I Confess to Being on Team West Since the Mid 1980s.

 

So when I say I never saw Loury's  A Game until this vid., I credit Prof. West for that. You can blame that opinion on my bias.  But you would be wrong to do so.  Here is a link to the vid, I mentioned in my previous post.

Professors West and Loury, and Kiros

You need to bring your A Game to Dr. West if the conversation is limited to, "You want paper or plastic?" Seriously.  Not only is Dr. West one of the scant few Americans of any ancestry who truly deserves to be called an intellectual, and is a true philosopher.  He is kind.  His decorum should be the standard the rest of us aspire to.  He will correct and reeducate you of your stupidity, politely. But he will never talk down to you, never mind snark snarl, or belittle.

Anyway.  Let me save some keystrokes and look for a summation of topics.

Glenn Loury (Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, Brown University), Cornel West (Union Theological Seminary), and Teodros Kiros (Berklee College of Music)

• Teodros’s new book, Conversations with Cornel West  0:00
• Cornel offers spiritual counsel to Glenn  1:04
• Between commercialization and democratic decay  11:06
• Glenn: “The glass is way more than half-full” for Black Americans  20:52
• The centrality of Black music to Black experience  29:26
• Cornel’s Chekhovian Christianity  36:03
• What system, if any, can replace American capitalism?  43:40
• The meaning of 1776  56:42

Admittedly, Prof. Loury has been so doctrinaire and repetitive lately in his vids that I can't stand it long.  I think he needs more time with someone agreeable who does not necessarily agree with him.  His usual partner in rhetorical crimes on line is Professor McWhorter.  They don't always agree, as McW. actually  is a Democrat.  But lately their discussions are so often within the overlap area of their Venn Diagram that for my money, ain't worth watching, listening to, much.  

Works for me

 

Even if I am not entirely sure what the cartoonist was going for.  But it seems to suggest that CRT is on the side of the righteous, and it's detractors are the bad guys.  Using the classic image of Ruby Bridges being escorted by U.S. Marshals back in the day in Little Rock, sets that up as a visual argument.  And in having the book Ruby holds emblazoned with, "Critical Race Theory,"  properly links CRT to the Civil Rights continuum. 

Like I said a couple posts back.   I have been part of the CRT camp for over thirty years.  And I might not have specifically said that CRT to a great extent says that we only got so far with the Civil Rights Movement, back in the day.  And we needed to change our assumptions, and our way of looking at the persistent problem of white supremacy in America.  That is pretty much the origin story, far as I can relate, with out digging up a quote or link.

Now I know some of the opponents of CRT believe they are on the side of the righteous, even if they admit to themselves, if only themselves, they are actually white supremacists.   And as well, some of the opponents of CRT believe they are on the side of the righteous, even if they they are not actually white supremacists, fully, dedicated, knowingly at least.  As a quick aside.  I was watching a very civil vid last night featuring Professors Cornel West and  Glen Loury.  At one point West goes on a tangent about internalized self loathing in the Black American community.  Although it was not a shot directly at Loury, he visibly recoiled as if hit squarely in the chest with one of those bean bag rounds. 

The reason I brought that up is I believe that no matter how sincere a black can be about opposing CRT and/or anti racism, they have to know, not all that deeply inside, that they are breaking the first rule.  Don't do or say anything that helps the usual white supremacists.  I will stop there, about that.  Instead, I will toss off a couple more points before I head for the exit.  The depth and intensity one might have for a bullshit argument/conclusion does not in any way make up for the bullshit factor.  

And with that in mind, I have already completed my reply to John McWhorter's, "Woke Racism."

It will be a book with that as the simple title, and 120 blank pages.  Because sincerely believed, factually unsupported opinion and bias in published form still is nothing more than bullshit argument, and bullshit conclusion.  It takes nothing to refute nothing, but for marking it as such.

And yes.  I am getting more critical of McWhorter as he is picking up disciples, and others are proselytizing his gospel, preaching his holy word.  And that is some reckless shit he has been selling lately.  And just to explain, I  used the religious conceit because McWhorter insists his religious conceit  is a fact, and that anti racism is a religion.  It ain't.  Even if under the widest definition of religion, just about anything can be called a religion. But it is a bullshit argument/conclusion.  It is bullshit because I know it is flat out bullshit to call something a religion and mean that disparagingly, and I am an agnostic atheist. 

Ok.  I am still technically on the books in Rome.  My age old joke is I have been dodging some monsignore with my letters excomunicant for years and years.  Truth is,  I  have failed to do anything to attract The Vatican's attention.  And I went to high school with and worked at the local Carvel store with a guy who is a Catholic Bishop. And he hasn't ratted me out. 

But I digress.  Repeating the main point.  CRT is on the side of the righteous, and it's detractors are the bad guys.  It's true because I and the cartoonist say so!

 

If Only to Dispel the Myth of Monolithic Black Liberalism, and Groupthink.

Go here, and watch the vid of West and Sharpton. West, while still emotionally at least supporting P. Obama, does have a sharp critique, these days.

Dr. West and The Rev. Sharpton disagree.

So much for that right wing lie, that black liberals are knee jerk, non thinking zombies for Obama.