Biologists Heather Heying and Brett Weinstein Dissect Robin DiAngelo’s Personal “White Fragility”

In this 15-minute video, evolutionary biologists Heather Heying and Brett Weinstein dissect Robin DiAngelo’s revealing book, “White Fragility.” Their discussion directly engages with DiAngelo’s central arguments. Heying and Weinstein conclude that DiAngelo’s book is revealing in the sense that DiAngelo (who is white) reveals herself to be an unrepentant racist who is attempting to impose her distorted view of reality on everyone else, especially her core belief that “race” is the single most defining features of our complex human histories and experiences.

Heying states the following at min 5:00: “This book is a hot mess of sloppy scholarship and cherry-picked data, but that’s not actually its biggest flaw.” Heying then reads several passages from “White Fragility.” I almost fell out of my chair as I heard DiAngelo’s words. Listen in at min 5:30 to hear DiAngelo’s words for yourself. Normal people don’t think these thoughts.

I bought a copy of “White Fragility” to make sure that Heying and Weinstein were giving DiAngelo a fair reading. I also base my opinions on my own readings of other work by DiAngelo. Since viewing the above video, I’ve read other passages from “White Fragility” that are similar to those discussed by Heying and Weinstein. Consider this one:

For example, I was invited to the retirement party of a white friend. The party was a pot-luck picnic held in a public park. As I walked down the slope toward the picnic shelters, I noticed two parties going on side by side. One gathering was primarily composed of white people, and the other appeared to be all black people. I experienced a sense of disequilibrium as I approached and had to choose which party was my friend’s. I felt a mild sense of anxiety as I considered that I might have to enter the all-black group, then mild relief as I realized that my friend was in the other group. This relief was amplified as I thought that I might have mistakenly walked over to the black party!
[DiAngelo, Robin J.. White Fragility (p. 53). Beacon Press. Kindle Edition.]

Here’s another:

Indeed, throughout my life, I have been warned that I should avoid situations in which I might be a racial minority. These situations are often presented as scary, dangerous, or “sketchy.”
[DiAngelo, Robin J.. White Fragility (p. 53). Beacon Press. Kindle Edition.]

It seems that DiAngelo needs to spend more time getting comfortable around Black people. That has been an early and recurring thought in my mind.

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Being Bad at Math Gives Us Freedom

Math proficiency is a superpower that allows us see into the future and to understand the past. Only 41% of our 4th graders and 34% of 8th graders are math proficient.

Being BAD at math gives people the freedom and confidence to say things that are blatantly untrue with a straight face. Being BAD at math gives us the super-power to laugh at those who have carefully proven their cases with math. Being bad at math gives us the super-freedom to "prove" complex claims with mere anecdotes.

Every day it becomes clearer to me that our innumeracy explains much of our country's rampant dysfunction.

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Musical Brief-Writing

I'm working on a long legal brief tonight, third day in a row. Due Monday. Tonight's music: Tori Amos, "Scarlet's Walk." Currently playing: A sweet and lofty song called "Your Cloud."

My brief-writing music earlier today: "In Stride," an album by an excellent eccentric jazz group called "Oregon," featuring Ralph Towner, stunningly good on both piano and guitar. Check out the comments for a sample video, a song called "If."

When it's time to do mechanical proof-reading, I sometimes ride the hypnotic energy of Essentials of Deadmau5. Played Loudly. Rather amazing thing about Deadmau5. He composes on a regular keyboard (numbers and letters, not a keyboard that looks like a piano). I watched his Masterclass course and was mesmerized.

I have a difficult time sitting still when reading and writing 12 hours per day. Music helps to keeps me in my seat . . . I have many other favorite artists, but many of them take my focus too easily from the legal work to the music (e.g., Wes Montgomery, Tower of Power, Sarah Tavares, and lots and lots of covers).

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The Day I Received a “D” on my College Paper on “Communism”

Events of the day are reminding me of the day I received a "D" on a college paper. The subject was "Communism."  I was attending the University of Missouri- St. Louis at the time, back in 1977. I was taking a class on "Communism," because I decided that it important to be knowledgeable about a political theory that I often heard about, but didn't understand. The class was taught by three teachers. One of them indicated that she was, in no uncertain terms, "a communist." I was a straight A student at UMSL; I mention this only because it provides context to this story. I should also mention that I enjoyed the class. It stimulated me to think. Reading the actual words of Karl Marx helped me to appreciate that he had genuine passionate concerns for the mistreatment of workers. He worked hard to construct what he believed to be a better political system to protect workers.

The "Communist" teacher assigned a reading and required us to write a paper, which I did. I expressed my concerns that a communist system, though well-intentioned, would not work because it didn't provide some necessary incentives. It was a short paper, about 6 or 7 pages. I received a "D," with the comment that I didn't show that I understood Marx, but I could re-write and re-submit. I decided to re-write. I'm not proud of what I then did, but I fully understand why.  For my re-write I handed in a glowing uncritical tribute to communism. I still have the rewrite and one of my ending sentences was this: "The way of communism, for Marx, presents the opportunity of a better life for the individual and for society as a whole." This same teacher gave me an "A-" on this rewrite, with this comment: Why has no communist society been able to achieve what Marx proposed?" I was tempted to respond: "For that answer see my FIRST paper!" I didn't respond, though. I moved on, tarnished by my intellectual dishonesty.

This turned out to be a formative experience for me. I sometimes think of this bad grade when I hear of students and teachers who are being chilled or reprimanded for asking sincere questions, positing hard-to-hear facts or formulating arguments against any form of orthodoxy or ideology. If we don't allow free speech in classrooms, including the free expression of views that some people consider unpopular or even offensive, we will turn our classrooms into churches. I am well-tuned to detect oppressive religious dogma that parades in intellectual clothing. I spent much of my childhood blunting my well-intentioned father's attempts to save my soul by urging me to say absurd things.  I never gave in, and my upbringing helped to forge me into the analytical and skeptical person that I am. I embrace free speech and critical skepticism as an important way to understand things that confuse me, and I've often stayed the course as others get angry with me instead of discussing facts and opinions that they consider "dangerous." Hence, the name of my website, "Dangerous Intersection." As Carl Sagan wrote: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof."  Indeed.

The willingness to grapple with threatening ideas is strong good medicine for developing the kinds of human beings who I trust. Uncritically adopting a slogan or a platitude is not the same thing as thinking and doing this should never be tolerated as "education."  It is also important to make sure that everyone speaks up because the otherwise chilled speech might be the majority opinion of the group. Or it might be a small minority opinion which will someday become revered as great wisdom. Once we are well-informed, all of us need to speak up, especially when it seems scary. It's for these reasons that I wrote this post on the classic social science experiments of Soloman Asch: "Why you need to be the one to speak up." It's for this reason that I have been hammering on free speech issues of late.

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National Association of Scholars Pushes Back on Cancel Culture

The National Association of Scholars was founded and funded by conservatives back in 1987, long before Trump hijacked what was left of the traditional conservative movement. Despite its conservative origins and leanings, the Mission Statement of NAS is one that I can generally support. I don't consider myself to be a "conversative" or "liberal."  I consider my positions on each political issue separately, a la carte. Party politics has no bearing on what I think about an issue. I am writing about NAS because I believe it is offering important information and narratives to the public.  In this article, NAS expresses its grave concern that Cancel Culture is chilling speech at the academy, which clashes with what is arguably the prime directive of education.

NAS has taken a strong stance in opposition to Cancel Culture and in favor of open and vigorous discussion of issues at universities. NAS is also compiling a chart of numerous incidents involving teachers who have been disciplined or fired for expressing their opinions (and sometimes for expressing facts) both in the classroom and outside of the classroom.  This list includes summaries of the incidents. I have reviewed independent detailed reports about some of these cases, so that I know that some of the NAS summaries seem fair, but I do not claim to be independently informed about the facts of most of the cases on the list.

All organizations that stand up for the importance of free speech recognize that protected speech is not always easy to protect. For instance consider the position of the ACLU, which famously represented nazis on a free speech in the Skokie case:

Protecting free speech means protecting a free press, the democratic process, diversity of thought, and so much more. The ACLU has worked since 1920 to ensure that freedom of speech is protected for everyone.

It is important to protect speech for the greater long-term good, even when some infringements involve speech that is unpopular, wrong-headed or seemingly deplorable. NAS makes this explicitly clear:

To be sure, some of the aforementioned statements are unsavory and may be worthy of institutional discipline. But the vast majority are not. And yet, woke higher education bureaucrats show an eager willingness to placate the angry students and professors insisting that “justice” be served. Meanwhile, “cancelees” have their professional reputations permanently sullied and, in many cases, ruined.

Here are the stated aims of NAS:

Our Mission The National Association of Scholars upholds the standards of a liberal arts education that fosters intellectual freedom, searches for the truth, and promotes virtuous citizenship.

Our Ideals The standards of a liberal arts education that the NAS upholds include reasoned scholarship and civil debate in America’s colleges and universities; and individual merit in academic and scholarly endeavor. We expect that ideas be judged on their merits; that scholars engage in the disinterested pursuit of the truth; and that colleges and universities provide for fair and judicial examination of contending views.

We expect colleges to offer coherent curricula and programs of study. We uphold a view of institutional integrity that includes financial probity as well as transparency in the curriculum and classroom. We uphold the principles of academic freedom that include faculty members’ and students’ freedom to pursue academic research; their freedom to question and to think for themselves; and their freedom from ideological imposition.

We expect colleges and universities to prioritize education as academia’s main purpose. And we understand education in our time and place to entail providing students with a breadth of understanding of core subjects including Western civilization and American history. We recognize that the vitality of American education arises in large part out of the freedom of colleges and universities to experiment and to offer diverse curricula. That robust diversity, however, must be anchored in respect for the abiding ideals of the pursuit of the truth and the cultivation of virtuous citizenship.

I invite you to Google the facts of some of these cases on the NAS list to see whether you are also concerned that speech is being chilled in classroom such that the overall mission of colleges and universities is being threatened.

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