Debating Glenn Loury: Are Racial Disparities Caused by "Culture"?

I got about 10 minutes in.  I will try to finish the whole interview.  But P. Loury went off on one his extreeeeemely tiresome points. So it is a good time to take a break, and post the vid here.  

Seriously?  How many fucking times do people have to say

crime bad

before we are no longer being asked to say that?  Ok.  I am being more facetious than serious.  But I am being both.

Loury goes there, here.  And it is so tiresome a point.  But kudos for him admitting it might not really be an either/or (false) choice between the idea of systemic cause and personal cause for the state of black/brown America for those who are way, way behind.

But back to the tiresome part.  This reminds me of an ex friend.  He is a devout conservative Jew, as well as a devout borderline alt right conservative.  And his racism was starting to show before he unfriended me, but we need not go down that rabbit hole.  Even if I get why his pet peeve is antisemitism.  Boy was off his chain.  Every real or imagined (as some of his sources were lacking credibility, to say the least) story of a potential act of antisemitism would cause him to post it on FB and flat out demand everyone be outraged.  It got ridiculous. It got pathological.  After a while I ignored it.  But  there was the day he posted some story about some college students protesting the training of American local police force being trained in some extremely aggressive tactics by the IDF, that they perfected against the Palestinians.  Which a lot of folk consider to be a politically troublesome thing, never minding if one is a Jew or not.  I pointed out the political objection.  He cut me off his FB friend list because apparently any criticism of Israel's then conservative government under that insane criminal Bibi, was in his sorry head, antisemitism.

But that is a tangent.  The real idea I am thinking of is I actually challenged him before that, in the same way I say it above.  I am sure I said it more than a few times.  

Antisemitism bad.  How many more times do you expect me to say it?

So yeah.  Glen was actually in good form.  He should talk to progressives more.  I will get around to finishing the interview.  But please Glen.  Enough with the Captain Obvious Testimony Wishing!

Some Quickies. Firstly Kudos for Ann Althouse!

 Kudos for her getting the story right, about Simone Biles.  Not only were her remarks to a story she posted about Simone Biles mature, rational, and sensitive.  So were, for the most part, the posts she posted from her commentariat.  As an aside.  Funny how some people who are fans of sports sometimes remember that being in the zone, and having your head in the game is important, and sometimes they forget.  But I honestly think so many Americans are such despicable racists, they were giving shit to and trolling Simone  because of that.  

America,  what a (racist white supremacist) country.   Not all of it.  But we have too fucking many white supremacists.

Moving on.  I am about to google for stats re American white nationalists.  

According to a report mentioned in a Vox article back in 2018:

 "[r]oughly 5.64 percent of America’s 198 million non-Hispanic whites have beliefs consistent with the alt-right’s worldview. Whether or not they would describe themselves as alt-right, Hawley argues, they share the movement’s belief in a politics that promotes white interests above those of other racial groups.

If Hawley is right, then the alt-right’s constituency isn’t a tiny fringe. It’s about 11 million Americans."

11 Million

I m talking about this because like some mental ear worm, something John McWhorter said over the past couple two, three weeks  has been gnawing at part of my pretty brain.  Specifically it was a dozy of a brain fart style remark about how no one wants to eliminate discussions of slavery from US schools.  Um.  It stands to reason some of the 11 Million want to either kill, expatriate, enslave, or some version of all of the above, black and brown folk.  It also stands to reason,  if these fuckers do take over, they are going to seriously revise the textbooks to be more flattering to white supremacists, and less fair about black and brown folk.  Professor.  Stop saying stupid, baseless shit.  Please?  

I doubt he will ever see this.  But if that is not a transformational argument, I will go for a borderline insulting one.  Making idiotic arguments for which the only support is the speaker/publisher saying it is so might not be a uniquely Republican rhetorical fallacy.  But those fucking morons  do it more.  They do it all the fucking time.  Now do you really want to use their go to form of bullshit?

You know better than that, already!

Other mention,  Yo!  Merrick Garland!  Start arresting these fuckers.  You and DOJ are acting as if  you playing cricket, like you got nothing but time to spend.  But fuck no!  You are playing speed golf.  Hurry the fuck up!

I'll Pick Specifically on Professor Loury, This Time.

 

The Black Guys on Bloggingheads.tv. Only One Has a Thick Skin.

No matter how much I disagree on racial black and brown folk issues with Professor McWhorter, I commend him for having, as he says in this video, a thick skin.  I am not anywhere near being an academic.  I started performing in public since what?  4th Grade.  I have a BA in Theatre, and have been an attorney for 30 years.   I am used to being weighed and measured.  And from time to time, I have been found by some to be lacking.

But Professor Loury, still isn't used to rejection.  At the end of this clip, he goes on a tear about how "the culture," all the social establishment institutions and their liberal members reject conservatives.  And a few Bloggingheads vids back, he went on a tear about how he and other black conservative economists routinely are dissed by his academic peers.  Kinda whiny, that stuff.

Now I wish him all the luck with his marriage, which I assume to be a good one.  I will take his word on that, at the least.  But if he was single, I would tell him to try out some internet dating.  Just to toughen himself  up.  He does not have to change to please me, but I suggest he stop whining in these videos about being rejected.

The overwhelming majority of liberals, and black academics and professionals reject the very idea, the foundation of this cancer on government, and society, and thought called conservatism.  We  think it is shit.  We happily reject all that shit.  And well, we are not going to change.  Fuck naw!

It is not up to us to change our minds, and stop rejecting conservatism.  But for his own well being, he needs to get over the fact the cool kids don't wanna play with him.

One of my favorite stories from law school.  Now I don't want to say I was the coolest kid at my law school, at the end of my time there.   But I was popular, I have to say.  And I did not give a tiny fuck about the nerds.  So this one day this One L nerd (guy actually wore a pen on a neck cord. I swear,) squirreled up his neve and told me, "Some people don't like you."  

And I looked into his beady little eyes, and told him, "I don't care."  And I meant it. 

Now if Professor Loury can't manage to be more like me, he should at least try to be more like McWhorter.

Oh. And regarding nerd boy. I have no idea how his career turned out.  For all I know, he has had a very successful career  in the law.  He might be putting me to shame on paper.  But I still don't care.  As I am cool kid for life.

Fuck You, You White Supremacy Enablers, and Anti CRT/1619 Whitewashing of History Motherfuckers.

King Philip's War: The Most Important American War You've Never Heard Of.
This is part of American History the motherfucking white supremacist Republicans want to keep hidden, along with the full account of the atrocity of race based slavery.  

Don't take my cussing personally.  I love cussing.  I do it often just for the joy of it.

The Highest Form Of Lowly Idiocy Has To Be.

 Anti elitism.

Fuck all them bitches.

Anti CRT is just anti Americanism.

It's Partisan Politics! All along. 

I have been saying it for years.  This essay pretty much admits the quiet part out loud.  The so called culture war is just partisan politics.  Don't get bogged down on the bogeyman du jour.  It is all about opposing progressive liberalism.

But this writer admits more than  I ever expected.  They are not merely trying to set the clock back pre  New Deal, or even pre civil war.  This guy has his knife out  for the enlightenment writers.  You heard of them, I hope.  They were the inspiration for the guys who framed the US Constitution, and before that, the Declaration of Independence.

They hate America.  Every part of it other than white guys being in charge of shit. 

Are You Really That Fucking Stupid?

 One of the criticisms of CRT is that it is some how Marxist, or built on Marxist ideas.  As if tearing down the pre existing social and political order and replacing it with something else, in a word, revolution, did not exist before Karl Marx?

The sad part is people who are actually smarter than most people are buying into that mendacious argument.  

Estunade!

My choice of picture is to show revolution has a history going back thousands of years.  The Ancient Nubians revolted against the Ancient Egyptians.

The First Rule. Don't Aid or Abet The White Supramacists!

 

While the thought is in my head.  Wokeness?  Wokeness does not exist as a thing in progressive, liberal thought.  However, it seems to be a catch all rhetorical cudgel that right wingers have taken to using as a default weapon against any ideas, politics, and or cultural element they don't like. It is often, but not exclusively used by the anti anti racists against the actual anti racists, and any proposal or program who's intent is to diminish and eventually eliminate white supremacy.  And I sort of repeat myself in saying there is nothing new about well meaning folk working to eliminate white supremacy. That not only dates as far back as the beginnings of the CRT school, but the beginnings of the American Civil Rights Movement.  And even before that, back to 1619, when the first small boat load of African's sold as slaves arrived in Virginia.  But according to my Cape Verdean ancestors, back to the mid 15th century, when Pre Imperial Portugal started enslaving Africans.  

The frequent and oppressive (as noise at least)  use of the term wokeness, and it's variants, by right ring white supremacists as a criticism of liberal, progressive politics and culture is easy to understand as a socio-political tactic.  They have always done that shit.   They  have been using bullshit as defined by Professor Harry Frankfurt, as a tactic since the 19th century.  But what about middle of the road, alleged centrists?  What is their fuck?  What is their excuse?

I doubt he will ever see this.  But the ideas I would love the chance to convey to John McWhorter are as follows:

The First Rule is, don't aid or abet the white supremacists!  If you buy into and/or promulgate the bullshit that wokeness is a thing, never mind some bogeyman threat to society, you are aiding and/or abetting the white supremacists.

Also, don't advance by action or word the toxic concept that mere socio-political differences are to be treated as some bogeyman threat to society, even if the issue isn't the bogus issue of wokeness.  Remember how a few years the right wing white supremacists were all ass sore and cranky over the idea of SJWs?  It's the same technique, and evil intent.  And give it a couple years.  They will have a new name for the bogeyman that is thoughts and ideas they do not like. (Sometimes shit is that simple,)

And don't be so fucking lazy.  Really.  Don't be so fucking lazy.  If you have problems with the discrete ideas and positions taken  by someone else, criticize those discrete ideas.  Don't play the bullshit game of rolling them and a bunch of other ideas and people under some bullshit category, and  further the bullshit,  rhetorical intellectual failure of effort and fairness of using some Frankenstein mash up of a red herring, straw man, scapegoat all in one.  Bad form speaks loudly!

Lastly, remember.  Most motherfuckers don't read.  There are thousands of fucking assholes out there misrepresenting your views on race because they haven't even listened to enough of your interviews to know you actually have some nuance there. (I have, but honestly, I have this bullshit aversion.  I have to shut shit down a lot.)  So remember before you make an exaggerated point and publish it, fucking remember.  That is all those motherfuckers will ever know about what you think.  They are not going to buy your books, and understand you are not so much opposed to ending white supremacy, but have your own axes to grind, and shit to complain about.  And unlike me, you are not a member of the CRT school.

I will end there.  I am weary.  I am so fucking weary. I am almost worn out. I need a vacation.  Or to finally take that trip to Cape Verde.  America is not good to me.  It is toxic.  So please.  Don't add to that!

Cleveland Guardians, not the Cleveland victims of white supramacy.

 I wasn't prepared to go long on this story at first.  But I read the comments to her posting the story on Ann Althouse's blog.  And remember  She curates, approves, selects every bit of racist bullshit comment there.  Nothing gets up there with out her (or her husband) approving it.

Anyway.  As expected, the racists were in full ass sore from some imaginary delusional ass rape mode because?  well, because someone dared live their life and made decisions about it, that they, the delusional, conservative, immature, cry baby does not agree with.  Because  conservatives are so delusional they don't seem to understand.  No fucking body has to live their lives to please some motherfucking idiot, immature, emotionally stunted conservative barnyard animal's cock sucker.

What is the difference between a liberal and a conservative?  Beyond adulthood, and cognition and emotional control?  Regarding this topic specifically, the idea we hold is:

Ya know.  We should end using humans as team mascots.   Let's end that shit.  Overdue!

But in the words of one of the racist shits Althouse published:

"This name won't last. Today it is "respecting the indigenous people groups", but tomorrow it will be "we can't name anything after any people group." So Vikings will fall, and Vandals and Pirates, etc. Will Packers and Brewers be tumbling dominoes? Follow the logic and then we can't have names that evoke privilege or aggression."

As if that would be a bad thing?

Bur her husband added this perfectly conservative, baseless slam:  

"To me they will henceforth be the Cleveland Panty Liners."

Stay classy, Meade.

Trolling people not because they are being assholes, like trolling people who haven't trolled you first, or otherwise being a dick, and or promoting dickish assholery, socially toxic bullshit like publishing  other people's racist shit without at least saying  . . .  Hey!  Look at the racist shit this person said.  Fuck him!  Spurn him!  Despise him!

Na na na na na.  Meade is trolling someone for no better reason than difference of opinion.  

Bad form!

Listen to Chauncey, not Professors Loury and McWhorter.

 Article found here.

Anti CRT Movement is the Same Old Racist Shit.

I am reminded of the song from the musical "Hair," about anti black racism. 

There is a spoken line in the song that goes something like:

Watch out.  The Boogeyman is gonna come, and getcha!

Same racist shit.  Slightly different script.

Who's Word Will I Take on What Dr. King Meant?

 His daughter, one of the four children mentioned in that famous and famously mis quoted, by omission of context, line from that speech?

Or anyone the fuck else?

Dr. Bernice King Explains Who Her Father Was, And What He Meant.

Anyone who says different than her is a lying assed motherfucker.

For fuck's sake, McWhorter. Didn't you learn this yourself before you were 9 y.o.?

 Currently watching Professor McWhorter's taped segment with Margret Hoover  from her show, firng Line, off Youtube.

I accuse McWhorter of  the most unforgivable of self owning;  magical thinking.  For reference, I spent three years doing juvee crim. cases at Philadelphia Family Court, back in the mid 90s.  I represented some ding dongs who go caught up in slinging crack in da hood.  You are right in a minimal way, that the war on drugs is a bad thing, and we should end it.  But negro please.  If you eliminate crack selling on street corners, that is only going to take care of  about 1/365th of the problem.  Admittedly an exaggeration, but it is magical thinking to believe if we fix only one non causative factor in the vast and complicated equation of social problems for  poor black folk, that is going to fix much.  

If you have read Derrick Bell, you should know that not only have successful cases like Brown v. Board of Ed  not proved to be the great fixes.  But even the grand legislative plans have only done so much.  Before you dismiss teaching white people to be less racist, please refresh yourself on the actual limits of progress and the failure to solve the many problems remaining.  IF you really think ending the war on drugs will end the school to prison pipeline?  Send me your email addy.  I will see if I can get you permission to sit in on one of my step cousin's Sociology lectures down the road at John Jay  (I know you don't have to leave the Columbia campus for that kind of lecture!  I am just having some fun here.  And under that scenario I can assist in the lecture!)

And I stopped the vid after McWhorter decried the idea (not strictly  CRT  actually)  of teaching black kids that black folk are oppressed by white folk.  And white kids  need to be taught not to do that shit.

Where the fuck did you grow up where you did not know that your damn self  by the time you were 9 y.o?  I leaned that back in 4th grade when some racist kids in my school threw a rock through my window,  Lucky for me I wasn't there. 

Negro please.  As Cher says in that movie, "Snap out of it!"

Free Speech Bullshit, and Those Worth Listening To.

 I saw this meme last night, and was reminded about one of my observations.  Who really counts as an intellectual these days?

For me, after Cornel West, it's hard to name anyone who is not at best an expert in their field. For example, I can name a bunch of legal scholars.  But that is not the same as being a true though leader over many fields.

And then we get to the political divide.  Isn't the very idea of a conservative intellectual an oxymoron, as that team is anti elitist?  Hearing some one promote Thomas Sowell as an intellectual begs more questions than it provides answers.

I take this opportunity to call bullshit on people with fancy degrees from fancy schools, but mock other people by calling them the elect, or elitists.  I am proud of my accomplishments and professional and academic associations. I joined those clubs by choice, and put in the work.  I believe in that, even as I believe that people who believe generally that we live  in a general meritocracy are flat out full of shit, delusional.

 

 

And We Yet Fight.

 From a very educational explainer post about the Confederacy. The writer is said to be an AP History teacher.  This was the end of it:

Of Course She Posted. The Loury - McWhorter Vid.

 I should be kinder to Althouse.  Although I left un edited my slam from what originally was a FB post.  And only my peeps see my FB output.  Unless I cross post here.  Anyway.

She posted the vid that was half the inspiration for my post, yesterday.  And I remind you good people.  She curates the comments. They are hand picked.  And out of the three she chose to post?  All were fucking flaming racist.

The first one was racist on account the writer stopped short of calling Professor Loury one of the good blacks.  But was so condescending with her unconscious white privilege and sense of superiority she made me feel embarrassed for him.

Another one reeked of a different flavor of white privilege and sense of superiority.  Kudos to them right thinking negroes for agreeing with me.  I find that kind of shit revolting.  I might disagree with both brothermen.  But this pat on the good negroes heads kind of twisted compliment need to end!

Lastly, the third racist who called both professors jazz masters.  I will assume the racist poster would never call two random white ivy league professors jazz masters.  So I have no problem at all calling that bitch not only racist, but fucking flaming racist.

White Republicans and other ignorant white people seem to be going out of their way to prove the emotional and factual truth of that white privilege poem I posted yesterday.

I really am trying hard not to be too hard on racially tone deaf Althouse.  But I have to say the following.  Or at least will.  The fact she likely warms to Loury and McWhorter on race issues, but seems to be totally tone deaf to the hurt and the struggle of the young woman who wrote poem tells me some thing about Althouse.  She doesn't get it. Never has.  Never will.  Lost cause.

You Must Be Crazy, Negro! People Pay Me Money to Tell Them, "You wrong."

To explain, I re watched some of John McWhorter's latest  . . . adjectives are lacking to describe it, near total misunderstanding of CRT, as published in his latest vid with Loury.  I had just enough wine tonight to think I should give him some instruction on his Substack space.  But only subscribers can comment,  there. Hence, my title, here.  

So here goes something.  I posted it on my FB wall earlier. Hope I don't need to tweak it.  But for the record, the blogger I refer to is Ann Althouse.  Even if she is not a Republican.  She really needs to follow my rule for white Republicans commenting on any issue having to do with black and brown folk, as such.  Just stifle it!  (Archie Bunker quote deliberately employed for emphasis and irony.)  Here goes.

So much to pack into one post. Firstly, some teacher got fired for exposing some white childr'n to this poem. White supremacists once again proving that CRT and the other anti white supremacists are clearly on to something.

Secondly, at the blog where I found the story and the poem? I usually hold back on calling the blogger there a racist. But she is so fucking tone deaf about race that she . . . .

how much????

She is one of them fucking idiots who thinks she passes the I'm not a racist test for not allowing posters to quote the ennn woid. But she posts racist shit like this from her racist fan bois. This is in reply to her post about the story/poem. And all the comments are pre moderated before she posts them. She chose to post this racist shit:

""Separately, I feel sorry for this woman. She has so many negative half takes in her mind that she seems emotionally crippled. I’d like to see the class break down each line in her poem to show her how she is portraying only the negative side of every thing she speaks of. Someone who only sees the negative side of life will drive themselves crazy whether they are black, white, brown, or green.""

Like I said, fucking tone deaf!

Thirdly? I am running out of steam. I wanted to crank on these two black Ivy League professors, one conservative one a Democrat, who demonize CRT. And I re watched some of a dialogue vid they did (the black guys at Bloggingheads.TV.) My rant in summation.

I will tell you the open secret about CRT. They might have invented some new terminology, but none of their/our (I am a member of that tribe) ideas are new (even if you are not lumping all the anti white supremacists under one column.) I am Cape Verdean. Arguably some of my mainland West African ancestors were enslaved by the Portuguese even before Cristóbal Colón got lost and ended up in the Caribbean. We don't have a family oral history. But I am pretty sure the original stolen ones, finding themselves stolen and moved by force to the Cape Verde Islands had thoughts like:

"Who the fuck are these white devils? Why do they think they are better than us, and have a right to force us to work for them for free? We need to end all that shit!"

Yup. CRT was invented in the mid 15th Century, if not earlier. And that is at core what CRT and all the anti racist splinter movements are about. Ending all that shit.

I will stop there. for now.

______________________________________ New content after my self quote. Even If I got McWhorter to see that, I don't expect him to have an epiphany and take back all the silly, un founded, sub high school debate team shit he has said about CRT/anti white supremacy even fucking even even if I pierce that part of his African American Mind that has pretty much known, all his natural life, that it is all the fucking same anti white supremacy movement. And the goal has never changed. The movement is more than 600 years long and running. The labels of the flavor du jour really don't mean shit. And even if not especially if one is a linguist? Don't get blinded by the terminology. What matters is the idea being communicated. And as far as I say it, the idea is . . . and I repeat myself supposing what my first stolen ancestors would have thought, said:

"Who the fuck are these white devils? Why do they think they are better than us, and have a right to force us to work for them for free? We need to end all that shit!"

But I still want to keel haul white supramacists, in theory at least.

 
I want to go easy on Professor Loury of "The Black Guys at Blogging Heads, here.  He at least had a borderline epiphany.  His guest, professor of politics and public policy at New York University Lawrence Mead, got past Loury's blinders and opened him to some ideas I would have, if I had a chance to.  But I would have been more blunt.  Loury has shown in the past a distinct inability  to get out of his own skin.  And I don't mean his black skin.  I mean his Ivy League Professor, clearly part of the top 10% by income, living the good even if not life of leisure of trust fund babies, skin.  To make a more direct point (and I am an America Jacobin of sorts,) his, I am an invested stakeholder in the American status quo, skin.

And His Booker T. Washington-esque obsession with lecturing blacks way out of earshot they need to pull themselves up by the bootstraps, bullshit, seems to be well related to a sense of, I did it why can you negroes, rant  is way dull.  Anyway.  Professor Mead blew his mind with the thesis that African Americans really ain't part of the Western Tradition.  Loury is so fully invested in that myth (currently, for most black and brown folk, it is a myth) that he pushed back.  But he seemed to get the point, at least.

Both agreed that even if the anti racist faction is not really as invested in the status quo, they as individuals and group, fit in to the description that Professor Mead calls  individualism.

It's an interesting dialogue.  I have never seen Loury so  . . . . intellectually challenged, in a good and professional way.  I hope this will lead to Loury at minimum reevaluating his useless lectures, even if  the idea is black and brown folk need to assimilate more.  Meade makes an inference we need some policies and programs to help with that?

And back to the what about the racists part?  Neither professors are as radical as I am.  I pretty much have been saying the following for years and years.  It is not an either or, a false binary.  Black and brown folk all at the same time can be victims of systemic racism, and can still do more to help themselves and their families.  I think about how Loury and his intellectual drinking buddy John McWhorter need to stop with the fucking bullshit about how anti racists and like minded fellows are teaching black and brown folk to be permanent victims.  

Fancy negroes please!  If one is living in the PJs, the hood, or on Catfish Row, one needs not be taught to be downtrodden.  (For the record I am fancy but, don't make as much $$ as them guys.)

Oh.  let me be clear.  Without some sort of useful policy or otherwise action attached to the Booker T. Washington lectures?  Those lectures are about as useful as standing on the dock, seeing someone drowning a few yards out, and shouting at them:

"Hey you !  Drowning man!  Ya know if you knew how to swim that might help!  You really need to learn how to swim, drowning man!"

African Americans are not "Western."