John McWhorter: Beware “Anti-Racism” Programs that do not Diminish Racism

John McWhorter urges all of us to do real work instead following the suggestions of Robin DiAngelo and Ibram Kendi to lower standards, which has the effect of infantilizing those who have fallen behind. Just because someone calls a program "anti-racism" does not mean that it actually helps to eliminate racism.

The Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR) is a nonpartisan organization dedicated to advancing civil rights and liberties for all Americans, and promoting a common culture based on fairness, understanding and humanity. McWhorter is one of the many dedicated people serving on the FAIR Board of Advisors.

Continue ReadingJohn McWhorter: Beware “Anti-Racism” Programs that do not Diminish Racism

The Woking Class

I know this sounds overbroad and over-ambitious, but I would like to know what the loudest members of the Woke have ever done in their lives to alleviate suffering of others. I know people who actually pour their life energies into helping desperate people survive. I don't see any such benefit resulting from Woke ideology. I see a lot of young people with lots of energy and frustration. How many of these idealistic people have ever worked a job where they need to fix something physical? How many have ever worked a job where they served a customer well? Yet they claim that they know how to burn down our entire political/economic system without any meaningful blueprint of what happens next.

Is that why so many of them spend so much time digitally grooming themselves on social media? And, BTW, the people who have spent a lot of time providing valuable goods and services to others are working class Americans who do seek community with other Americans, who value a hard day's work and who have been abandoned by the modern Democratic Party.

Glenn Greenwald:

If your only sense of purpose, self-esteem and political identity comes from how you posture online, then you will of course want to create a framework in which one's character and values are determined by everything *except* what you do with your life. That's online leftism.

Consider the recent work of Batya Ungar-Sargon:

We are hiding a class divide in America," she said. "We are hiding disgusting levels of income inequality in America. We are hiding the total dispossession of the working class of all races by focusing on a very highly specialized academic language about race.

Continue ReadingThe Woking Class

Professor Sheena Mason: Simultaneously Eliminate Racism and the Idea of Race

In the Journal of Free Black Thought, Professor Sheena Mason argues that the only way to do away with racism is to do away with the concept of race. Here's an excerpt:

Theory of Racelessness, in contrast to traditional antiracism, operates from a metaphysically skeptical and normatively eliminativist position. Thus, it constitutes a true antirace(ism) by seeking to undo not only racism but also “race.” It holds that “race” does not exist except insofar as it is imagined to exist, and that, therefore, the sooner we stop imagining it in our language and discourse, the sooner it will vanish. In eliminating “race,” the Theory of Racelessness helps people recognize and imagine themselves outside of race(ism). It enables people to see themselves and others more clearly, without the distorting filter of “race.” In this way, the theory also helps people become more astute at recognizing and solving race(ism). Importantly, the theory’s core is bringing our shared humanity to the forefront in ways that the divisive presence or insertion of “race” ideology precludes. Together, we can do anything, including uphold race(ism). But we can also reconcile, heal, resolve, and eliminate the problem, too.

Mason's Biography includes the following:

Sheena Mason is assistant professor of English at SUNY Oneonta. Her forthcoming book, Decolonizing the Raci(al/st) Imagination in Literary Studies: An Interrogation and Critique of Antiracist Discourse (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), presents a skeptical eliminativist philosophy of race and racism that results in her signature “theory of racelessness.” The book argues that African-American writers across time have created art that resists racism through their resistance to and rejection of race. Theory of Racelessness is Prof. Mason’s educational consulting business. With the rise of antiracist discourse and initiatives, many organizations unintentionally promote racist ideas and miss opportunities to identify and celebrate genuine diversity of thought over perceived variety, based mainly on phenotype and social constructions (i.e., concepts of race).

I like this approach. I have often expressed the idea that our approach to "racism" should be twofold. "Race" itself is a destructive idea, an often well-intended miscategorization of people that assumes that people can be accurately judged (as to things like character, intelligence, education, moral character) by their looks.This means that the concept of "race" has no more validity than astrology. You cannot judge anyone's character by immutable characteristics like phenotype or birthdate. Skin doesn't think. On the other hand, many people we need to vigorously fight those who do want to judge others by immutable characteristics. We need to vigorously confront these people in the public square. Whenever someone is harmed by others' willingness to engage in racecraft, we need to be especially vocal, resorting to the court system to oppose any discrimination based on "race." We need to ostracize anyone disparaging anyone else based on looks, even if done with allegedly good intentions.

As Sam Harris has suggested, we should be working toward a world where "race" is the least interesting thing about another person.

Continue ReadingProfessor Sheena Mason: Simultaneously Eliminate Racism and the Idea of Race

Richard Dawkins: Race is on a Spectrum, Sex is “Pretty Damn Binary.”

Richard Dawkins answers the "dangerous" question he asked in April 2021, the question that caused him to be disowned by the American Humanist Association. The title to his article at Areo: "Race Is a Spectrum. Sex Is Pretty Damn Binary."

Were race not a spectrum, Rachel Dolezal’s critics should have spotted that she wasn’t “really” black, simply by taking one look at her. It’s precisely because black Americans are a spectrum that it wasn’t obvious. With negligible exceptions, on the other hand, you can unwaveringly identify a person’s sex at a glance, especially if they remove their clothes. Sex is pretty damn binary.

If I chose to identify as a hippopotamus, you would rightly say I was being ridiculous. The claim is too facetiously at variance with reality. It’s marginally more ridiculous than the Church’s Aristotelian casuistry in identifying the “substance” of blood with wine and body with bread, while the “accidentals” safely remain an alcoholic beverage and a wafer. Not at all ridiculous, however, was James Morris’s choice to identify as a woman and his gruelling and costly transition to Jan Morris. Her explanation, in Conundrum, of how she always felt like a woman trapped in a man’s body is eloquent and moving. It rings agonizingly true and earns our deep sympathy. We rightly address her with feminine pronouns, and treat her as a woman in social interactions. We should do the same with others in her situation, honest and decent people who have wrestled all their lives with the distressing condition known as gender dysphoria.

Sex transition is an arduous revolution—physiological, anatomical, social, personal and familial—not to be undertaken lightly. I doubt that Jan Morris would have had much time for a man who simply flings on a frock and announces, “I am now a woman.” For Dr Morris, it was a ten-year odyssey. Prolonged hormone treatment, drastic surgery, readjustment of social conventions and personal relationships—those who take this plunge earn our deep respect for that very reason. And why is it so onerous and drastic, courageously worthy of such respect? Precisely because sex is so damn binary! Changing sex is a big deal. Changing the race by which you identify is a doddle in comparison, precisely because race is already a continuous spectrum, rendered so by widespread intermarriage over many generations.

Continue ReadingRichard Dawkins: Race is on a Spectrum, Sex is “Pretty Damn Binary.”