I'm a fan of Coleman Hughes in the way he dissects ideas and presents facts to dispel them. Will pay more attention to his podcast from time to time.
his stuff is really good, I saw a book review he did of Ibram Kendi's book a couple of years ago and have been a big fan ever since
It does not matter yet you always respond. How cute. I mean do want people to take you seriously or not? For a poster that identifies as a being a troll, it's hard to keep up.
Words are nice but they don't solve the issue. The fact is the descendents of those wronged still are suffering from what happened. Many are still stuck in a cycle of poverty stemming back to that. We'd be a stronger nation if we took action to fix the problem.
Because he is not just pushing back on CRT, he's equating any effort to fight racism essentially as "anti-racism" and then saying it's good to push back against that effort. Because he's muddling everything up he is essentially not only saying it's good to fight against CRT, but the entire idea of systemic racism, which sounds like the perfect song for a racist to sing.
I disagree. He distinguishes between two forms of anti-racism: the traditional form with which presumably he agrees, and an illiberal form that he argues has taken many wrong turns: AR1: "At its heart, anti-racism comes from a progressive impulse. It seeks to address the glaring inequalities in American life that are suffered by non-whites, and to identify the historical roots of these inequalities in imperial conquest, slavery and the legal codification of racial subordination. It urges the country to take seriously its long history of racial discrimination and has called for finding ways to overcome these injustices." AR2: "In its illiberal form, however, anti-racism has replaced substantive political thinking with an emphasis on symbolic cultural changes like replacing school names, become dangerously intolerant of dissent and sidelined discussions of class exclusion and oppression that affect Americans of all races." Much of the rest of the essay is devoted to distinguishing between these two forms of AR (e.g., "The Excesses Of Illiberal Anti-Racism")--not to "equating any effort to fight racism essentially as 'anti-raicism.'" There is virtually NO textual evidence to support your claim. he is pushing back against AR2, and yes, he is saying it is good to push back against AR2 that may be your impression--or alternatively, you may be muddled--but I do not think he is "muddling everything up." Again you don't provide any textual evidence of him "muddling" everything (which is a big word--what exactly does "everything" refer to here?) up. this is just an astoundingly BAD take on what he's written--not a charitable reading certainly, nor an accurate one. To take but one example: "Insofar as anti-racism frames the barrier to racial equality as 'systemic racism,' the stress on reforming people’s personal views — which today are far less racist than was the case before the civil-rights era — is puzzling. 'Systemic racism' would suggest a focus on structural disparities such as income, wealth, unemployment rates, health inequities, mortality differences and more, and on solutions to those problems. Instead, the emphasis in anti-racist discourse tends to be on plumbing the depths of the white soul in search of racist beliefs. He is clearly NOT arguing that systemic racism is good to fight against: "'Systemic racism' would suggest a focus on structural disparities such as income, wealth, unemployment rates, health inequities, mortality differences and more, and on solutions to those problems." I see no way whatsoever to support your conclusion that he argues "it's good to fight against . . . the entire idea of systemic racism." it would be much more honest and straightforward to simply call him a racist directly, rather than to obscure that accusation in such a thinly veiled way ("perfect song for a racist to sing').
I don’t know what you want to do with it either but I’m just telling you that the power of propaganda in America is a huge threat. And I disagree that there is an equal threat to our society on both sides as you are indicating. The Power that Fox has is to convince 40% of Americans that even someone like you holds the same views as a writer at the Root. Therefore all Democrats are evil pedos and the only answer is enforcing an autocratic police state. The equalization of that level of power on the left would be The Root convincing 60% of Americans that … I dunno… a stimulus bill for a trillion dollars be created to invest in black owned infrastructure and maybe have some equal protections in the laws to mandate equal representations in the workplace. Even that might be more than they actually want and they are just trying to create discussion. Even then, there’s just no equating of the dangers of what the propaganda powers of the right are doing in order to achieve real power in relation to the intent of the far left narratives which…(and what my point is) DO NOT actually reach and convince without question any sort of majority of the left. If they did then me and you would be reciting talking points of the Root which we are not. Yes we can still critique the root and our own sides fringe voices when they are going too far, but my point is the context of what the actually wide majority of the left is doing with those far fringed opinions vs what the entirety of the right does to engrain their propaganda onto its audience with 100% conviction. It is nowhere near the same thing and there should be no equating of the two.
I never said that, don't go there. It seems you created your entire argument on something I never said. My point is we need to be able to self scout and find out what divisions the Right will exploit, I don't think those left publications have the impact of the right but they are a real achilles heel, fanning the flames of those progressives who just want to burn it all down.
He is misdefining what anti-racism is. Anti-racism is not about plunging the depths of the white soul. It is not about removing the names from schools or taking down statues. That's not what it means to be anti-racist at all. There is no illiberal form of anti-racism outside what he is creating. That's my issue with him. Anti-racism is not political correctness, or "cancel culture". The people who focus on words have always been around, on the left and the right. This playbook isn't new. AR2 is an invention - where are the speakers and rallies on AR2? Where are the groups on AR2? I agree he isn't pushing back on AR1 if you will, but by casting political correctness as AR2 he is muddling up what anti-racism is an allowing for blowback against anything legitimate associated with Anti-racism. That's my problem with him. I appreciate the depths of your post, but hopefully that helps clarify what I am saying.
Here's what I see as a rebuttal to the argument he is making: https://herald-review.com/opinion/c...cle_fee5a57c-9b1d-51ff-9605-ad5f28aef885.html Anti-racism is now routinely framed as a threat to freedom of speech, but the tactic is not new. In 1965, William F. Buckley Jr. argued in a syndicated column titled, “Are You a Racist?” that the word “racism” was being used “indiscriminately.” This risked preventing a focus on real racism, such as that perpetrated by Hitler, he wrote, and also led to innocent people being denounced merely for expressing “controversial” opinions. Sound familiar? Buckley’s warning about the censoriousness of anti-racist politics was issued the same year as the Selma-to-Montgomery civil rights march. More than 50 years later, the same tactic is being deployed in response to the Black Lives Matter movement. Across different contexts, the democratic importance of free speech is being misappropriated to advance reactionary politics. The Conservative Party government in the United Kingdom, for example, has invested significant political energy in framing BLM-related protests as threats to freedom of expression. The maneuvering by Buckley and the U.K. share an approach. Rather than denying the existence of racism, both insist on an artificially restricted definition that accepts nothing short of evidence of direct, intentional hostility. This closes off any discussion of the structural and institutional racism in society that the wave of BLM-inspired movements seek to confront. It is also designed to put people subject to racism on the defensive. Unless they can definitively prove intentional racism as the cause of a behavior, they are said to be acting undemocratically — and shutting down open debate by indiscriminately accusing others of racism. Idaho’s new law banning the teaching of “critical race theory” in its public schools is an example of gaslighting politics in action. In a bid to defend “dignity and non-discrimination,” it criminalizes such teaching, arguing that it promotes division. No definition of “critical race theory” is provided, but this is a feature, not a flaw, of the attack on anti-racism. If the concept is left fluid, “critical race theory” can be made to stand in for any attempt to account for the legacy and persistence of racist structures. At the same time, if it is presented as something solid, it can be viewed as an indoctrinating ideology and justify the censoring of, for instance, education and educators. This shape-shifting is exactly what former Vice President Mike Pence was playing with when he tweeted in response to the vote: “We will reject Critical Race Theory in our schools and public institutions, and we will CANCEL Cancel Culture wherever it arises!” France's liberal government has taken this assault even further. In a manufactured moral panic, the French government is accusing anti-racist groups of importing “North American theories” about systemic racism that threaten the universalism of the French republic. Consequently, these ideas are framed not as contributions to open debate, but as a menace to freedom of speech as an essential value underpinning the republic. Brazen political moves like this must be opposed not just by anti-racists, but by anyone concerned with the democratic value of free speech. The first line of defense would be to expose the weaponization of freedom of speech as an opportunistic political tactic. Opportunistic, and dangerous, since it allows politicians to pay lip service to opposing racism while framing anti-racist movements and ideas as a democratic threat. It is also crucial to demonstrate how free speech is being used for authoritarian ends. A vague rhetoric of “free speech” sounds perfectly democratic, but it is drawn on to suppress specific kinds of political expression. In milking a supposed free speech “crisis,” elected politicians in London, Paris and Idaho enacted measures that flagrantly restrict forms of democratic speech, in these cases the right to protest and academic freedom. Public debates are meant to be a contest of ideas. In a digital media swirl, debates are shaped by the incessant circulation of media content, and not everything that is set up as an idea should be treated as one. Contemporary “debates” are often spectacles made up from recycled talking points and recurring, polarizing controversies jostling for attention
while I appreciate both your posts, I can't help but get the feeling we're talking about two different things here. For example, that doesn't make any sense to me. Even Obama acknowledged (on more than one occasion) the illiberal tendencies of some flavors of anti-racism activism. Just take the speech by Obama mentioned in the OP: Barack Obama’s anti-racist credentials are hard to question. But in 2019, he called out this extremism: “This idea of purity and you’re never compromised and you’re always politically ‘woke’ and all that stuff,” he said. “You should get over that quickly. … The world is messy; there are ambiguities. People who do really good stuff have flaws.” Obama went on to say that “among certain young people, and this is accelerated by social media, there is this sense sometimes of: ‘The way of me making change is to be as judgmental as possible about other people, and that’s enough.’” For Obama, such an approach not only displays an illiberal mindset — it blocks instead of promotes real change. “That’s not activism. That’s not bringing about change. If all you’re doing is casting stones, you’re probably not going to get that far.” How do you square your assertion ("There is no illiberal form of anti-racism outside what he is creating") with what Obama articulates here? Is Obama "creating" an illiberal form of anti-racism? is Obama simply singing the "perfect song for a racist to sing" you mentioned? Here's the link provided in the OP to the Obama interview: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/31/us/politics/obama-woke-cancel-culture.html Is Obama simply being disingenuous here? I think either you haven't been paying attention (not a criticism) or you don't run into it in your daily life. In academia (and I believe elsewhere) the AR2 phenomenon is pretty much a daily occurrence. Some of my wife's biggest cases have involved AR2 activists who either run afoul of EEOC regulations themselves (usually unwittingly, although they should know better), or employees whose AR2 worldview and ideology makes them think they are untouchable in terms of HR disciplinary actions. In the latter case, these employees are always very much sadly mistaken. if that's what you mean by the "muddling up" assertion, that's fine, I simply disagree that he's muddling anything. I think the two forms of AR are pretty easily identified and are recognizable. One might think in terms of "shallow" versus "deep" AR. Shallow or "reform" anti-racism is the (sometimes boring) work of identifying systemic structural factors that prevent blacks and others from achieving equality, e.g., banking practices, redlining, etc. This is anti-racism working within the system, working within narrow or shallow bureaucratic channels: lobbying Congress to change laws, working politically at the local level to enact change, etc. "Deep" anti-racism on the other hand is the larger project of involving what critics call "identity politics"--what the OP describes as "the stress on reforming people’s personal views — which today are far less racist than was the case before the civil-rights era." This is the form of AR that quickly can become illiberal: for example, my own institution instituted a "voluntary" reading program last summer of Kendi's How to Be an Anti-Racist. I participated insofar as I read the book, but when it came to the "voluntary" discussions of the book, these quickly showed themselves to involve mostly a kind of conspicuous and sanctimonious self-flagellation among participants. If you didn't go along with the 12-step theatrics, you risk being categorized as a closeted racist who isn't truly committed to "anti-racism." And if you opted out of the discussion, then your racism is no longer closeted: you simply ARE racist. The virtue signaling aspect of the whole charade was distasteful, and worse, I think actually makes matters worse from a racial equality standpoint--because again, when every white person is automatically a racist, it makes just as much sense to simply accept that fact about oneself and move on with life as it does to devote oneself to what McWhorter describes as the "religion" of anti-racism. yes, it helps
When you don’t contextualize the “both sides” criticisms then how else is anyone to interpret your point. I think it’s of huge importance to at least point out that the impact on its large majority of the “left” is minimal while the propaganda efforts of the right are sweeping. That says a great deal about the critical thinking (no CRT pun intended) of the majority of more liberal Americans, and speaks to the real problems here. There’s always going to be provocateurs on all sides because of the digital viral age we are in. Outrage takes on people like Lin Manuel are not going away. I’m sure somewhere on the web someone will hunt for clicks by saying the Megan Rapinoe isn’t worthy of being in lingerie ads (oh wait). The important fact is seeing what happens with trolling provocation and I just firmly believe the far left has very little impact on the majority of the left if the opinions are not found in reason. That’s a good thing but a bad thing that then the right can take that snippet and then convince 40% of Americans with one Tucker segment that you, I, and the entire left firmly believe said stupid provocative left opinion. It also doubles their belief of the “radical left” when our own are then misinterpreting how far believed that opinion is on the right. I don’t know how we fight that but a good start is contextualizing that those said opinions are not what the majority of the left actually believe.
No, he's not talk about anti-racism though. He's talking about cancel culture which goes beyond racism - and includes sexism, homophobia, nationalism, etc. Cancel culture has nothing to do with anti-racism. Anti-racism is very specific to taking positive steps to fight racism. if you look at the principles of it, it lays out specifically what actions to take. For example, when encountering interpersonal racism, it doesn't say go on twitter and judge people, it specifically lays out a series of options: https://nmaahc.si.edu/learn/talking-about-race/topics/being-antiracist Does that sound like making judgments?? What Obama is talking about isn't anti-racism. That's what I mean the author is creating something called AR2 which doesn't exist. Obama was never talking about anti-racism. Cancel culture isn't a flavor of anti-racism, it's cancel culture, it's being PC, it's being hyper judgemental. It's a completely different thing from fighting racism. The two shouldn't be bucketed as do different flavors of the same thing because it's not. You're not anti-racist if you want to label someone who praises Thomas Jefferson as racist. You're just an idiot. I am sure that happens all the time. But you know what also happens in academia? Minorities have to work harder to get tenure at many institutions. My sister is chair at an institution and is horrified by how much more scrutiny is placed on the credentials of minorities by some of the white elder staff than gets applied to white candidates. It's a complete double standard. The rationale once give by one of these faculty members? That because of Affirmative Action, you have to be tougher to make sure their credentials are real. That's b.s. - there should be one standard for everyone and people should be treated the same. I would bet the later is far more common than the former. Again, I disagree there are two forms of anti-racism. It's like saying there are two forms of protestors, one that peacefully protests for change and one kind that loots stores. Therefore protestors are getting violent - when in reality, the 2nd kind of protestors are just rioters and criminals and not protesting at all. Racism is very well alive today. If you want to say that racism is less of an obstacle today than it was before the civil rights movement, ok, you can make that statement. But for a lot of people, less is not enough. People want equality, and that isn't there yet. And much of racism is shaped by things such as implicit bias. What anti-racism is saying is not that you are a closet racist if you don't do x or y, it's that all of us are closet racists in some form or fashion. And only by understanding our biases can we solve this problem. The goal of anti-racism isn't to make people feel guilty or label people racists, but to bring higher awareness of our biases so that we can be a better society. In fact, anti-racism doesn't seek to condemn people for being racist, it isn't about that, but rather treating people without racism even though racism exists in everyone as it is human. "Woke" and "Callout" culture is the opposite of what Kendi is teaching. Here's what anti-racism encapsulates - you may disagree about Michael Brown, but everything else she says is spot on:
I still think we are talking past each other but I will attempt to respond I think this is unfair--I specifically said Obama was discussing "some flavors" of the anti-racism phenomenon ("Obama acknowledged (on more than one occasion) the illiberal tendencies of some flavors of anti-racism activism"), and you seem to be suggesting that unless Obama specifically used the term "anti-racism" that he can't possibly be discussing anti-racism. I'll grant you the debate point but I believe you are being unfair to the spirit of what I take Obama to have been discussing. you make it sound as if there were some sort of canonical text that lays out a set of infallible "principles." You also make it sound like anti-racism is a specific "thing" ( "it doesn't say go on twitter and judge people, it specifically lays out a series of options"). There is no "thing" that is anti-racism, there is only the texts and speech of people who claim to be discussing "anti-racism" and the corresponding manner in which those textual and spoken words are received, understood, and interpreted. You seem to be reifying anti-racism as a single specific formal doctrine that can be clearly and unambiguously articulated. I understand that this is your point; I simply disagree with your point. well, let me pose a question: is there such a thing as "anti-racist cancel culture"? for example, when faculty are accused of misspeaking in the classroom (on race) and students demand the termination of that faculty member's position? While I understand your point that anti-racism and cancel culture can be and perhaps most of the time are different things, I think that depending on the context, it is certainly the case that anti-racism as it actually manifests itself in the real world involves efforts to cancel (i.e., cancel culture) on many occasions. I don't think one can generalize about tenure decisions across all of academia--in my experience you can not even generalize about tenure decisions in one department, much less in one college situated within a larger university. Here's a case I'm familiar with, and one that I can share because it's a public case. This was both an anti-racism mess and a cancel culture nightmare all wrapped up in one: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...-Kamala-Harris-rose-VP-moms-Indian-caste.html Good luck with parsing the unambiguously clean line between anti-racism and cancel culture with that one. fair enough I really don't disagree with anything you say here perhaps; but shall we say "followers of Kendi" may not have gotten that memo. It is similar to Christians who claim to be following the "ways of Christ" but who are anything BUT Christian in their behaviors, attitudes, and beliefs
I think this is where we are struggling to see eye-to-eye. Yes, anti-racism is a thing. It is a specific idea that the opposite of being a racist is not a non-racist but an anti-racist - someone who actively works to defeat racism by starting with themselves and what they can do. That's the fundamental idea of anti-racism. So to go out and call others out makes no sense. It's not just Kendi but there is a longer history of antiracism. The fact that the author brings up Kendi shows that he understands the movement. but then he goes on to say it is transforming to something else - which isn't true. No one in talking about anti-racism as this cancel culture entity except on the far right. To me, that's just a way to smear a legitimate movement by associating it with something it's not. Going to a BLM protest doesn't make you antiracist anymore than going to a gay nightclub makes you gay. Calling someone a racist doesn't make you an anti-racist.
this makes sense to me. You probably have a narrower concept of anti-racism in your mind than I do, but that's okay. I think I'm clearer on what you're saying
on the idea that there are different flavors, varieties, or strains of anti-racism, here is John McWorter's column from January where he criticizes one particular "strain" of anti-racism: https://johnmcwhorter.substack.com/p/more-on-what-modern-antiracism-does excerpt: No – I do not mean that being against racism is, itself, bullshit. I mean that a certain strain of “antiracism” these days is, yes, bullshit. And on that, we must address that a certain Mr. (sorry, “Dr.,” as he so pointedly specifies in his Twitter handle) Kendi announced last weekend that I am of a piece with the Trumpian insurrectionists. This joins him calling me a racist who “’sort of’ should look at himself in the mirror” a few months ago when speaking at Harvard. (I liked the “sort of” hedge – he knew he was “going there,” and “there” he indeed went and should not have.) That is, my 20+ years of commentary on race is the work of a self-hating black bigot whose ideas are compatible with the right-wing zealots who stormed the Capitol. I’m well aware that my writings hardly qualify as truth incarnate. However, this evaluation of my output and intentions is, in the end, evidence of poor reading. If I were the callow idiot Kendi implies, common consensus would have caught up with me long ago. But I’m still here after 20 years, if anyone thinks only white people like me they’re dead wrong, and all I can say is that I belong, complete with where I flub or could do better. Kendi, though, reads for isolated words and single sentences rather than argument, for flavor rather than content. It is one more demonstration among many of his lack of familiarity with what people with doctorates, as well as people who write for the public and present themselves as thinkers, are expected to do. It is of a piece with the fact that his “scholarship” is not based on sustained, original research utilizing close reasoning and being tempered through rigorous evaluation by peers over years’ time. Too, I am unaware of a single instance of Kendi actually taking a deep breath and defending one of his ideas, as opposed to batting away criticism as somehow inappropriate. This does not, contrary to popular belief, mean that he is a megalomaniac or a huckster. However, it does mean that he is in way over his head. He strikes me as a deer caught in the headlights, and I don’t blame him for trying to make the best of that regardless. There is a certain mystique in his name, upon which we might consider that he was born Henry Rogers. Henry had no idea this fame was coming, and he’s doing his best. But -- if it turns out that the deer in those headlights is a mean deer, and is going to say such gratuitously nasty things about me on a regular basis, I feel comfortable levelling some honesty about him. (I had Henry’s number a couple years ago, but was holding my tongue as late as this review last summer. But once he started slandering me I decided to speak out.) Social scientists are familiar with what is called the matched guise experiment. Someone will record a passage in a standard American voice. When that recording is shown with a white man’s photo, it is processed as just “normal” speech; when shown with an Asian man’s photo, more than a few people process the recorded voice as having an “Asian” accent. A “white” voice played with a black man’s photo is processed as less intelligent and authoritative than that same voice played with a white man’s. This is invaluable demonstration of the subtle biases pervading our society, but in its light, consider this. Ibram Kendi is someone who, in the role of social scientist, proposes a “Department of Antiracism,” in neglect of a little something called the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. Kendi’s insight on education, untethered to any engagement with pedagogical or psychometric theory, is that we should evaluate students on the basis of their “desire to know” rather than anything they actually do. This is a person whose most ready counsel to the public about interracial adoption is that white adopters might still be racists even if they don’t think they are. Kendi is a professor who, in the guise of being trained in intellectual inquiry, bristles at real questions. He dismisses them as either racism or as frustrated responses to envy, as if he bears not proposal but truth. His ideas are couched in simple oppositions mired somewhere between catechism and fable, of a sort alien to what intellectual engagement in the modern world consists of, utterly foreign to exchange among conference academics or even Zooming literati. And on that, let us remember that he is also someone who, into the twenty-first century, was walking around thinking of whites as “devils” à la Minister Farrakhan. Here’s the rub: The people who sit drinking all of this in and calling it deep wouldn’t let it pass for a minute if he were white. There is, in short, a degree of bigotry in how this man is received by people of power and influence. How to be an antiracist? Stop pretending about Ibram Kendi. more at the link
I think they are misinterpreting some of what Kendi is saying - first I haven't read all his writing or have studied him, I just know of him and the basics. But from what I understand, he isn't about condemning people as racists. He isnt saying because you have racist biases, you are a bad person. I think what he is saying is that hey look, it's human nature to be racist especially in society we live in, we are indoctrinated with biases of all types - all races are. What we need to have is a critical thinking approach to looking at ourselves and recognizing the biases so that greater awareness can help us take action. To me, what he is saying is that to defeat racism, we have to realize that there aren't these "few" racists that are bad people causes the problems. But that racism is endemic. That approach to me is anti-thesis to the whole idea of cancel culture which is just to say anyone who says something controversial should be labeled and outcasted. That's not a flavor, it's just a false way of feeling empowered over people who aren't really the problem.
I don't use a both sides argument, you took it there. I have specific criticism of profit driven outrage, I don't think parsing things because of how far the outreach is healthy, especially when we have razor thin margins due to gerrymandering and the country being more moderate than progressives. I am not misrepresenting anything I think you are naive in thinking these things don't have much of a reach with progressives, most of gawker media is dedicated to it. I am not for censoring those things because I believe there needs to be certain amount of tension within a political party, but I also think these factions need to be acknowledges so democrats know how to "explain" things better and get on the same page.
