Has Anti-Racism Become as Harmful as Racism? John McWhorter vs. Nikhil Singh

I don't believe that we can necessarily convinced racists through through reason or through shame I think we have to crush them politically being woke too often these days is just a matter of turning and doing high-fives with people who think like you and not being concerned with doing the work and thinking about what really helps people continue to have a society that is divided and unequal in racist in racial terms and those inherited racial inequalities do come from a deep past that we have never properly reckoned with in public policy or in our public history virtue signaling now stands in for being politically concerned a person who in 1965 would have said what can I do to help is now asking how can I show that I'm a moral person but that's more Martin Luther than Martin Luther King I just made that up just now they're welcome to this fifth to this third debate rather of the third season of the civil forum at the subculture Theatre in downtown Manhattan I'm Jean Epstein director of the solo forum tonight's resolution reads the message of anti racism has become as harmful a force in American life as racism itself we do Oxford style voting as most of you know we the initial vote is the baseline and whoever moves the vote in his or her favor wins technically wins the debate well while you're thinking about that resolution I just want to thank you all thank those of you who who attended our big gala socials and debate at the John Jay theatre we did get nearly 500 people to show up many of them socialists and so we were very pleased by that we needed in other words a much larger place to accommodate that crowd it was a debate that I participated in taking the negative technically I did win and I want to thank all of you who who complimented me on how it went the it's been 21 days since the reason released the YouTube video and we've had 28 thousand views of that video which is the second highest we've ever had the third highest was 16,000 in our debate and education the first is our absolute outlier the highest of all was 355 thousand views for a Bitcoin debate Bitcoin debates clearly attract a lot of people but we did certainly did well on our socials and debate I had four separate invitations to appear on podcast to be interviewed about the debate I did make for those of you who haven't seen it I did make the novel argument that socialists do not have to abolish capitalism in order to achieve a socialist economy it's actually quite is a pedestrian argument obviously enough obvious enough but rather novel certainly from the standpoint of my debating opponent bhaskar sankara I do want to take to it to heart two criticisms that I received about the way the debate went on the one hand a few days after I did the debate I went to a conference and a bunch of young guys surrounded me they'd been there and they told me you are on fire you killed it you crushed it I almost felt sorry for the guy and that was good to hear but then I did say well guys it's probably a mistake to make people feel sorry for your debater the debating opponent maybe I was a little bit too much on fire and killed it a little bit too much and so I do take to heart those critics who said you lost it a little bit I guarantee you that I wasn't doing this in any tactical or conscious way I think in a way I was hectoring my younger self when I started yelling at Pascoe Sankara that he should read up on economics and possibly appreciate the point that it can make the revolution right now but I promise you that I'll do try to do better the next time and recognize that it doesn't pay to to lose it to some degree as I did also I mean the other criticism was that maybe I was stepping into the debating ring so to speak with a with a lightweight he's only 29 I mean does he is indeed the editor-in-chief of Jacobin magazine he's got a book contract with basic books a very prestigious labor label he is going places but I'm now in talks with a guy named Richard Wolfe who's in his 70s I'm an emeritus professor UMass publisher of many books on the importance of socialism and possibly next October only every October who we do outreach to socialist I'm gonna have another debate on socialism with in this case a Richard Wolff I also want to announce that what you see or so on your on your chair was is the 50th anniversary edition of Reason magazine I've read it cover-to-cover it really is a delight and a collector's item I know is if nygma Nichol ESPYs in the house Nick you want to come to the stage for a moment and talk about it or you're not in the mood Nick Nick would rather not you're welcome okay Ted take a copy and read it Nick has a fine article in it about the Whole Earth Catalog some of you are old enough to remember it I certainly am publish it at the same time that reason was it's got a rollicking article about Lanny Friedlander the slightly loony guy who started reason 50 years ago and some somebody put me up short recently and said well why else is it called reason it's called reason because it was created by by an Objectivist anion Randy and as indeed it was it's it's gone a bit eclectic since then in terms of the Aisne random thews yes but Lanny Friedlander definitely did call it reason in in the spirit of iron ran anyway I do recommend that you take it home and once you finish it give it to your socialist friends to read as well now I'm at also forums we do want to have our warm-up act that is Dave Smith who puts out the show part of the problem Dave I hope you're in the audience and I hope you can come to the stage to teach us how not to be part of the problem forum without all those commie bastards this is a that was fun but you know I'm over it at this point of any of you people heckle me I'm fist fighting you outside after this I that was a fun one congratulations gene on your dominant performance welcome back Jane everybody just had a baby is back with us today so if you're at yeah clap you animals gonna cave in I'm really just saying because my wife is eight-and-a-half months pregnant and I want you guys to clap for me when I come back after that but yeah she could go any time now but I as I told people in the back if she if she look like calls me and says my water just broke I'm not leaving the debate I'm just like sorry this isn't a good time for me so I don't know what to tell you it is hard it's hard being like married when your wife's pregnant it's like a weird time because it's so much that they go through and you're just kind of there you know right gently it's like it's kind of like you're like a Yankee fan and she's Derek Jeter and you're just the person who did this to Derek Jeter and every now and then you're like can I get you another pillow Derek Jeter and then you're like why is Derek Jeter furious at me right now I don't know but it's alright sorry the topic at hand racism personally I'm against it but let's have the debate and see what happens I don't know I host I'm I am against racism because you know I'm a Jew and of course I don't want anyone to hate blacks because if you hate black people you also hate Jews those are the rules alright there's never been anybody who hated black people and didn't also hate Jews right there's never like a guy who's like you know the problem is these blacks and you're like what do you think of the Jews and they're like good people nothing against that like we're always dragged into that [ __ ] too so just for self you know I don't think racism is really that big of a problem today I mean I have it on good authority that Donald Trump is going to do tremendously great things for the black community so yeah Donald Trump said that himself so you know it's true you hear Donald Trump said and this is a direct quote he said that in his re-election campaign in 2020 he is gonna carry ninety-five percent of the black vote it was actually the most modest thing Donald Trump has ever said she acknowledged five percent might still go the other way but do you remember back it up in 2016 when Donald Trump said his pitch to the black voters was what do you have to lose do you remember that when he was just like you're living in squalor like what do you have to lose vote Trump that was the greatest pitch I've ever heard in my life a politician man and my white liberal friends were so outraged like they were so that's the most racist thing ever they have nothing to lose and then I talked to one of my black friends and he was like makes a pretty good point like you know it's this [ __ ] might work after all I don't know racism isn't isn't good sometimes it works out I was one time I was uh this is like ten years ago and I was in Toronto with another friend of mine a comedian and we were on traveling doing shows in Toronto and you know I was young I was in my 20s and so was he and he was like hey you know it'd be fun on this trip is if we got some weed and I was like I agree sir because we spoke proper English back then and um and he goes uh he was like we should try to find some weed and then my friend just and he goes uh he was like I'm gonna ask that big black bouncer outside the strip club if he knows where we can get weed and I was like whoa dude that's a little racist but in Justin's defense not only did that guy know he was selling weed so we ended up buying weed from that guy worked that well that time I'm just saying it wasn't cool but it did work out pretty pretty effectively at that point but it was yeah my friend doesn't just like charge right up to him and I was like I don't think we should do this and he was like hey bro and I was like don't call him bro like what and he was like you know where I can get some weed and this bit he was like big black dude you know bouncer and he was he goes uh he goes are you guys cops and I was like no we're not cops we're comedians were performing down the street and then he just like I didn't say it he goes are you guys cops I was like now I just said we're not cops and he goes you guys are cops right and I was like we should just leave this isn't gonna work out well and then I said no one more time and then just pulled out a huge bag of weed in the middle of the street the middle of the Toronto Strait and I was like it's three times the charm now that's all like if we were real cops the third time would have gotta you know what you cops now know and they're like you're cops yep ah you got man a cop all right get out of here but anyway wherever that guy is in the world thanks for getting me weed ten years ago appreciate that so I do you know I wouldn't call myself an expert in black culture but I did I got a haircut at a black barbershop once in my life it was an accident but it happened and another story this is the life of a comedian I was always on the road and I was in like I don't remember where I think it was Memphis or something but I needed a haircut and there was just a sign that said barbershop and I didn't know what it was it was like in this mall and and I walked in and then I realized it was a black barbershop like as I got in there but it was too late because I was already there and there was like this is this big jacked-up black dude wearing a wife-beater and like a huge gold chain and he I walked in and the conversation that I literally I interrupted he was talking to a friend of his and he was like so I told that [ __ ] I'll kill you and then he looked over who's like can I help you I was right Oh what did I just get myself into I was like I think I'm just gonna take off and then he just like black guy bullied me into getting a haircut the [ __ ] bro and I sat down and he was like who's like so what do you want and you know I was like I don't know and just take a little off the top and then he said the most terrifying words that my white ears have ever heard in my life before a haircut which is he goes so you want like a scissor haircut and I was like this isn't gonna work out Wow and it didn't it did not work out well at all he pulled out a pair of scissors that look like they came with the barbershop when they open LaBarbara shot like no one's ever used these here before and he was like it was like he was just guessing like you're just like I don't know but I was like thank you and and I left but that's all I got that's my experience with black culture I'm sorry no no I'm just kidding I grew up in Brooklyn there's every race of culture that's what racism never even seemed like a real thing to me but I guess it is a real thing like every now and then that's like the thing like you learn as like cuz I'm a Jewish kid from Brooklyn so it's not like people are really like it's all just like a joke to me the idea of like open bigotry but then when I started going throughout the country you're like there's a little bit of it out there right I used to always think it was crazy it was just something left-wing people made up like there's no there's no racism in this country and then it's kind of it's been brought up to the surface a little bit in the last few years you know like I like the left-wing people would always call like Trump supporters Nazis so you're like there's no Nazis you know and then they had that charlottesville thing and I was like there might be a few there might be a couple of a mouth I don't know either like they're not Nazis they're just conservatives you know it's like that guy's got a swastika tattoo on his neck and you're like okay he's on the edge like that guy might be a little bit but I still just laugh at it I don't know why I just laugh at like even in that in the Charlottesville thing when they were chanting the Jews will not replace us at like I'm a Jew I've that was the most empowered I've ever felt as a Jewish person in my entire life they're out there like the Jews will not replace it like look I have never in my wildest Jew fantasies entertained the idea of replacing anybody we simply don't have the numbers but then you saw all these [ __ ] angry tiki torch guys and they're like the Jews will not replace us and I was like you know what I think we can replace these [ __ ] right I think we can do this we just get our act together let's strike now Jews time all right you guys are great enjoyed the debate everybody thank you for having me thank you gene Dave Smith and you should listen to his part of the problem podcast he's he's terrific well now for the main event remember the resolution reads the message of anti racism has become as harmful of force in American life as racism itself here to speak for the affirmative Columbia University professor John McWhorter John please come to the stage and speaking for the negative and why you professor Nikhil Singh Nikhil please come to the stage Jane please close the voting so closed okay John now please take the podium and speak for the affirmative thank you let's talk about the cops is very important I think when we discuss racism in America and whether it exists in to what extent and how important it is the first thing on a lot of our minds is racism from the police and so I think we need to talk about that first and there's some things that I don't think we always know Tamir rice was a black boy of about 12 who was brandishing a toy weapon and he was shot dead the exact same thing happened to a boy named Daniel shaver not long after that Daniel shaver was white Sam DuBose was shot dead by the police driving his car away from a cop the exact same thing happened actually a little bit before that to a white guy named Andrew Thomas Alton Stirling was a black man who reached into his waistband and reached for his wallet during an altercation with the cops and the cops shot him dead that was a grievous event and the same thing actually happened around the same time to a white guy named Dylan Noble Alton sterling made national headlines none of us heard about Dylan Noble George Zimmerman said some really nasty things about unspecified little people and how they're always going around stealing things before he ended up killing Trayvon Martin now that was a terrible thing especially because policeman said the same sorts of things including using the word [ __ ] before he killed a white teenager named Lauren Simpson I could do this for 20 minutes there is a very understandable tendency in the media to report stories of black people unjustly killed by the police whereas what we don't know is that for every one of those events there is a white teenager or twenty-something who is killed under almost ominously similar conditions where you've really got to dig to find it out now I'm not saying that there's fake news or some grand conspiracy I understand why the media are so concerned with the black cases but I'm bringing this up because I think that generally we are often told that any conversation about race is shut down by the purported racist tendencies of cops who in a hair-trigger situation will allow their quiet bias to kill a black guy when if it were a white guy he would get away with a slap on the hand that's a very reasonable assumption but you know that really hasn't held up to scrutiny that's why I allowed myself to do this particular debate with this particular question even the numbers are quite different from what we hear and so for example there is the issue of proportion so white men 62% of the male population they are half of the people who get killed by cops black men 13% and they are a quarter of the people who are killed by cops and so it's disproportionate so one might think well that means that still there is a racist bias against black men because so many more them are killed proportionately but no not really there's a debate team trick that's going on in relation to that because it wasn't so long ago that when we talked about welfare disproportionate amount of black people were on welfare but more white people were on welfare and numerically so if anybody pointed out that a disproportionate number of black people were on wealth it was always pointed out by a certain crowd that no actually many more white people are on welfare and that was considered a Smackdown comment well we're in the same sort of situation or it was often said if you kept asking questions the reason there's a disproportionate number of black people on welfare is because poverty affects black people disproportionately because of structural racism that was reasonable well we also know that poverty makes it more likely for somebody to encounter a policeman in these sorts of situations poverty caused by structural racism therefore might certainly make it so that there are more black men killed by the police and that means that we have to question the idea that what this is all about is underlying pernicious biases of the cops I almost can't believe I'm saying this because I spent a very long time thinking what a lot of people think about the cops I have a reputation for saying that racism is there as important as people make it but I always made an exception for the cops and not too long ago I had one of my blogging heads conversations with Glenn Lowry where I told him Glenn you've got to give me figures if that's not true and I didn't know that the figures actually exist and so I had to really make an adjustment really think in a new way about this kind of thing what we're told about the cops simply isn't true therefore when I say that anti racism is as much a problem as a help at this point on saying that after my conversion about the cops the cops are not a Smackdown issue in this in this debate so with that said what's the issue here why in the world would I say that anti racism is a problem because of course no it's not a problem to not be a racist and I don't think any of us would be here if we thought the debate was over that so of course you don't want to be a racist racism is bad we know that but what about the more complex and therefore more interesting issues and one issue is that anti racism as currently configured has gone a long way from what used to be considered intelligent and sincere civil rights activism today it's a religion and I don't mean as a rhetorical feint I mean that it actually is what any naive anthropologist would recognize as a faith in people many of whom don't think of themselves as religious but Galileo would recognize them quite easily and so for example the idea that the responsible white person is supposed to attest to their white privilege and realize that it can never go away and feel eternally guilty about it that's original sin right there the idea that there is going to be a day when America comes to terms with race or that there could be what does that even mean what is the meaning of the coming to terms what would that consist of who would come to them what would the terms be at what date would this be the only reason that anybody says that is because it corresponds to our conception of Judgment Day and it's equally abstract when we use the word problematic especially since about two thousand eight or nine what we're really saying is blasphemous it's really the exact same term or the suspension of disbelief that is a characteristic of religious faith there's an extent to which logic is considered no longer to apply that's how we talk about racism and so suppose someone asked why are we to focus on the occasional rogue cop who kills a black man when nine times out of ten that black man is in much more danger of being killed by another black man in his neighborhood gosh that's not pretty but like many things that aren't pretty it's also true if you ask about it well you know you're not supposed to eyes roll and you're given an answer that doesn't really completely make sense and there's an etiquette that you're supposed to stop there it's rather like certain questions that you ask a priest very gently but you know that if you don't get a real answer then you're just supposed to move on that we're used to with being devoutly religious that is the way racism is treated these days it's a religion and many of us might say you know after thinking about it you might realize that even if you're somebody who looks on devout religious faith amongst a a Mormon or fundamentalist as something peculiar you read books by anthropologists exploring this frame of mind even if you realize it might even be pleasant to realize about yourself that you are religious just like them if you wonder how a Mormon feels to be an anti-racist today is to be ideologically a very very similar person you might own it you might say what's wrong with this what's wrong with this religion this is certainly a better religion than many others I can think of but there are problems with it there's severe problems with it it does some good things it gets some good people elected certainly it does some good things but it does some bad things and so for example if you're a good anti-racist then you're thinking about the cops that kill black men in these scenes that we know about but you're not supposed to think about the fact that so much more murder happens to men like that in their own neighborhoods you're supposed to think of that as may be connected to racism in some abstract way but you're not supposed to think about it you're not supposed to think about all of those homicides every summer in big cities across America teenage black boys are killing one another in the hundreds over frankly nothing that's somehow less important than what the occasional rogue cop does that's modern anti racism for you that's backwards another example education to be an anti-racist is to pay attention to the idea that universities must foster diversity the idea being that supposedly universities wouldn't want to foster this diversity if they weren't made to do so now what that means is that often this diversity is fostered as the result of creating a different evaluation system for black and often Latino students in terms of grades and test scores now there are various studies that show that that often is not the best thing and so Stephen Cole and Eleanor barber did a paper where contrary to their expectations that showed that when students are mismatched to a university it discourages them from getting PhDs there have been many studies of that kind but we're told to look a away from them so after racial preferences were banned in the University of California before they were banned at the University of California San Diego in a freshman class of 3268 students of the freshman honor students exactly one was black in 1999 this is the first class admitted after the ban when students were matched to a school according to their grades and test scores rather than their being the kind of bonus that we see we're now seeing it at Harvard one out of five black freshmen were making honors why have you never heard of that statistic it's actually a beautiful story these are black students who did very well who wouldn't have done as well at Berkeley or UCLA there's no tragedy those students are now out working and living wonderful lives anti racism teaches us not to listen to stories like those and when we think about anti racism we're taught to suppose we start to not even think about this anymore that whites need to undergo some sort of massive psychological revolution before we can have any kind of black success beyond what we have already why why is somebody talking about their white privilege important when we're talking about making black schools better why is it important for a black lives matter activists to probe Hillary Clinton's heart as opposed to thinking about what policy she will take in terms of criminal sentencing or housing policy or the on-the-ground sorts of things that we really need to be thinking about if we want to help black people I could go on here too there are a lot of things wrong with anti racism there are some good things but they're just as many that are wrong that hold us back from helping black people who need help because we're taught to think of certain things rather than other things in particular we're taught to think less about the real work of helping people who need help on the ground through socio-political action and instead when we end up thinking about inner psychology we end up thinking about that which is problematic and all of these things are ultimately idle so this is what I mean by saying that anti racism is a problem anti-racism is currently configured not anti-racism just in itself but modern anti-racism turns a blind eye to most black homicide anti-racism as currently configured turns a blind eye to black young people's upward mobility it turns a blind eye to doing the kinds of things that civil rights leaders of 50 years ago considered ordinary in favor of what is ultimately an inward lis focused quest for moral absolution that has at best a diagonal relationship to helping people who've been left behind for that reason the issue here I must repeat is not whether or not racism exists we know it does read the paper this morning had some racism of my own two weeks ago that's not the issue the issue is whether modern anti racism is the best way of combating the effects of that racism and it isn't thank you Mikhail's sing for the negative tell you the way to kill I was told that John is a formidable debater and I am NOT going to be as capable of talking to you without notes but I do want to remind you of the proposition before us which is not exactly as it was just framed the message of anti racism has become as harmful of force in American life as racism itself and that is the proposition I will speak to and I want you to remember those four words as harmful as racism itself so the claim of anti racism as harm here depends on how we assess the harm of racism and racial discrimination today what I'll attempt to persuade you of in my time is a that racism remains a harmful force in our social economic and political life in ways that we actually can't just take for granted and be that the tangible harms of racism overwhelm any case that might be made for the annoyances or inconveniences produced by certain expressions of anti racism so I want to begin with a set of facts that I do not think are in dispute about racial disparity John also spoke to issues of racial disparity in his comments I'm sure we'll come back to this the United States in 2018 is characterized by racial disparities across every significant indicator of life chances wealth homeownership rates of unemployment poverty arrest and incarceration in some cases the statistical disparities are staggering black and Latino families have between eight and ten cents to every dollar of wealth owned by white families now in an audience like this I'm well aware that claiming evident disparity is not adequate and will not be taken as proof of racial discrimination three examples from well-respected researchers might begin to test the question in her seminal work dr. dev a beggar who was Peter and Isabel Malkin professor of public policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and professor of sociology at the University before her recent untimely death documented what she called the powerful effects of race on hiring decisions employers she found were more likely to hire a white man even if he had a felony conviction than a black man with no criminal record blacks who said they had a criminal record had a callback rate of 5% and blacks who said they did not had a rate of 14% for whites the rates were 17% for those who said they had a criminal record and 34% for those who said they did not a new paper from three respected economists with over 400,000 data points over 50 metro areas shows that african-americans pay more for identical housing in identical neighborhoods than their white counterparts and that this rent gap increases with the fraction of the neighborhood and its racial percentages so the more white it gets the higher the premium goes for black entering that neighborhood similar studies have been done on residential steering practices in the real estate industry and the differential cost of insurance mortgage rates and so on paid by economically similar black and non black applicants now a potential limitation of any racial disparity comparisons is that they are sometimes not apples to apples for example we know that not having a high school degree is actually the greatest predictor of whether one ends up involved in the criminal justice system nevertheless even among high school dropouts four out of ten African American males end up in prison compared to one in ten of their white counterparts the ACLU found that African Americans are four times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than whites even though their rate of marijuana usage was comparable in New York City alone there are over 5 million stops and frisks between 2002 and 2012 85% of those stopped were black and Latino leading to the legal challenge that found the practice racially discriminatory and unconstitutional so let me stop here I may not have convinced you that we continue to live in a society in which racial discrimination leading to unequal life chances is a problem though I hope I have at least dented the automatic presumption that some may have that this is not true I want to turn to a second area in which I think we can see how racism both as a message and a practice remains harmful with respect to our political life and the health of our democracy let's call this the contemporary force of political racism once again we are all likely familiar with the fact that political racism has been a part of US history from its inception including the defense of slavery overseas expansion Jim Crow segregation and now white nationalism political racism has been a tool to divide the electorate and to suppress participation in democratic politics we can locate its real origins in the aftermath of the Civil War and reconstruction and the organized and systematic effort to suppress black men's ability to exercise the franchise through a variety of legal and extralegal means including literacy tests poll taxes police intimidation and vigilante violence up to and including lynching like the question of racial disparity you might say even if we accept the full scope of this kind of racism it was in the past it is no longer characteristic of our political present in 1965 the United States finally fulfilled its promise by becoming a liberal democracy for the first time in its history with the passage of the civil rights and voting rights acts we've been a liberal democracy for a short 50 years then and notwithstanding the fact that we were a racial democracy and a racist democracy for almost two centuries prior we can rest assured that the racist past is behind us at least this was the view of the US Supreme Court which in 2013 in Shelby versus holder lifted the provisions of the Voting Rights Act that had required states with long histories of suppressing black voting rights to get federal approval to change any voting laws lo and behold after she 24 states implemented new restrictions on voting Texas Alabama now require photo IDs to cast a ballot other states such as Ohio and Georgia have enacted use-it-or-lose-it laws which strike voters from the registration rolls if they have not participated in an election within a prescribed period of time let's just look at one state where this dynamic has unfolded the still contested race for governor in the state of Georgia an election characterized by red baiting and race baiting of the black candidate Stacey Abrams who president Trump described as unqualified for office even though she graduated from the same law school as Brett Kavanaugh setting Trump's words aside the election process has been overseen by Abraham's opponent Brian Kemp who has been the secretary of state of the state of Georgia for the past eight years and refused to recuse himself even though he was a party to the election that he was overseeing during his time as Secretary of State Kemp aggressively purged one and a half million people almost 10 percent of all people on the voting rolls he closed more than 214 polling places he criminally prosecuted people on trumped-up charges of voter fraud in the run-up to the election he blocked 53,000 voter registrations in the state 70% from African Americans 80% from people of color which is close to the margin in his current lead and he oversaw the delivery of voting machines without power cords to three predominantly African American counties US federal court ruled yesterday that Gwinnett County's mass rejection of absentee ballots based on an omitted or incorrect birth year violates the Civil Rights Act the county is more than 50% African American and Latino more damning almost all of Kemp's maneuvers striking people from the rolls for not having an exact match that is where the name on the voter rolls is identical to the name in the state system was actually disallowed under the Voting Rights Act as discriminatory against minority voters when Georgia tried to implement it in 2009 Georgia of course is not alone in these high-tech Jim Crow shenanigans and we can discuss other examples later I wager that it is difficult to find a similar analog such as anti-racist voter suppression most anti-racist I know are struggling to increase Democratic participation and widen the use of the franchise where they are trying to contest elections but I realize that this issue is now infused with partisanship you hear it in my voice and my account might not yet have convinced you that racism remains harmful in ways that Dwarfs any concern we might have about anti-racist excesses so let me turn to my third and final set of examples the harmfulness of racially motivated and racist violence in the current moment on June 17th 2015 just just a few months before the election of Donald Trump as US president Dylan roof entered the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal all african-americans including senior pastor at state senator clementa pickney on social media Ruth posed with symbols of white supremacy and neo-nazism along with a manifesto in which he outlined derogatory views towards blacks among other people just two weeks ago another white man tried to enter the First Baptist Church in Jeffersontown Kentucky finding the door locked he entered Kroger's grocery store and murder two black women calling upon coming upon a white patron Heda mirrored uttering the sentence white doesn't kill white just over a week later another white man shouting anti-semitic slurs entered a synagogue in Pittsburgh and Massacre twelve congregants four months prior he had spewed hate memes on right-wing social media that Jews were the enemy of white people the synagogue shooter was apparently particularly incensed by the immigrant and refugee support work done by the Tree of Life congregation and of course the most recent actions occurred against a backdrop of an election that Trump consistently depicted as a brown invasion at the southern border and that his vice president Pence added was likely infiltrated by Islamic militants just this past Monday an attorney representing Patrick Stein one of three men convicted convicted of plotting to bomb Somali refugees filed memo in US District Court in Kansas Stein his lawyer argued should receive a more lenient sentence because he was inspired by then candidate Donald Trump are these than just outliers the anti-defamation league Center on extremism has reported that 71% of extremist related fatalities in the United States between 2008 and 2017 were committed by members of the far-right or white supremacist movements reported hate crimes in America rose 17% last year the third consecutive year that such crimes increased according to newly released FBI data that showed an even larger increase in anti-semitic attacks in conclusion let me make a couple of points both sides do it is often the afraid the refrain and both sides ISM is unfortunately built into the structure of what is in question here anti racism and racism are equally harmful and let us not forget after charlottesville as funny as our opening act was when white supremacists chanted jews will not replace us and murder to counter protester this was Trump's argument when he insisted that there are good and bad people on both sides but I see little to no real evidence that anti racism or anti-racists have his yet participated in anything on the order of the kinds of Democratic voter suppression or racially motivated violence that we are seeing in the current moment the last thing I want to say not only is racism harmful it makes us stupid even before Trump took office his presidential transition team began drawing up plans to redirect national security resources away from white supremacist to focus solely on Islamic terrorism which has been three times less significant in terms of the fatalities that has produced in this period than white supremacists or right-wing terror the main target of this effort was countering violent extremism an interagency task force created by Barack Obama in the wake of the Charleston Church shooting to help prevent acts of violence before they happen perhaps the worst that can be said about anti racism is that it is ineffective based mostly on che racists in the face of structural political and over polls in face of structural racism political racism and overt racist violence empty moralism will not do not only do we need to do more as a society to overcome historic racist inequalities or racism historic inequalities but we need to stop rewarding or whitewashing political racism and we need to prevent prosecute and punish racist violence none of this suggests that anti racism is really the problem if anything is true we need a more capacious and inclusive and effective anti racism that draws upon the legacies of our better history thank you rebuttal from John recorded Thank You Nikhil you're quite right that racism exists and it's a problem and these violent events are absolutely important attestation of it but I'm not sure that I agree that anti racism is just a kind of fashion statement nipping at heels I may not have made myself clear here's another example so poverty makes boys in particular more likely to act up that's a fact that's been shown in countless studies now often in especially public schools across the country black boys are disciplined more than white boys now one reason that the black boys might be acting up more is because of the effects of poverty and that is something that needs to be addressed by concrete action rather than people putting their hand in the air and saying that they attest to their white privilege but instead what we often see is claims especially from certain academic departments that the only reason that black boys could be censored or suspended more would be racist bias and if you look at all the studies on this they basically just come down to a draw in this city starting in 2015 mayor de Blasio spearheaded effort to have black boys disciplined less in our hardest inner-city schools with the highest proportions of black kids that's good anti racism but the problem is that over the past three years in all of those schools where people have so many problems already this is right here in this city and it's not only here at similar stories in Philadelphia you have more alcohol use more drug use more violence and more gang activity keeping these poor kids who are you know often black all of them from getting a good education all out of a sense that it's racist to discipline black boys who are keeping the vast majority of students in the school from learning that's not a fashion statement nipping at the heels that's a real problem violence is a horrible thing when somebody like Dylan roof pulls what he did Charlottesville was not a joke those things are definitely happening but there are two things going on here they're those isolated events where Grievous things happen to perfectly innocent people then there's an issue of lifting the black race up in general and solving general disparities and we often tend to think that that's practically impossible when really a lot of the problem is the things that were encouraged to focus on are based much more on the idea that our main focus is supposed to be making sure that we're not discriminating against black people rather than actually helping black people and something else a little example of that voting what the Republicans are doing in terms of trying to suppress the black vote is obvious and it's one of the most revolting things I have ever seen it's it's a horrible effort however there's something that you're not supposed to say and I'm gonna say it there is a difference between the motivation for that now and the motivation for what was going on during Jim Crow and before and we all know it what the Republicans are doing is disgusting and it's racist in terms of the definition that we use today it hurts black people and it devalues black well certainly but having just come from making my way through that new Fredrick Douglas biography that we're reading about and hoping we might get through you could hurt your foot if you dropped it on you but I actually read it all the way through the reason that they didn't want black people to vote then was because they thought black people were animals my grandparents had trouble voting in cities like Atlanta not because Republicans didn't want to have Democrats have too many votes and they thought that it would be a canny thing to go for the group that votes for Democrats so consistently that's cynical and disgusting in itself but the reason was because they thought that people of my grandparents generation or animals so there's kind of a difference yes what's going on with voting is a serious problem but if we're talking about what racism is frankly the way I feel is that Americans tend to treat black America and to convince black America that this is true that we are the weakest most Thekla hothouse flowers in the 300,000 year history of the human species and that that is how we should have Policy approached I just don't believe it and I think that it is a serious problem we could be doing better on civil rights now than we are I mean first of all I can't couldn't agree more with the last statement that we could be doing better on civil rights than we are I also think I made the case and probably could make it if I had more time in more detail that when we look at the upsurge of white supremacist violence in the United States we are not actually talking about a few isolated incidents we are actually talking about the movement of something that may once have been fringe or maybe once was forbidden and then became fringe into the into quite mainstream political discourse and when you see the president retweeting white white supremacist or when you see him echoing arguments that were made by white supremacists then you have to ask the question about what kind of shifts in our political culture are underway I think that they're extremely concerning I think they should be concerning to all of us I imagine they are concerning to all of you I think they're concerning to John as he acknowledged so I don't think we're talking about something that is isolated I think we're talking about something that is reanimated and I do agree also with John that I don't think most Americans are walking around with deep-seated racial animus that is kind of that is kind of enlivening them all the time but I do think a substantial number are and I strongly disagree with the idea that that animus is somehow fundamentally changed I mean it's interesting in the rebuttal to me that John kind of wants to have it both ways he wants to say that anti-racists are so obsessed with motivation and inner psychology that they're not seeing what's actually being done to people but then he turns around and says voter suppression in Georgia is not really motivated by the same thing it's actually it's actually sort of you know coming from some different place they just don't they just want to get the votes well why do they want to get the votes they want to get the votes because they want to continue to create certain kinds of conditions which produce and rely on both racial and economic inequality and I strongly agree with John that we cannot be separating if this is what I understand him to be saying issues of racial and economic inequality we have to be talking about them together I'm not that interested in converting people from their inner held racist thoughts I'm interested in them stop stopping acting in racist ways and the burden of my remarks today was to suggest that we live in a society where more and more people are being emboldened to act in racist ways in our political process in the streets and that and and that both of those things connect to and build upon the fact that we continue to have a society that is divided and unequal in racist in racial terms and those inherited racial inequalities do come from a deep past that we have never properly reckoned with in public policy or in our public history okay so if that's if that that's what I mean by anti-racist racism and I am an anti-racist and I probably will would and will in our conversation agree with certain aspects of what John is saying I don't actually think that a lot of things that he's saying are are things that I would strongly take issue with necessarily I I don't necessarily want us to trivialize the kind of the kind of struggles and conflicts and divisions that we have in our society right now and I certainly don't want to imagine and I never have in my work imagined that African Americans in particular or some sort of benighted kind of failed people that can't can't manage for themselves I've always taken heart from the great phrase for Malcolm X which the problem with a segregated school is not that black people are in one and white people are in another but that that nobody cares about the black school nobody's investing in it nobody's putting resources into it that's where we need to to understand where the rubber meets the road on racism today so I'm all for that but to me that's that just goes back to my last point in my opening remarks we need a more effective anti racism in this society we need to actually redress the histories of racial inequality that we're still saddled with then maybe we'll will stop having this conversation in the same way I'm not sure we'll get to the promised land because I don't actually see politics in those terms so in that sense I think John's arguing not necessarily with with me but with this kind of phantom of his own imagination and I'm not saying it's completely outside the bounds of what I hear in universities and from students but I don't actually take that to be reflective of what is actually going on in the world that we live in right now thank you both we're gonna be opening up to questions shortly but I want to line up and first the as you both know you have the option of asking the other question at any time do either of you want to pose a question to the other at this point Nikhil what does it mean to redress the disparities of the past how would we do that because when I say that there are things that we uh Terr that seem and I'm not accusing you of being some sort of fantasies but when I say that we can slip into the incantation all what's the redressing what would what would we do that we haven't done already and but I understand that there needs to be activism on behalf of disenfranchised black people but redressing the past what do you mean well this is this is obviously a huge conversation to open up so I'll try to give a brief and directed answer in your remarks you talked in the beginning about the way in which we see criminal justice involvement as if it's somehow an exclusively black issue specifically black men being killed by the police and I I think that what everything that you said in those opening remarks I could not agree with you more I do a lot of work with people in prison so we get a distorted view of the world in part when we look at it through an exclusively racial prism okay we don't see the scope again of how issues of race connects to to socio-economic issues to issues of poverty to issues a spatial isolation to a whole range of issues so I'm I'm all on board with that that kind of argument but I would say that if you look at the history of the punitive turn in carceral policy in the United States that it was sold politically to Publix through what I'm calling political racism in other words it was the figure of you know to go back to any number of figures the Central Park five which Donald Trump raised as as these wild boys should be executed and even though they were later proved to be innocent he still didn't acknowledge that it goes back to the Willie Horton ad that George HW Bush used to defeat Michael Dukakis it goes back to Hillary Clinton's language of super predators and Ronald Reagan's language of gangbangers and and so forth in the drug war right so we have a long history of politicians using a racialized discourse to sell us on punitive policies that have harmed black communities and harmed poor whites perhaps we could argue about the proportionality there but that have been devastating for our society right so to me that is an example of how political racism works how it's been harmful how it remains harmful so a part of redressing that would by feet would be figuring out how we start to undo that not act that way oppose that and change the dynamic of how we do our politic you have identified where we differ now what you're saying is true and it might surprise you to hear that yes the war on drugs and it's actually been made clearer especially over the past two or three years had a racial component that was an anti black policy it was also something that happened when I was one now I'm not saying that the past just the past what you just said is true but this is 2018 and what I mean by its 2018 is I have cousins in jail I know the sorts of things that they did and I know that in most cases they really shouldn't be in jail what do we do about it now and I want to put this carefully but talking about the Willie Horton ad isn't gonna get cousin xxx out of jail I think we need to talk about for example ending the war on drugs and not just a little stuff with weed very important that should be absolutely crucial to talking about what goes on with both white and black poor people especially men because what we're talking about is something that eternally tempts underserved men into a black market and into not getting their diploma and winding up the kind of statistics that we're talking about to me that should be the main thing we focus on instead of and with all due respect instead of the there's only one word the recitation that you just did a very important and disgusting history that happened I don't think we can reverse talking about that and the fact that it was done by people who were really shitty we can't we can't fix them most of them are dead so what do we do not so one of them's president granted but what do we what do we do now that's my question well you know III hundred percent agree with you and the war on drugs I mean we we could have a policy discussion of what needs to be done and I would say and the drill and the war on drugs would be at the forefront I think what happened in in Florida with the ending with the ending of felon disfranchisement amendment for was was a magnificent thing you know and that was that was won by voting rights activists working for years in that state I think that's something kind of thing that we have to we have to pursue across the board I started a prison education program at NYU where we go back into prisons and jails with other other colleges have done and tried to provide education for people in prison so that when they come out of prison they have opportunities all the prison education programs got wiped out in the 1990s with the crime bill which is not that long ago the problem is when I rehearse the litany it's not because it's a catechism to me it's because it's accumulative history that repeats itself that gets reinstated if it gets reconstituted by new policymakers and ambitious and unscrupulous politicians who want to manipulate us in these kinds of ways and we now have one of them in the White House that's using a different set of racial codes and racial fears to make us think that like our major problem is immigrants coming across the border now now you know that's why I would talk in those terms but I'm certainly not averse to having the kind of policy discussion about what needs to be done and I think my own view and my own practice is to think very much in those terms so so here one more thing and then I have one for you okay how far do you think we can get in teaching people not to be racist because my personal feeling especially after 2016 is that we've hit a wall there and that in terms of making life better for people left behind who can't help themselves telling the Americans who are left to a racist and it's not just a few telling them stop that it's not gonna work it was one thing to say in the 50s and 60s give black people the right to vote to work as a lawyer to eat where you eat it was one thing to say in 1968 Fair Housing Act black people can live where you live and then it was another thing to say through Norman Lear sitcoms and general shaming don't be a bigot I'm not sure that we can come any further and it seems to me that if we're talking about people carrying torches in charlottesville they're beyond reason and so whatever we're gonna do I'm inclined to do it without I'm sure you'll understand that it is a kind of preaching that kind of preaching simply because I don't see how it works anymore you may know something I don't about the efficacy of it I don't disagree with you I don't think shame works I think we're at a political culture that thrives on shaming that thrives on the kind of free zone of shame I think as I said before a part of the the right-wing strategy right now to kind of move the Overton Window is to take things that were forbidden to make them fringe and then make the mainstream the fact that I think we even start to frame debates in the ways that we're framing them tonight seems to me to be slightly part of that I mean I wish anti-racism were a civil religion in the United States as you suggested I I think mmm it was in some ways I don't think it is actually quite quite so right now but no I don't I don't believe that we can necessarily convinced racists through through reason or through shame I think we have to crush them politically and and I think that that's gonna come through organization it's gonna come through education it's cut it's gonna come through people understanding the kind of like high-tech Jim Crow maneuvers that are going on in Georgia which I don't think are available or well understood by most people I think it's gonna it's gonna come by in certain in certain moments through through presenting a very strong principled stand where we don't allow ourselves to be cowed in certain ways there are lots of there are lots of methods I think for approaching the problem but I I do agree with you I don't think yelling and shouting at people and calling them racist is going to work and then the last thing I would say is that as I said in my remarks I don't ultimately care a hundred percent someone is racist I mean we have a big conversation about the white working-class right now and whether people have racist attitudes ppthere people everything they do it there are people of racist attitudes and they're people have racist attitudes who are led in various ways to vote against what may be their economic interests and I believe that we have to convince people to vote for their interests and vote in the right ways and that might mean that might mean that they then enter into a coalition with people that they have racist attitudes towards and when they enter into that coalition of people with racist attitudes and we see this through the history of the labor movement sometimes those racist attitudes start to change the only way they really start to change is if people actually are working together towards concrete ends they don't start to change by people hectoring each other and calling each other names so I'm on board and the concrete ends I think would be more important than how the Archie Bunker feels ultimately I ready I agree I agree so John let me ask you I read your article you know about anti racism as a civil religion and you know I thought it was measured and I thought it was smart and you know but I wonder you know you wrote that and published it in 2015 so we're here in 2017 2018 2018 sorry not shows remind mind this I I have I have small children that's my excuse time stands still so what would you what would you change in your has has any of your own thinking changed since you wrote that article in 2015 no not a word no I I wrote that article knowing full well that there are a lot of racist people in this country I was not as completely surprised by the election of Donald Trump as many people were I think that most of the people who voted for him are not what I would call a racist they just don't consider racism a priority and many people would consider it the same thing no life sucks I that didn't surprise me now that article actually is one of the few that I actually sometimes reread and I think wow that nothing has changed I believe that um black America would benefit from a roughly four or five plank platform that could happen and in which black people could thrive regardless of how Donald Trump or anybody who voted for him fell and I think frankly most black people of all stations in life don't care that much how white people feel but I think an awful lot can happen and we start losing imagination I'm hearing it from you when you're talking about these coalition's within which racism might exist but that's not something that we usually talk about there's this sense that the main meal must be combating the feelings that people have out of a certain one idea that once those feelings go away that life will then be able to get better for a black person in a housing project I don't think that Bayard Rustin and Roger Wilkins and Martin Luther King or even Malcolm X thought that way I think that it's something that settled in for us moderns and I'd like to get away from it because I think that great things really good things can happen for the black community despite the fact that we will live in an imperfect nation which will always be riven by racism I think I said that at the end of the article that you're talking about that there can be a platform or maybe it was the article I wrote after that I don't think now violence is a hideous thing I'm not minimizing that but I don't think racist attitudes are as important as we're often told mainly because I don't think we can do anything about them yeah I guess I'll have one last sort of sort of crack of this so you know one of the things that that kind of disturbed me a little bit about your piece in 2015 was that sort of the the resonances it has and I I don't I don't think this is any of this is intentional on your part and I I'm not accusing you of anything I want to just be clear about that I even hesitated to bring this up but in the European far-right right now you you see this argument from people like Guillaume Fey and Daniel Freiburg that anti racism is a totalitarian religious ideology I thought that's the that's the framing they use Frei Fey writes the touchstone of the self-righteous anti racism is the most advanced expression of postmodern totalitarian ideology so this is a kind of a far-right meme kind of like cultural Marxism these days and there's one line in your and your essay that troubled me where you say anti racism is a flawed religion that quote pollutes our racial dialogue and and that word pollution bothered me and I know you're a linguist and I know you're linguistically sensitive and I even hesitate to argue with you on these on this train knowing how clever you are but but the but the language but the length but the language of pollution I think to my way of thinking you know and the way it's connected to to an idea of anti-racism as some kind of as I've said a kind of phantom that sweeps over this conversation we moderns have this kind of psychologists sticks or tough sort of obsession with race or something it strikes me a little bit like like it's it's it's kind of something made up you know I see elements of it sometimes in my students but I see it as a sign of their youth their desire for purity politics and so forth and it's not confined to race it it runs the gamut of other things as far as psychologism goes it's rife throughout American society right we're always talking about self help and betterment and being better people and were preoccupied with sin and guilt and all this kind of stuff but to sort of focus on anti racism as something that is polluting our dialogue at this moment seems to me to be a sort of a dangerous a kind of a dangerous way of going about talking about this issue which is one of the reasons why I really pulled back to kind of say what is racism today we have structural racism we have political racism and we have racist violence that's what racism is that's what we need to oppose to me anti racism is opposition to racism so so I I haven't accepted your terms for this argument in a sense right we've but but I actually think there are lines of agreement I know we're supposed to fight and we're supposed to try to win you know one side or the other but I actually think that that then I don't accept the framing that you've given to this you know and I've sort of offered a different framing is there anything in my framing and this is why I asked you the question if your thinking has changed at all in the last two years that might make you want to reconsider at all the the kind of way in which certain arguments are now deployed in in the right-wing sort of sort of sort of Ethernet whatever it is and the way they're circulating there's always a danger of that kind of misinterpretation when you write something and you're trying to make a strong argument and there's a certain point at which I I don't mean to sound flippant but I can't be concerned with how an Austrian politician might interpret something that I write in The Daily Beast but I think frankly that you and I have a very different sense of the prevalence of this religion I very much think that it is the civil religion of let me clarify not America in general I mean blue America I mean educated America and educated America has a certain influence now step beyond that certainly this kind of anti racism starts tottering severely we've seen that and who has become president but in terms of we of the chattering classes who have an awful lot of power I think that it is much more than the occasional hot-headed undergraduate it starts there but it's also true in terms of faculty and hirings and the way graduate students are treated I think with this audience I don't even need to recount basically all you have to do is open up quill at and you will see all of these things described these are real things it has affected my own academic career and remember I'm not a social scientist I just play one on TV I'm the linguist and these sorts of things have been real for a while and have really crested since 2013 and I find that they really do here's a quick example um suppose there's a book by a leading black thinker that basically expresses an extremely anti white viewpoint right down to saying that this person has children he sees them playing here in New York with white kids at his elementary school and is afraid because he doesn't he's afraid that his child doesn't understand what white people are capable of and let's say the book is full of things like that and it's clear that this person really doesn't like white people very much and this person's book is assigned for white people of our world to read all over the country and let's say that someone like me has white friends who for example come to his house from a reading group where everybody had to read that book which basically says that it's okay to be a very brilliant black person and to exhibit spontaneous hostile aunt animus and elevate it as serious thought and you can see in that white person's eyes that she understands that what that book said is not something that she fully agrees with she doesn't think that her children are worth being thought of that way that she's worth being thought of in the ways that this book portrays her but her answer is I'm not supposed to judge how do I know how he feels and so I thought it was wonderful well for one thing that's a polluted dialogue because one its incoherent it doesn't really make sense and to that person who was one of the nicest people in the world is unintentionally being condescending she's not requiring of that author the rigor that she would require of frankly a white author of a Jonathan Franzen of a Steve Pinker and therefore by extension its condescending to me yes it's partly about me that's the sort of thing that we're seeing it's not just the occasional undergraduate who breaks something in the cafeteria and complains about Vietnamese food that isn't authentic this is this is big and you and I live in the same world and I think it's interesting that we perceive this differently but I want to make it clear that I do think that in our world it is a dominant religion and part of the way we know it is that just like medievals we don't know it's a religion we don't think about it the medievals didn't say they were religious it was just the way the world was thought to be that's where we are now yeah okay I want to take moderators privacy to ask two questions of you and then and then with the audience question for John McWhorter the Nikhil was at first reviewing what I think he called structural racism he went over a series of statements about how more difficult to get a job if you're black difficult to get decent housing basically portrayed a situation in which there there is a pattern of racism against Blacks with respect to housing jobs and so on do did you accept his characterization or do you challenge it in any important way I don't want to over talk because I just did but no I don't challenge the things everything that I'm saying is said within a context of knowing that there are those disparities some of them are more complicated than we're often told but not enough to matter yeah these disparities due to racism you think one can say that okay okay questions of infinite kill John mentioned two or three very specific four or five actually specific examples of anti racism that he felt are very harmful the reason when he mentioned just mentioned a couple of them was for example that that it's regarded as racist to discipline black kids and schools who create turmoil and that that that holds everybody back he mentioned that that there's there's this far less concern about the danger from black gangs toward black people the much greater possibility that chance of getting killed by another black president than by a white cop then the third thing you mentioned for example was that that affirmative action makes it hard for black kids to function in schools where they're overqualified could you do you regard those three things for example as bad examples of anti racism that should be stopped well I speak to them all in turn let me just say that I can see how affirmative action can produce stereotype threat what the psychologist Claude Steele has called the stereotype threat and I can see how it could work to produce a kind of stigma among the recipient and that might not be a positive thing but that's also because we have not actually understood necessarily how difficult it might be for somebody coming from a certain place to get to a certain place right so so so the the the problem of racism from my standpoint is is is actually in many ways encapsulated by the ways in which it's been characterized by this side of the debate which is like we all know that well if we all knew that if we all knew these things if we all knew the depth of discrimination of its persistence then why have we not been able to produce the kind of public policy to address it I don't think the reason for that is anti racism actually I think the reason for that is that there hasn't been the public will and interest in addressing that and then actually our public policies have been turned towards racist ends and as in the carceral turn and John you know points to the the example of de Blasio and punishing black boys and to me that's actually an outlier I don't think that that's actually what happens in most parts of the country in most schools where african-american children are being disciplined and where we have something that we know quite well there's a school to Prison Pipeline there's tons of research on this many many urban schools now have police in the schools where if there's an infraction that people are actually immediately put into a situation of potential criminal punishment particularly african-american children so I think it's it's it's misleading actually that example and then I guess the last thing I want to say and it sort of comes back to the the the longer set of remarks that John was making I can completely see how it would be a problem to feel condescended to you know and I could completely see how people not being truthful and not feeling like I can speak openly and actually debate things does let's say I wouldn't use the word pollute distort distort disturb undermine our dialogue but once again once again I feel like you're you are actually talking about feelings you're talking about your feelings you're talking about the negative feelings that might be that might produce in a kind of in a kind of elite a space of the cocktail party of their dinner party or the academic department you're actually not addressing what I think is a much more significant harm that is being done to people by the ways in which existing and ongoing racial disparities racist demagoguery and racializing public policy actually works in our society so I would much rather us be talking about those things I think if we were actually talking about those things rather than just saying oh we all know that you know then we actually might have a different conversation we might actually have a different kind of anti-racism let's try this and the war on drugs make sure that all poor women have long-acting reproductive contraception available to them at no or little charge make sure that any child below a certain income level is taught to read via phonics rather than by the whole word method I know that sounds wonky that is huge but because it's kind of undramatic and it doesn't have the air of anti-racism about it nobody really wants to talk about it then cherish and support vocational training get rid of the idea that to be a human being you have to go to four years of school where you pretend to enjoy Shakespeare very important I know so many young black men who are electricians or you know repairman making more money that I made until rather late in my life that should be taught now that should be emphasized now if you did just those four things we would be in a new world instead let's imagine that there's a very artfully written article about how we need to once again call for reparations written as if reparations hadn't been discussed to death around the turn of the millennium and thought of by people from all sides of the political spectrum as an unfeasible idea partly because you could say that there have already been reparations but the idea is so incoherent John the taught Donaghy C Coates is not stopping your ideas from emerging it's the GOP Congress it's the Democratic Party I disagree it's it's the political system that we know that has the party duopoly and the ways in which it is work to actually prevent but public policies work that would actually address systemic economic inequality in a serious way it is it is it is a phantom that you're producing you know it's not can you really can you really tell me that there's any of that if the Democrats were in power that the four things that I talked about or even three or even two would actually be given serious consideration and remember I remember it's not just me I'm not making this up these are things that I'm getting from people who know what they're talking hundred percent agree with you if the Democrats were empowered those things won't won't won't happen which is why we need to actually transform the Democratic Party we need to make the Democratic Party a genuine social democratic party it would agree with so so you know when and if that happens we may have the I mean I'll come back for the socialism debate next time but you know if we have something like that happened then we we will have a different kind of political I'm not I'm not pinning my hopes on the Democratic Party either I just don't think that the problems that are sort of as they are identified by coalesce or as they're sort of pinned on some kind of some kind of narrow band of academic discussion are actually even touching most of what's happening on the ground where people live how people are suffering how people are striving IIIi I'm a hundred percent with you that we should be doing those things and but I don't think anti racism is the thing that's causing the harm I think the things that are causing the harm are many of the things that have long caused the harm right which is a kind of variety as I laid out of of racist and classist structures within our society that have produced disparity that have produced premature death that have produced over incarceration and that have produced the kind of civil conflict that we now experience so your your claim is that the Intelligencia of our nation have no particular or interesting effect on what sorts of policies are talked about and eventually not at all not at all not at all the economics profession has an enormous impact I don't think the economics but apparently not high-profile magaz no no the economic profession in general I don't think gives a [ __ ] about reparations or Tana hasty coats I think most of political science doesn't care a little bit about it not one bit I don't think you'd find it in the Wall Street Journal I don't think you'd find it in Baron I don't think you'd find it in the financial times I mean you may have a the odd review here or there but that is not the discourse that is ruling the world the discourse that's ruling the world is the discourse of money and finance and austerity and the room and the sort of limitations that are going to be placed on governmental intervention very little of it is actually addressing issues of race and racial disparity you guys have been great they've been an extended debate between the two guys which I think we must weave very much appreciated I do want to give it make it open to audience questions somebody in the audience I don't see the mic somebody at the mic want to ask the first question you know oh it's over there my god okay please make it a question and not a statement go ahead yes okay a great discussion thus for our gentlemen I I know that that's a statement question I know Gina joy wait Gina enjoys brevity I understand but I'm standing in front of John McWhorter who I've loved your work for so long your conversations with Glenn Lowry are indispensable for anybody who cares about race Thank You Nakia I look forward to pouring into your work further a question about their discussion about race in general obviously in this room it's of a very high level with you two gentlemen my question is the wider race discussion outside of this data outside of Soho forum has it hit a wall does it need to be redirected is it stuck because I find so much of it are not people who care about actual policy prescriptions but people who are performative who are arguing things on a surface level we've mentioned the drug war here drug war is important I don't know why people are yelling about it every day instead we're talking about how Trump talks to reporters it's in like substance so I'm just wondering you know how do we get out of we're at now to a wider or more substantive discussion and I know that might that's a tall order but if anybody can do it you know you guys can well I think that one way that we could make it more substantive because I don't think that it is is I mean apparently the intelligentsia doesn't matter but what I said it's somebody who tries to pretend to be part of it I think that this America should become more aware that there is a difference between having a religion and being interested in political activism such that it becomes less important what's the latest racist thing that Donald Trump said you know it's real it's hard being a writer in these times because my general thought is yes I know and he was a racist since before he was president he's gonna keep saying those things because he's mentally ten and that's what he does and so there's nothing interesting about it yes we should be talking about the war on drugs I think that with all due respect to Nikhil's view I think a lot of the reasons that we talk more about what Trump says about Omarosa although there's also a sexist issue there too rather than what would help somebody like someone's cousin who is unjustly in prison it's because we're dealing with I hate using this very punitive word but virtue signaling now stands in for being politically concerned a person who in 1965 would have said what can I do to help is now asking how can I show that I'm a moral person but that's more Martin Luther than Martin Luther King I just made that up just now there again as I knew I was facing a very clever opponent let me just say that was really sponte let me just say that it if I have virtue signaled once tonight I will I will do a Mia culpa that is not my purpose I am a full believer in practical political activity that is what we need to be doing so I agree with John in many respects on this question but when we talk about Trump's words and Trump's actions we're not talking about Omarosa this is just another example of a kind of trivialization Trump right during the election talked about issuing an executive order to end birthright citizenship now none of us necessarily think he can do that legally but there are actually constitutional scholars who disagree on the question of whether birthright citizenship is mandated under the 14th amendment it's a serious serious debate and it's going to hinge the juridical parsing of forwards right under the jurisdiction of you know which are meant to apply to people who are born here if you're born under the jurisdiction of your birthright citizen but our people who come here illegally or without papers in an authorized way are they under the jurisdiction of United this is gonna be potentially a subject to debate it's going to be a subject that is going to open up potential possibility of stripping citizenship from from hundreds of thousands of people now am I just being alarmist have you seen okay perhaps you think so you think I'm being alarmist that's that's good I'm glad to have that out on the table because I personally don't think it's alarmist I don't think it's an alarmist in a country that has engaged in family separation at the border in a country that is engaged in torture during the Iraq war in a country that has launched wars in the Middle East under false pretenses that have killed hundreds of thousands of people you're not you know you're not really supposed to heckle in this environment but the fact that you are is indicative to me that you actually are not willing to have a reasoned debate about this so the point is that we have a situation where we are dealing with someone who is actually engaging in in attacks that are racially inflected and and framed that involve parts of the population and making them extremely vulnerable so the idea that you want to trivialize it and make it something that we should just kind of ignore or laugh off or say oh that's just Donald Trump being Donald Trump to me is sort of just kind of proving my point next question hi there my worries about blowback given that white America is still the majority of the u.s. population and that runs the gamut economically what does that mean for the current state of anti racism of white guilt and white privilege where you have people who are neither we'll definitely aren't privileged are you laying a fertile ground for new races in the coming future am i laying the fertile ground is the current situation of anti the religious situation of anti racism Lane a fertile ground for the next generation of racist so should I take that first well I thought he was talking sin to you but I I say well something well why don't you take the question John I just talked for the Lord okay um the truth is that if that kind of reasoning that kind of anti-racist reasoning is aired and aimed and a lot of it does involve abusing and making fun of and being condescending towards a certain kind of person who's viewed as and often is less enlightened then it certainly is not a recipe for polity and I don't see why it would not stir up a degree of racism now once again for me and it's not that I'm trivializing it Nikhil and I don't think it's funny but I think to an extent that kind of racism is always gonna be there and so for example now this is where I think just people will differ Trump is definitely creating an environment where people are being more open about feelings that probably 10 years ago they would keep more to themselves he's basically winking and saying that they're things that are okay including violence which is particularly frightening but just in general he is creating this idea that it's okay to be Archie Bunker my feeling really is that I would rather have it out in the open then have the people keeping it quiet and being polite and mumbling when my back is turned I'd rather know what they're saying I can see how maybe you might feel that progress would be if they maybe we know that they're not going we can't make them not have the feeling but at least they won't say it that it would be better if there was a kind of a politeness I kind of want them to say it so I know who to avoid and just because I feel like I'm living in there's kind of a blue pill red pill aspect to it for me I want to know what we're I'm actually living in so things will differ I don't know if we're talking about a racist onslaught however I don't think that anti racism is dangerous in that it's gonna create charlottesville Trump is more responsible for things like that yeah America may I just jump in and ask for clarification about the role of the intelligentsia would you agree to kill that Tunisia Coates writes bestsellers MacArthur Genius a lot of writers spawned by him influences the media would you agree that they play a role in influencing voter attitudes and that voter attitudes then play a role at the bat the when they vote and also influence politicians so that it's not just you know the the moneyed classes that the intelligentsia clearly is an important force in the sense that I described would you agree with that yes okay if that's the case then would you agree then that Chinese eCos if he's saying are what's really on the agenda is reparations what's really on the agenda is understanding as tiny heezy Coates wrote I had no sympathy for the white firefighters who died in the World Trade Center because they're white that's what he wrote in his best-selling book would you agree that that that's poisonous and that's out there would you think that's an influence I'm not gonna comment on Tana he sees well he's run writings one way or another well he's a do I agree with every I'll say this do I agree with everything in Tana he sees his influence his influence his influence I think his influence is is he has an influence but I would say if his influence is his influence is does he have the outside significance that some would attribute to him I think he's become a magnet for for all kinds of criticisms that really his work doesn't really bear up - he's not he's not a he's not a serious and deep historian you know he's somebody who has has done he writes beautifully he writes well he writes polemically and and cleverly and he's been he's been influential but I don't think his influential is actually shaping the public debate to the to the extent to which he may be being sort of assumed here so that would be by response question for the audience well I suppose I have a single question that all split between the two of you I believe it was to paraphrase Aristotle virtue exisiting means between two vices and any virtuous behavior can be taken to a realm of excess where it inevitably becomes a vice for mister McWhorter where specifically do you see the vices in the current movement of anti-racism and for mr. saying like what would you what would you need to see for you to view of the current circumstance as a oh sorry what would you need to see for you to view the motion of this debate as a credible applica assertion for giving okay the vice of the modern civic religion which is anti-racism is that it's inwardly focused it is an understandable but dangerous search for moral absolution based on what begins as a concern for people who need help but it ends up being something that's self-centered it's about the self it has a manifestation with black people as well where there is a sense that we can consider our roles to be to show white America that racism exists and I think that there's a tendency I think most of us are familiar with this to an extent there's a certain attraction in painting yourself as someone who is a survivor of DeLeon's lots of racism if you're sweet seeking for a sense of self definition if you're seeking for a sense of self validation and all of us as human beings do if you're a black American in the United States since about 1970 one way that you can find that is to think of yourself as somebody who is a survivor of this onslaught and so you end up being a kind of deacon within this religion there's a whole different issue of what role black people have in it and so that's a problem for the simple reason that when it's all about the self and all of this signaling it ends up deflecting from concentrating the way people at fifty and sixty years ago on on the ground policy being woke too often these days it's just a matter of turning and doing high fives with people who think like you and not being concerned with doing the work and thinking about what really helps people the overlap between that woke feeling and effective activism is only partial and we're losing that that's the vice for me I think John got a chance to do his summation do you you had a tough question they kill the question was what would have to be true for you to agree with John about the resolution that I think that was the question put you a tough question maybe you want to duck it that would be okay what would have to be true for me to agree with John ah I I think I would have to think that John was really identifying something that was in the way of doing the concrete work that he says we need to do but actually spends more time talking about the problems of anti racism so to me if we were gonna actually do the work and I do spend a lot of time doing the work of trying to help people and do concrete social change work where I don't think foregrounding anti-racist commitments is the important thing to do I totally agree with that but when I find puzzling in this kind of quit like discourse and I think John John mentioned quill that is is it there's a kind of a kind of desire to always find these moments where you know there's some egregious instance of political correctness that is preventing someone from like speaking what's really on their mind some usually quite well off and well-placed person from speaking what's on their mind and that this is the thing that we should be worried about because this is the thing that's in the way of like making the world better but I don't see any of these people actually doing any kind of serious concrete work so it all to me seems a little bit like up here and a lot of the kind of examples are counterfactuals you know what if this happened or what if that happened well I've tried to talk about what is happening and I've tried to identify it and it's happening in Georgia right now it's happening in the white house it's happening in our policies it's happening in churches and synagogues where people have been murdered and you know this is this is the world we're in and we can choose to kind of continue to spin out this kind of fake conversation or we can deal with it I think I'm hearing summations from both sides unfortunately we've gone over time way with the questions you'll get a chance to the guys are gonna stick around and over over a glass of wine they can talk to you about your questions but you wanna make what you you you your summation starts oh yes no no no a skivvy oh no no no sorry no I was just jokingly saying you're doing the summations well Martin Luther and Martin Luther King you you at least one the the word game tonight you know what my summation here is I've made my points I do think that anti racism is important I do think that what the intelligentsia chooses as the terms of the discussion does have an effect on the progress of history and the progress of a people that's the way history has always worked that's certainly the way social history has worked in the United States at least until about five minutes ago I see no reason why it would change now but I want to say one thing in response to Nikhil what you said these hypotheticals that you're mentioning I understand that strategy of argumentation but I think that from the beginning my first statement and with everything else I said I have talked about concrete events I have listed them I have given names I have given figures I have talked about articles that describe things that are happening right here in the real America I have most certainly not recited a bunch of hypotheticals thank you well this has been fun so I'll just I'll just say what I what I've said and I'll be is try to be as brief as John so so what John calls anti-racism and sees as a problem in my way of thinking is mostly a phantom I deal with it I deal with it in my classes you know I had a whole class last year where I read the N word because Dubois said it in a passage and my students felt triggered by it and they made me stop and they said you can't say that word you know you're not a black person and I said why would it matter if I was a black person and said that and I had a conversation with them now do I do I want to go and say they're being triggered is just about them being self-obsessed self-absorbed babies no well yeah exactly that's what you might say because you might not actually be interested in having a constructive dialogue with them but I'm their teacher so I do have an interest in having a constructive dialogue okay now I've suggested that persisting racial disparities in economic life in our criminal justice system underwritten by our underwritten by active and ongoing racial discrimination I've suggested that there's been a resurgence of political racism and racially motivated voter suppression that now puts our democracy at risk and last I've suggested that the dangerous siren songs of race war and racist violence have moved from right-wing fringes of Stormfront and gab and the Daily Caller to the Twitter deck of the US president all of this should be cause for alarm all of this suggests that racism is currently more harmful than anti racism and I'll be very curious to see how you all vote thank you well we're opening up the final vote and just want to take the opportunity to thank both sides for a very civil and very spirited exchange certainly you both created an example for us all to discuss these of these issues of passion in a civil fashion and to share your differences civilly and courteously with each other so I I commend you both on that and thank you both for that and I while you're considering the vote I want to invite you all to come to our December 3rd debate we're gonna switch back to cash to money Harvard professor of economics Ken Rogoff author of the curse of cash will defend the resolution governments of the advanced industrial economies should phase out the use of paper money in the form of large denomination notes and sharply restrict the use of crypto currencies arguing for the negative will be George Mason University professor of economics Lawrence white on Monday Jan 14th we will have a debate that might interest our two debaters on the subject of housing Richard Rothstein Economic Policy Institute research associate author of the color of law will defend the resolution since the federal government for stirred housing segregation in the 20th century the government should foster housing integration in the 21st taking the negative will be Manhattan Institute senior fellow Howard Hasakah and on February 22nd February 20th John Allison a former CEO of the Cato Institute and a former CEO a BB&T Bank author of the financial crisis and the free market cure will defend a resolution about the causes of the national crisis how are we doing on the voting Jane at this point okay okay well looks like we have the results recognize that how people vote initially has a lot to do with how they felt in the first place voting voting YES on the resolution 41.5% initially voted yes and that rose to fifty four point three percent and so the yes resolution picked up nearly 13 percentage points that's what there is to beat and the nose went from fifteen to twenty nine twenty-eight percentage point and there's the disparity was one percentage point you picked up a little less than 14 percentage points John picked up a little less than 13 percentage points it's practically a statistical error however technically technically professor seeing you in the tootsie roll [Applause]

Channel: ReasonTV

Views: 264,132

Keywords: libertarian, Reason magazine, reason.com, reason.tv, reasontv, discrimination, virtue signaling, woke, Soho Forum

Id: mzPKk19t3Kw

Length: 108min 15sec (6495 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 30 2018