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John McWhorter: The Neoracists

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Re: John McWhorter: The Neoracists

#71

Post by omginternets »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #34

Religion has no place in the classroom, in the halls of ivy, in our codes of ethics, or in deciding how we express ourselves, and almost all of us spontaneously understand that and see any misunderstanding of the premise as backward. Yet since about 2015, a peculiar contingent has been slowly headlocking us into making an exception, supposing that this new religion is so incontestably good, so gorgeously surpassing m…

From a clinical psychological perspective, one of the things you often see in a therapeutic setting is that people fall prey to behavioral patterns they don't fully understand. Often, they don't understand them because they're deliberately ignoring them.

I've found people who build an identity around hyper-rationality (e.g. logical positivists) to be -- on average -- some of the most emotionally-driven people. For example, they will have scathing, visceral, passion-fueled outbursts against religion (often despite knowing very little about it, save for the New Atheist talking points). When you try to point out that they're getting impassioned, they deny it. I think this denial is earnest; they might notice their heart-rate increasing, but they will tell you that there is a rational reason for it to be doing so, and that it is therefore not clouding their judgement nor stunting their curiosity for the subject of discussion.

In exactly the same way, I suspect the people running from "American Protestantism" hardly know what it is and hardly pay attention to it, hence your observation.

"There are none so blind as those who will not see."

Re: John McWhorter: The Neoracists

#72

Post by aww_dang »

asitov wrote: post #51
lisper wrote: post #2

It is important to note that this article was written by a black man, a contributing editor to The Atlantic. John McWhorter is not a MAGA hack. That being said... This article is the very definition of a straw man. Absolutely no one subscribes to the position it critiques. On the other hand, a fair number of people (including myself) subscribe to the position that, although things are not nearly as bad as they have b…

It's not important to note. Kind of the POINT.

Yes, but otherwise the enlightened audience here might prejudicially dismiss McWhorter as a "MAGA hack".

Re: John McWhorter: The Neoracists

#73

Post by throwfaraway987 »

lisper wrote: post #30
briane80 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"black people being systematically disenfranchised, and publicly tortured and killed by authorities, often with impunity" And it's ridiculous statements like this that keep fanning the racial tensions. 1) Please show the data - if you even took time to review police killings it is social class that is the biggest factor not race. In fact as a percentage white people of lower income status are killed more often than b…

> Please show the data Seriously? Have you not been keeping up with current events? Have you heard of George Floyd? The attempts by the Trump administration to overturn the 2020 election?

Have you heard of Tony Timpa? He was murdered by the Dallas police in the same fashion as George Floyd. Great body cam footage capturing them laughing at him as he begged for his life and screamed that he couldn't breathe. No consequences for the police officers involved.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallas_Police_Department#Killi...

How about Daniel Shaver? Gunned down in cold blood. Again, incredible body cam footage of him being made to crawl on the ground, sobbing and terrified, before being shot. His murderer, Officer Philip Brailsford, was acquitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Daniel_Shaver

This affects all races. Unfortunately it isn't political useful to frame it that way. Almost no one has heard of these two men because they were white. Does that seem problematic to you?

Re: John McWhorter: The Neoracists

#74

Post by jkingsbery »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #34

Religion has no place in the classroom, in the halls of ivy, in our codes of ethics, or in deciding how we express ourselves, and almost all of us spontaneously understand that and see any misunderstanding of the premise as backward. Yet since about 2015, a peculiar contingent has been slowly headlocking us into making an exception, supposing that this new religion is so incontestably good, so gorgeously surpassing m…

The "or in deciding how we express ourselves" is what gets me in that passage. The social contract we had was described by Voltaire in Letters on England #6 ("as there are such a multitude, they all live happy and in peace", https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2445/2445-h/2445-h.htm). My religion should affect how I express myself; my religion should not affect how you express yourself (or vice versa).

Re: John McWhorter: The Neoracists

#75

Post by lisper »

peytn wrote: post #55
lisper wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I read the whole article. And yes, I agree that "Actual progress on racism [is] orthogonal to what the author was talking about." But that's not what I'm critiquing. I'm critiquing his premise , that this thing he calls "third wave anti-racism" and whose characteristics he describes in his ten-point characterization is actually representative of the views of people who are concerned about racism today. I don't b…

I see. I’m on a college campus in the United States right now, and I can confirm what he describes exists here exactly as he describes it. There may be a generational or geographical gap between our experiences.

OK, I'll take your word for it. But I have a hard time imagining what that experience could even look like. I mean, do people go around quizzing each other on their anti-racist credentials? In my world, this doesn't even come up in day-to-day conversation. The only reason it's on my radar screen at all is that I wrote a blog post about it a few months ago that ended up blowing up in my face.

Re: John McWhorter: The Neoracists

#76

Post by beaner »

roywiggins wrote: post #20
beaner wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literal death does not tend to be misreported in the first world.

It's quite hard to come up with reliable statistics for police killings in the US. It's not that deaths aren't counted, it's that they're misclassified. > Feldman used data from the Guardian’s 2015 investigation into police killings, The Counted, and compared it with data from the National Vital Statistics System (NVSS). That dataset, which is kept by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), was found to…

Seems hard to make an argument either for or against racial disparities in police shootings then, if the data is unreliable. In which case the answer is to not make assumptions, but collect better data.

A lot of people seem to take the approach of: the data's good if it says what I want; if it doesn't, it's probably wrong.

Re: John McWhorter: The Neoracists

#77

Post by lisper »

Digory wrote: post #59
lisper wrote: post #2

It is important to note that this article was written by a black man, a contributing editor to The Atlantic. John McWhorter is not a MAGA hack. That being said... This article is the very definition of a straw man. Absolutely no one subscribes to the position it critiques. On the other hand, a fair number of people (including myself) subscribe to the position that, although things are not nearly as bad as they have b…

Then, with respect, you are not listening to and understanding the people to the left of you. They deny that there is a mere undercurrent of latent intentional bigotry by those in power (racism). Rather, they affirm that America is a system of power and social relations that keep the underclass just as effectively subjugated as slavery, without the need for intentional bigotry. And they intend to undo it. George Wash…

Reference(s)?

Re: John McWhorter: The Neoracists

#78

Post by phlakaton »

lisper wrote: post #48
peytn wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But we have not yet solved fully solved it, and anyone who says that we have, particularly when they say it in such a condescending way, is part of the problem. I just finished reading this article in its entirety, and I think I might’ve missed this part. My impression was that the author is describing a proselytizing ideology that happens to be based on skin color and draws legitimacy from historical perfidies. Ac…

Yes, I read the whole article. And yes, I agree that "Actual progress on racism [is] orthogonal to what the author was talking about." But that's not what I'm critiquing. I'm critiquing his premise , that this thing he calls "third wave anti-racism" and whose characteristics he describes in his ten-point characterization is actually representative of the views of people who are concerned about racism today. I don't b…

As for me, I certainly recognize several of the positions he describes, so I don't think it's a complete straw man. But I also haven't observed several of the attitudes he describes.

Seems to me maybe what he's seeing is not a religion where people are required to hold two incompatible beliefs in their head, but the result of public discourse where basically rational and consistent, yet angry, people fall on different sides of an issue and their voices in concert become incoherent.

In which case, the solution is perhaps: don't get sucked into the sturm und drang based on everything you read on Reddit. Be compassionate. Pay attention to what's around you. Look for opportunities to make a difference.

Re: John McWhorter: The Neoracists

#79

Post by posterboy »

readtfa wrote: post #22
lisper wrote: post #2

It is important to note that this article was written by a black man, a contributing editor to The Atlantic. John McWhorter is not a MAGA hack. That being said... This article is the very definition of a straw man. Absolutely no one subscribes to the position it critiques. On the other hand, a fair number of people (including myself) subscribe to the position that, although things are not nearly as bad as they have b…

You obviously didn't read the article if you think it's a straw man. He quotes Ibrahim Kendi, funded by Jack Dorsey as an exemplar of the new faith. If Dorsey and Kendi aren't mainstream, just to start, I don't know what is. I'm so tired of getting gaslit about this. My opinion on neoracism is the reason I am posting with a throwaway. Thank you John Worter for helping to rebrand so-called "Antiracism" to what it real…

just to be clear here, if you can sum it up in one phrase, Racism is the assumption that some racea are inferior, and antiracism holds that race is a concept that has no place in reality!?

If labeling it anti- then because it only needs mention when contradicting racism, but it can be an independent position held by anyone who simply disregards at least the name, or one of the various concepts attached. This has befuddeld me for a long time because via exposure I thought anti racism was the norm, but accademia frequently dabbles in racist topic (though without making value judgements). One reason to reject it is that drawing differences invariably leads to a sense of competition and all that follows. Vice versa, I pressume, that denying actual differences can also lead to losses (disenfrenchise) may then appear as new racism.

Branding that as racism is simply incivil, because it ascribes intent or lantent aggression where there is none. It's not all about name-calling, but abstractly speaking it is. So, please don't defend an abstract position without accurately describi g it (in case I misinterpreted anything), because that really is indistinguishable from a scarecrow.

Re: John McWhorter: The Neoracists

#80

Post by dandersh »

McWhorter is a great writer and linguist. Incredibly entertaining and enjoyable to read.

Which is why I find his political takes such as this one...so disappointing. Generally my biggest criticism is that he's not nearly as far left as he positions himself and often makes himself a useful idiot deployed against those who actually are.

"Ta-Nehisi Coates in Between the World and Me wanted to teach his son that America is set against him; I want to teach my kids the reality of their lives in the 21st rather than early-to-mid-20th century. Lord forbid my daughters internalize a pathetic—yes, absolutely pathetic in all of the resonances of that word—sense that what makes them interesting is what other people think of them, or don’t."

This reeks of "racism is dead or nearly so" which is laughable given the protests of the past year especially when juxtaposed against the police response compared to the state capitol protests that culminated in the insurrection in D.C.

"Third Wave Antiracism is losing innocent people jobs. It is coloring, detouring and sometimes strangling academic inquiry."

The first sentence falls under outrage obsessed social media more broadly and is lacking any sort of evidence.

The second is remarkably ignorant of the suppression/ignoring of ideas and views that have recently been forced into broader conversation. Combined with the previous comment on race that I highlighted it points to a "Let's go back in time" mentality that is the complete antithesis of progressive political thought.

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