John McWhorter joins Firing Line’s Margaret Hoover on PBS to discuss “Critical Race Theory.”

John McWhorter joins Firing Line's Margaret Hoover on PBS to discuss "Critical Race Theory."

A few excerpts:

Margaret Hoover:

what are they rallying against? What are they teaching that is objectionable?

John McWhorter:

here's the here's the issue. And I wish all of them would be more specific there two things. One is practically lining all the kids up against the wall and teaching the white people, our oppressors, black people are oppressed, and that the white kids need to know it, and the black kids need to know it. And what however you present it, that is some strong stuff to be giving to eight year olds to teach that whiteness is potentially evil and that blackness means that you have to constantly be on guard against it.

Then the second thing is a basic idea that battling power differentials, and specifically racism, often is supposed to be not just one of many things, not just one of many things in the meal, but the center, the fulcrum of all intellectual, artistic and moral endeavor. That's what is being taught at many schools. It's not just whether or not you teach people that there was slavery, that there was redlining and that racism can be subtle. It's making all of these schools antiracist boot camps. That's the problem these days.

After last summer, there was this educational opportunity many of these people saw where you could start saying that you needed to do this within this racial reckoning. And if you don't do it, you're a racist. Now, if anybody had tried to pull that, say, 15 years ago, it wouldn't have work. But now we have Twitter, so if you go against them, you get called a racist in the public square. For nine out of 10 people, that's enough to make them follow along, because most of us are buying groceries and raising our kids, but the result of this has been truly dangerous.

Margaret Hoover:

So you just introduced a new term into this conversation, anti racism. And your next book is entitled, Woke Racism: How a New Religion has Betrayed Black America. Explain what is the relationship between anti racism and critical race theory?

John McWhorter:

Well, anti racism as a fashionable word these days, but what it means in practice, you know, who knows what its definition in the dictionary is, but what it means in practice is that if there is some kind of imbalance between white and black people, the reason is something called racism, either bigotry, or some raw deal that black people have been done as the result of it and probably a mixture of the two. And that therefore, what we're going to do is we're going to battle that racism. That's what anti racism means in our current context. And the problem with it is that, often, what we're seeing as, quote unquote, racist isn't. So the common idea that you get nowadays, black kids tend not to do as well on standardized tests. Well, instead of saying, "How do we get black kids to do better on them?" which is something that has happened in the past, the new idea is that you say, "Let's just get rid of the test, because the test must be racist." You don't have to specify how, but if the black kids don't do as well on it, the test is a racist practice. That's a real leap. That is a hyper-radical way of looking at things that I think most people presented with the mechanics of the argument would think of as rather cruel, frankly, to black kids. That's not the way to run a society., most of us would think. Some people might be able to make a case for it, but most of us wouldn't agree with that. But instead, we're being taught that if you're not an antiracist, you're bad. And we're gonna embarrass you on Twitter. And as a result, many people end up pretending to agree with ideas like this.

Margaret Hoover:

There are local school board meetings across the country, getting national attention with parents using the word indoctrination about anti racism curriculum. You say that you've been contacted by parents and teachers and principals from all over the country on a daily basis? What are people who reach out to you telling you

John McWhorter

Well, people who reach out to me are telling me is that they are extremely disappointed and are angry that this is suddenly happening in their school. And the regular theme is that they understand what racism is, but they don't want their kids being taught what to think as opposed to how to think. And then also, they're scared. They are so deeply afraid of being tarred as racists in public. And these people just they want their children to be taught not that there's no racism. They don't want their children to be taught Beaver Cleaver as America, but they don't want want their children to be going to antiracist academies. The idea that that represents progress that nobody should stand athwart is one of the most sclerotic ideas I had ever seen becoming mainstream in my entire existence.

Continue ReadingJohn McWhorter joins Firing Line’s Margaret Hoover on PBS to discuss “Critical Race Theory.”

Where AOC Goes Wrong on “Anti-Racism”

I agree with Colin Wright here. I often agree with AOC, but not here. If fewer people on the left actually took more time to get to know the opinions of people on the right (instead of mocking them at a distance for being reincarnations of Hitler), we could have better conversations about HOW to teach our children about racism in our schools.

As I've opined many times, it is a terrible approach to "teaching" to divide 8-year olds into "colors," telling the "white" ones that they and their families are irredeemable oppressors while telling the "black" children that they forever destined to be victims. This deplorable approach has been documented by many dozens of first-party/whistle-blower accounts and leaked teaching materials. Whether you want to call it CRT or neo-CRT or something else, I consider this approach (which also proudly goes under the name of "anti-racism") child abuse. If you doubt that this divisive approach is being taught in many schools, check out these materials and good luck finding any "anti-racists" teachers who extol the teachings of Martin Luther King in the year 2021.

Continue ReadingWhere AOC Goes Wrong on “Anti-Racism”

What the Opponents of “Critical Race Theory” are Most Concerned About. What Teachers Should be Teaching Instead of CRT.

What are people (I'm included) concerned about when we talk about "critical race theory" being taught in the classroom, especially K-12? What should we be teaching instead of "CRT"? Greg Lukianoff of FIRE nails it:

What these bills are trying to address doesn’t map directly to the academic definition of critical race theory, which is, in short, an academic school of thought pioneered by Derrick Bell, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Mari Matsuda, and Richard Delgado (among others) that holds that social problems, structures, and art should be examined for their racial elements and impact on race, even when they are race-neutral on their face.

As a result, a lot of arguments dismiss the bills by claiming “they don’t teach critical race theory in K-12!”, pointing to the fact that Bell’s work is on few, if any, K-12 syllabi. But that is a refutation of a point no one is actually making.

Like it or not, the acronym “CRT” as commonly used in 2021 doesn’t refer to the foundational texts and authors in the academic movement. It’s a shorthand for certain ideas that have filtered (in reductive forms or not) from CRT thinkers into the mainstream, including in bestselling books like “White Fragility” and “How to Be an Antiracist” — ideas like how relationships between individual white and nonwhite people are those of the oppressor and oppressed, that all white people are consciously or unconsciously racist, that ostensibly raceblind concepts like “meritocracy” are the result of white supremacy, among others.

. . .

What opponents of “CRT” are getting at is a philosophy that comes directly in conflict with small-L liberalism — and I am among the many Americans who believe the ideals of small-L liberalism are worth defending. What critics of CRT fear is the rise and widespread adoption of a philosophy that relies on genetic essentialism, overgeneralization, guilt by association, what we call in Coddling “The Great Untruth of Us versus Them,” shame and guilt tactics, and deindividuation. This is a formula for reinforcing group difference, undermining the hope of future social cohesion, and returning to the kind of tribal politics of the country in which my father grew up: Yugoslavia.

What should we be doing instead of preaching K-12? Lukianoff has some ideas on that topic too. His article is titled: "The Empowering of the American Mind: We need to fix K-12 education. These 10 principles are a path for reform.". Here are some excerpts from Lukianoff's article:

Principle 1: No compelled speech, thought, or belief.

Principle 2: Respect for individuality, dissent, and the sanctity of conscience.

Principle 3: Foster the broadest possible curiosity, critical thinking skills, and discomfort with certainty.

Principle 4: Demonstrate epistemic humility at all levels of teaching and policymaking.

Principle 5: Foster independence, not moral dependency.

Principle 6: Do not teach children to think in cognitive distortions, e.g.:

Emotional reasoning

Catastrophizing

Overgeneralizing

Dichotomous thinking

Mind-reading

Labeling

Negative filtering

Discounting positives

Blaming

Principle 7: Do not teach the “Three Great Untruths.”

As a society, we are teaching a generation three manifestly bad overarching “untruths”—ideas that contradict both ancient wisdom and modern psychology:

The Untruth of Fragility: What doesn’t kill you makes you weaker.

The Untruth of Emotional Reasoning: Always trust your feelings.

The Untruth of Us Versus Them: Life is a battle between good and evil people.

Principle 8: Take student mental health more seriously.

This brings me to the most frustrating thing I’ve seen since publishing the original “Coddling” article. We know anxiety, depression, self-harm, and suicide are up among young people, and up dramatically. In light of this fact, it is cruel to nevertheless advocate political philosophies that assume:

The majority of students are both oppressors and oppressed due to the color of their skin, gender, sexuality, socioeconomic status, and/or national origin, and that therefore not only is life rigged against such students, they are also active participants in harming other students;

Words, arguments, and images can be so harmful that students must be shielded from many of them in order to prevent serious psychological harm;

Some students are in a war against oppression, where they don’t have friends but rather “allies”—which implies a conditional, utilitarian arrangement, not a deep and personal bond;

Students must always be on the lookout for slights, as these always mean something much more pernicious than a simple faux pas; and

A single bad joke, dumb comment, or unwise tweet at any moment could, and even should, derail future academic or professional careers.

Principle 9: Don’t reduce complex students to limiting labels.

Sorting students into politically useful categories that involve assigning them character attributes or destinies based on immutable traits circumscribes their potential and hampers their growth. Self-determination is foundational to the American promise and central to our unique national identity. Students must be permitted to decide for themselves how much, or how little, emphasis they wish to place on their race, ethnicity, religion, gender, social class, or economic background.

Principle 10: If it’s broke, fix it.

Be willing to form new institutions that empower students and educate them with the principles of a free, diverse, and pluralistic society. Is this a formula for peace and quiet? No. But free societies aren’t supposed to be particularly quiet. As Justice Robert Jackson gravely warned in 1943, attempts to coerce unanimity of opinion have only resulted in “the unanimity of the graveyard.”

Continue ReadingWhat the Opponents of “Critical Race Theory” are Most Concerned About. What Teachers Should be Teaching Instead of CRT.

Why We Need to Speak Up, Rather than Coddling the Illiberals

There's a big argument raging about what to call this thing. I refer to it as Critical Race Theory because these teachings have their roots in CRT, even  though these teaching have morphed into what we are currently seeing in many classroom.  Whatever you call it, you can find it in all these places. 

Are there other things to be wary of? Absolutely. Climate issues, current and future pandemics, the false narratives of the far right.  Many of these discussions are unproductive for the same reason that we can't discuss CRT: because we can't even agree on the basic facts.  I'm not in the mood for what-about-ism at the moment, because unapologetic woke struggle sessions now inhabit many of our once-schools and universities. Why do I keep "obsessing" about this trend? Because unquestionable facts (e.g., the biological fact that there are two--and only two-sexes) mean nothing to many of those who lead these sessions. They proclaim that striving for excellent and reaping the rewards of hard work is inappropriate.

On racial issues, the leaders of these sessions are smearing the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. When I read their words, I imagine these loud and rude Wokesters throwing rotten fruit or rocks at MLK and jeering him. They claim to be leading a new improved Civil Rights Movement, but they are reversing the gains of the past 60 years. They call it progress when they go into third grade classrooms, dividing the children by color and sow lifetime seeds of suspicion and distrust when they tell the "white" children that they are oppressors of the "black" children. These kids should be freely playing with each other at recess, but now they are being told to fear each other. Further, the "black" children are being fed huge doses of the soft bigotry of low expectations.

Yet social media bristles with accusations that to have these concerns makes one a "conservative" or a "Republican" and that people like me are paranoid because the new syllabus merely teaches "racial history," as though previous generations of children have not been taught about racial history.

Hell, yes, I'm concerned. And I will keep speaking out as long as larges swathes of social media are motivated to get the facts wrong. I feel the moral imperative to be, if necessary, the only one in the large room to speak up.

Continue ReadingWhy We Need to Speak Up, Rather than Coddling the Illiberals

Matt Taibbi: Robin DiAngelo Has Published a New (Old) Book

Matt Taibbi somehow convinced himself to read race-grifter Robin DiAngelo's new book, Nice racism. I can't muster the necessary masochism to join him in this effort, especially after I forced myself to trudge through DiAngelo's first book, White Fragility. According to Taibbi, DiAngelo's sequel is a regurgitation of her first book and nothing more. The title of Taibbi's review is "Our Endless Dinner With Robin DiAngelo Suburban America's self-proclaimed racial oracle returns with a monumentally oblivious sequel to "White Fragility." Here's an excerpt of Taibbi's review:

Nice Racism’s central message is that it’s a necessity to stop white people from seeing themselves as distinct people. “Insisting that each white person is different from every other white person,” DiAngelo writes, “enables us to distance ourselves from the actions of other white people.” She doesn’t see, or maybe she does, where this logic leads. If you tell people to abandon their individual identities and think of themselves as a group, they sooner or later will start to behave as a group. Short of something like selling anthrax spores or encouraging people to explore sexual feelings toward nine year-olds, is there a worse idea than suggesting — demanding — that people get in touch with their white identity?

If DiAngelo’s insistence that “I don’t feel guilty about racism,” reveling in scenes of making people experience and re-experience racial discomfort, and weird puffery in introducing herself by saying things like, “I am Robin and I am white” feel familiar, it’s because she’s hitting all the themes favored by Klansmen and identitarian loons of yore. Read a book like David Duke’s My Awakening (if you can stand it, you can find excerpts here) and you’ll encounter the same types of passages present in Nice Racism.

Continue ReadingMatt Taibbi: Robin DiAngelo Has Published a New (Old) Book