certainly "a 180 from 'I have a Dream'!" And isn't this all curious?
If we apply this logic to a real world example, is a modern day pogrom such as the Crown Heights Riot, somehow more justifiable then the pogroms that took place in the Russian Empire because in the former example the perpetrators were "punching up"? (By the way pogroms aren't by definition state sponsored, as many of them actually were not). Are antisemitic acts perpetrated by African Americans which unfortunately are not statistically insignificant and have claimed several lives, more excusable because of the perceived power dynamics since Jews in present day US have acquired the "taint and priveledge of whiteness"?
I've been thinking a lot about the redefinition of racism since my (then) high school aged daughter dropped it on my in 2015. I can understand it and I don't completely disagree that racism always requires some aspect of punching down (the example that always pops to my mind is how milquetoast 'Cracker' is--it has no weight , but then again, that's just me who has only been called a Cracker, Honkey or White Devil a few dozen times, usually by poor knuckleheads that I feel mostly sorry for). I wonder though, if the problem here is that the power distributions aren't clear. For instance, your colleague at U fo I ( I think) that was fired because he wrote n***** and people had heart-palpitations, was clearly not the one with the power. The underlying problem with defining 'racism' as a phenomenon based in power dynamics is that you create a situation where who is racist can change one day from the next and doesn't leave us with a useful heuristic. I'd say this may be especially true because we already have class-war dynamics for describing punching-down, so why do we need more?
The Elect, as I understand the definition, are able to do what they do specifically because they have power. No?
I think we should reject the lazy excuse-making and weak analytical utility of that "punching up/punching down" dichotomy.
A) Some people "down" need to get punched. Just sayin'...
B) It's a blunt instrument. On the single occasion somebody was (kind of aggressively) insisting on the "new" definition of racism, I told them "Fuck you, buddy, maybe you didn't notice, but I ain't up." The bloated, amorphous generalizations need to make that "punching down" argument are a worse way to interact with real people than, say, NOT pretending the individuals you meet are defined by a single word "race". This goes both ways.
As John has ironically pointed out, there is no rationality in the ideology of the Church of the Awoken, thus figuring out a logic, other than that of power and faith, that would explain how the racism of Florida Man is evil but the racism of Barack Obama is pardonable is a futile exercise. It seems John is not fully aware of his own indoctrination.
Power is what The Elect seek; and they don't seek just any power; they seek totalitarian power. But they insist that they do so to save the powerless. When they wield power, it becomes purified by their enlightened understanding and the courses they took in Critical Literary Theory.
I would love to hear how you figure Barrack Obama - half-white president raised by white grandparents with a largely white administration - is “racist.” I tend to think less charitably about the logical faculties of anyone who reaches that conclusion as I would of any of the Elect.
Oh, and one more thing. I am black and white as well. My father is black and my mother is white, just as Obama's. But I certainly do not exempt myself from the possibility of being a racist. I'd consider that exemption, on those grounds, to be... well racist. I know of people who are mixed race and work in largely white environments that are racist. You should probably not have any prejudice against the logical faculties of anyone simply because they suspect someone who has that background is racist. Racists come in the color of the rainbow.
I appreciate the question. I can understand how a person might be perplexed based on how I wrote my comment.
I actually suspect Obama isn’t racist. While he has lent his approval and enabled the cultivation of racist organizations like BLM, has supported the work of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture which embraces Woke ideology, supported the use of Woke sensitivity training in the government, approves of modern affirmative action policies for the black middle class, encouraged irrational racial resentment in some of his speeches, I just suspect that is because he is a Machiavellian politician, and a masterful one, and doesn’t actually believe or feel the way some of the people and organizations he has supported do. I don't think he is a Christian either, but he pretends he is. Politicians often have a habit of presenting themselves in a certain way and supporting things simply to gain power and influence.
But that is beside the point of my comment. Whether Obama is or isn’t racist isn’t the point. The point is that because Obama is black, the Woke definition of racism that places the aggregate abstract political power of an individual’s racial demographic they are a part of as the determining factor of whether a person can be racist, and the one that John used in his post, would imply that Obama, despite being the [ex] Commander In Chief of the United States of America, could not be racist. According to Woke ideology, and despite all their bs about intersectionality, because Obama is black he would be “punching up” at Florida Man.
I recommend people watch Coleman Hughes's recent interview with Shelby and Eli Steele about the Steeles' documentary "What Killed Michael Brown?" Thought-provokiNg discussion of the shifting roles of oppressor and victim in our times. Seems relevant to the question of who is punching in what direction.
Better yet, watch the movie if you haven't already seen it.
I must admit to having never heard the term "neoracist" before, and thus not minding whether it stays in the subtitle or not. And the reasoning behind the decision to exclude it--it has a generally understood meaning that is not what The Elect is about--makes sense.
What I fear does not make sense is your apparent endorsement of the Elect's slogan "racism is about punching down." Other commentators have tackled this aspect of your post extremely well, even brilliantly, but I just want to add my voice to theirs in surprise and dismay--surely you don't mean that racism is only that.
Racism affects some groups more than others, of course, but it is also a universal evil, and that is the moral ground upon which the argument to end it should stand. Perhaps your book is not making that argument, but that surprises me, because without that, what philosophical or moral underpinning does it really have?
I dislike any such definition of racism, ones that depend on social status or class, because I think the damage done to and by people by racism is INTERNAL FIRST. It damages people whose poor thought processes (or inability to properly assess life experiences) lead them to hatred, and it damages their victims if they act upon it.
And that has nothing to do with "up", "down" or "sideways".
Bari Weiss has some sad news:
https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/whistleblower-at-smith-college-resigns
I have to admit that I'm a bit skeptical of at least some of Jodi Shaw's take. Not that I think she's lying, but we're only seeing her side, and there's the possibility of misunderstanding or misreading or even misremembering in her part.
According to her, her supervisor objected to it on the grounds of "cultural appropriation," but the phrase "cultural appropriation" can mean multiple things. At times it is used to say, "Stay in your cultural lane; foreign cultural practices are off limits, period!", which is of course illiberal and often downright racist. However, it's also used as a label for adopting a caricature of some cultural practice. It's hard to say which meaning he had in mind.
It might also be that the supervisor thought that a library orientation in rap form would inevitably look embarrassing -- like it was trying too hard to be "cool" -- and used the objection of "cultural appropriation" as a pretense for his real objection.
I noticed that Shaw said she spent months on her orientation rap program only to be shot down. Ideally, if there was such a high possibility of failure, she should have had a chance to present a rough proposal before sinking in all that time an effort. If she did have such a chance and didn't take it, that would be on her. If she didn't, that would point to a management problem. Just from her word alone, it's hard to tell which.
So, in other words you think it is okay to bully and harass others who don't support your political opinion?
Because that's what this is about. It is not about the truth, but simply about a group of people who share a certain political agenda and ruthlessly dismiss, exclude and persecute the minorities which they suspect not to stay fully behind the party line.
What you are writing is what conformists always do: to apologize power and replace the responsibility from the perpetrators to the victims.
You wouldn't dare to question any account that plays in a different choice of skin colors. No, Mrs. Shaw is the one here, who stood against a hostile majority, lost and you just punched her down, spit her in the face and told her, she had better conformed like she is supposed to do, because having a different opinion is of course racism.
"in other words you think it is okay to bully and harass others who don't support your political opinion?"
Ah, the old trick of "summarizing" one's opponent's words with something that doesn't resemble what they said at all. A classic Elect debate tactic.
"You wouldn't dare to question any account that plays in a different choice of skin colors."
Mindreading! Another typical tactic of the Elect.
"you just punched her down, spit her in the face and told her ..."
Ah, so my words are violence? 😛 Ok, seriously, that might be a bit of a strawman -- but your melodrama is very much a common Elect move.
Thank you for your reply. You made good points and I deserve some of the accusations. Maybe the Elect are trying to do such an argument, but they never do consistent arguments, so I reject that allegation.
Nevertheless: in the case of Jodie Shaw the point was never that she did anything wrong, she only thought wrongly and that was the reason why she had to resign.
If you come up with excuses that only if she somehow had better played her employers and conceded to make this point or that point earlier, friendlier, better, then you make excuses for bullying, because her fault was that she didn't want to be told what top to think and what to feel and most of all she hated it to get constantly told what others think and feel and she was forbidden to question these assumptions, because she is "white".
That's what she told us in the video, and that's what she wrote in her resignation letter.
Before you question her motivations, find evidence in what she says.
"If you come up with excuses that only if she somehow had better played her employers and conceded to make this point or that point earlier, friendlier, better, then you make excuses for bullying ..."
Thing is, the points I made were about none of those things. They were about why I should be cautious about taking Shaw's complaints at face value. I was not even subtle about this; to quote myself: "I have to admit that I'm a bit skeptical of at least some of Jodi Shaw's take. Not that I think she's lying, but we're only seeing her side, and there's the possibility of misunderstanding or misreading or even misremembering in her part."
Even the point about Shaw wasting months on the orientation rap was related to credibility. If she did indeed sink in all that time when she had the opportunity to cut her losses much sooner and start over, that would cast doubt on her judgment. The catch, as I pointed out, is that it's not clear if that's the case (i.e. the possibility of a "management problem" that I spoke of).
So far, what I see is someone who definitely had a questionable idea (an orientation rap, yeesh!) shot down, and who might also have some legit grievances as well. That she already had a dodgy idea that she still seems to take very seriously is a reason to be cautious about the rest of her complaints.
A valid enough point, but the President's corporo-academic response was a substanceless word salad; "full of buzz and jargon, signifying nothing". Such eructations cannot be engaged, they are the intellectual equivalent of the tarbaby in the Old Remus story, and by design.
But my understanding is that her complaint was more about the critical race theory sensitivity training required by res life staff (after she worked for the library) where she was asked to reflect on her race in front of colleagues, and when she declined, she was shamed for it and accused of using “white fragility” as a power play (not for the library rap story).
She resigned rather than take a settlement so that she can go to court. It will be interesting to see how it goes.
Go Fund Me has put a block on her account while they "investigate". I sent her money directly via PayPal.
I believe that John is including examples of people "fighting back" in the Elect. Jodi Shaw might be a good one to include.
I grew up in a rough part of queens with my poor white mother. Then part of suburban Long Island with my wealth Colombian immigrant father, I live in Brooklyn now. I have a perspective shaped by a unique experience. I have to say, I really “get it” despite most people really disliking that sentiment. I used to make fun of whites for everything as recently as 4 or 5 years ago. Literally all the time. Most times not in such good spirits lol. But then I saw things that clearly crossed the line. I have maybe made 3 white jokes since then. I feel like making them now pushes conversations down a dark road literally on a dime. I saw groups of color during the riots talking about “let’s go fuck up and burn down the white neighborhood LOL”.. an attempt to organize destroying a lower middle class mixed neighborhood where my mother now currently lives and rents out 4/5ths of her own house and lives in a garage because she can’t afford it since her 3rd husband died from lung cancer. The attempt was thwarted with many police and several helicopters, Im sure you can find it if you searched for it online - or maybe not because the media is the media. My mother texting me screenshots of the attempted effort in terrified tears was certainly an experience I would never have thought I would live to see.
Even before that I felt a growing sense that my mother and my little sister were in danger when I saw anti-white rhetoric all over social media, in private amongst friends. Something is deeply off. None of my family were alive and shouldn’t have to answer for inherited guilt they do not deserve.
When I came across you, a fellow liberal and brilliant respectable human being willing to stand up against this, I like many have felt a sense of relief, brotherhood, understanding.. kindred spirits? I would go so far as to call you a hero on several occasions. You and Glen for your amazing conversations which I still enjoy. I generally still agree with everything you are saying, and I understand proportionality, but in the 21st century, seeing the kinds of horrendous things being aimed at white people (I can’t believe I’m defending white people, and I certainly don’t feel white, and I’m not even sure what the hell that would feel like), I truly feel a little stupid for getting my hopes up that someone such as yourself took this issue seriously from all directions. And no, it’s not just because you’re a black man. I don’t tend to think of things in that way. You’re just clearly brilliant and craft amazing arguments. You represent precisely the kind of values and mode of being that runs counter to the narrative that tries to destroy civil society. I’m not ignorant to your early work, I think your position makes sense. Still an awesome ally to have, and perhaps this take is the take that we need because THAT is what’s missing and it’s completely true. It is anti black in every way. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t fearful and upset by yet another prominent person not seeing the dark shit happening. It would have been great for someone to see what’s coming out of of people and directed at people like my poor lonely mother. It makes me legitimately sad.
Wow, your comment deserves so many upvotes.
I swear so much would change if popular discourse directed anger at “wealthy whites” rather than “whites.” I swear to god, when people are using anti-white rhetoric, they people they are picturing are 1% of whites - upperclass or higher, suburban, in positions of power, anti-redistribution, pro-wall street, strongly against Bernie Sanders, disproportionately cis, straight, and male. Somehow that 1% of powerful whites is what “white” refers to now. I attribute this to Ta-Nehisi Coates who writes like all the evils of racism, classism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, imperialism, etc. are explained by this abstract, pseudo-religious force called “whiteness.”
Again this is the problem with the new "anti-racism" and adjacent ideologies. It is elevating race above all else, and then treating individual people as mere caricatures, interchangeable cardboard cutouts of some tokenized stereotype of what and how people of that race are supposed to be.
So if you're white? You automatically ARE rich, suburban, out of touch, right-wing, actively anti-black racist and willing to do anything to preserve your unearned advantages in the system. You are soulless, capitalist, subsisting on chemical additives, no personal relationships, all this. Eating mayonnaise out of jars.
If you're black? You automatically ARE poor, grew up in a disinvested urban neighborhood, went to bad schools, can't quite deal with modern workplace expectations but hey it's okay because you were traumatized and get a pass. But you're authentic, strong family bonds, nourished at home with love on storytelling, wise, heroically overcoming, accepting.
(To put it extremely crudely).
The problem is that we aren't ever supposed to talk about class, or income disparities. So you get absurd articles about how some random white person who maybe doesn't want to open a business in an extremely blighted neighborhood is "racist" (complete with "they just don't want to interact with black people" "they don't want to live next to black people") rather than, doesn't want to take a risk on a blighted neighborhood that has suffered decades of disinvestment, like any number of other people (including middle class black people).
The specific history of the US, including racism, including overtly racist laws and lending practices, has led to a situation where race and class are intertwined.
HOWEVER, you can't just take race and make it a stand-in for class.
A lot of those overtly racist practices have ended long ago. And yet, the blight remains, because it's baked in as economic disparities, which compound.
Just as we have had various race-blind laws that impact non-white people more, because they were (and are) a greater percentage poor, we can have new laws and new investment that happens to impact the "black and brown" more, because again targeting the poor, this time for GOOD effects. But we need to talk about class, and poverty, and not always paint it as a race thing, or active personal "racism" in the headlines 24/7. We need to talk about both things, for actual equity to happen.
But that of course takes real money. Personal navel-gazing and putting on a hairshirt, or requiring that of other people, having essentially a religious revival, is free. People can feel good about their pure hearts even while nothing actually gets improved on the ground.
The other pernicious thing about insisting we use a simplistic "race only" lens to talk about class is that it ends up reinforcing stereotypes, particularly of the tokenized minorities. How is it helping anyone to constantly consider them to be a cardboard cutout of a sob story?
thank you so much for this amazing comment.
I feel I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that woman who was shot for saying all lives matter, or Marquise Love and company dragging that white guy out of his crashed truck to roundhouse kick him in the head while screaming “black lives matter”. The only reason we know about it is because the right wing reported it, which allowed the left to brush it off as propaganda. Sure you could point to cop shootings, but it strikes me as a whole other level of problem when the public is united in normalizing, excusing, or brushing off this kind of race based violence. That it’s at the level of the general public to me points to the idea that it’s a much bigger problem. Or at least, a growing problem.
If a thing is evil, it is evil for every single individual who lives and every single individual can be judged against that standard. If the standard is based on the color of one’s skin then we have made them the “other” and not of “us.” At that point anything is both possible and permissible. There is nothing but power, and war.
Once again we see our media having a pernicious influence on the culture, while pocketing checks from the people who own everything.
The legacy media are doing (and have done) horrible damage to the country, but also to individuals who deserve better. I know a lot of old people who, by dint of their lifelong habit of getting news from prominent national print sources and major TV networks, are completely irrational, and believe more slanted, misrepresented and contrafactual things than they did when they were 18, or 8. I mean smart people who have had respectable careers! It is truly sad to see.
It is hard for me to take, for instance, the name of the CNN show "Reliable Sources" as less of a personal affront than Brian Stelter spitting in my Cheerios or kicking my dog. I know I should be more measured and rational in response, but it really is a provocation.
"I must disappoint. I am fully on board with the idea that racism is about who is up versus down. "
You have definitely disappointed me. While, it would be obvious that a racist with more power could cause more damage than a racist with less power, it is no less a moral vice for someone with less power to be racist than someone with more power; albeit a greater moral crime may be committed by someone with more power. As was grotesquely demonstrated with regard to the Rwandan genocide, if people with less power but with deep racist sentiments acquire power, there can be horrific consequences. And when we aren't talking about political power, even individual racists who belong to a racial group with less power as a whole can inflict substantial harm on innocent people due to their racist sensibilities. A racist with a gun, albeit not capable of redlining swaths of people, can still kill. It doesn't matter if a white person is "up" in some abstract estimation of generalized racial power of their group -- the concrete power of any particular white person probably won't be protective against a bullet nor are they any more deserving of that bullet. Or -- just a racist with a twitter account can still potentially destroy an innocent person's livelihood -- whether or not they belong to the racial group with more overall aggregate political power (assuming the racial group is even conspiring together to use that power, which in the U.S. today is not occurring with regard to most white people).
While it is true that in some sense "Black racism against whites is, at least at its foundation, about resentment at being abused" -- it doesn't apply to all individual black people(it simply is not the case that today all racist black people have experienced substantial racist abuse themselves), nor does historical causation somehow absolve black people from the moral duty to develop themselves and overcome the bigotry they may have inherited from history. I am surprised you would express this sentiment when one of your biggest gripes with the "Elect" is that they portray black people as desperately fragile. It seems you still feel you must protect black people from the moral responsibility of not being racist by using the same strategy of the "The Elect" that you resent--verbal legerdemain.
"Racism punches down." Pff, it punches every direction. Down may cause more damage at times, but it is no more or less racist. There is simply more momentum when punching down. With enough force though, one can resist gravity.
It is just bizarre that you seem to be trying to separate the neoracists or the elect, or whatever we wish to call them, by racial lines. Robin Diangelo and Ibram Kendi are equally neoracists. Robin Diangelo doesn't deserve more moral admonishment than Ibram Kendi because she is white. That is exactly the ideology that they are pushing. Are you sure you aren't a member of The Elect yourself? Just forgot about your membership or are you envious of their stature in The Church?
And why would you compare George Jefferson and Archie Bunker? This isn't the 50s; isn't that a refrain you have been making? Yes, they are dated references. How about comparing Louis Farrakhan and Richard Spencer? The former is still an honored character by many neoracists and many powerful Democrats; the latter is a pariah by both political parties. You do not think black people being racist against white people can be as equally reprehensible? It must mean that you are generalizing history rather than judging individual cases. There are some clearly reprehensible instances of black people being racist against white people; one must be blind to not acknowledge that. One needn't therefore conclude that the historical scales of racism from black people to white people is therefore equal. But any individual white person isn't responsible for that scale, nor is any individual black person morally entitled to demand personal reparations for that imbalance.
I think it makes sense that your book is intended to look at how neoracists are racist toward black people, but it is ridiculous not to acknowledge that neoracists are racist against white people too. The ideology that is being pushed by those such as Diangelo and Kendi is universally racist, insofar as it contributes to the continued tribalism of people based on race, rejects moral individualism, embraces moral collectivism, and reinforces psychological barriers that people have when it comes to developing emotional bonds, trust, and respect with people who don't share their own perceived race. Unfortunately, it seems that some of that ideology still appeals to you.
Yes it is unpardonable for black people to be racist; albeit not all racism is equal. George Jefferson is not Jefferson Davis. But yet, the sin of racism requires repentance. It is not incomprehensible of course that some black people are racist. We have a history of racial hatred directed toward our ancestors, and it makes sense that our ancestors have passed down racial resentment and hatred due to that. But black people are no less morally bound to transcend irrational generational hatred than all people. That is a supremely virtuous path, and it is indeed *racist* to discourage black people from taking that path by making them agentless pawns of "community leaders" and "intellectuals". Do you take black people to be so fragile that such a a path would destroy us?
"Can black people be racist?"
Yes. Deplorably so. Suggesting they cannot is racist. Neoracist, particularly. That black people cannot be racist is the first tenet of the New Church of the Woke. And it is no doubt morally seductive to many black people just as the notion of the substitutional redemption of sins is to many humans in general. Yet, both are decadent. It seems you may just be a reformer in the church and not a true heretic.
It's too bad one can't follow commenters on Substack. I saw some contributions you made over on Bari Weiss' stack, and your ability to elucidate these issues seems consistently phenomenal. Thank you for it!
I appreciate the sentiment Tytonidaen (and everyone else who has responded similarly to my comment). I am considering actually starting my own stack. If I do, I'll let you all know.
Here is a little more background about me: my occupation--I am a software engineer--takes up a lot of my time with work and practice, but writing has been something I've wanted to do since high school. In fact, I have a B.A. in Philosophy. Considered academia, but then... well, I saw the writing on the wall, and just like that guy who John mentions in his post that chose not to enter academia because of the atmosphere, I also decided to avoid it for the same reason. I figured I'd have to sell out to rise in the ranks. If I ever wanted tenure, I felt I'd have to keep my mouth shut about the growing orthodoxy that was developing. And that was back in 2005! Now I have read about my alma mater, UCLA, infected by the Church of the Awoken itself -- not standing up to fanatics and race hustlers who want to vicariously use the suffering of other black people to get an academic break. Its pathetic.
Academia -- I now discourage people from even going to college unless their known intended career depends on it. Most of the taxes our public colleges now receive are not deserved and tuitions are ridiculous. Its become a racket. My philosophy degree, while I certainly did benefit from the practice and the atmosphere, was not a wise use of time and money-- if I could time travel back to my teenage self, I'd train myself in software engineering, which requires no degree(I have no Computer Science degree), and rely on a library, good friends, and generous mentors to learn all I did in college. I wouldn't be able to replace the few professors I really appreciated, but maybe I'd have just crashed their courses for the enjoyment. They wouldn't have cared.
I also have two awesome cats, Casper and Shadow.
I'd certainly read it, if you did! My husband is a software engineer, and we both seriously considered either academia or high school teaching, and we likewise didn't go into it for the reasons you describe. And I definitely would have skipped my college debt, if I'd known then what I do now. Though, as you said, I would've missed the few truly great profs I had. College was in the aughts for us, as well -- so many similarities!
I don't entirely understand it, but I feel like our cohort may have been at the tail-end of something, in which there were at least vestiges of institutional sanity remaining. I am eternally thankful I was done with my schooling before this all took off quite so thoroughly and openly. Though, in college, there were *definitely* some disconcerting and/or bizarre instances that I remember noticing at the time but writing off as surely just errant fringe stuff. Wish I could've been right on that score.
But! And, here, I come to the most important point, a warm and furry greeting to Casper and Shadow (such cute names!) from our kitty, Luna! : D
Your college era was also at the tail end of optimism about the positive effects of the Internet. We were moving from creators, mad geniuses, revolutionaries and innovators and towards MBAs, accountants and the investment class (though there are fine people on both sides).
What I'm loving about this thread is that we can have a nuanced discussion, and consider different points of view. It's a relief. I really appreciate Jeff Peoples discussion here. I think we can acknowledge the way race has played into power dynamics (and punching down), while at the same time recognizing that racism can cut many ways. I salute John McWhorter and Jeff Peoples. Considering both of these arguments enriches my understanding of the issues.
After reading this, I feel like I should delete my clumsy comment with the same spirit! I feel like John is falling right into The Elite's trap. "It's a white system; therefore, ALL whites have power and other races have none." What about blacks that do have power? Black supervisors, teachers, cops, government officials...presidents? Can those individuals be racist while they hold positions of powers over whites?
Mic drop. Incredible. This is one of the best comments I’ve read.
Really excellent points.
John repeatedly takes positions like this in his writing and interviews/discussions. It seems to me that he is paranoid about being considered a traitor to his race or, heaven forbid, a Conservative. He has lived most of his adult life within the cloistered walls of the elite Academy that he seems to critique and love at the same time.
Now I find a lot of John says and writes interesting and insightful but he comes across as more than a bit duplicitous at times.
I have to admit, despite my personal comment I made, I had flashes of worry that John might not be quite the ally I thought he was. I get a sense that if he reads comments at all, he reads ones like mine and maybe feels like he made a mistake not clarifying he’s not a “white ally”, as if being an ally against racism could be racialized. Maybe I’m just butthurt and reading too much into it. It just seems to me now after reading this that he feels the idea of white people suffering is silly or nbd.
That was a moving comment, btw.
I do not find John duplicitous. I detect that it is very hard to find the "right" point of view , and to do so consistently, when everything about race today is so FRAUGHT - somebody is going to disagree, object, even call you names, no matter what you say. And maybe you feel one way today, and you see another point of view tomorrow - especially if you yourself are mixed race, and/or your family is. I very happily give him a lot of slack, because whatever he writes, he makes me think.
Maybe duplicitous was a bit strong. I just think he needs to get out of his elite NY city Columbia Ivy League bubble a bit to broaden his perspective a bit.
You are one very brave soul! More power to you.
Honestly, I would ditch the word "Elect" entirely. Because that word puts the focus on a particular group of intellectuals, it will allow many to casually dismiss the book as an expression of petty bitterness and infighting.
The central theme - that these ideas are actually racist against Black people - is far more compelling. Better to find a title that focuses on that.
/$.02 from the peanut gallery.
Sowell called the same people, pre-"woke" era, The Anointed, in his book "The Vision of the Anointed". They are indeed self-anointed, and self-elected and despite the skin color of some of them, have little to do with me.
I do prefer that tag to Elect; it carries greater clarity.
I'm white and it actually had never occurred to me that neoracism would refer to black against white racism, which I agree is both more understandable and not central to the current debate. The white fragility, antiracist agenda has always struck me as offensively racist against nonwhites: the suggestions that Black people somehow can't pass tests, show up on time, or meet other social and intellectual standards, so we have to lower or take away those standards for them; that Black people are so exquisitely sensitive that their feelings have to be tiptoed around to a greater degree; and that they have so little agency that it is entirely up to white people to fix their lives/society for them (which is not to deny that whites have responsibility as well). Most of the Black people I know — and those of every other color — are a lot stronger, smarter and more ambitious than that.
How many Black adolescents have ever been taunted for being "schoolboy"? The implication being if one is not ghetto, one is a race-traitor. (Maybe a wimp into the bargain.) Isn't this exactly what the anti-racist agenda taunts by saying that teaching math to (or grading) Students of Color is inappropriate? It is popular to quote Audre Lorde: "the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house." But is this even true? I can take down a house with a standard set of carpentry tools. If I am forced to reinvent toolboxes just because the old ones are tainted by association, with what kind of tools will I be left? (And why even call them tools at all?) Thank goodness Thurgood Marshall did not think this way about the tools of logic in the practice of law, else we'd still have separate drinking fountains.
John addresses this phenomenon, statistically, anecdotally and from personal experience in his book "Losing the Race". While conceding the nasty thread of anti-intellectualism in white schools as well (one of the several characteristics that led to me being bullied for years in public schools). He notes, realistically, that it's even worse in predominantly black schools.
Yep, exactly. I'm white and I read neoracism as the twisted insistence that we undo our efforts for a colorblind society, and then double down on defining ourselves by the color of our skin. End of story.
I apologize, but I had to unsubscribe after the "racism is down" line.
This is an important conversation and one John needs to hear as much as the rest of us. We aren’t done learning.
I also largely disagree with Professor M on this point.
But I'd urge you not to tune out. You're not doing anyone any favors by running away from reasonable disagreement.
Oh but I'm totally confused by the new subtitle. I keep reading it and not understanding. I might just be dumb or uninformed, but would it be too much to ask for further explanation?