John McWhorter Discusses Anti-Racism with Bill Maher

Linguistics Professor John McWhorter sat down with Bill Maher on a recent episode of Real Time to discuss "anti-racism." McWhorter describes himself as someone who is hearing things that don't make sense and his quest is to try to obsessively make sense of things like "anti-racism."  The interview was as intense as it was fast-moving. Several take-aways:

A) "Anti-racism" condescends to people who identify as "black," infantilizing them.

B) There is a great diversity of thought among those who identify as black, almost two-thirds of whom are middle class (or even higher earning), the majority of whom do not live in ongoing fear of being harassed or shot by the police,

C) None of this is to suggest that there isn't still racism, which needs to be addressed.

D) Wokeness is a religion where "whiteness" functions as "original sin" that afflicts even babies, a religion where Robin DiAngelo's misguided book, White Fragility is mistakenly being treated as "research" instead of second-rate literature that advocates for victimization;

E) People pretend to "atone" for "white privilege" by posting on FB that they are "doing the work." This solves nothing.

F) White Fragility is not representative of "the general black view of things."

G) There is no one "black view" of things - Also, "'Yes we can't'" has never been the slogan for black America and it's not now."

H) In the religion of Wokeness, advocates pretend that "racism has never been worse" than today, even in the 1960's and even during the 1850's. These are palpable untruths to any person who knows even a tiny bit of history. "Why is it un-black to address degree?"

I) It is childish for anyone to shut down opposing views to protect themselves from never being told that they are wrong. This "cathartic" approach will never change anything. We need meaningful engagement.

J) Social media has everyone "peeing in their pants," afraid to defer even minimally from Woke orthodoxy, which is making "mendacity" ubiquitous.

K) The fear of being honest and the fear to even tell a joke is "becoming almost everywhere. The only exceptions are people who are "weird like us and you don't mind being hated. But most people are not going to have that disease, and so we are stuck where we are."

If you'd like to follow John McWhorter, you can find him on his own Substack Website, It Bears Mentioning.   Also, McWhorter often joins Glenn Loury for conversation at The Glenn Show on Patreon. 

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Enthusiastic Racism From the Academic Left

I agree with the message of this short video. I despair of the way that "anti-racism" is being implemented in many schools. What does it tell young people who identify as "black" that we need to lower standards for all "blacks" because they, as a group, cannot cut it?  Two things:

1. This claim is false. "Black" students can cut it.  If given high-quality education and parental involvement from the start, I believe that "blacks" are every bit as capable of educational achievement as any other "color" of student. Many "black" students are high performers.

2. This quick solution sends the same pernicious message that one would expect to hear from American slave-holders in the 1850s.  This is not what students need to hear.

Let's give all students (and their families) the tools they need to succeed.  And let's not shy away from inconvenient facts, including these the fact that 69% of "black" children were born outside of marriage (compared to 30% for "whites" and "15% for people categories as Asian.  I don't bring this up to be moralistic, but only to suggest that many more "black" children lack some of the resources available, on average, to children of other "races." A two-parent household (whether or not married) can, on average, offer more resources to the children of that household.  I also suspect that in some "black" communities (not all), education is approached differently than in some other communities (of all "races). John McWhorter has discussed this different approach on occasion (see, for example, the 30 min mark here). Both of these factors (and others) need to be addressed unflinchingly so that every child, including every single "black" child, gets the resources and encouragement he or she needs to excel as a student.

Nothing I have written here suggests that we should judge any child on any basis other than as an individual.  Every child is unique and there are high achievers and low achievers of every so-called "race."

[I no longer use the term "race" or the colors referring to "races" without scare quotes.  Use of these terms is horribly imprecise, unscientific and inherently divisive.  Claiming that there are "races" is the first step on the slippery slope toward racism.  We need a two-pronged attack: 1) We need to move away from claims that there are "races," as nothing good results from this divisive term. 2) At the same time, we need to ostracize and vigorously litigate against any person or organization that discriminates on the purported basis of "race." ]

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Too Busy Writing New Baseless News Stories. We Don’t Have Time to Retract the Old Ones

Glenn Greenwald's recent Tweet opens up a Who's Who of irresponsible "news" media," left wing media this time:

These many news outlets are too busy slurping up new stories from American spies to clean up the old ones. The technique is called "bomb holing." I learned of this term from Matt Taibbi recently:

This technique of using the next bombshell story to push the last one down a memory-hole — call it Bombholing

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The Book that Must Never be Mentioned According to Amazon: When Harry Became Sally

Amazon sells most of the books sold in the U.S. This includes 72% of all adult new book sales online and 80% of ebook sales. With great power comes great responsibility, though. Amazon has now taken the brazen step of stopping all sales of Ryan Anderson's book on gender dysphoria, When Harry Became Sally, falsely characterizing it in the process. You cannot find Anderson's book mentioned anywhere on Amazon's website.  Here's a few things that have recently come to light.

First, a March 16, 2021 article in the Wall Street Journal titled, "Amazon Won’t Let You Read My BookAn enterprising state attorney general might want to look into why it was withdrawn from sale now." Here's an excerpt:

In a letter last week to four U.S. Senators, Amazon justified its decision to delist “When Harry Became Sally” by claiming it frames “LGBTQ+ identity as a mental illness.” This recycled charge is as false now as when Mr. Bezos’ newspaper first made it.

.   .   .

Why would Amazon exercise its unrivaled market power to banish my book? Because the book is changing minds in a continuing debate about how best to help patients who experience gender dysphoria. “When Harry Became Sally” has been praised by medical and legal experts—and that’s what makes it unacceptable to the woke.

And, indeed, the false "mental illness" allegation was made by the Washington Post, then retracted (and the headline of the hit piece was rewritten) after the Post was unable to produce any evidence for that claim.

Here is an excerpt from the the website of the books publisher, Encounter Books:

Everyone agrees that gender dysphoria is a serious condition that causes great suffering. There is a debate, however, which Amazon is seeking to shut down, about how best to treat patients who experience gender dysphoria. When Harry Became Sally is an important contribution, praised by medical experts, to that conversation.

No good comes from shutting down a debate about important matters on which reasonable people of good will disagree. Amazon is using its massive power to distort the marketplace of ideas and is deceiving its own customers in the process.

—Ryan T. Anderson, author When Harry Became Sally and Roger Kimball, Publisher, Encounter Books

Encounter then indicates why Amazon's conduct should matter to all of us, linking to Amazon's own statement for why it refuses to sell Anderson's book:

Encounter Books is committed to publishing authors with differing views on a wide range of issues of public concern. We do this because a free society requires robust debate and spaces where dissenting opinions can be expressed unimpeded.

If Amazon, which controls most of the book sales in America, has decided to delist a book with which some of its functionaries disagree, that is an unconscionable assault on free speech. It will have a chilling effect on the publishing industry and the free circulation of ideas. It must not be left to stand unchallenged.

Note: Ryan T. Anderson, Ph.D., is the President of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and the Founding Editor of Public Discourse, the online journal of the Witherspoon Institute of Princeton, New Jersey.  I would like to read Anderson's book for myself, so I have ordered it from Encounter Books.  I would assume that a lot of people would like to decide for themselves, rather than allow Amazon to dictate what they should be reading.

There is also a bit of personal context for my grave concerns about Amazon decision to censor us.  None of us should be subjected to any form of a Nanny-State.  After the Suess uproar, Amazon dictated that I could not have a book that I had previously purchased from Amazon: And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street.  I wanted to see that book for myself to determine whether it was inappropriate. It is not for any other person or entity to tell me what ideas are appropriate for me.  Here is Amazon's cancellation email for the Suess book. 

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