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.”

Today’s Reading from The Daily Stoic: Don’t Take the Bait

Ryan Holiday's The Daily Stoic is a constant source of modern wisdom from 2,000 years ago.  The book offers one Stoic quote and commentary for each day of the year. Today's wisdom:

“Who then is invincible? The one who cannot be upset by anything outside their reasoned choice.”

— Epictetus, Discourses , 1.18.21

Holiday's commentary:

Have you ever watched a seasoned pro handle the media? No question is too tough, no tone too pointed or insulting. They parry every blow with humor, poise, and patience. Even when stung or provoked, they choose not to flinch or react. They’re able to do this not only because of training and experience, but because they understand that reacting emotionally will only make the situation worse. The media is waiting for them to slip up or get upset, so to successfully navigate press events they have internalized the importance of keeping themselves under calm control. It’s unlikely you’ll face a horde of probing reporters bombarding you with insensitive questions today. But it might be helpful—whatever stresses or frustrations or overload that do come your way—to picture that image and use it as your model for dealing with them. Our reasoned choice—-our prohairesis, as the Stoics called it—-is a kind of invincibility that we can cultivate. We can shrug off hostile attacks and breeze through pressure or problems.

My own reaction:

More than a few of these Stoic quotes remind us: "Don't take the bait!" We have the ability to let most of the aggravations in our lives past over us and through us. That's true whether it be a a rude motorist, an incompetent worker or an unappreciative person you are actively helping. Truly, just don't take the bait! It's so tempting, but if you take the bait, you will then be handing an aggravating other person precious unreplenishable moments of your life. Why would you ever piss away something so valuable? That's akin to allowing a pickpocket to take your valuables.

This is also a core idea of Buddhism, well illustrated by this fable about two monks and the rude woman. Here is how Harriet Lerner tells the story:

Two traveling monks reached a town where there was a young woman waiting to step out of her sedan chair. The rains had made deep puddles and she couldn’t step across without spoiling her silken robes. She stood there, looking very cross and impatient. She was scolding her attendants. They had nowhere to place the packages they held for her, so they couldn’t help her across the puddle.

The younger monk noticed the woman, said nothing, and walked by. The older monk quickly picked her up and put her on his back, transported her across the water, and put her down on the other side. She didn’t thank the older monk, she just shoved him out of the way and departed.

As they continued on their way, the young monk was brooding and preoccupied. After several hours, unable to hold his silence, he spoke out. “That woman back there was very selfish and rude, but you picked her up on your back and carried her! Then she didn’t even thank you!

“I set the woman down hours ago,” the older monk replied. “Why are you still carrying her?”

I'm not perfect at this technique, but when I'm doing a better job at it, I'm more at peace and I'm better able to tend to things that truly matter to me. I will keep practicing this Stoic/Buddhist technique because it is so freeing. The alternative is to risk that your next of kin might put this on your tombstone: "Spent too much of his scant time on Earth getting perturbed at other people."

Continue ReadingToday’s Reading from The Daily Stoic: Don’t Take the Bait

The Upsides of Death

My family and I are currently working through a sudden death of someone central to all of us.  Anne Octavia Jay, my ex-wife, suddenly died.  For months, she was working through some medical issues that seemed surmountable, but then there was some extra-bad news. Then, about two weeks ago it started pouring bad news. This deluge included a sudden diagnosis of stage four cancer.  On Christmas Eve, she suffered cardiac arrest, which led to forty minutes of CPR. In the ICU we learned what kind of damage can happen to a person's brain after forty minutes of CPR.

On the day after Christmas, my two young adult daughters and I gathered around Anne in the ICU to say our goodbyes. I learned that for a patient who has suffered this sort of damage, the fact that she occasionally opened her eyes means nothing at all.   I learned what "comfort care" means. I am learning what it means to be the only surviving parent.  I am learning how hard it can be to lose a parent.  I am learning the awkwardness of being an ex-spouse who loses one's ex-spouse. What am I to be called?  An "ex-widower"? What is the proper name for a person in my position, someone who still cared deeply for my deceased ex but who feels awkward because our marriage fell apart and we divorced each other?

I don't really have an end in mind for this post. Mostly, I'm emoting, but I wanted to share that I was particularly right about one thing. I've always assumed that one can use most "bad" events as good experiences, not just as good learning experiences. We the survivors have learned a lot together.  I now know how to be a better friend to other people who have lost their loved ones.  I now know better how to appreciate the complexity of the human body.  We shouldn't be surprised when our bodies don't work; rather, we should be more more surprised that they ever actually work, given their mind-boggling complexity.  I've learned to appreciate the human heart.  Anne's heart faithfully beat for 59 years, which is a stunning achievement regularly exceeded by the heart-beating streaks of countless other people such as me (I'm in my 60's).

Mostly, I've learned to appreciate the importance of community.  I've seen many dozens of people come out of the woodwork to offer comfort and assistance for my daughters and me in many major and minor ways.  I now have increased respect for the way healthcare workers treat the family of dying patients. I've learned to appreciate straight talk from these professionals.  I've learned to appreciate the patience and kindness of all the people at the cremation service we are using.  We are surrounded by good-hearted people, including countless friends and relatives.  They are everywhere.  They are constantly bringing us flowers and soup and snacks and offers of ever-more help. It has been humbling.

We are in our George Bailey moment and people are running to our rescue in droves to tell us that we are not alone. It feels wonderful.  I know that the hard part will be when all of the adrenaline is gone and when my daughters and I will experience unrelenting emptiness.  That leads me to also appreciate the many friends and professionals who offer grief counseling individually and in groups.

Death in one's family can be one of the better ways to learn what it means to live a good life.  And to paraphrase Tim McGraw, I have better learned to live like I am dying.

I'll end with a Facebook tribute I created for Anne. More than anything else, she wanted to make sure her children were OK. This was her prime directive.  My daughters are working through this with me and I am strongly convinced that we will be ultimately be OK as we continue our life journeys stronger and wiser. Thanks for reading through to the end.

Continue ReadingThe Upsides of Death

Self-Righteousness is Incompatible with Morality

From Maria Popova's excellent website, Brain Pickings. These are words we desperately need to hear these days:

“To be a moral human being is to pay, be obliged to pay, certain kinds of attention,” Susan Sontag wrote in what remains some of the finest advice on writing and life. But if beneath the world “morality,” as James Baldwin asserted, “we are confronted with the way we treat each other,” then to be a moral human being requires an especial attentiveness to other human beings and their subjective realities. In consequence, any true morality is the diametric opposite of self-righteousness — the very thing that so often masquerades for morality.

That paradox is what Joan Didion examines in a short 1965 essay titled “On Morality,” found in Slouching Towards Bethlehem (public library).

With an eye to our tendency to mistake for morality what is indeed a “monstrous perversion” of the ego, Didion writes:

“I followed my own conscience.” “I did what I thought was right.” How many madmen have said it and meant it? How many murderers? Klaus Fuchs said it, and the men who committed the Mountain Meadows Massacre said it, and Alfred Rosenberg said it. And, as we are rotely and rather presumptuously reminded by those who would say it now, Jesus said it. Maybe we have all said it, and maybe we have been wrong. Except on that most primitive level — our loyalties to those we love — what could be more arrogant than to claim the primacy of personal conscience?

 

Continue ReadingSelf-Righteousness is Incompatible with Morality