A Social Vaccine to Protect People From Critical Race Theory

Many of us grew up with and/or currently live with other people who look different than we do. I am of European ancestry and my two daughters were adopted from China. We look a bit different, but I think of them as fully and forever my two wonderful daughters, albeit with this footnote: our ancestors came from different parts of the planet and we were so incredibly lucky we have found each other. My daughters are now young adults. They are capable and beautiful women, unique in their looks, their personal character and their interests. Anyone taking even a tiny bit of time to get to know my daughters would quickly agree.

It recently occurred to me that many people would consider that my daughters are of a different "race" than me. That strange thought jumped as I was studying Critical Race Theory (CRT), which strongly advocates for an intensely racialized social landscape:

Critical race Theorists therefore advocate not being colorblind or meritocratic. Instead, they recommend that we all focus on race and racism specifically at all times and prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion in hiring and other opportunities. In practice, this often means to run mandatory implicit bias tests and training in workplaces and ensure that more people of racial minorities are represented in any (prestigious) workplace that lacks them.

I refuse to think of my daughters as being of "another race." In fact, this is a repulsive and divisive thought for me. All human beings have descended from various populations of one single species. Despite our common biological roots, each person is unique in a complex ways.  No two people are alike and the only way to get to know any other person is to spend some quality time with them. Thinking of other humans as simple colors rather than as unique people prevents us from having meaningful relationships with each other.

Hence my Tweet:

Side note: I'm fully aware that the United States is filled with people who still think that superficial immutable physical traits are more than skin deep.  I disagree. The concept of "race" is defective in the same way that astrology is defective. These two approaches for attempting to get to know other people fail. Both of these lazy approaches use irrelevant accidents as a false proxy for taking the time to get to know each other.

I try to avoid using the word "race" except in scare quotes because a) Use of the term "race" suggests that there is a benefit to seeing people as colors, b) The term "race" confuses people and needlessly divides us from each other, and c) fretting about "race" is always followed by destructive conduct: trying to judge the personal character of other people by the the way their bodies look is truly one of the most idiotic things people have ever done.

It also occurs to me that there might be a causal connection between my experience harmoniously living with people of "another race" and my forceful rejection of CRT. I suspect that my experience living in a "multi-racial" household has incentivized me to forcefully reject the poisonous and divisive ideology offered by Critical Race Theory. People cannot meaningfully be stuffed into a simplistic color categories. They can only be understood as individuals, one by one, and there are no shortcuts.  I've learned this in many ways during my life, not just being a parent in a "mixed race" household. I've been extremely fortunate to have the opportunity to really get to know many people of different "races" during my life as a student, asa photographer, as a musician and as an attorney who has handled more than a few civil rights cases for plaintiffs.

I've also noticed that many prominent writers from "racially mixed" households have taken similar strong stands against Critical Race Theory (CRT). This includes John McWhorter, Thomas Chatterton Williams, Wilfred Reilly, Christopher Rufo, Shelby Steele, Barack Obama, Coleman Hughes and others. This makes me wonder whether those who have lived lives well-blended with people of other "races" can more easily see that sticking people in "racial" categories is a terrible way to get to know other people.

Contrast this with the fact that many Americans who are suspicious of other "races" have spent their entire lives segregated from those of other "races."  I've noticed that many of the shrill CRT advocates are "white" people who tend to run in homogenous packs of "white" people.  Could it be that their willingness to embrace CRT flows from their segregated lives? Is it possible that many CRT people (such as Robin DiAngela) have been damaged by their failure to really get to know people of other "races"?  It would take a high degree of ignorance, or perhaps fear or laziness (again, I'm thinking of Robin DiAngelo), to categorize complex individuals who come in many shapes, colors, skillsets, histories and personal characteristics (including the Big Five personality traits) and levels of accomplishments into silos that are simplistically labeled "white" and "Black."

It is my operating assumption that people will not willingly categorize each other into color categories if they spent quality time with those of other "races." People who have made close relationships with people of other "races" have essentially essentially given  themselves a vaccine to protect them from getting caught up in CRT.

Consider this quote by Miguel de Unamuno:

"Fascism is cured by reading, and racism is cured by traveling."

Similarly, racism is cured by "traveling" through life having close relationships with those of other "races."

I am interested to know whether any social scientists have studied what I am describing.  My observation, once again, is that people who have close and enduring relationships with those of other "races" are far more likely to be repulsed by CRT.

[Edit note 2020.11.13: I posted a much simpler version of this post yesterday.  I expanded on this idea as I considered it further].

Continue ReadingA Social Vaccine to Protect People From Critical Race Theory

When U.S. Race Relations Soured

I recently read a thread on another forum in which 100 out of 140 posts declared that we became a divided nation under Trump and it was Trump's fault. I then found Gallop data that tracked opinions on race relations historically. I found it fascinating. What jumped out at me was the legacies of the last two presidents, when things began to fall apart, and the disappearance of the "No Opinion" response.

Obama, who took office in 2009 inherited a relatively united country from Bush. A majority of both blacks and whites felt similarly that race relations were "very/somewhat good." When Obama left office, a majority of both races felt that race relations were no longer "very/somewhat good." Things started falling apart around 2013 and the downward trend line simply continued under Trump. Over time, the number of people expressing no opinion shrank to near-zero.

The lines moved in parallel. Even when the gap reached 20% in 2007, both groups were still positive. Joe Biden will inherit a divided nation. If we focus on blame without understanding that this trend began in 2012, we will not reunite.

I understand that attitudes on racism are extremely complex. That said, my first significant indication of coming trouble was John Lewis's characterization of John McCain in 2008 as a "racist." I had always respected both men, and although by then I was becoming accustomed to hearing Democrats cut off debate by pointing at the nearest white Republican and yelling, "Racist!," that was unlikely to apply to McCain. He had matured in the US military, arguably one of the least racist institutions in the country.

My second indication came in 2011, when prominent civil rights leaders repeatedly proclaimed that the only reason to disagree with Obama was racism. His approval rating at inauguration was 70%. Less than three years later it was in the low 40s. One-quarter of Americans had become racists in very short order, apparently.

Bureau of Justice Statistics is not, IMO, intentionally obfuscatory, it's simply standard bureaucratic denseness. It's difficult to tease out, but the numbers don't support a narrative of black victimization at the hand of whites. Interracial violence is unusual, and while black-on-white crime is more common than the inverse, it's still relatively rare.

In 2014 Michael Brown was shot and killed by white police officer Darren Wilson in self-defense. The "hands up, don't shoot" false narrative came out of this. Some forty FBI Agents were dispatched to Ferguson, Missouri, and three White House representatives attended the funeral. The town of Ferguson was seriously damaged and the "Ferguson Effect" was born, with police officers hesitant to approach black suspects not for fear of being shot, but for fear of criminal charges.

Events occurring during the Obama presidency put U.S. race relations on a downward track. Trump, to his discredit, has only made things worse. My point is that we shouldn't be focusing on Trump alone, overlooking events from the preceding years. We need to acknowledge the longer duration and complexity of this unfortunate trend to begin to fix what has gone wrong.

Continue ReadingWhen U.S. Race Relations Soured

About Treating People Like Individuals

I follow Wilfred Reilly on Twitter (among many other people). Today, he posted this 2016 video by Ami Horowitz. I understand that the video was created with a viewpoint in mind. We don't know Horowitz chose the people he features or what interviews might have been cut from the final product. That said, This video attacks a deep, unfortunate and insulting assumption that underlies many Woke positions: That Black people are all the same, that society should treat them as a group instead of as individuals and that Blacks are in many ways incompetent. This Woke assumption should be repeatedly yanked out into the daylight and ridiculed, as Shelby Steele has forcefully done throughout his 2020 documentary, "What Killed Michael Brown?" 

For more commentary on the documentary I mentioned above, "What Killed Michael Brown," in invite you to listen to "The Glenn Show," featuring Glenn Loury and (every few episodes) John McWhorter. This is a 180 degree commentary compared to much of the prevailing racial zeitgeist:

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Back to Separate But Equal, and Other Recent Manifestations of Woke Culture

I hate to keep writing about Woke issues, but this ideology increasingly concerns me as the 2020 election approaches.  It is  an issue that mainstream Democrats ignore or downplay, yet the Republicans have recognized it for the cultural cancer that it is.  Woke ideology has successfully entrenched itself deeply into many of our meaning-making institutions and this has positioned it well to spread far, which is unfortunate. Here's a recent example:

Making things worse, far too many Woke advocates are willing to tap into authoritarian tactics.

Andy Ngo's "crime" is that he is reporting on what he is seeing on the streets in Portland, including ongoing attempts to damage or destroy federal property.  The NYT thought this sort of thing was a worthy topic, even when it occurred in a much milder form, when right wing zealots merely occupied federal property for a month in 2016 (see here, for example), but "America's newspaper of record" has barely any interest in Portland or Seattle.  Because of this vacuum, these stories and concerns critical of Woke culture are being covered mostly by conservative media and without sufficient discussion or nuance. As I noted above, it is my concern that these issues are keeping the upcoming election close. This unwillingness by people on the political left to criticize "their own" is unfortunate.  Those relatively few socially brave traditional liberals who are willing to speak out, many of whom consider themselves well-entrenched on the political left, are often being accused of being conservatives/Republicans by others on the political left, merely because they are willing to speak out. This has left many traditional liberals (like me) feeling like we no longer have a political home.

One must usually seek out alternative news sources to find thoughtful discussion about the Woke movement. For those who are trying to get up to speed, consider visiting New Discourses (founded by James Lindsay) and Quillette.

Woke ideology is disproportionately affecting younger adults, people who are increasingly coming into positions of power.  This phenomenon was rather predictable based on The Coddling of the American Mind, by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt. For another thoughtful discussion about the correlation of age and receptiveness to Woke ideology, see this Wiki letter exchange between Sarah Haider and Ayaan Hirsi Ali (the following excerpt was written by Sarah Haider):

Wokeism is, perhaps, an anti-ideology—a will to power that can be most concretely identified not by what it values or the future it envisions, but by what it seeks to destroy and the power it demands. This makes it especially disastrous. For, when an existing organizing structure is destroyed with no replacement, a more brutal force can exploit the resulting power vacuum. . . . Once liberal institutions have been delegitimized by the woke, what will replace them?

But while its philosophy is empty, the psychology of wokeism is deeply satisfying to our baser instincts. For the vicious, there is a thrill in playing the righteous inquisitor, in mobbing heretics and demanding deference—brutal tactics that keep the rest of us in line, lest we be targeted next. Meanwhile, the strict social hierarchies of the woke are reassuringly simple to navigate: one always knows one’s place.

By contrast, liberalism flies in the face of human nature. “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” is a phrase so often repeated that we have forgotten how deeply counterintuitive it is. We want to punch the Nazi (or gag him), not defend his right to march. Liberalism might ultimately be good, but it doesn’t feel good. And this is why it may find itself vulnerable to public abandonment, especially in times where it is most necessary. . . .

You rightly point out that liberalism has formidable champions in Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and J. K. Rowling. Yet Hitchens is gone and all the others are over fifty. Likewise, this summer, when I co-signed an open letter in defense of free debate, I was disconcerted to see how few of the other signatories were even close to my age.

Bari Weiss recently noted that:

The civil war inside The New York Times between the (mostly young) wokes and the (mostly 40+) liberals is the same one raging inside other publications and companies across the country. The dynamic is always the same. The Old Guard lives by a set of principles we can broadly call civil libertarianism. They assumed they shared that worldview with the young people they hired who called themselves liberals and progressives. But it was an incorrect assumption.

This has been my experience too. Woke adherence can be predicted by generation - where true liberals exist, they exist primarily among the old guard. If the woke have won over the young, they have captured the future.

This ideology manifests in many other ways too.  For instance, insincere and dishonest debate about the unprecedented surge in (mostly) young girls who are being convinced that they were born in the wrong body, leading to permanent body-altering surgery, hormones and other treatments.  You won't find honest discussion about these issues in mainstream media--certainly not in the NYT. Instead of wide-open discussion based on a foundation of biology and medicine, you will only hear discussions where the "factual" foundation is ideology.  This is insane. There is a war going being waged to protect young girls (progress being made in Great Britain), yet many media outlets are afraid to cover the story. To learn young girls are being physically damaged by this ideology, you'll need to go to places like Joe Rogan's podcast. His recent episode featuring Abigail Shrier and her excellent book, Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters, resulted in an attempt by employees of Spotify to muzzle Rogan on this issue and other Woke issues. Refreshingly, Rogan counter-attacked by posting this video on Twitter, suggesting that he has carefully anchored his right to speak freely in his Spotify contract:

There are some bright spots--some well-placed people calling out Woke ideology for the illiberal, dysfunctional and mostly dishonest cult that it is. For instance, check out this recent discussion between Sam Harris and John McWhorter. That said, for each of these well-placed people willing to speak out, there are many other people who believe in a vigorous and open discussion, a willingness to consider dissenting speech and a dispassionate determination of the facts as the basis for conversation. Unfortunately, most of these people are lesser known than Joe Rogan (and J.K. Rowling) and more vulnerable to cancellation (see the comments here).

I could go on, but I won't do that here.  I'll try to move on to other topics for awhile . . .

Continue ReadingBack to Separate But Equal, and Other Recent Manifestations of Woke Culture

Coleman Hughes Issues an Open Letter and a Stern Challenge to Ibram Kendi

In his analysis of Ibram Kendo's best-selling book, How to be an Anti-Racist, Coleman Hughes points to: 1) unsubstantiated claims, 2) misstated claims and 3) vague terms and 4) absurd claims from Kendi's earlier writings, such as Kendi's earlier belief that "white people are Aliens."

Here is a excerpt from Hughes' discussion:

Kendi says what they probably believe but are too afraid to say namely: "Racial discrimination is not inherently racist." He continues "the defining question is whether the discrimination is creating equity or inequity. If discrimination is creating equity, then it's anti-racist. If discrimination is creating inequity then it is racist. The only remedy to racist discrimination is anti-racist discrimination. The only remedy to pasT discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination."

In so far as Kendi's book speaks for modern anti-racism then it should be praised for clarifying what the "anti" really means. Fundamentally, the modern anti-racist movement is not against discrimination. It's against inequity which, in many cases, makes it pro-discrimination. The problem with racial equity defined as numerically equal outcomes between races is that it's unachievable.

Without doubt, we have a long way to go in terms of maximizing opportunity for America's most disadvantaged citizens. Many public schools are subpar and some are atrocious. A sizable minority of black children grow up in neighborhoods replete with crime and abandoned buildings, while the majority grow up in single parent homes. Too many black people are behind bars.

All of this is true, yet none of it implies that equal outcomes are either possible or the proper goal. Kendi discusses inequity between ethnic groups, for example, which he views as identical to inequity between racial groups, as problems created by racist public policy.  This view commits him to some bizarre conclusions. For example, according to the 2017 census bureau data, the average Haitian American earned just 68 cents for every dollar earned by the average Nigerian American.  The average French American earned just 70 cents for every dollar earned by the average Russian American.  Similar examples abound, so ask yourself: "Is it more likely that our society imposes policies that discriminate against American descendants of Haiti and France but not Nigeria or Russia?  Or that disparities between racial and ethnic groups are normal even in the absence of racist policies?

Kendi's view puts him firmly in the first camp.  "To be anti-racist," he writes "is to view the inequities between all racialized ethnic groups," by which he means groups like Haitians and Nigerians, "as problems of policy."  Put bluntly, this assumption is indefensible. What would it take to achieve a world of racial equity top-down enforcement of racial quotas?  A constitutional amendment banning racial disparity? A department of anti-racism to pre-screen every policy for racially disparate impact? These ideas may sound like they were conjured up to caricature anti-racists as Orwellian super villain, but Kendi has actually suggested them as policy recommendations.

As Hughes explains at the end of his video, Kendi has actually proposed a vast bureaucracy, unaccountable to voters, charged with making sure that no national, state or local law is "racist."  This bureaucracy would also be empowered to investigate private businesses and to monitor the speech of public officials to make sure that "racism" (broadly defined by Kendi, to include a complete lack of numerical disparities in hiring) exist.

Hughes ends his video with the following:

How to be an anti-racist is the clearest and most jargon free articulation of modern anti-racism I've read and for that reason alone it's a useful contribution.  But the book is poorly argued, sloppily researched insufficiently fact-checked, and occasionally self-contradictory.  As a result, it fails to live up to its titular promise, ultimately teaching the reader less about how to be anti-racist than about how to be anti-intellectual.

[From Wikipedia]: Coleman Cruz Hughes (born 1996) is an American writer and opinion columnist on issues related to race and racism at the online magazine Quillette, a fellow and contributing editor at City Journal, and host of the podcast Conversations with Coleman. As Coleman Hughes comments: "What could possible go wrong?"

Continue ReadingColeman Hughes Issues an Open Letter and a Stern Challenge to Ibram Kendi