Glenn Loury and his podcasting buddy John McWhorter are back on Loury’s Substack page with a video (there’s also a transcript) answering a reader’s question:
Ibram X Kendi’s Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University raised around $43 million (estimates vary), and there’s very little to show for it. The Center has produced almost no meaningful research in that time, despite the outlandish funding at its disposal. In the Q&A from October of last year, a viewer asked John and I what we would do with that kind of money, if our goal was ending racism.
Click to read, or, better yet, watch the eleven-minute video below, as the entire transcript comes from the video:
Below: the video. I’m going to give just two brief excerpts of the answer, as you’d best watch the whole thing—or read the whole thing—yourself.
Loury suggests a race-centered equivalent to Princeton’s Institute of Advanced Study, hoping that a group of academics could produce something that could ameliorate racism or improve the situation of black people. McWhorter, on the other hand, would use the money to make a movie set in 1966—a year of racial ferment that changed black centrism to black activism and separatism. McWhorter’s idea is apparently that showing that “something went wrong in 1966” would re-center discussions about race from the extremes to which he thinks it’s gone.
Two quotes:
LOURY:
I’ll go first. I haven’t got a clue. I have no idea. I mean, I can tell you what I’d like to do. You know me. I would like to create a center where the best and most interesting and most provocative and deep-thinking and learned students of the subject could gather together. Some of them I’d hope to recruit to the faculty of the university by being able to offer departments funds to underwrite the appointments of senior members who would be members of the history department or the sociology department or the political science or psychology or economics department, but who would also be principles [sic] in my center. They’d be half-time teaching, half-time researchers. They’d have their own research programs. I wouldn’t have to figure out what they were researching, because they would already be leaders in their respective fields.
I’d try to combine that kind of initiative with the overall strategy for growth and improvement of the university. The psychology department is looking for a person who specializes in this, the history department for someone who specializes in that. I’d develop relationships with my colleagues in those departments and try to enrich the faculty and so forth by bringing people around.
Another thing I do is to try to develop programs for students and colleagues who are interested in the general subject of race and racial inequality. Speakers series, postdoctoral fellowships for young scholars who are just completing their dissertations and trying to convert them into books who could come in and work on that thing. A vital center of churning, people stimulating each other, sitting around the seminar room listening to somebody’s early draft of their chapter and critiquing it, and so on. That’s among the things that I’d like to do.
To anyone who’s been in academia—and that includes Loury, who should know better—getting together a bunch of scholars who will undoubtedly pursue their own interests, be it race-centered or not, is not a good way to solve a problem, especially a problem that hasn’t been clearly posed. The center at first sounds like a bunch of synergistic humanities scholars, but clearly the program is to deal with issues of race. But try doing that in today’s climate! Clearly Loury himself would have to specify who gets hired so that heterodox thinkers like him are included. (He says, “I think I could be very happy ensconced in such a circumstance.
McWhorter’s idea is more inventive and creative: he wants to make a movie. But he adds that nobody would make such a movie today, nor would it change the world. But you can see his aim in the last para of his answer below:
McWHORTER
JOHN MCWHORTER: I would put that money into making a movie. Spike Lee would do it well, but it would be against his ideology. I would like there to be a movie about what happened to black thought in 1966. I wish more people understood how we got from integrationist to separatist, how we got to the idea that, for black people, we have to question what standards are and that just showing up is excellence and all of that. That’s so normal now. We’ve got, depending on how you count it, three generations of people who think of that as normal. If black people come up, you have to reserve judgment. Only so much can be expected of us. And maybe there’s a black way of doing things that’s better than the white way. But that’s new, and it’s easy to miss it now unless you’re very old or you’re a history buff.
There should be a 1966 movie with SNCC, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, turning against white people. That should be shown, with Stokely Carmichael deciding that. Somebody playing John Lewis kind of caught in the middle of all of this. Bayard Rustin should be in it.1 Francis Piven and Richard Cloward, the white sociologists promulgating the National Welfare Rights Organization should be in it, and getting people onto the rolls on purpose. Viola Davis and people like that should be playing the women who are treated that way. And there should be a really great soundtrack, because of how black music sounded at the time. That would be part of it.
You’ve got the afros and the dashikis but also the older civil rights guard with the cat eyeglasses and the suits and the cigarettes being kind of pushed aside. There would have to be—and I don’t mean me—a careful speech coach, because in this film I would like it to be seen that there was a way of speaking that many black people had that would sound very white today to a lot of people, and people like that were taken seriously. I want Bayard Rustin to talk like him. He should not be played by Samuel Jackson.
There are clips of Bayard Rustin speaking, so you can hear his style.
And when Loury asked him if he thought such a movie could change the world, McWhorter responds:
Not change the world any more than the institute that you’re talking about would, but it would be a handy reference point. Too many of the film reference points are, “Slavery was bad. Racism is bad. Racism is still there.” Well, you know what? We’ve learned that there is an, I guess you’re going to have to call it, a black conservative perspective—but really I think it’s just a black centrist perspective—that is not shown as much.
So those are the solutions, and while I’d love to see the movie (I suspect I’ve seen much of it already), neither seems to me effective. But pondering what I would do, I couldn’t come up with anything. Neither am I black nor any kind of expert in creating equality.
In a discussion of McWhorter’s book Woke Racism in February of last year, I summarized his three prescriptions for ending racism. As I wrote at the time:
Chapter 5 contains McWhorter’s recommendations for how to really help black people. They may sound too few, or too silly, but the more one thinks about them, the more they make sense. In his view, there are only three correctives.
1.) End the war on drugs
2.) Teach reading properly (he recommends phonics, and knows whereof he speaks)
3.) Get past the idea that everybody must go to college
#1 and #3 aren’t associated with higher costs, but with a change in attitudes. Spreading the teaching of phonics, which many experts now agree is the best way to teach kids to read, would cost a lot more, but perhaps the $43 million could be used in one state or one area along with a “control area” to see how well it works.
As for Kendi, he’s experienced a serious fall from grace, with mass layoffs at his Center for Antiracist research at Boston University, and a spate of people attesting that the Center was mismanaged (see here, here and here). And yes, the output of the Center was essentially nil.
If you have better ideas, please put them in the comments.
I just read a fascinating piece in Tablet magazine called “White People Are Going to Colonize Mars, and Other Fears From Today’s Campuses:” https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/antisemitism-dei-cuny-hillel.
Naturally, I just had to read it when I read the (clickbait) title. And, sure enough, the article has the answer. Use the $43M to send as many white people to Mars as possible, opening up spaces for POC. Yep. That’s what some of the students say should happen.
It’s a crazy world in which we live.
The white people to Mars program has a closely related antecedent in two sci-fi satirical classics of the 1950s: C.M. Kornbluth’s story “The Marching Morons”, and “The Space Merchants” by Kornbluth and Fred Pohl. If Cyril Kornbluth (who died in 1958) came back today, he could write up your proposal.
Social justice is being promoted in a recent book about space colonization, “Off-Earth — Ethical Questions and Quandaries for Living in Outer Space,” by Erika Nesvold.
Some months back I participated in a sparsely attended Zoom interview with the author. She seemed reluctant to engage with me, maybe because she knew that I am a long-time proponent of humanity expanding beyond Earth. She has never responded to my questions and comments via email, on X-Twitter, or in her online newsletters. Maybe she thinks I’m a rabid Musk fanboy and was concerned about getting into feral fight. (I wouldn’t do that, though I’d certainly put forward my thoughts with some degree of confidence.)
I bought her book when it was first published (pre-ordered, actually), and I still intend to read it. But it has sat a long time unread and, instead, I’ve read her newsletters and many of the articles and interviews her book has inspired … from which I get the impression that she thinks humanity should not expand into space until we first fix ourselves and our civilization.
Good luck — if it’s actually her goal and purpose for the book. We’ll never get anywhere with that in the engine.
“The Marching Morons”? Oh, no. That is too funny. I honestly can’t stop laughing. Thank goodness. Anything to take the edge off today’s reality!
I have no good ideas for what to do, but I would start by clarifying the question. By spending $43M to “end racism”, are you wanting to:
1) Eradicate residual unfair prejudice towards black Americans by white Americans?
2) Equalise opportunities for young Americans, as far as possible, such that young blacks and young whites have similar opportunities?
3) Ensure more-equal outcomes, such that racial gaps in indicators such as family income, educational levels and crime rates are much reduced?
4) Search for and then eliminate the “systemic” unfairness in laws/institutions/societal structures that is claimed to exist and claimed to be responsible for those racial gaps?
I’d suggest that these are all rather different.
While lacking good ideas for what to do, I can suggest what will not end “racism”.
What won’t help is telling young black kids that all of the things that lead to success (academic success, hard work, caring about truth, accuracy, reliability, etc) are “white” and are not for them, and that they have no agency and should not take responsibility for themselves of for the trajectory of their lives, because everything is the fault of whites, and that they shouldn’t be expected to meet the same standards as white people, but should instead be perpetual victims, and that because of that they’re owed a living as “reparations”. This is a good recipe for perpetuating the current differences in outcome indicators.
Absolutely. McWhorter makes many of the same points in Woke Racism, of course.
Has Kendi made any public statements about the failure of his efforts, whether worth $43m or another amount?
It is simplistic to just think of racism of white against black or asian or others. Numbers and countries are significant. If you have ever worked and lived in Africa, for example Nigeria (bad) or in many of the Arab states of the middle east as a white person you can experience just the same bias and there is no point in crying racism as you are informed it is your “just deserts” for being descended from “colonialists” even though this may be quite inaccurate. Not only that but modern slavery is alive and well in places like Qatar and Dubai and Saudi.
Where I originated the area was colonised by the Danes and Norsemen but of course they were / are white so it doesn’t matter.
Humans and their tribes. Take more than US$43m to put a dent in that.
Indeed. The outsized influence of the US distorts what racism is and how it presents itself. The genocide in Rwanda and the murderous ethno-nationalist fuelled breakup of Yugoslavia, not to mention Israel/Palestine, all demonstrate that humans will find all kinds of ways to “other” groups – race might be an excuse but not is necessarily an explanation. Seeing such conflicts through the lens of race – and primarily skin tone – is often a distraction.
Mike Wallace : “How are we going to get rid of racism [..]”
Morgan Freeman : “Stop talking about it.”
https://youtube.com/shorts/Eui0Nwlqlz8?si=D5TM4K2qfkiGNA6S
.. the expression of the in person dialogue is essential, I think. Freeman is not, to my listening, calling for bans on speech.
Freeman : “Black history is American history.”
I would spend some or all of the $43 million in establishing a *scientific* measurement of racism. At the moment there are many ways of addressing racism but few have any measures of success – so you could spend a lot of money (or other resources) and have no idea if you have achieved anything.
$43 million could fund some big databases, some multivariate analysis, and the beginnings of a longitudinal study. You might be able to tease apart confounding factors and get a better idea of which actions deliver the most worthwhile benefits.
The scientific processes would also have to be firewalled against interference by vested interests and activists – and how to do that might end up being the most significant lesson to be learned.
I recently saw an amusing clip of a group of students talking about systemic racism. What was amusing was that one student — an Asian — was bringing up what used to be common sense solutions and the young people surrounding him were absolutely stunned and horrified.
Something like “On average, all children, including black children, do better in two parent families. Since one of the major correlates of poverty, crime and poor education is single-parent families — and the rate of unwed pregnancies is 80% for black people — we should encourage young black girls to make better choices and use contraception and/or wait till marriage before having kids.”
There were audible gasps, eye rolling, head shaking, and at least one person actually covered their ears. Then came the interruptions and corrections of course. In no possible sense could any blame be placed on anything black people do. Shut up!
So, assuming Coel’s third interpretation of ending racism — reducing the gap in income, education, and crime rates — is relevant, I’ll suggest the remedy shot down by almost unanimous agreement in that classroom. Throw some money at it. Wish I could find that video again.
But, but… to a certain mindset you have to try all the things in accordance with your (political or religious) beliefs first. They have to be true because they form a significant part of who you are. And if the things you try don’t work then that is (somehow) the fault of the oppressed people you are trying to help.
I wish I was joking.
Yep – stepped right into the forbidden territory – territory that cries out for attention. I think there’s lots of analyses.
Blank slate-ism, diversion from The Narrative, from preconceived notions …
How many fallacies/traps could be at work?
Thanks for this link, PCC(e), one of the best discussions by these two terrific thinkers. Loury’s plan, very academic, leads me to a fantasy in which Glenn Loury accepts the presidency of Harvard. John McWhorter’s movie plan, even more fantastic, illustrates his X-ray power of analysis. 1966 is just right. He doesn’t mention (but undoubtedly knows) that 1966 is the year when Floyd McKissick replaced James Farmer at CORE, revealing the shift toward Black nationalist memes.
$43M won’t do anything which is why I propose much of that budget be used to raise more money via crowdfunding via a positive message movement like “Uplift!” that seeks to improve the lives of poor black people. I thought FUBU (for us, by us) clothing line was a good black-run business model to brand a good message of black self-sufficiency and financial autonomy. Sports teams, music labels, clothing/shoe black subculture brands could cross promote to raise lots of money to employ poor black people and lift them out of poverty.
This wouldn’t fight racism directly but would be something like black pride from the ‘70s and there would be fact-based PSAs that state uncomfortable truths about the black community that the black community must themselves stop avoiding and confront (theft, murder, black-on-black crime, single motherhood, etc.) like McWhorter’s film idea.
There would be major oversight by ethical board members and black small business owners who aren’t interested in a cash grab and don’t need the money (i.e. no scandals like BLM or Kendi’s BS). This movement would be used to help entrepreneurs not go to college but start small businesses based on business plan merit evaluated by committee with no conflicts-of-interest. Racism will diminish when blacks begin to heal their own culture without blaming others for their misfortune but take responsibility. Even in poor parts of America, most everyone respects a good, honest work ethic regardless of race which is why 1st gen immigrants are effective.
The Tate galleries have form on transgender issues: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-12106615/KATHLEEN-STOCK-asks-gives-Tate-right-decide-deceased-artist-trans.html
Thanks for the link to this good article. I read her book: Material Girls — suggested in this forum, I think, by Thyroid Planet (I could be mistaken) — and for me it was educational & thought-provoking.
Kathleen Stock writes beautifully. She wrote an amusing piece about taking parts in debates at both Oxford and Cambridge universities in 2023:
https://archive.ph/rBNpc
Thank you and thank Kathleen Stock and Helen Joyce – two very clear writers!
Presumably, a lot of money is currently spent on teaching reading badly. Will it cost more in the future to teach it well? Of course, a campaign to implement phonic teaching immediately would be more costly.
On related matters, three cheers for Coel’s much needed clarifications @#2 – exactly which racism problem are people trying to solve?
Three cheers also for Sastra’s anecdote @#6. I know/have met a number of Chinese immigrants from different backgrounds and their children: there is a very strong parental expectation of educational and career success with plenty of family support and rational planning towards these outcomes.
Tiger mum joke.
Three weeks ago:
Child: Mum, I passed my test. I got 57%.
Mum: Only 57%! Study harder!
Two weeks ago:
Child: Mum, I got 89% in my test.
Mum: That’s not 100%, is it? Study harder!
This week:
Child: Mum, I got 100% in my test.
Mum: But will you get 100% next week? Study harder.
Take a look at Social Emotional Learning — currently being further developed by CASEL and The Fetzer Institute to incorporate spirituality.
But beware – you might not ever find the bottom.
I would suggest giving the $43 million back to the donors/taxpayers whence it came. Every cent of it. Ideally a black spokesman for whatever outfit now controls the money would announce the refund as an acknowledgement that it was raised for a fraudulent purpose and is being given back as a reparation. This would greatly enhance the reputation of black money-handlers as honest responsible citizens willing to correct errors and would strike a big blow against racial stereotyping of black community leaders as grifters and race hustlers.
Now, of course this suggestion, like all the suggestions in the Comments and indeed the ones from Profs. Loury and McWhorter themselves, assumes that the money still exists and can be found to write cheques on, an assumption that is not tenable until the auditors have looked at the books and at the consumption habits of Kendi et al.
I would donate the entire $43 million to the American Society of Plant taxonomists with the money earmarked for graduate scholarships and endowed professorships at universities affiliated with a botanical garden.
What will that do to end racism? Nothing. We will, on the other hand, have trained the next generation of plant evolutionary biologists. The world can never have too much love for plants.
+1
“The world can never have too much love for plants”–sounds like something Joey Santone would say on “Crime Pays But Botany Doesn’t” on YouTube. He is from Chicago and sounds like it.
How much do bullets (projectile, charge, and cartridge combined) cost? Say it’s $1/bullet (I have no idea – it’s 30 years since I entered a shop that sold bullets – and that was for a haircut). So, if someone had a metric for “most-racist” to “least racist”, this wouldn’t be a difficult problem.
Unless, of course, some political entity (@Conservatives ; various American bodies) was to interfere.
Then we’d know who the racists are. As if we couldn’t be 99.9% sure already.
I’m not sure I do know who the racists are, anymore. Certainly not 99.9%. I became more sure after 7 Oct., though, before the blood was dry.
+1
I would open a bank that made small loans to poor people regardless of their colour. Data could be collected on clients’ progress in their lives and the extent to which racial attitudes might have shifted. Profits would be reinvested in the bank to the benefit of a widening client base.
Pardon the over-commenting, but there is a glaring omission for this topic :
Critical Race Theory is Race Marxism.
James Lindsay makes this Byzantine development utterly transparent in Race Marxism (2021 or so). Ample literature cited to follow up. “Holy sh!t – no way” was what I found myself thinking every so often while reading it.
I don’t know why teaching phonics would cost more than any other method of teaching reading. It probably costs less than trendy or proprietary methods.
My granddaughter in Junior Kindergarten has a deck of phonics cards that costs $3.99 from Canadian Curriculum Press. The expensive part is probably getting the teachers unions to condescend to teach it where they now refuse. To be cheerfully fair, Her Highness Miss C.’s school is teaching phonics already, so all is not lost and no new money is needed.
One incidental benefit of teaching reading by phonics, rarely mentioned, has to do with the ability to learn another language, even at an elementary level. Reading by phonics enables a student to pronounce (however unidiomatically) the sounds of unfamiliar words, such as those of another language. Those taught to read by the “whole language” method will simply misread foreign words, find them disturbing, or confuse them with any English words that look similar. I wonder whether having been taught to read by “whole language” explains why many native USians remain obstinately monoglot, as they reveal when abroad.
A parent might spend a half-hour or an hour four evenings per week listening to the child read out loud and correcting mistakes. This of course assumes that a parent can read, is interested in reading, is meaningfully interested in the child’s reading success, and can discipline her-/himself to turn off the various sacred distracting digital demigod devices.
Phonics again! Let me compare your statements about phonics to something you might be able to relate to. If I said, “I can put upper and lower case letters in a punnett square, therefore I know all there is to know about genetics” Would you take me seriously? Of course not. It would be stupid for me to say that.
But, that is what you all sound like when you talk about phonics.
Please stop. You really do not know what you are talking about.
I’ll read what McWhorter has to say, but he probably does not know what he is talking about either.
I think it is a good thought experiment that applies to all kinds of large social issues. And it doesn’t have to depend on having $43 mil. How about just $100 of your own money? What cause is most important to you and how would you spend it to help that cause, not to just make you feel better but to have a real impact?
Reply to Gary. Easy I just donated that much to a local news paper. It stopped publishing during the COVID shut down when ad revenue dried up. They started back up last year; so I donate money to the cause of keeping a free press alive and well in my community. 1st amendment right to a free press is worthless when there is no press.