Today’s episode is borrowed from the feed of the great podcast The Fifth Column. Usually hosted by Kmele Foster, Michael Moynihan, and Matt Welch, this episode, which aired in July of 2022, features Kmele and two guests who have become elder statesmen around the persistent issue of race in America: John McWhorter and Glenn Loury.
Over the past few years John, Glenn, and Kmele, each have written, discussed and lectured exhaustively on anti-racism, the role race plays in America, and the changing meaning of the word “racism” itself. In this episode, they talk about the inadequacies of regarding people solely by their racial category, the dignity of the individual and what a future might look like if we were to abolish race all together. While all three men bring a contrarian streak to this discussion, you’ll find that they have big disagreements when it comes to questions of race abolition and the so-called “racial reckoning” of 2020.
Glenn Loury is an economist and professor of social science at Brown University. You can listen to his Honestly interview here.
John McWhorter is the author of numerous books, including Talking Black and Woke Racism. He’s also professor of Linguistics, Philosophy and Music at Columbia University, and a columnist at The New York Times.
Since 2015 Kmele Foster has been a prominent voice in a number of discussions about race in America, including his reporting challenging the mainstream media’s verdict on Amy Cooper, better known as the Central Park Karen.
Listen to the episode here:
And to support Honestly, become a subscriber today:
Since I was a kid sitting at my family’s dinner table in the ‘60s, listening to my parents discuss the issues of the day, there has been a black problem. That was over 50 years ago, and the issues are still here. Poverty, gangs, fatherlessness, an indifference to education, dependence on welfare. Why haven’t things improved for so many black people in America? At least Loury has the guts to say, You can’t put this all on Whitey. I appreciate that. Trillions have been spent, and still there are too many black people in the poor, uneducated category. I get the sense these three guys are carefully saying, ‘C’mon now, black people, time to fix yourselves. I hope so. I readily acknowledge that there are lots of highly successful, law abiding black people of intact families, and I applaud and admire their success. But as to the others, I have grown weary of their victimhood.
I thought we were doing very well in judging people by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin. I worked at the top of my profession for 35 years with a very diverse group of people from all races and it worked just fine. It was a meritocracy, which is what made the place so special. No one got a pass. You either performed well or were asked to leave.
The current cultural wars around race have done exactly what the experts who criticized critical race theory said it would do, and that is to create more racism. I’ve tapped out of this hot mess long ago. Good luck.