Glenn Loury: It is Our Country, Not Their Country

Glenn Loury raises many "unspeakable truths" in his talk. His conclusion:

As a black American intellectual who loves his country, I can say without equivocation in the year 2021 that the Fourth of July-- like Shakespeare like Balzac, like Einstein--is ours. It belongs to me every bit as much as it does to you.

The question confronting we black Americans today then is not whether we are included within the body politic of the United States of America. What a ridiculous question! We most emphatically and obviously are. Today's question is not how to end our oppression. Rather, it is "What shall we do with our freedom?" What will we make of the enormous inheritance that is our birthright: citizenship in history's greatest republic?

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Scientific American Publishes False Information, Recklessly Stoking the Culture Wars

Three alleged specialists in communications who wrote this article at Scientific American could not be bothered to look up the easily available text of a Wisconsin bill that they are falsely criticizing. This is deeply troubling. This is magazine that purports to celebrate science, yet this article, which has nothing to do with science, blatantly misrepresents the facts (the text of a Wisconsin) bill in order to score political points. Here's the false information:

A bill passed by the Wisconsin Assembly, for instance, bans any books, educational materials, or classroom discussions that include terms like “racial prejudice,” “patriarchy,” “structural inequality,” “intersectionality” or, ironically, “critical self-reflection.”

It only takes 5 minutes to read Wisconsin bill 411 and clearly and immediately know that none of the above claims are true.  Jesse Singal comments.

I'm not taking a position on the above Wisconsin bill. Rather, I'm criticizing well-educated people in high places who deceive others from their perches in order to feel better about themselves.

This is not the first time Scientific American has run off the rails on cultural issues. See here, here and here.

RIP Scientific American.  I used to read and admire you because you tried to get your facts right and you wrote about science.

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What Shall We Call Your Social Movement, [CRT]?

From Freddie Boer:

You know personally I’ve been achingly specific about my critiques of social justice politics, but fine - no woke, it’s a “dogwhistle” for racism. (The term “dogwhistle” is a way for people to simply impute attitudes you don’t hold onto you, to make it easier to dismiss criticism, for the record.) But the same people say there’s no such thing as political correctness, and they also say identity politics is a bigoted term. So I’m kind of at a loss. Also, they propose sweeping changes to K-12 curricula, but you can’t call it CRT, even though the curricular documents specifically reference CRT, and if you do you’re an idiot and also you’re a racist cryptofascist. Also nobody (nobody!) ever advocated for defunding the police, and if they did it didn’t actually mean defunding the police. Seems to be a real resistance to simple, comprehensible terms around here. . . . And for fuck’s sake, give me a simple term to use to address you. Please? Because right now it sure looks like you don’t want to be named because you don’t want to be criticized.

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