This column actually just made me realize that CRT is on to something important, and that systemic racism is a perfectly good term, that goes a long way toward explaining the disparate outcomes between Black and White Americans.
In the American system, as McWhorter points out, many Black children today (and probably even many of their parents) believe that academic achievement is a "white thing". They grew up in a system in which it is common to believe that academic achievement is not for Black people like me. It's not cool. And the results of this attitude are devastating for Black Americans, where academic success is a prerequisite for economic success. That seems to be an excellent example of how our system is creating deep disparities between Black and White household wealth. This attitude developed over generations because it wasn't common to see Black teachers, professors, engineers, doctors, scientists, lawyers, etc.
And as further evidence that this is part of the American system, Black children from immigrant households don't have this attitude toward academic achievement. They don't see it as a "white thing". Immigrant parents would find such thinking absurd. They find it absurd BECAUSE they didn't grow up in the American system. They don't have generations of history in the American system.
And this is why it's helpful to see disparate outcomes as being the result of systemic racism. Now we know the problem. And knowing the problem, maybe we can do something concrete to solve it. We can start working hard to change this part of our system. We can dispel this destructive idea among Black students that academic achievement is "a white thing".
Excellent piece of work and thank you for sharing your thoughts on this. I think it will be important to continue to highlight more granular evidence of factors that contribute to the disparities that are observed. One of the greatest challenges is that of human psychological factors. People tend to gravitate toward easier explanations and that is well documented. We must also contend with other factors such as confirmation bias, belief perseverance, and fundamental attribution errors which are common but often of less interest to people in general.
The casualties of the "rhetorical bludgeon" are nuance, context, and intention, and that's a big problem for teachers. The idea that a word is always hurtful, therefore taboo (or a topic. Or a writer who is also a criminal) is destructive. The loss of the sense that a word can be an epithet in one context and a weapon dismantling racism in another is tragic.
I could go on for many paragraphs, and the more I do, the more people stare in horror. The classroom used to be and should be a safe space, where students can read and learn about the past without a Victorian fainting couch. Experiencing Harriet Jacobs' or Maya Angelou's lives vicariously is what we should be doing, not apologizing for language or acts that may trigger the sensitive. I have lately been writing about the songs of my youth--Sly and the Family Stone, for instance, with their delightful, but alas now unprintable, lyrics. In the late sixties, legal battles were fought over the sexual language in the musical Hair. What's anybody doing with "Black Boys/White Boys" now? How about Mick Jagger's "Brown Sugar," which he wrote, I assume, when he was high, and which I persist in experiencing as his teenage sex fantasy, not some unconscious racist diatribe? His youthful mind was peppered with the colonialist past of his imperialist forbears but listen to the music. It's rollicking rock. The mood is parody. Play. If he'd written that song yesterday, I'd have a different opinion, because he'd be ignoring the horrors of the last two years. In 2019, the Chicago Tribune characterized the song as “a tune glorifying slavery, rape, torture and pedophilia.” I would bet my home and bank account that this is the very last thing Jagger intended. Intention does matter.
Hi Melissa! How funny to meet you here! Hope you’ve shared these thoughts with The Brearley, which is so caught up in this fad for bludgeons that it is no longer the safe place we knew but rather 10 stories of fainting couches 🥴😉 xo Sarah
Hi, Sarah! Great to hear from you! Yes, I fear many a private school is fainting couches. I sent a four-page single-spaced letter to Brearley and hope I will hear something.
Casteel’s hypothesis, research and conclusions correspond with my experience (I’m not suggesting a case study of one White woman is particularly scientifically relevant, but I’ll share it nonetheless...)
I graduated from high school in 1983 and was completed disengaged. I had a relatively comfortable life in middle class Ohio, a lot of friends, a lot of parties, and a lot of politics. I was horrified by our funding of the contras, Reagan’s campaign to make “liberal” a dirty word and to dumb us all down into fearful and reactionary widgets. My way of fighting back was to eschew and mock the education provided to me. The night before I took the ACT (or SAT - can’t remember), I was out until 5:00 a.m. and thus mostly used Phil Collins’ song as my guide to answering.
I took some time off between high school and college to explore America and who I was (I’ve realized over time that who I am is not a question worth pursuing as much as what can I do to bring more logic into play in myself), arguably a much better education than enrolling in whatever college would have taken me.
My parents were loving and detached in that 70s way. I was raised with benign neglect that unwittingly put a premium on self-reliance and independence, consequently I had no interest in pleasing my parents and few teachers inspired me. I think I graduated with barely a 2.0 average. My high school was integrated (Catholic and LeBron’s future alma mater) and my Black cohorts were much better students than I was.
I’m pretty sure it was because their parents were much more engaged in their education than mine were. Of course, my experience may have been different because I was White but I suspect the same factors were in play that Casteel hypothesized affected Black students.
The phenomena of black folk being burdened by the detriments of racism is referred to as "White Privilege". The language focuses on the relative advantage resulting to whites from the concrete phenomena of black people being mistreated or underserved, rather than what is probably more directly referred to as "POC Detriment". The language as used implies some magical boon to white people any time black folk suffer, a mystical zero sum game. We don't want anyone to suffer the detriments of racism. Further most people in America don't suffer these, being white. A state everyone deserves by default without having to satisfy any preliminary criteria and that most people enjoy is called a "privilege" only by utilizing the anchoring bias.
Is the redefinition of "racism" as "prejudice plus power" a natural linguistic progression? There is a push among the Elite to restrict "racism" to what might be called "Institutional Racism". This eliminates the proper use of the word "racism" from describing, e.g. what hate a putative black man might have toward a white person based off only skin color. It quacks, walks, and swims like a duck, but you cant call it such because we say so.
Immigrants, especially illegal immigrants, typically have less power than the native born. Often they can't vote. Some can't go to the cops to report crimes against them. They have less power than native born blacks and some believe black people to be inferior, even actively discouraging intermarriage. Even if they take violent action against black people because of their race, this isn't racism because white people are in charge.
So much of Elitism is just the language games of the Sophists all the way down.
I think a pretty easy study to do on the academic achievement question would be to ask students, of various backgrounds, "what is the lowest grade you are permitted to bring home on your report card before getting in trouble with your parents?" I imagine you are going to find a very strong correlation between academic success and parental expectations.
I know that I greatly resented my parents expecting me to earn all As. I was allowed to bring home one B+ before getting in trouble. A straight B, without the plus, was not allowed. Neither were two B+. One B+ meant I was not in trouble, per se, but my parents were also not happy or proud. As a child, this was a source of constant frustration and resentment, as it struck me as profoundly unfair that all my friends were allowed to bring home Bs and Cs without getting in trouble. In fact, I remember writing a self-pitying, overwrought five page letter to my mother in 8th grade or so, setting forth my grievances about the excessive pressure placed upon me and how unfair it was and how none of my friends' parents were like that.
The thing is, my parents had those expectations because they understood, correctly, that I was in fact capable of getting straight As and that if I didn't, it was because of lack of effort.
In the long-run, it paid off. I'm in a successful long-term career and now make more money that probably anyone I went to high school with. But I honestly did not begin to appreciate my parents pushing me in school until I was in my 30s and the dividends began to actually pay out in the form of a high salary based on long years of schooling. And I know for a fact that I absolutely would NOT have achieved academically to the same level, nor achieved the same financial success as an adult, without my parents pushing and pressuring me from ages 8 through 25. While I had some inherent intellectual talent and always liked to read and was nerdy, I had absolutely no inherent inclination to apply myself in school or study subjects I considered boring. I would've been perfectly content to be a total slacker who spent all my time reading for fun and earning Cs. I did it solely to escape the wrath and disappointment of my parents.
And no, I'm not Asian. ;) Though many of my Asian friends relate similar experiences with their parents. I imagine that if parents of any race imposed such standards, and withheld privileges and pride as a punishment for mediocre grades, you would see more achievement. On the other hand, there may be other values in life, I'm not saying the Tiger Mom model is suitable for everyone. In my case, I am happy I put in the effort that I didn't want to as a child, because of being required to by my parents, because it has made my adult life much easier and more pleasant and comfortable.
Thank you, Joe G. for sharing this link. A wonderfully encouraging article about a man who is lending his voice to help bring American citizens together against the toxic lies of those determined to see us divided.
Dr. Bauchman sounds like a man who has put God in His rightful place in His life. Thank God for voices like his and John McWhorter!🙏🏻🇺🇸
McWhorter hews to the strong thesis that the Elect is a religion -- really a religion, not just metaphorically. I myself have misgivings about functional definitions of religion: viz., if it walks like a religion, and quacks like a religion, it is a religion. The danger is affirming the consequent: if something is a religion, it is a system of fervent belief; Marxism is a system of fervent belief; therefore Marxism is a religion. (Even if it disavows gods -- or lacks some other salient properties of a religion.) That is not to say there might not be other grounds on which to think Marxism religion-like (the veneration of Lenin’s relic, Mao’s cult of personality, the sectarian hair-splitting of Trotskyism, etc.)
On the other hand, it is clear enough that the Elect does share some of the worst salient properties of religious thought: dogmatism, essentialism, Manichaeism, intolerance, wishful thinking, ostracism, banishment, evasion of falsification by mere empirical concerns, an insistence on Articles of Faith. Not to mention simple meanness. That is a weaker thesis; but to the same point.
These things are not settled science. Kendi’s “anti-racism” (which Jean-Paul Sartre in an earlier context dubbed “anti-racist racism”) has not perhaps gotten the push-back from social scientists and philosophers that it might have, but the 1619 project certainly has from American historians. And yet it is proposed that, by government action, these things become Articles of Faith.
This reminds me of Creationism. Creationists claim to have a scientific theory, an alternative to Darwinism; but they do not slug it out in the relevant academic disciplines. (And they never have.) Rather, in the 1980’s, they attempted to worm it into science teaching by legislative fiat -- as if it were settled science. (The courts, eventually, struck down this strategy.)
Isn’t the current proposal before the Department of Education very like Creationism -- in respect of using government action to bypass the production of knowledge by academic disciplines?
"Kendi’s insistence that “The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.” Also that “the New York Times' landmark ‘1619 Project’” should define the narrative of teaching US history."
Well, I am using "science" loosely. (Rather like a German, perhaps.) I guess I could put it this way: Evolution is settled. It won't do to come along and say, hey here's this alternative idea, it deserves equal time in the classroom -- unless one does really reopen the basic debate and start over from the 17th c. (No more than one might do with the heliocentric theory, or the theory of gravitation.) But if one were really serious about re-opening, the place to do that is within biology, not the legislature. Certainly we have seen no academic debate, in anthropology or philosophy or sociology that settles "anti-racism" or 1619 -- or even attempts to do so. At least Creationism had its innings in science (Darwin himself was, in a sense, the last Creationist); it just lost. For different reasons, the Elect ideology has not been subject to the same experience (except for little pockets of the Dark Intellectual Web; as we do here). It has not been seriously debated, just asserted. Shouted, really. Thus the Elect have even less of a leg on which to stand than did the Creationists (at least historically there had been a debate) when in the 1980's they demanded that relevant academic disciplines suddenly just be bypassed in order to install their Articles of Faith by plebiscite or fiat. (The NSF came out with a clear statement about Creationism; where can one find something similar from the organized academic disciplines with regard to KendiAngeloism? Someone's asleep at the wheel.)
That things evolve is an indisputable fact. The theory of evolution is not. The notion that evolution is driven by random mutation is based on a metaphysical claim. Dollars to donuts there is a huge paradigm shift just around the corner. And the high priests of the existing order (Naturalists and Materialists) will fight that change to the bitter end.
You've seen no debate on anti-racism because it's a contrived non-scientific hypothesis. When someone breaks into my home a demands that I turn over the family jewels there is no rational basis for debate. To debate is the lend legitimacy to a claim. And besides, how does one debate who asserts that your rhetorical challenges are proof of your racism (Kafka game) and who, in the first place, rejects sane notions of reason, evidence, etc.?
"Anti-racism" is to be exposed and resisted, not debated.
I agree that to debate a view is to lend it dignity, and sometimes this is not a good idea. Clearly you and I disagree about Darwinism; but, from my point of view, I would say it is as important to debate KenDiAngeloism as it is to debate Creationism. I know that NSF etc. had the same misgivings about that earlier debate that you do about the current one -- but the attention it was getting forced their hand. I think the former is doing the same thing today, and the same response becomes wise (whereas under other conditions it might be unwise).
I have not yet been subjected to a public debate about KenDiAngeloism, but in my school it is brewing and is only a matter of time. I intend to call that party out on basic logical fallacies: consistent use of ad hominem ("YOU're a racist!") not so much as a logical error, but as a complete way of life; treating any conceptual opposition as just psychopathological "denialism;" and so forth. They don't get a pass on argumentative consistency just because they style themselves beyond argument or criticism. They don't get to call "Eurocentrism" on the other side when they bandy about European Critical Theory.
To say there is no arguing with unreason is to give up too readily. (Against what else is reason supposed to contend?)
(BTW I mentioned the "Bob Marley definition of racism" because it is an important tool in parrying blanket ad hominem charges of "racism." The Marley definition says nothing about social positionality: a white person is not ipso facto racist, a BIPOC person is not ipso facto non-racist. Charges like that are not just matters of faith and say-so; like Forrest Gump's mama said about stupid, "racist is as racist does." Prove it.)
Much of the Neo Darwinism claim is not science. Neither are current reductionist claims about consciousness. Science will never be able to reduce mind and biology to matter, energy, and chemistry. But we can agree to disagree.
I'm not sure how familar you are with Post Modernism, but it's the epistemic source of CRT. Debating a proponent of CRT is not a matter of engaging someone who's logic is simply faulty. If that were the case a debate would be fine. In fact that's the purpose of debates; to expose errors in your opponent's facts and or reasoning. But in such cases both parties enter the debate agreeing that 2 plus 2 = 4, the law of non contradiction, etc . Both agree that if all men are mortals and Socrates is a man, Socrates is mortal.
In a debate with a proponent of CRT, you're going up against someone who believes that reason is a white construct establsihed exclusively to mainttain white power and someone who beleives that feelings, personal experiences, and group membership trumps all else. Stephen Hicks has some great stuff on YouTube regarding PM. He's written several great books on the subject matter as well. Before you go to war with your enemy make sure you study him closely and take full stock of the weapons in his arsenal. In my opinion, you lose the minute you agree to debate these fools. Exose and dismantle. That's the name of the game.
I don't know Stephen Hicks (will look into him; thx), but I do have some background with Critical Theory (I read Foucault before Foucault was cool) and recently I have read Pluckrose and Lindsay.
I would still maintain my view (about the wisdom of arguing) in the face of Critical Theory. But social movements tend to be differentiated -- often there is a "core" of true believers, surrounded by a "protective belt." I imagine lots of people who embrace the Elect faith are not particularly well-versed in CRT itself. That is, they are not all "core," and may just be parroting the slogans (e.g., "BIPOC people can't be racist because they're not oppressors," "BIPOC people don't benefit," etc. (I suspect, for instance, this is the situation on my campus.) Even if the core may have immunized itself against refutation (and again I'm not sure they really can -- I don't think even they really believe that 2 + 2 = 3; certainly not when it comes to their paychecks), it might still be possible to reason with the protective belt.
There may well be such a thing as "invincible ignorance." But we don't know until we try.
I think this piece gives an unfair characterization of what a believer in "systemic racism" would point to as a solution. If present inequalities are a product of past POLICIES (whether fuelled by explicit bigotry or not) then at least part of the solution is to use POLICY as a tool to undo those effects in the present. E.g. change the laws that fund public schools from local property taxes. Part of what McWorther argues here is that changing POLICY might not be enough, if cultural norms (like "school is white") are also part of what what explains inequalities. But a believer in systemic racism need not disagree with him on this point.
And where does that end? Shall we prohibit the rich and middle class from sending their kids to private schools and spending their money on tutors and whatnot?
There should be basic standards for all schools in terms of performance and resources provided. Give the schools what they need. No school in America should be left without the tools required for kids to learn. Period. Amen. Once you start telling communities what they can and can not do with their hard earned money, after you've taxed the crap out of them, you're entering into dangerous territory.
And excuse me for saying that I think you're a little naive about the policies being pushed by the left to achieve "equity". Those with the most powerful voices on this issue seek to lift those in need (read "persons of color") by discriminating against those who are supposedly "privliged" (read "white"). There is no conspiracy theory here. For example, Ibrim Kendi has proclaimed:
“The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination"
This same individual is advocating for a 4th branch of govt. charged with enforcing racial equity in all American institutions, with power beyond that of our existing branches of govt.
Coupled with the CRT theory currently being pushed in our schools, where Mr. Kendi is mandatory reading, the left has declared all out war on our nation. Our gates have been penterated. Trojan horses are strategically positioned. The revolution is underway. The only question is whether the masses of Americans who have fallen for woke culture reawaken and face the fact that they've been played for the fools they are and those who have not been paying attention open their eyes and fight back.
John, Glenn, Chris Rufo, Paul Rossi and emerging others are leading the charge. They'll need soldiers like us to fight the fight.
It's not on the level of policy. It's on the level of principle. You don't address discrimination of with current discrimination. You don't elevate one by sinking the other.
Now that's changing the subject. The charge from McW was that the person who claims there is structural racism has nothing coherent to say about how to solve it. My point is that this is false: that person is typically advocating policy proposals.
the worst thing about systematic racism and white fragility and being anti-racist is that it is incredibly self-involved in terms of focusing on a person's status (do you identify as anti-racist?), how they present themselves, and how they are perceived and whether they say or confess the right things, and has damn little to do with whether people are actually taking intelligent actions to do anything about any situation that could stand to be improved.
It's a rhetorical tool right out of 1984. It's designed to stifle resistence and sert the table for a complete remake of our institutions...a remake that will destry the country.
John, there is one problem with your reasoning - segregated schools were confined to the Southern and a handful of Midwestern states (namely, Kansas.) Exposure to "racist" teachers would have been confined to those regions, but that's not where today's problems lie. They lie in predominantly black neighborhoods in Northern cities from St. Louis northward. That should lead to the conclusion that the problems are actually cultural, with young blacks being taught through the media and peer pressure that "the man" is bad and they shouldn't try to conform to "white society." The reality is that blacks have done far better in integrated situations. This is born out by the experiences of colored units in the armed forces in World War II. The so-called "Tuskegee Airmen," the 99th Fighter Squadron, performed better when they were attached to "white" units and fought alongside their white peers. Incidentally, the Armed Forces have been integrated since 1947 when the Air Force was the first to integrate and young blacks have been trained in highly technical fields. (Granted, there was/is a predominence of blacks in less-technical fields.) A good example is actor Morgan Freeman who, even though he was from the poorest state in the union, excelled as an Air Force radar technician and even achieved the grade of E-4 at a time when few first-termers advanced beyond E-3. If you want to see an end to "racism", blacks as a whole need to advance beyond the barbershop and basketball court mentality.
Your argument is factually wrong. School segregation was widespread in the U.S., not just in the South and Midwest. The only difference was that many other jurisdictions had de facto segregation rather than de jure, but it was equally complete. When forced desegregation was ordered, violent white responses were seen in many states outside the South and Midwest, such as California, Michigan, Maryland, and Massachusetts. Indeed, some of the most violent anti-busing riots took place in Boston in the mid 1970s. So clearly bigoted responses to desegregation were not as regionally limited as you seem to think.
Being in a foul mood, I wanted something meaner. But I got caught up in the piece and have to say I found it very convincing. I'm curious what objections a person could have.
BTW, I listen to everything I can find with you and/or Glenn, and I wanted to say your recent appearance on Megyn Kelly was especially interesting.
Sadly, I think "systemic racism" is going to be the most pernicious self-fulfilling prophesy of all time. Anyone who thinks that every idea, principal, or discipline dreamed up by Europeans is either wrong or invalid and should be eschewed is putting some fairly egregious limits on themselves both culturally and intellectually. They're also being fantastically racist.
The term "going haole" conveys the same attitude, except it is used by Hawaiian students against their fellows that excel in school. Whether the previous circumstances in Hawaii half-century ago are similar to what McWhorter describes in black schools, I cannot say. It's just an interesting phenomena to observe.
As an immigrant kid who spent part of my education at boarding school and the other half in public school I find the study on attitudes towards school and for whom does the student do the work to be quite fascinating, because my first impulse would lean towards "for my parents", but in hindsight that doesn't necessarily feel quite right, because at boarding school my parents certainly weren't anywhere near to put any actual pressure beyond the whole shame-based culture thing that worked less and less as one got older, and at public school - and I really have no idea what the stereotype for immigrant families even look like from non-immigrants - in practice me and almost all my (mostly Asian, frequently immigrant as well) friends came from fragmented backgrounds, largely in single parent but middle class households, some with one or both parents literally across the ocean, so while the whole 'tiger mom' concept is certainly well-known, the actual pressure was more paper tiger than real. The one thing almost everyone in high school did was getting sent to cram school after school to cram for standardized tests, but more often than not by Freshman or Sophomore year one would either have done well enough to get a decent score and never have to deal with it ever again, or have found some underhanded way to delegate that to someone else for a small amount of cash or even sometimes swapping places if you both had deficiencies in a particular SAT II subject, for example. But at the same time it's pretty unimaginable to sincerely consider doing any schoolwork for the teacher's sake, even though we had our favorites, as we had no illusions that their job actually depended on which college we got into or even how many kids passed the class. Infamously we even had an AP course where at a school where nearly all students taking AP courses passed the test, exactly 0 passed this one, with little actual consequence for anyone involved. With the glass ceiling firmly in place for most of us when it comes to elite private universities and a rapidly rising one for elite public universities I opted for a liberal arts education, which was the outlier amongst my social circles, where I actually learned to strive for my own sake, but prior to that there was a pretty distinct gap between expectation and reality in terms of 'achievement', whatever that word really meant. We did usual teenage things like throw parties that occasionally attracted noise complaints, skipped some classes but not others and got senioritis, awkwardly dated and some relationships even lasted, but for the most part our only frame of reference in terms of what we were supposed to do is both nebulous and felt utterly immutable, and there really was a sense of inevitability to things that nobody could really articulate when it comes to expectations.
I had very little real conceptual understanding, however, of 'the system', so to speak, in a present-day sense, until about a decade later, when I got my first externship at the county public defender's office (a liberal arts education can be a wild ride but as a student of history with a focus on Subaltern Studies in the SE Asian colonial resistance context I more or less graduated with a degree in Agrarian Anarchist Theory, and it felt like the only fitting place to start a resistance movement against the state). What really became apparent was that even though through textbook case studies and field work I had a notion of what an immutable, high modernist, and oppressive institutional state may look like, in reality the sort of obstacles being thrown, almost always with a great degree of arbitrariness and frequently in plainly kafkaesque and capricious ways, represent less an active sort of focused oppression but more the simple fact that out of no fault of one's own there could suddenly be entirely pointless displays of state power being targeted at you but with the hallmark of it being how many hoops you have to jump through out of the blue with consequences that are entirely unreasonably severe and at the same time, nearly impossible to adequately explain and contextualize without experiencing it first hand. In some sense the concept of 'scared straight' actually works, but in almost every case the system lacked the flexibility to allow for that particular lesson to actually take hold before the Rube Goldberg machine of coercive plea bargaining and the carceral industrial complex more or less delivered those unfortunate enough to be caught up in it to what is also a sort of inevitability, except with almost unimaginably severe collateral consequences that the younger the client, the less they are able to contextualize. I went to law school in an area where the actual minority population was truly small - hovering around 10% for the county in terms of non-white population, so that sort of systemic threat was not always one that existed in clear racial terms, but it existed nonetheless in real terms, and in terms that I, and my friends and cohorts, were effectively never exposed to. That really became how I understood the 'systemic' nature any sort of oppressive and officially sanctioned institutional coercion, a sort of Sword of Damocles that hung over the heads of really whoever happened to be on the lowest rung of the local totem pole, and I also realized that if I had to in some way consider the possibility of this ever-present but unknown spectre of arbitrary state power being used on me for frequently the sort of every day transgressions kids get into and sometimes entirely made-up rationales, I probably would have become jaded far earlier in life and had far fewer reasons to even jump through the expectational hoops that felt inevitable. The racism in 'systemic racism' represented a proxy that the American legal system have resorted to in a sort of shorthand to direct this arbitrary coercive power on, but really it's a systemic sort of oppression that, with state power and acting under the color of law, is arbitrary, coercive, and serves no actual legitimate purpose when it comes to the ends it purports to serve. Crime, after all, are constructed legal fictions that frequently have little relationship to what the words in common parlance actually mean. Burglary in my jurisdiction meant 'any felony' + 'any trespass', for example, with no element of theft or even an actual break-in required, although the police tended to focus on victimless crimes anyway as they were simply more convenient to get through the process, and to this day I still see virtually no point of except as a proxy for a job program that happens to also punish some randomly chosen member of society that hopefully few would shed a tear over.
And of course this is beyond the educational context that you are writing about here, but I've since understood the notion in terms that emphasize on the 'systemic' element of it, particularly as to how without active participation the system as it exists is already suitable to only create disincentives to engage and participate in a society that, in the 'mainstream', seems to be entirely focused on putting up appearances regardless of who gets harmed, and tons of people are harmed, and a disproportionate number of them are racial or ethnic minorities , and in many cases the defendants skew young. Not having to be exposed to this whole frankly ludicrous arrangement our society have found ourselves in, that's the real advantage, I think.
But there is a current, ongoing, active "systemic racism" problem with schools: the "system" is the monopoly that teacher's unions hold over public education combined with the legality of restricting attendance by residence and the "racism" can be found in the near 100% certainty that the low-performing, dysfunctional schools controlled by teacher's unions to which black students are legally restricted would have long ago been shut down if those restrictions didn't allow white students to entirely avoid them.
Yeah, when I think of people who have too much power in American society, I think “teachers” and “unions”. My kid goes to the one “black” school in my city, the one that is consistently underfunded and denigrated, the one with the lowest overall level of achievement, but there’s a solid cohort of Asian and white kids that are the highest scoring kids in the city. Their mock trial and academic decathlon teams are always #1 or #2 of the 6 high schools, and do well regionally. They have the same teachers as all the other kids in the school. The difference? It’s not what they’re given, it’s what they walk in with. It’s attitude. It’s what happens at home. Parents, and their expectations, seem to have a much bigger influence on outcomes than the Teachers Union. Plus, the teachers are 100% on the kids side. It’s the School Board, and the administrators that put my kid’s school last on the list for funding, etc. They’re all white political wannabes, looking to please their rich GOP donors. You know, the people who constantly attack the idea of unions, and decent pay for teachers.
Somewhat valid points. School achievement is largely determined by factors outside the control the schools themselves, of that I would wholeheartedly agree. If you're saying that the answer to the problem of low achievement by black students in the educational system is to tell black students and their parents to take educational achievement more seriously, well, I would agree. But if the question is what can we do in the way of public policy to support better outcomes for black students, then there are another set of questions to be asked and answered. One of the answers to that question has been to introduce more parental choice and competition between schools for dollars that flow with the student into the system. Although the jury is still out, and the preliminary evidence is still mixed, if one just takes the demand for charter schools and vouchers as a good "market" indicator of the desirability of choice and competition in the system, then it's clearly desired in nearly every case where it's been offered, with demand far outstripping supply. So what's stopping the "supply" being expanded to meet that demand, and a solid experiment run to see whether choice and competition improve outcomes? It's certainly not the parents or students, who clearly demand it. It's not the voters, who by poll numbers support it on a bipartisan basis. It's teacher's unions, who wield sufficient power via the Democratic Party in the key decision-making bodies that stand in the way of letting it happen.
I’m sure public schools would have better numbers if they could pick their students, offload kids that develop problems (or that need IEPs, or are ESL kids, etc) onto the other schools the way charter schools do. Charter schools cherry-pick, so I would argue that their numbers should look way better than they do. The studies that have been done are not very useful… a lot of a priori reasoning being thrown around. Certainly, people who believe markets solve everything, and that the Democratic Party is inherently evil, tend to strongly support the charter school approach. I work in the court system here in California, and we’ve seen numerous charter schools founded and run by charlatans and megalomaniacs. I’m not saying that they’re inherently bad, but they aren’t a slam dunk solution by any means. I also see public schools as microcosms of the wider society, and I support engagement over abandonment when societal problems arise. A form of romanticism, I suppose, but that’s how I feel. I feel like the charter school is analogous to the gated community. It makes my nose wrinkle. I don’t like quitters, but I understand the impulse. I want my kid to thrive while he’s mixed into a heterogeneous society. There’s more to life than numbers. That’s just me though. I understand that I’m an outlier
If you work in California and are familiar with charter schools than you would know that they are not allowed to choose their students by anything other than lotteries, "cherry-picking" is not allowed. Of course, there are bad actors in the charter school space as there are in any human endeavor, which is why open competition with the funds following the students becomes so important, having ways to weed out those bad actors rather than these bureaucracies and monopolies that protect them for decades.
I have my kid in a public school, I'm glad to do so, but I can also afford to live by a great public school. If that were not the case, and the schools to which my son was legally restricted were low performing and/or completely dysfunctional, I would have a big issue with that. Eliminating residence-based restrictions in public school attendance does not mean abandoning public schools; in fact, I would strongly expect that the more affluent and educated classes would be far more engaged with what's going on with the lower performing schools, as they would no longer be insulated from them by virture of their address.
Families in our school district can usually choose which public school they attend. The teachers lobbied hard in favor of that, and the school board resisted it for years. It works well, mostly.
Of course you’re correct: charter schools in CA don’t pick the kids that enroll, but they do aggressively pick the kids they expel. Our local public STEM magnet school has very high average numbers, but also ejects about 25% of the new students every year (including almost every kid that needs an IEP). They bury the kids in mountains of busy work for the first quarter, and then start pruning. They find excuses, like cops pulling over young people in fancy cars for not having a light on their license plate. They find ways.
Its complicated. I wish I knew the answer that would allow every kid to thrive in a population as diverse as the wider society. I appreciate you sharing your opinions. Thanks.
Yes, our district has the same thing, but ironically, every parent that I've spoken to tried as hard as possible to get into the school closest to their home, with some having to work waiting lists for months and occasionally even years in order to do so. But that may be because the choice program made the district focus on equalizing the attractiveness of each school, so there are very little differences in ratings, offerings, facilities, scores, between the schools in our district.
I zero problem with a model that would force schools to accept all comers but then also quickly expel those who don't fit. There are two competing priorities: better opportunities for kids at the upper end of low performing schools, and not losing those at the bottom to "the streets". It's basically impossible as you get further up in the process for one school to do both things, they cannot simultaneously prepare kids for Harvard/MIT and at the same time make sure that "nobody is left behind". So they should be allowed to sift, and certain schools should be oriented towards preparing kids for Harvard/MIT, others should just be trying to disrupt the "school-to-prison" pipeline.
Far from perfect, you're right, but it's the only way. Keep in mind, every kid that has real potential that could've gone to Harvard/MIT that didn't is a loss not only for that kid and their family, community, etc., but other countries that are competing with us starting but by no means ending with China are tracking kids at age 5, and they're preparing their kids to invent the technologies that will determine who gets to control the future.
This column actually just made me realize that CRT is on to something important, and that systemic racism is a perfectly good term, that goes a long way toward explaining the disparate outcomes between Black and White Americans.
In the American system, as McWhorter points out, many Black children today (and probably even many of their parents) believe that academic achievement is a "white thing". They grew up in a system in which it is common to believe that academic achievement is not for Black people like me. It's not cool. And the results of this attitude are devastating for Black Americans, where academic success is a prerequisite for economic success. That seems to be an excellent example of how our system is creating deep disparities between Black and White household wealth. This attitude developed over generations because it wasn't common to see Black teachers, professors, engineers, doctors, scientists, lawyers, etc.
And as further evidence that this is part of the American system, Black children from immigrant households don't have this attitude toward academic achievement. They don't see it as a "white thing". Immigrant parents would find such thinking absurd. They find it absurd BECAUSE they didn't grow up in the American system. They don't have generations of history in the American system.
And this is why it's helpful to see disparate outcomes as being the result of systemic racism. Now we know the problem. And knowing the problem, maybe we can do something concrete to solve it. We can start working hard to change this part of our system. We can dispel this destructive idea among Black students that academic achievement is "a white thing".
Where am I wrong?
Excellent piece of work and thank you for sharing your thoughts on this. I think it will be important to continue to highlight more granular evidence of factors that contribute to the disparities that are observed. One of the greatest challenges is that of human psychological factors. People tend to gravitate toward easier explanations and that is well documented. We must also contend with other factors such as confirmation bias, belief perseverance, and fundamental attribution errors which are common but often of less interest to people in general.
The casualties of the "rhetorical bludgeon" are nuance, context, and intention, and that's a big problem for teachers. The idea that a word is always hurtful, therefore taboo (or a topic. Or a writer who is also a criminal) is destructive. The loss of the sense that a word can be an epithet in one context and a weapon dismantling racism in another is tragic.
I could go on for many paragraphs, and the more I do, the more people stare in horror. The classroom used to be and should be a safe space, where students can read and learn about the past without a Victorian fainting couch. Experiencing Harriet Jacobs' or Maya Angelou's lives vicariously is what we should be doing, not apologizing for language or acts that may trigger the sensitive. I have lately been writing about the songs of my youth--Sly and the Family Stone, for instance, with their delightful, but alas now unprintable, lyrics. In the late sixties, legal battles were fought over the sexual language in the musical Hair. What's anybody doing with "Black Boys/White Boys" now? How about Mick Jagger's "Brown Sugar," which he wrote, I assume, when he was high, and which I persist in experiencing as his teenage sex fantasy, not some unconscious racist diatribe? His youthful mind was peppered with the colonialist past of his imperialist forbears but listen to the music. It's rollicking rock. The mood is parody. Play. If he'd written that song yesterday, I'd have a different opinion, because he'd be ignoring the horrors of the last two years. In 2019, the Chicago Tribune characterized the song as “a tune glorifying slavery, rape, torture and pedophilia.” I would bet my home and bank account that this is the very last thing Jagger intended. Intention does matter.
Hi Melissa! How funny to meet you here! Hope you’ve shared these thoughts with The Brearley, which is so caught up in this fad for bludgeons that it is no longer the safe place we knew but rather 10 stories of fainting couches 🥴😉 xo Sarah
Hi, Sarah! Great to hear from you! Yes, I fear many a private school is fainting couches. I sent a four-page single-spaced letter to Brearley and hope I will hear something.
Casteel’s hypothesis, research and conclusions correspond with my experience (I’m not suggesting a case study of one White woman is particularly scientifically relevant, but I’ll share it nonetheless...)
I graduated from high school in 1983 and was completed disengaged. I had a relatively comfortable life in middle class Ohio, a lot of friends, a lot of parties, and a lot of politics. I was horrified by our funding of the contras, Reagan’s campaign to make “liberal” a dirty word and to dumb us all down into fearful and reactionary widgets. My way of fighting back was to eschew and mock the education provided to me. The night before I took the ACT (or SAT - can’t remember), I was out until 5:00 a.m. and thus mostly used Phil Collins’ song as my guide to answering.
I took some time off between high school and college to explore America and who I was (I’ve realized over time that who I am is not a question worth pursuing as much as what can I do to bring more logic into play in myself), arguably a much better education than enrolling in whatever college would have taken me.
My parents were loving and detached in that 70s way. I was raised with benign neglect that unwittingly put a premium on self-reliance and independence, consequently I had no interest in pleasing my parents and few teachers inspired me. I think I graduated with barely a 2.0 average. My high school was integrated (Catholic and LeBron’s future alma mater) and my Black cohorts were much better students than I was.
I’m pretty sure it was because their parents were much more engaged in their education than mine were. Of course, my experience may have been different because I was White but I suspect the same factors were in play that Casteel hypothesized affected Black students.
The Elite has a troublesome way with words.
The phenomena of black folk being burdened by the detriments of racism is referred to as "White Privilege". The language focuses on the relative advantage resulting to whites from the concrete phenomena of black people being mistreated or underserved, rather than what is probably more directly referred to as "POC Detriment". The language as used implies some magical boon to white people any time black folk suffer, a mystical zero sum game. We don't want anyone to suffer the detriments of racism. Further most people in America don't suffer these, being white. A state everyone deserves by default without having to satisfy any preliminary criteria and that most people enjoy is called a "privilege" only by utilizing the anchoring bias.
Is the redefinition of "racism" as "prejudice plus power" a natural linguistic progression? There is a push among the Elite to restrict "racism" to what might be called "Institutional Racism". This eliminates the proper use of the word "racism" from describing, e.g. what hate a putative black man might have toward a white person based off only skin color. It quacks, walks, and swims like a duck, but you cant call it such because we say so.
Immigrants, especially illegal immigrants, typically have less power than the native born. Often they can't vote. Some can't go to the cops to report crimes against them. They have less power than native born blacks and some believe black people to be inferior, even actively discouraging intermarriage. Even if they take violent action against black people because of their race, this isn't racism because white people are in charge.
So much of Elitism is just the language games of the Sophists all the way down.
I think a pretty easy study to do on the academic achievement question would be to ask students, of various backgrounds, "what is the lowest grade you are permitted to bring home on your report card before getting in trouble with your parents?" I imagine you are going to find a very strong correlation between academic success and parental expectations.
I know that I greatly resented my parents expecting me to earn all As. I was allowed to bring home one B+ before getting in trouble. A straight B, without the plus, was not allowed. Neither were two B+. One B+ meant I was not in trouble, per se, but my parents were also not happy or proud. As a child, this was a source of constant frustration and resentment, as it struck me as profoundly unfair that all my friends were allowed to bring home Bs and Cs without getting in trouble. In fact, I remember writing a self-pitying, overwrought five page letter to my mother in 8th grade or so, setting forth my grievances about the excessive pressure placed upon me and how unfair it was and how none of my friends' parents were like that.
The thing is, my parents had those expectations because they understood, correctly, that I was in fact capable of getting straight As and that if I didn't, it was because of lack of effort.
In the long-run, it paid off. I'm in a successful long-term career and now make more money that probably anyone I went to high school with. But I honestly did not begin to appreciate my parents pushing me in school until I was in my 30s and the dividends began to actually pay out in the form of a high salary based on long years of schooling. And I know for a fact that I absolutely would NOT have achieved academically to the same level, nor achieved the same financial success as an adult, without my parents pushing and pressuring me from ages 8 through 25. While I had some inherent intellectual talent and always liked to read and was nerdy, I had absolutely no inherent inclination to apply myself in school or study subjects I considered boring. I would've been perfectly content to be a total slacker who spent all my time reading for fun and earning Cs. I did it solely to escape the wrath and disappointment of my parents.
And no, I'm not Asian. ;) Though many of my Asian friends relate similar experiences with their parents. I imagine that if parents of any race imposed such standards, and withheld privileges and pride as a punishment for mediocre grades, you would see more achievement. On the other hand, there may be other values in life, I'm not saying the Tiger Mom model is suitable for everyone. In my case, I am happy I put in the effort that I didn't want to as a child, because of being required to by my parents, because it has made my adult life much easier and more pleasant and comfortable.
Tremendous opinion piece in today's NYP. Short but powerful.
https://nypost.com/2021/05/15/why-antiracism-zealots-try-to-silence-black-voices-like-mine/
Thank you, Joe G. for sharing this link. A wonderfully encouraging article about a man who is lending his voice to help bring American citizens together against the toxic lies of those determined to see us divided.
Dr. Bauchman sounds like a man who has put God in His rightful place in His life. Thank God for voices like his and John McWhorter!🙏🏻🇺🇸
Is anti-racism the new Creationism?
McWhorter hews to the strong thesis that the Elect is a religion -- really a religion, not just metaphorically. I myself have misgivings about functional definitions of religion: viz., if it walks like a religion, and quacks like a religion, it is a religion. The danger is affirming the consequent: if something is a religion, it is a system of fervent belief; Marxism is a system of fervent belief; therefore Marxism is a religion. (Even if it disavows gods -- or lacks some other salient properties of a religion.) That is not to say there might not be other grounds on which to think Marxism religion-like (the veneration of Lenin’s relic, Mao’s cult of personality, the sectarian hair-splitting of Trotskyism, etc.)
On the other hand, it is clear enough that the Elect does share some of the worst salient properties of religious thought: dogmatism, essentialism, Manichaeism, intolerance, wishful thinking, ostracism, banishment, evasion of falsification by mere empirical concerns, an insistence on Articles of Faith. Not to mention simple meanness. That is a weaker thesis; but to the same point.
Currently the federal Department of Education is considering the promulgation of several priorities for public schools, drawn from Critical Race Theory: to wit, Kendi’s insistence that “The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.” Also that “the New York Times' landmark ‘1619 Project’” should define the narrative of teaching US history. (Information is at https://www.fairforall.org/department-of-education-proposal/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=9c5070eb-5c6d-45b8-9df2-52606f9340f9&eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=9c5070eb-5c6d-45b8-9df2-52606f9340f9 )
These things are not settled science. Kendi’s “anti-racism” (which Jean-Paul Sartre in an earlier context dubbed “anti-racist racism”) has not perhaps gotten the push-back from social scientists and philosophers that it might have, but the 1619 project certainly has from American historians. And yet it is proposed that, by government action, these things become Articles of Faith.
This reminds me of Creationism. Creationists claim to have a scientific theory, an alternative to Darwinism; but they do not slug it out in the relevant academic disciplines. (And they never have.) Rather, in the 1980’s, they attempted to worm it into science teaching by legislative fiat -- as if it were settled science. (The courts, eventually, struck down this strategy.)
Isn’t the current proposal before the Department of Education very like Creationism -- in respect of using government action to bypass the production of knowledge by academic disciplines?
"Kendi’s insistence that “The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.” Also that “the New York Times' landmark ‘1619 Project’” should define the narrative of teaching US history."
Sure sounds alot like Transubstantiation to me.
"These things are not settled science."
In what way are they science at all?
Well, I am using "science" loosely. (Rather like a German, perhaps.) I guess I could put it this way: Evolution is settled. It won't do to come along and say, hey here's this alternative idea, it deserves equal time in the classroom -- unless one does really reopen the basic debate and start over from the 17th c. (No more than one might do with the heliocentric theory, or the theory of gravitation.) But if one were really serious about re-opening, the place to do that is within biology, not the legislature. Certainly we have seen no academic debate, in anthropology or philosophy or sociology that settles "anti-racism" or 1619 -- or even attempts to do so. At least Creationism had its innings in science (Darwin himself was, in a sense, the last Creationist); it just lost. For different reasons, the Elect ideology has not been subject to the same experience (except for little pockets of the Dark Intellectual Web; as we do here). It has not been seriously debated, just asserted. Shouted, really. Thus the Elect have even less of a leg on which to stand than did the Creationists (at least historically there had been a debate) when in the 1980's they demanded that relevant academic disciplines suddenly just be bypassed in order to install their Articles of Faith by plebiscite or fiat. (The NSF came out with a clear statement about Creationism; where can one find something similar from the organized academic disciplines with regard to KendiAngeloism? Someone's asleep at the wheel.)
That things evolve is an indisputable fact. The theory of evolution is not. The notion that evolution is driven by random mutation is based on a metaphysical claim. Dollars to donuts there is a huge paradigm shift just around the corner. And the high priests of the existing order (Naturalists and Materialists) will fight that change to the bitter end.
You've seen no debate on anti-racism because it's a contrived non-scientific hypothesis. When someone breaks into my home a demands that I turn over the family jewels there is no rational basis for debate. To debate is the lend legitimacy to a claim. And besides, how does one debate who asserts that your rhetorical challenges are proof of your racism (Kafka game) and who, in the first place, rejects sane notions of reason, evidence, etc.?
"Anti-racism" is to be exposed and resisted, not debated.
I agree that to debate a view is to lend it dignity, and sometimes this is not a good idea. Clearly you and I disagree about Darwinism; but, from my point of view, I would say it is as important to debate KenDiAngeloism as it is to debate Creationism. I know that NSF etc. had the same misgivings about that earlier debate that you do about the current one -- but the attention it was getting forced their hand. I think the former is doing the same thing today, and the same response becomes wise (whereas under other conditions it might be unwise).
I have not yet been subjected to a public debate about KenDiAngeloism, but in my school it is brewing and is only a matter of time. I intend to call that party out on basic logical fallacies: consistent use of ad hominem ("YOU're a racist!") not so much as a logical error, but as a complete way of life; treating any conceptual opposition as just psychopathological "denialism;" and so forth. They don't get a pass on argumentative consistency just because they style themselves beyond argument or criticism. They don't get to call "Eurocentrism" on the other side when they bandy about European Critical Theory.
To say there is no arguing with unreason is to give up too readily. (Against what else is reason supposed to contend?)
(BTW I mentioned the "Bob Marley definition of racism" because it is an important tool in parrying blanket ad hominem charges of "racism." The Marley definition says nothing about social positionality: a white person is not ipso facto racist, a BIPOC person is not ipso facto non-racist. Charges like that are not just matters of faith and say-so; like Forrest Gump's mama said about stupid, "racist is as racist does." Prove it.)
Just looked at your profile....I see you taught Philo. So you get it. We just disagree about the worthiness of debate in this instance.
Much of the Neo Darwinism claim is not science. Neither are current reductionist claims about consciousness. Science will never be able to reduce mind and biology to matter, energy, and chemistry. But we can agree to disagree.
I'm not sure how familar you are with Post Modernism, but it's the epistemic source of CRT. Debating a proponent of CRT is not a matter of engaging someone who's logic is simply faulty. If that were the case a debate would be fine. In fact that's the purpose of debates; to expose errors in your opponent's facts and or reasoning. But in such cases both parties enter the debate agreeing that 2 plus 2 = 4, the law of non contradiction, etc . Both agree that if all men are mortals and Socrates is a man, Socrates is mortal.
In a debate with a proponent of CRT, you're going up against someone who believes that reason is a white construct establsihed exclusively to mainttain white power and someone who beleives that feelings, personal experiences, and group membership trumps all else. Stephen Hicks has some great stuff on YouTube regarding PM. He's written several great books on the subject matter as well. Before you go to war with your enemy make sure you study him closely and take full stock of the weapons in his arsenal. In my opinion, you lose the minute you agree to debate these fools. Exose and dismantle. That's the name of the game.
I don't know Stephen Hicks (will look into him; thx), but I do have some background with Critical Theory (I read Foucault before Foucault was cool) and recently I have read Pluckrose and Lindsay.
I would still maintain my view (about the wisdom of arguing) in the face of Critical Theory. But social movements tend to be differentiated -- often there is a "core" of true believers, surrounded by a "protective belt." I imagine lots of people who embrace the Elect faith are not particularly well-versed in CRT itself. That is, they are not all "core," and may just be parroting the slogans (e.g., "BIPOC people can't be racist because they're not oppressors," "BIPOC people don't benefit," etc. (I suspect, for instance, this is the situation on my campus.) Even if the core may have immunized itself against refutation (and again I'm not sure they really can -- I don't think even they really believe that 2 + 2 = 3; certainly not when it comes to their paychecks), it might still be possible to reason with the protective belt.
There may well be such a thing as "invincible ignorance." But we don't know until we try.
I think this piece gives an unfair characterization of what a believer in "systemic racism" would point to as a solution. If present inequalities are a product of past POLICIES (whether fuelled by explicit bigotry or not) then at least part of the solution is to use POLICY as a tool to undo those effects in the present. E.g. change the laws that fund public schools from local property taxes. Part of what McWorther argues here is that changing POLICY might not be enough, if cultural norms (like "school is white") are also part of what what explains inequalities. But a believer in systemic racism need not disagree with him on this point.
And where does that end? Shall we prohibit the rich and middle class from sending their kids to private schools and spending their money on tutors and whatnot?
There should be basic standards for all schools in terms of performance and resources provided. Give the schools what they need. No school in America should be left without the tools required for kids to learn. Period. Amen. Once you start telling communities what they can and can not do with their hard earned money, after you've taxed the crap out of them, you're entering into dangerous territory.
And excuse me for saying that I think you're a little naive about the policies being pushed by the left to achieve "equity". Those with the most powerful voices on this issue seek to lift those in need (read "persons of color") by discriminating against those who are supposedly "privliged" (read "white"). There is no conspiracy theory here. For example, Ibrim Kendi has proclaimed:
“The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination"
This same individual is advocating for a 4th branch of govt. charged with enforcing racial equity in all American institutions, with power beyond that of our existing branches of govt.
Coupled with the CRT theory currently being pushed in our schools, where Mr. Kendi is mandatory reading, the left has declared all out war on our nation. Our gates have been penterated. Trojan horses are strategically positioned. The revolution is underway. The only question is whether the masses of Americans who have fallen for woke culture reawaken and face the fact that they've been played for the fools they are and those who have not been paying attention open their eyes and fight back.
John, Glenn, Chris Rufo, Paul Rossi and emerging others are leading the charge. They'll need soldiers like us to fight the fight.
Amen❗️
This shows that the disagreement is on the level of policy, which was my main point.
It's not on the level of policy. It's on the level of principle. You don't address discrimination of with current discrimination. You don't elevate one by sinking the other.
...dsicrimination of the past with current/future discrimination....
Now that's changing the subject. The charge from McW was that the person who claims there is structural racism has nothing coherent to say about how to solve it. My point is that this is false: that person is typically advocating policy proposals.
"The charge from McW was that the person who claims there is structural racism has nothing coherent to say about how to solve it"
That's because it (SR) does not exist.
I see, reading earlier comments, that TerryM made essentially the same point. Sorry not to have seen that, Terry.
the worst thing about systematic racism and white fragility and being anti-racist is that it is incredibly self-involved in terms of focusing on a person's status (do you identify as anti-racist?), how they present themselves, and how they are perceived and whether they say or confess the right things, and has damn little to do with whether people are actually taking intelligent actions to do anything about any situation that could stand to be improved.
It's a rhetorical tool right out of 1984. It's designed to stifle resistence and sert the table for a complete remake of our institutions...a remake that will destry the country.
John, there is one problem with your reasoning - segregated schools were confined to the Southern and a handful of Midwestern states (namely, Kansas.) Exposure to "racist" teachers would have been confined to those regions, but that's not where today's problems lie. They lie in predominantly black neighborhoods in Northern cities from St. Louis northward. That should lead to the conclusion that the problems are actually cultural, with young blacks being taught through the media and peer pressure that "the man" is bad and they shouldn't try to conform to "white society." The reality is that blacks have done far better in integrated situations. This is born out by the experiences of colored units in the armed forces in World War II. The so-called "Tuskegee Airmen," the 99th Fighter Squadron, performed better when they were attached to "white" units and fought alongside their white peers. Incidentally, the Armed Forces have been integrated since 1947 when the Air Force was the first to integrate and young blacks have been trained in highly technical fields. (Granted, there was/is a predominence of blacks in less-technical fields.) A good example is actor Morgan Freeman who, even though he was from the poorest state in the union, excelled as an Air Force radar technician and even achieved the grade of E-4 at a time when few first-termers advanced beyond E-3. If you want to see an end to "racism", blacks as a whole need to advance beyond the barbershop and basketball court mentality.
Your argument is factually wrong. School segregation was widespread in the U.S., not just in the South and Midwest. The only difference was that many other jurisdictions had de facto segregation rather than de jure, but it was equally complete. When forced desegregation was ordered, violent white responses were seen in many states outside the South and Midwest, such as California, Michigan, Maryland, and Massachusetts. Indeed, some of the most violent anti-busing riots took place in Boston in the mid 1970s. So clearly bigoted responses to desegregation were not as regionally limited as you seem to think.
Being in a foul mood, I wanted something meaner. But I got caught up in the piece and have to say I found it very convincing. I'm curious what objections a person could have.
BTW, I listen to everything I can find with you and/or Glenn, and I wanted to say your recent appearance on Megyn Kelly was especially interesting.
Sadly, I think "systemic racism" is going to be the most pernicious self-fulfilling prophesy of all time. Anyone who thinks that every idea, principal, or discipline dreamed up by Europeans is either wrong or invalid and should be eschewed is putting some fairly egregious limits on themselves both culturally and intellectually. They're also being fantastically racist.
The term "going haole" conveys the same attitude, except it is used by Hawaiian students against their fellows that excel in school. Whether the previous circumstances in Hawaii half-century ago are similar to what McWhorter describes in black schools, I cannot say. It's just an interesting phenomena to observe.
As an immigrant kid who spent part of my education at boarding school and the other half in public school I find the study on attitudes towards school and for whom does the student do the work to be quite fascinating, because my first impulse would lean towards "for my parents", but in hindsight that doesn't necessarily feel quite right, because at boarding school my parents certainly weren't anywhere near to put any actual pressure beyond the whole shame-based culture thing that worked less and less as one got older, and at public school - and I really have no idea what the stereotype for immigrant families even look like from non-immigrants - in practice me and almost all my (mostly Asian, frequently immigrant as well) friends came from fragmented backgrounds, largely in single parent but middle class households, some with one or both parents literally across the ocean, so while the whole 'tiger mom' concept is certainly well-known, the actual pressure was more paper tiger than real. The one thing almost everyone in high school did was getting sent to cram school after school to cram for standardized tests, but more often than not by Freshman or Sophomore year one would either have done well enough to get a decent score and never have to deal with it ever again, or have found some underhanded way to delegate that to someone else for a small amount of cash or even sometimes swapping places if you both had deficiencies in a particular SAT II subject, for example. But at the same time it's pretty unimaginable to sincerely consider doing any schoolwork for the teacher's sake, even though we had our favorites, as we had no illusions that their job actually depended on which college we got into or even how many kids passed the class. Infamously we even had an AP course where at a school where nearly all students taking AP courses passed the test, exactly 0 passed this one, with little actual consequence for anyone involved. With the glass ceiling firmly in place for most of us when it comes to elite private universities and a rapidly rising one for elite public universities I opted for a liberal arts education, which was the outlier amongst my social circles, where I actually learned to strive for my own sake, but prior to that there was a pretty distinct gap between expectation and reality in terms of 'achievement', whatever that word really meant. We did usual teenage things like throw parties that occasionally attracted noise complaints, skipped some classes but not others and got senioritis, awkwardly dated and some relationships even lasted, but for the most part our only frame of reference in terms of what we were supposed to do is both nebulous and felt utterly immutable, and there really was a sense of inevitability to things that nobody could really articulate when it comes to expectations.
I had very little real conceptual understanding, however, of 'the system', so to speak, in a present-day sense, until about a decade later, when I got my first externship at the county public defender's office (a liberal arts education can be a wild ride but as a student of history with a focus on Subaltern Studies in the SE Asian colonial resistance context I more or less graduated with a degree in Agrarian Anarchist Theory, and it felt like the only fitting place to start a resistance movement against the state). What really became apparent was that even though through textbook case studies and field work I had a notion of what an immutable, high modernist, and oppressive institutional state may look like, in reality the sort of obstacles being thrown, almost always with a great degree of arbitrariness and frequently in plainly kafkaesque and capricious ways, represent less an active sort of focused oppression but more the simple fact that out of no fault of one's own there could suddenly be entirely pointless displays of state power being targeted at you but with the hallmark of it being how many hoops you have to jump through out of the blue with consequences that are entirely unreasonably severe and at the same time, nearly impossible to adequately explain and contextualize without experiencing it first hand. In some sense the concept of 'scared straight' actually works, but in almost every case the system lacked the flexibility to allow for that particular lesson to actually take hold before the Rube Goldberg machine of coercive plea bargaining and the carceral industrial complex more or less delivered those unfortunate enough to be caught up in it to what is also a sort of inevitability, except with almost unimaginably severe collateral consequences that the younger the client, the less they are able to contextualize. I went to law school in an area where the actual minority population was truly small - hovering around 10% for the county in terms of non-white population, so that sort of systemic threat was not always one that existed in clear racial terms, but it existed nonetheless in real terms, and in terms that I, and my friends and cohorts, were effectively never exposed to. That really became how I understood the 'systemic' nature any sort of oppressive and officially sanctioned institutional coercion, a sort of Sword of Damocles that hung over the heads of really whoever happened to be on the lowest rung of the local totem pole, and I also realized that if I had to in some way consider the possibility of this ever-present but unknown spectre of arbitrary state power being used on me for frequently the sort of every day transgressions kids get into and sometimes entirely made-up rationales, I probably would have become jaded far earlier in life and had far fewer reasons to even jump through the expectational hoops that felt inevitable. The racism in 'systemic racism' represented a proxy that the American legal system have resorted to in a sort of shorthand to direct this arbitrary coercive power on, but really it's a systemic sort of oppression that, with state power and acting under the color of law, is arbitrary, coercive, and serves no actual legitimate purpose when it comes to the ends it purports to serve. Crime, after all, are constructed legal fictions that frequently have little relationship to what the words in common parlance actually mean. Burglary in my jurisdiction meant 'any felony' + 'any trespass', for example, with no element of theft or even an actual break-in required, although the police tended to focus on victimless crimes anyway as they were simply more convenient to get through the process, and to this day I still see virtually no point of except as a proxy for a job program that happens to also punish some randomly chosen member of society that hopefully few would shed a tear over.
And of course this is beyond the educational context that you are writing about here, but I've since understood the notion in terms that emphasize on the 'systemic' element of it, particularly as to how without active participation the system as it exists is already suitable to only create disincentives to engage and participate in a society that, in the 'mainstream', seems to be entirely focused on putting up appearances regardless of who gets harmed, and tons of people are harmed, and a disproportionate number of them are racial or ethnic minorities , and in many cases the defendants skew young. Not having to be exposed to this whole frankly ludicrous arrangement our society have found ourselves in, that's the real advantage, I think.
But there is a current, ongoing, active "systemic racism" problem with schools: the "system" is the monopoly that teacher's unions hold over public education combined with the legality of restricting attendance by residence and the "racism" can be found in the near 100% certainty that the low-performing, dysfunctional schools controlled by teacher's unions to which black students are legally restricted would have long ago been shut down if those restrictions didn't allow white students to entirely avoid them.
Yeah, when I think of people who have too much power in American society, I think “teachers” and “unions”. My kid goes to the one “black” school in my city, the one that is consistently underfunded and denigrated, the one with the lowest overall level of achievement, but there’s a solid cohort of Asian and white kids that are the highest scoring kids in the city. Their mock trial and academic decathlon teams are always #1 or #2 of the 6 high schools, and do well regionally. They have the same teachers as all the other kids in the school. The difference? It’s not what they’re given, it’s what they walk in with. It’s attitude. It’s what happens at home. Parents, and their expectations, seem to have a much bigger influence on outcomes than the Teachers Union. Plus, the teachers are 100% on the kids side. It’s the School Board, and the administrators that put my kid’s school last on the list for funding, etc. They’re all white political wannabes, looking to please their rich GOP donors. You know, the people who constantly attack the idea of unions, and decent pay for teachers.
Somewhat valid points. School achievement is largely determined by factors outside the control the schools themselves, of that I would wholeheartedly agree. If you're saying that the answer to the problem of low achievement by black students in the educational system is to tell black students and their parents to take educational achievement more seriously, well, I would agree. But if the question is what can we do in the way of public policy to support better outcomes for black students, then there are another set of questions to be asked and answered. One of the answers to that question has been to introduce more parental choice and competition between schools for dollars that flow with the student into the system. Although the jury is still out, and the preliminary evidence is still mixed, if one just takes the demand for charter schools and vouchers as a good "market" indicator of the desirability of choice and competition in the system, then it's clearly desired in nearly every case where it's been offered, with demand far outstripping supply. So what's stopping the "supply" being expanded to meet that demand, and a solid experiment run to see whether choice and competition improve outcomes? It's certainly not the parents or students, who clearly demand it. It's not the voters, who by poll numbers support it on a bipartisan basis. It's teacher's unions, who wield sufficient power via the Democratic Party in the key decision-making bodies that stand in the way of letting it happen.
I’m sure public schools would have better numbers if they could pick their students, offload kids that develop problems (or that need IEPs, or are ESL kids, etc) onto the other schools the way charter schools do. Charter schools cherry-pick, so I would argue that their numbers should look way better than they do. The studies that have been done are not very useful… a lot of a priori reasoning being thrown around. Certainly, people who believe markets solve everything, and that the Democratic Party is inherently evil, tend to strongly support the charter school approach. I work in the court system here in California, and we’ve seen numerous charter schools founded and run by charlatans and megalomaniacs. I’m not saying that they’re inherently bad, but they aren’t a slam dunk solution by any means. I also see public schools as microcosms of the wider society, and I support engagement over abandonment when societal problems arise. A form of romanticism, I suppose, but that’s how I feel. I feel like the charter school is analogous to the gated community. It makes my nose wrinkle. I don’t like quitters, but I understand the impulse. I want my kid to thrive while he’s mixed into a heterogeneous society. There’s more to life than numbers. That’s just me though. I understand that I’m an outlier
If you work in California and are familiar with charter schools than you would know that they are not allowed to choose their students by anything other than lotteries, "cherry-picking" is not allowed. Of course, there are bad actors in the charter school space as there are in any human endeavor, which is why open competition with the funds following the students becomes so important, having ways to weed out those bad actors rather than these bureaucracies and monopolies that protect them for decades.
I have my kid in a public school, I'm glad to do so, but I can also afford to live by a great public school. If that were not the case, and the schools to which my son was legally restricted were low performing and/or completely dysfunctional, I would have a big issue with that. Eliminating residence-based restrictions in public school attendance does not mean abandoning public schools; in fact, I would strongly expect that the more affluent and educated classes would be far more engaged with what's going on with the lower performing schools, as they would no longer be insulated from them by virture of their address.
Families in our school district can usually choose which public school they attend. The teachers lobbied hard in favor of that, and the school board resisted it for years. It works well, mostly.
Of course you’re correct: charter schools in CA don’t pick the kids that enroll, but they do aggressively pick the kids they expel. Our local public STEM magnet school has very high average numbers, but also ejects about 25% of the new students every year (including almost every kid that needs an IEP). They bury the kids in mountains of busy work for the first quarter, and then start pruning. They find excuses, like cops pulling over young people in fancy cars for not having a light on their license plate. They find ways.
Its complicated. I wish I knew the answer that would allow every kid to thrive in a population as diverse as the wider society. I appreciate you sharing your opinions. Thanks.
Yes, our district has the same thing, but ironically, every parent that I've spoken to tried as hard as possible to get into the school closest to their home, with some having to work waiting lists for months and occasionally even years in order to do so. But that may be because the choice program made the district focus on equalizing the attractiveness of each school, so there are very little differences in ratings, offerings, facilities, scores, between the schools in our district.
I zero problem with a model that would force schools to accept all comers but then also quickly expel those who don't fit. There are two competing priorities: better opportunities for kids at the upper end of low performing schools, and not losing those at the bottom to "the streets". It's basically impossible as you get further up in the process for one school to do both things, they cannot simultaneously prepare kids for Harvard/MIT and at the same time make sure that "nobody is left behind". So they should be allowed to sift, and certain schools should be oriented towards preparing kids for Harvard/MIT, others should just be trying to disrupt the "school-to-prison" pipeline.
Far from perfect, you're right, but it's the only way. Keep in mind, every kid that has real potential that could've gone to Harvard/MIT that didn't is a loss not only for that kid and their family, community, etc., but other countries that are competing with us starting but by no means ending with China are tracking kids at age 5, and they're preparing their kids to invent the technologies that will determine who gets to control the future.
According to https://www.chalkbeat.org/2018/4/20/21104867/do-charter-schools-suspend-students-more-it-depends-on-how-you-look-at-the-data , charter schools overall suspend 6.4% of students while traditional public schools suspend 5.3%. Looking just at the Black students, charter schools suspend 13.3% while traditional public schools suspend 13.8%. What is your source for the 25% figure?
The school also has accomplished black students, including a significant percentage of Nigerian and other African immigrants
Well, as a black American married to Nigerian Stanford graduate, that does not surprise me!