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John McWhorter: The Neoracists

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Re: John McWhorter: The Neoracists

#131

Post by sleepysysadmin »

krrrh wrote: post #121
sleepysysadmin wrote: post #90

I've watched a number of his videos where he talks about the new religion of anti-racism. He is tremendously eloquent and intelligent. >We need not wonder what the basic objections will be: Third Wave Antiracism isn’t really a religion; I am oversimplifying; I shouldn’t write this without being a theologian; it is a religion but it’s a good one; and so on. Yet here he is saying it's not a religion. I believe his thou…

> Yet here he is saying it's not a religion. He’s explicitly listing objections that he expects to hear, not contradicting himself.

>He’s explicitly listing objections that he expects to hear, not contradicting himself.

I misunderstood. My mistake.

Re: John McWhorter: The Neoracists

#132

Post by omginternets »

lisper wrote: post #126
omginternets wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I haven't read them, so I will concede that these two books endorse the point of view being described. Better yet, read them! They answer your question. >The existence of two books endorsing a point of view is not evidence that this point of view is mainstream. Since "mainstream" is a judgement call, I don't think anyone can directly demonstrate that to your liking. If you're genuinely curious about this subject, th…

> Better yet, read them! They answer your question. What question is that? I don't see how reading these books could possibly persuade me of anything other than there are two people who espouse some overly extreme ideas with regards to racism. And I will happily concede that without reading them. So I was wrong when I said that "absolutely no one" believes this crap. Two people believe it. Maybe even 100. Maybe even…

>But McWhorter claims that third-wave anti-racism is mainstream (his word) and so far I have seen zero evidence of that.

Read the damn books if you actually care.

Re: John McWhorter: The Neoracists

#133

Post by Digory »

lisper wrote: post #129
Digory wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To which proposition?

That third-wave racism is mainstream. That there are large numbers of people who subscribe to the ten points that McWhorter lists.

Which of the ten are not mainstream?

Surely you agree some are held by significant numbers of people. Take his #3 for example. You haven’t heard people claiming “Silence is violence?” While decrying the Karens’ inability to just listen?

Re: John McWhorter: The Neoracists

#134

Post by feoren »

cccc4alll wrote: post #28
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…

The lower classes fight amongst themselves, while the establishment gets richer every second. Ask yourself why you even think about these trivial issues like who is racist? Ask yourself why the establishment media doesn’t talk about who owns and controls the vast wealth in this country? Which has more impact and can benefit people of all races.

Violent mobs fighting for the right to lynch black people, exterminate Jews, and separate Mexican infants from their mothers is not a "trivial issue".

Re: John McWhorter: The Neoracists

#135

Post by ardy42 »

xibalba wrote: post #64
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…

> very definition of a straw man Please elaborate and cite. You dismiss the entire article (i.e. the subject of discussion) with the wave of a hand before diving into your own battle against straw men. For instance: > publicly tortured and killed by authorities In 2016, 266 black people were killed by police in the U.S. [1] In 2020, that value is estimated to be 233 [2]. That is out of 46 million black people in the…

> In 2016, 266 black people were killed by police in the U.S. [1] In 2020, that value is estimated to be 233 [2]. That is out of 46 million black people in the U.S., or approximately 0.0006%. No data available on "public torture". While I would agree that any death at the hands of police is unfortunate (though NOT unavoidable), I think most reasonable people would agree that 0.0006% is hardly representative of a widespread or systemic issue that typifies the policing of black people.

I see a few flaws in your argument.

1. Death statistics likely do not represent the entire problem, but rather the tip of the iceberg. Deaths/murders are rare overall, but hard to hide.

2. Your 0.0006% is calculated in a way to give one of the smallest possible magnitudes, and doesn't really offer any useful comparison. You can do similar to minimize any issue. If you wanted to make an argument against there being a systemic issue here, you really ought to compare per-capita black deaths-by-police to per-capita white deaths-by police or something. This paper [1] (first result of my Google search) give such a comparison and states:

> The highest levels of inequality in mortality risk [from police use of force] are experienced by black men. Black men are about 2.5 times more likely to be killed by police over the life course than are white men. Black women are about 1.4 times more likely to be killed by police than are white women.

[1] https://www.pnas.org/content/116/34/16793

Re: John McWhorter: The Neoracists

#136

Post by c06n »

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…

To update you with an actual source on some of the points, you can start with Robin DiAngelo's book "White Fragility". Most of the points are argued in the book. DiAngelo's books have been many weeks on the NYT's best seller lists. She sells her diversity training courses to many Fortune 500 companies and is held in high regards in progressive circles.

You can get a quick overview of the book's ideas on wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Fragility#Synopsis). It links also an interesting article discussing the book (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/08/19/the-fight-to-r...).

Quote from the article:

> Unlike Kendi, who boldly defines racism, DiAngelo is endlessly deferential--for her, racism is basically whatever any person of color thinks it is. In the story she tells about the world, she and her fellow white people have all the power, and therefore all the responsibility to do the gruelling but transformative spiritual work she calls for. The story makes white people seem like flawed, complicated characters; by comparison, people of color seem good, wise, and perhaps rather simple.

If you look a little bit, you will find many stories that fit into the 10 points. One of my favorite examples is how an (Asian American) reporter got fired for quoting from an interview from an African American man (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Fang#The_Intercept).

> In June 2020, Fang was accused of racism by Akela Lacy, a colleague at The Intercept. This occurred after Fang shared a Martin Luther King Jr. quote about remaining non-violent and tweeted out an interview in which a black man at a George Floyd protest expressed concern about black-on-black crime.

The best part of the story? The person who set of the Twitter storm to get Fang fired, then a colleague of Lee Fang at the Intercept, is (to my knowledge) a white woman pretending to be Black.

Re: John McWhorter: The Neoracists

#137

Post by lisper »

Digory wrote: post #133
lisper wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That third-wave racism is mainstream. That there are large numbers of people who subscribe to the ten points that McWhorter lists.

Which of the ten are not mainstream? Surely you agree some are held by significant numbers of people. Take his #3 for example. You haven’t heard people claiming “Silence is violence?” While decrying the Karens’ inability to just listen?

> You’d deny there are a significant number of people who believe three, for example?

"Silence about racism is violence."

Yes, I am highly skeptical that a significant number of people profess to believe this. It sounds like clear hyperbole to me.

Re: John McWhorter: The Neoracists

#138

Post by posterboy »

loevborg wrote: post #6

I haven't read the article yet, but McWhorter is the mastermind behind Lexicon Valley, a linguistics podcast and perhaps my favorite podcast of all times. McWhorter is both a bona-fide expert and a thoughtful, funny communicator - a rare combination. Oh, and he's also into musical theater, as you will learn very, very quickly if you listen to any Lexicon Valley episode. https://slate.com/podcasts/lexicon-valley

> McWhorter is the mastermind behind Lexicon Valley,

not exactly, no. He took the show over from a duo of other hosts.

He is a professor of linguistics and author of the bastard-tongue book. He is not an expert on sociology, though socio-linguistics is part of the curiculum. Neither is he a expert on history, politics, or all what linguisticis may be tangentially related to (everything!!1).

What he does seem to have on lock down is showmanship and theatrical inventory, but the latter part I'm sure is procured by a team behind the show. It's fa-bu-lush

Re: John McWhorter: The Neoracists

#139

Post by temp-dude-87844 »

Opportunistic people have realized by now that it's better to join this movement than to risk appearing to oppose it. Corporations have created new positions and new departments to seem like they're part of this movement. In our forever-online, forever-catalogued, hyperconnected world, people are smart to recognize shame as an existential threat, and movements are smart to recognize shame as the ultimate weapon.

If we suppose that outside opposition will harden the movement, then the only way it will falter is if its ostensible beneficiaries -- by the terminology, 'people of color' -- renounce it as not speaking for them. Perhaps McWhorter can plant the seeds of this examination and sustain it before he's swiftly vilified by those among the movement with the most to lose.

If the past is any indication, movements tend to be generational. The next generation will come along and discover for themselves the crises affecting their world. If this movement is incapable of delivering a better outcome for the people it purports to benefit, then it will be challenged by another one. And if it does deliver a better outcome for people of color, but at a profound psychological cost to their sense of self, then it will be challenged just the same.

Re: John McWhorter: The Neoracists

#140

Post by lisper »

c06n wrote: post #136
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…

To update you with an actual source on some of the points, you can start with Robin DiAngelo's book "White Fragility". Most of the points are argued in the book. DiAngelo's books have been many weeks on the NYT's best seller lists. She sells her diversity training courses to many Fortune 500 companies and is held in high regards in progressive circles. You can get a quick overview of the book's ideas on wikipedia ( h…

> you will find many stories that fit into the 10 points

I don't doubt that. In a nation of 300+ million you can find someone who believes just about anything. But it's still a very long way from there to the conclusions that the conjunction of those ten points is a mainstream point of view, which is what McWhorter claims.

Nonetheless, thanks for the references and the considered response.

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