Mask-off McWhorter mode enabled. I think the primary reason Kendi can peddle his grift is due to the soft bigotry of low expectations from those around him/society, who is catering to the illiberal Woke. His ideas are unexamined and live in fantastical hypotheticals - they are completely void of substance. Thank you for sharing your insight, it's appreciated!
After reading his support for a "Department of Anti-Racism", with tenured 'experts' like a Supreme Court, to oversee and vet (and punish) both private and public politics for racism - my only thought is - what's the point Kendi?
His solution is completely incompatible with a liberal, democratic society. It's like secular sharia. And I think for someone to miss at a solution so miserably underlines that they don't really understand the problem either.
It's going to take many courageous folks like yourself to wake this nation up. I for one am very appreciative of your great work and calling out the bullshit. Thank you!!
Not really sure why you are attacking Kendi’s credentials. Putting “professor” in scare quotes is confusing, as he is employed as a professor at Boston University. The questioning of his doctorate is also strange to me, as Kendi does hold a Ph.D. from Temple University. A simple search on Google scholar also retrieves several peer-reviewed articles/chapters Kendi authored or co-authored. Disagree with his ideas and refute his claims about you, fine, that’s your prerogative. But on what basis are you challenging his credentials as a professor, a doctor of philosophy, or a peer-reviewed author? It’s false, petty, sloppy, and frankly beneath the status of your own illustrious credentials to do so.
This right here! Finally McWhorter, in full force, stands up to the nonsense and worse, that is the output of Kendi. More, please. These woke monsters won’t be quelled by polite disagreement, the vast majority of well meaning folks will be shifted by reasoned arguments like this, more please!
The part missed and that goes a lot with the overall message here is that Kendi is such a lightweight, such a low quality thinker, PRECISELY because he comes from the ethnic studies departments of these Universities. He is, to put it bluntly, the first prominent and most famous academic of this relatively new field in academia. It is a bastion of affirmative action and the most postmodernists, easiest majors to get into and thus, tends to spit out the least qualified graduates. Its proof pudding of what McWhorter is rightfully pointing out and tends to be part and parcel of the graduates in these "studies" fields. I know my share of ethnic studies graduates/professors, and frankly all of em tend to be low quality thinkers. Kendi is now the first one to make a global appearance.
"It is of a piece with the fact that his “scholarship” is not based on sustained, original research utilizing close reasoning and being tempered through rigorous evaluation by peers over years’ time." You are asking him to use the scientific method, but we know from "grievance studies" that this method is a toxic tool of western oppression. Using the master's tools to liberate the slaves? I think not!
One can't help but note the parallel between this school and those in Germany not so long ago. Here's a description of the country's lead educator and his strikingly similar policies, even down to claims about race-based science.
----
He bluntly informed teachers that their aim was to educate ethnically aware Germans. Rust also believed that non-Aryan science (such as Albert Einstein's "Jewish physics") was flawed, and had what he felt to be a rational explanation for this view. In an address to scientists, he said, "The problems of science do not present themselves in the same way to all men. The Negro or the Jew will view the same world in a different light from the German investigator."
The parallels aren't surprising. If you want to create racial ill-will and supremacist thinking, there's only a limited number of arguments you can make.
I love your work, and this piece is certainly interesting. However, I do wonder why you don't submit a piece of criticism of his scholarship to an academic journal so that he has a greater pressure to respond in kind? It's one thing to criticize someone for their tweets, but I would think that engaging them on the work that provides them their income – for an audience of their professional peers – would be impossible to ignore.
I appreciate Mr. (*) McWhorter's work, this piece included. However, I would like to see broad claims better supported by the content of the piece itself. Closing with "people... wouldn’t let it pass for a minute if he were white" without recognizing that these same people swallow DiAngelo's (**) proclamations as truth strikes me as odd. No, something deeper - well, shallower really - is at work here. There is indeed a pervasive "fragility", but one of intellect and character, particularly among our "elites". They cave to this claptrap for both selfish and stupid reasons.
* No! Doctor. Indeed Herr Doctor, Yes sir! ;)
** Shall we henceforth refer to her as Tyson-DiAngelo?
Kendi is such a fraud and charlatan I almost wince that John McWhorter has to rise in defense of himself against such a person. Unfortunately, we live at a time when all standards by which to judge such fakery as Kendi's are themselves under assault. To apply them is to be called a "snob" as I see someone here has done. That's pure diversionary b.s. Standards matter, and you all who think it is wrong to insist on them make yourselves and all of us vulnerable to snake oil in a thousand bottles.
Mask-off McWhorter mode enabled. I think the primary reason Kendi can peddle his grift is due to the soft bigotry of low expectations from those around him/society, who is catering to the illiberal Woke. His ideas are unexamined and live in fantastical hypotheticals - they are completely void of substance. Thank you for sharing your insight, it's appreciated!
Great last sentence:)
After reading his support for a "Department of Anti-Racism", with tenured 'experts' like a Supreme Court, to oversee and vet (and punish) both private and public politics for racism - my only thought is - what's the point Kendi?
His solution is completely incompatible with a liberal, democratic society. It's like secular sharia. And I think for someone to miss at a solution so miserably underlines that they don't really understand the problem either.
Grateful you are using substack to push back. The rational world needs this.
It's going to take many courageous folks like yourself to wake this nation up. I for one am very appreciative of your great work and calling out the bullshit. Thank you!!
Not really sure why you are attacking Kendi’s credentials. Putting “professor” in scare quotes is confusing, as he is employed as a professor at Boston University. The questioning of his doctorate is also strange to me, as Kendi does hold a Ph.D. from Temple University. A simple search on Google scholar also retrieves several peer-reviewed articles/chapters Kendi authored or co-authored. Disagree with his ideas and refute his claims about you, fine, that’s your prerogative. But on what basis are you challenging his credentials as a professor, a doctor of philosophy, or a peer-reviewed author? It’s false, petty, sloppy, and frankly beneath the status of your own illustrious credentials to do so.
LOVE THIS. Keep exposing this fraud.
This right here! Finally McWhorter, in full force, stands up to the nonsense and worse, that is the output of Kendi. More, please. These woke monsters won’t be quelled by polite disagreement, the vast majority of well meaning folks will be shifted by reasoned arguments like this, more please!
Thanks, John, for consistently standing up and calling out the bullshit. Marvelous work
The part missed and that goes a lot with the overall message here is that Kendi is such a lightweight, such a low quality thinker, PRECISELY because he comes from the ethnic studies departments of these Universities. He is, to put it bluntly, the first prominent and most famous academic of this relatively new field in academia. It is a bastion of affirmative action and the most postmodernists, easiest majors to get into and thus, tends to spit out the least qualified graduates. Its proof pudding of what McWhorter is rightfully pointing out and tends to be part and parcel of the graduates in these "studies" fields. I know my share of ethnic studies graduates/professors, and frankly all of em tend to be low quality thinkers. Kendi is now the first one to make a global appearance.
"It is of a piece with the fact that his “scholarship” is not based on sustained, original research utilizing close reasoning and being tempered through rigorous evaluation by peers over years’ time." You are asking him to use the scientific method, but we know from "grievance studies" that this method is a toxic tool of western oppression. Using the master's tools to liberate the slaves? I think not!
One can't help but note the parallel between this school and those in Germany not so long ago. Here's a description of the country's lead educator and his strikingly similar policies, even down to claims about race-based science.
----
He bluntly informed teachers that their aim was to educate ethnically aware Germans. Rust also believed that non-Aryan science (such as Albert Einstein's "Jewish physics") was flawed, and had what he felt to be a rational explanation for this view. In an address to scientists, he said, "The problems of science do not present themselves in the same way to all men. The Negro or the Jew will view the same world in a different light from the German investigator."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernhard_Rust
----
The parallels aren't surprising. If you want to create racial ill-will and supremacist thinking, there's only a limited number of arguments you can make.
--Michael W. Perry, editor of Dachau Liberated
I love your work, and this piece is certainly interesting. However, I do wonder why you don't submit a piece of criticism of his scholarship to an academic journal so that he has a greater pressure to respond in kind? It's one thing to criticize someone for their tweets, but I would think that engaging them on the work that provides them their income – for an audience of their professional peers – would be impossible to ignore.
I appreciate Mr. (*) McWhorter's work, this piece included. However, I would like to see broad claims better supported by the content of the piece itself. Closing with "people... wouldn’t let it pass for a minute if he were white" without recognizing that these same people swallow DiAngelo's (**) proclamations as truth strikes me as odd. No, something deeper - well, shallower really - is at work here. There is indeed a pervasive "fragility", but one of intellect and character, particularly among our "elites". They cave to this claptrap for both selfish and stupid reasons.
* No! Doctor. Indeed Herr Doctor, Yes sir! ;)
** Shall we henceforth refer to her as Tyson-DiAngelo?
...But am I racist for agreeing with what you are writing?
Kendi is such a fraud and charlatan I almost wince that John McWhorter has to rise in defense of himself against such a person. Unfortunately, we live at a time when all standards by which to judge such fakery as Kendi's are themselves under assault. To apply them is to be called a "snob" as I see someone here has done. That's pure diversionary b.s. Standards matter, and you all who think it is wrong to insist on them make yourselves and all of us vulnerable to snake oil in a thousand bottles.
"Here’s the rub: The people who sit drinking all of this in and calling it deep wouldn’t let it pass for a minute if he were white."
Then how does this explain the success of Robin DiAngelo, who is if anything an even bigger fraud and poseur than Kendi and who is....white?