Writes Tyler Austin Harper, in "Ibram X. Kendi’s fall is a cautionary tale — so was his rise/White American elites are always ready to turn a Black intellectual into a mouthpiece for their political agenda" (WaPo).
September 29, 2023
"In June, I wrote an article in the Boston Globe titled 'I am the wrong kind of Black professor,' which criticized the default assumption..."
"... that Black academics should be interested in Black subjects. Afterward, I found myself inundated by a small flood of requests to write and talk about race in America. Ironically, saying that I’m sick of talking about being Black invited a rush of opportunities to do just that.... We all make choices, and I don’t want to suggest that Kendi is a victim or that we should pity him. He basked in the accolades and accepted lavish speaking fees. But though I don’t condone Kendi’s race grift, I do understand how easy it would be to become a grifter. His rise in 2020, and his ignominious decline today, are a mirror held up to liberal America. His failure, intellectual and moral, is as much ours as it is his."
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96 comments:
Diversity (i.e. color judgment, class-based bigotry) is an article of faith, opportunity,
and dogma of an ethical religion.
WaPo link is bad!
"His failure, intellectual and moral, is as much ours as it is his."
Not mine. When he says "ours", I hope he means Kendi's allies.
An English professor in my college years once quipped that the Chem major premeds in his class were going to get MDs and be "mere technicians" the rest of their lives, while his English majors would spend their days thinking about the great literary works of humanity.
A Chemistry professor in college, quite separately, once quipped that while he could enjoy Moby Dick with the best of them, and Shakespeare or Mamet and Proust, he'd never met an English professor or English major who could solve a simple oxidation/reduction reaction.
Who will enjoy and appreciate the Oppenheimer movie more, an English BA or a Chemistry BS? I say nothing of Physics students, as they will spend the whole movie finding errors in the props and on the blackboards.
Adding race to this sort of educational tribal centrism is like adding K2MnO4 and H2SO4 to an iron oxide and aluminum filing mixture.
White Liberals keeping alive the Black minstrel tradition. No surprise to anyone who has done a close reading of Lewis Powell's opinion in Bakke. The university's need to provide white students an experience of "diversity" is the supreme value that meets strict scrutiny test. Blacks are thus being admitted to perform Blackness for white progressive students. Under the rationale of Bakke, X Kendi is merely performing the Black role diversity assigned to him.
Time Point A: [Conservatives/Libertarians]: "This is a bad thing and will cause problems."
[Left/Progs]: "Racists! Bigots! Science-deniers!"
Time Point B: [Left/Progs]: "This is a bad thing and has caused problems."
His failure, intellectual and moral, is as much ours as it is his."
If, by "our," he means academia or the media or just the entire elitist edifice, then yes. I agree wholeheartedly. Kendi couldn't have gotten away with it for so long or so well without their help. But if by "our" he means all of us, or at least anyone who happens to read his words, then no. It is not my fault. It isn't most people's fault. Most of us are blameless.
And for that reason--the vagueness of who he means--I reject his use of the word. It's not us, it's them.
Universities slot blacks into useless majors, it is straight up racism. Michelle Obama is an example of that.
Black leaders make black people look like morons, is an old story.
My first impression was, it's good to know there still something with enough pull to check ideas and measure devotion.
And then I realized the problem wasn't the bad ideas, or a lack of devotion to the ideas. The problem was what did Kendi do with the $ talents.
"Wrote Tyler Austin Harper, in "Ibram X. Kendi’s fall is a cautionary tale — so was his rise/White American Progressive elites are always ready to turn a Black intellectual into a mouthpiece for their political agenda"
Fixed.
First !
Regarding race grievance, imagine for a second if English people claimed they could never be a rich and powerful nation because Rome had once conquered them, and instead of building ships and factories they just whined about Italy for hundreds and hundreds of years.
This is what Kendi sounds like. This is what Sharpton and Nikole Jones and Talcum X sound like. This is what a large percentage of American blacks sound like.
Wakanda isn't a place. It's a state of mind.
Insightful for sure. There is a segment of America that is hungry for the racial grift, and a segment hungry to hear pushback against it. We have gotten race obsessed (look at college admissions) in a way that is not leading to excellence.
Kendi is laughing all the way to the bank, folks. Any compassion for that guy is badly misplaced.
Taylor Austin Harper…
“… His rise in 2020, and his ignominious decline today, are a mirror held up to liberal America.
WaPoo…
“… White American elites are always ready to turn a Black intellectual into a mouthpiece…”
Quite a shift in meaning in your heading, WaPoo. Why is that? In Harper’s original, it is liberals who are the discussed; in yours, White elites. In the original, Kendi is the author of his rise and fall; WaPoo’s version implies little or no agency.
I don't get the obsession with blacks and everything black.
Blacks are the only politicians who can give a speech and talk about what they are going to do for 'my community.'
And they don't mean their district or state and everyone in it.
They mean black people and only black people.
Can you imaging a white politician speaking about only doing what's best for white people?
Ahh, yes. The meaning of "our" in "His failure, intellectual and moral, is as much ours as it is his."
A left-wing take on the fall of Ibram Kendi: He gave white liberals what they wanted
It's almost as if some people won't learn their place.
I saw this dynamic over and over, with academics of both races (in the Humanities at least) clearly trying to enforce group interest and identity before individual scholarly investigation and research in out-of-group topics. The result is self-ghettoization in
"Studies' departments and programs.
Only a few can resist the pressure, and you rarely hear about them.
OTOH, a lot of people consider an academic career a waste from the git-go.
The money was the catalyst absolving possible charges of racism. It’s possible everybody knew the ideas were lousy, but because they furthered the cause, quality is not paramount. But after awhile, some ideas are so embarrassingly bad, how do you remedy the untenable situation? The money becomes a scape hatch.
Among thousands of oral history interviews about Memphis and the region, made over many decades by many students and investigators, is a set about Art Music among Memphis's late-19th/early 20th C Black elites.
"Art Music" meaning traditional European 'classical' music.
One young lady did a few interviews with some oldsters, which pretty quickly devolved into
badgering them for not preferring "their own" music back in the day.
"His failure, intellectual and moral, is as much ours as it is his."
Whaddaya mean, "ours"? Why "failure"?
Every single prog cause turns into a racket right quick. Every single prog leader is an intellectual and moral failure. The reproduction of failure, practical as well as intellectual, is a feature, not a bug, of prog hegemony. The cautionary tale here is simply the reminder that, in the short term, nothing can shake that hegemony. Particularly when race is involved, the shakedowns will continue.
White people on the right also want blacks to talk about race - but only in the way they want. Look at how conservatives here react to me and reparations, even when they know that I agree with them on almost everything else. That's one of the frustrations of being black in America: you wake up most days, feeling like you're almost the center of the national conversation, and yet the opinion that matters most is everybody else's. I better agree with Thomas Sowell on everything - or else. ME. When he grew up peacefully sleeping under the stars in Harlem, and I grew up in South Central, Los Angeles, dodging bullets at lunchtime in school with a whole different politics.
This is madness.
RideSpaceMountain said...
"Imagine for a second if English people claimed they could never be a rich and powerful nation because Rome had once conquered them, and instead of building ships and factories they just whined about Italy for hundreds and hundreds of years."
You simply have no appreciation for the mindfuck. First of all, we're not a separate country. We're in the same country, coming up with the people who enslaved us, as they used what power they had after slavery to slow our progress at every turn, including even having us fighting racism for them overseas while enduring it from whites over here. Like I said, a mindfuck.
The fact you still look at us as a separate people - with you as the Romans - is a fine example of the problem of trying to get us not to kneel before the flag. When you see us as the people who were mistreated in our own country, by our fellow citizens, then you will start to appreciate what you've done.
RideSpaceMountain said...
"Regarding race grievance, imagine for a second if English people claimed they could never be a rich and powerful nation because Rome had once conquered them, and instead of building ships and factories they just whined about Italy for hundreds and hundreds of years.'
Remember, too, blacks in America don't have an identity like the English or the Romans. Unlike the rest of you, we're Americans with no old country that we go "home" to on vacation. We have no relatives that we can count on to send money, so we can open a store here like the Chinese or whoever. We are literally on our own, culturally and intellectually. We're making a lot of shit up as we're going along, about how free people live, and you guys have no appreciation for it. Because you've been free for your entire history. Which contributes to how hard it is, because we're doing it publicly. Amongst people who don't understand, but historically have always felt free to judge, and to judge negatively.
And nobody's saying blacks will never be successful. We're just not doing it the way you want. I see people becoming millionaires and I see people getting killed. That's always been the American way. You now know the names of people like Ice Cube, Jay-Z, Beyoncé, and many others that you never thought you should have anything to do with, but they're inescapable now, in a way none of us ever imagined. But especially no one who was a slave.
What did Kendi do wrong?
I disagree with Harper on one point; it never was so much about absolution for the Urban Utopian Elites as much as it was about supplying the Elites with sticks to beat the rest of us White folk with.
White American elites are always ready to turn a Black intellectual into a mouthpiece for their political agenda
EVERYTHIING in modern culture is elevated, or marginalized, based on whether it's useful, or a threat, to the white progressive movement.
Kendi, BLM would be nothing if they didn't advance the cause of the white elites who fund them. Similarly, there would be no border crisis if it didn't benefit the progressive movement.
Conversely, you couldn't name one person/group that threatens progressive power and is not demonized.
Nothing is more American, and less racial, than falling in love with raking in money.
If your tomato sauce goes viral, you keep making it until the FDA finds out there's cocaine in it. Then you apologize and try to make money with your contrition.
White progressives now: I always knew Kendi was a bad apple. I can hear Norm Macdonald running with this.
What you mean "ours" black man?
He's not a "failure" in the ordinary way we use the term. He'll be cashing MacArthur Genius checks for the next twenty years. He'll transition out of this imbroglio with grace and dignity. It was a painful learning experience that has made him a better man and America a better country. The best way to learn how to handle forty million dollars is to handle forty million dollars. Unlike white people who are routinely given forty million dollars upon reaching their majority, he had no experience in this area. Now he does. The next forty million dollars will be used with greater wisdom and to greater effect.
CRT:Criminal Race Theory
And for that reason--the vagueness of who he means--I reject his use of the word. It's not us, it's them.
=========
and he an English professore not able to express clearly?!
Look at how conservatives here react to me and reparations, even when they know that I agree with them on almost everything else.
Crack, how conservatives here react to you on the subject of reparations is by disagreeing with you. They - we - disagree with regard to different arguments we've heard made for reparations, not all of which are your arguments, as I understand them.
I understand your main argument to be that reparations are a debt owed by the US government to the descendants of people brought to what is now this country in slavery. I've said, here and on your blog, that I don't deny that a debt is owed. I just don't - can't - support reparations on three grounds:
1. (The economic and practical argument.) It's utterly unaffordable if you believe, as I do, that MMT is a crock and if you realize, as all thinking people do, that the "US government" has no money - it's all from us, the taxpayers.
2. (The social fabric argument.) What could possibly be a positive outcome of payment of reparations? It doesn't matter if you look at the possible outcomes among black Americans or the possible outcomes among Americans of other races; nothing of any lasting good comes of it, and a whole lot of lasting evil is the likeliest result. With the state of opportunity for all in the US as it currently stands, there is no compelling argument to be made for destroying our collective social fabric in the name of...
3. (The philosophical argument.)... the "payment" of a debt for which there is no possible recompense. Human beings never should have been considered to be "owned" (even though slavery was and is ubiquitous), and payment in money is almost a cheapening of the offense (though I am aware that the only thing that might come close would be revenge in kind a la Coates and Kendi).
I'm engaging with your opinion, as others have here. You're well aware that part of the conservative ethos is that group guilt, group virtue, and group identity are not part of what at least used to be our shared American values (again, pointing out the obvious, not that this country or any other has ever lived up to those values perfectly).
My husband is more open to the idea, though he believes it founders on the rocks of practical execution (which is also a pretty strong strike against it in my book). But I'm very willing to listen - just don't expect that I'll simply defer to you on the basis of your unassailable moral authority, that's all.
Here's an easy example: How do you stop people from referring to the black artist behind (and capable of) this merely a rapper? I rap, but I also do a lot of other stuff, which gets short shrift because I'm stereotyped as a rapper.
I can't get away from it
Unlike the rest of you, we're Americans with no old country that we go "home" to on vacation.
Oh, come on. How many (white or any other kind of) Americans go back to the Old Country on vacation? Sure, we all know some - just as you can go on YouTube and find lots of black Americans who have returned to what are now their nations of ancestral origin in Africa. But fewer than half of all Americans even have passports, and of those who do, only the first and maybe some second generation ones consider anywhere but the US to be their "home."
Which is as it should be, no matter how we got here. My Irish ancestors came to escape starvation. My German ancestors came to escape religious persecution. My French ancestors, the OG ones, came so long ago that I don't know why they made the trip to Quebec. My Norwegian ancestors seem to have come to farm out in the Midwest. Only the Irish branch of the family feels any draw to the Old Country, and funnily enough it's only a cousin by marriage who isn't even Irish who has done all the genealogy - the rest of the Irish branch just wears green on St. Patrick's Day and calls it good.
"Remember, too, blacks in America don't have an identity like the English or the Romans. Unlike the rest of you, we're Americans with no old country that we go "home" to on vacation."
Crack, I like you. We could grab a beer, so I say this as a friend. That's BS. If there was any group on planet Earth that could legitimately say they've had to forge their own "identity" from nothing, it's black America. The Romans had to forge their own identity. So did the English...especially after the Saxon defeat in 1066.
Like I said, I like you, but the black-American-pity-party could very well be the only reason black America has not prospered, and it's a doozy.
America will have moved beyond racism when we celebrate blacks who get degrees in accounting and business administration and carve out a career in their fields.
Today, the only blacks who are celebrated are the race grievance types, the entertainers, and the top level athletes. What chance does the average person have to become one of those? Little.
Crack makes a good point about the mindfuck of blacks from their abuse in America. But what will help blacks better move on - constant reminding of how they are fucked or focusing on and celebrating their successes in making a better life for them and their progeny? Liberals don't want to solve the problem. They want blacks to bow down to them as their savior and squeeze out benefits (e.g., affirmative action) for their subservience. Until liberals change, there will always be racism in America.
"His rise in 2020, and his ignominious decline today, are a mirror held up to liberal America. His failure, intellectual and moral, is as much ours as it is his."
Oh, bullshit! Kendi will go right on grifting for as long as he can be bothered to think of stupid things to say, and the money will continue to pour in. Look at that absolute piece of shit Al Sharpton. How could anyone be any more comprehensively disgraced than that walking atrocity? And the libs stand in long, long lines to suck his dick.
"I don't get the obsession with blacks and everything black."
Blacks are the one group that can be relied upon to continue fucking up, and therefore requiring liberal solicitude, for the rest of Time.
@Crack...I have changed my mind on reparations. I am for it.
But there has to be accountability. The gravy train MUST stop.
So you can have your money, but zero affirmative action, zero quotas, zero set-asides, zero minority-owned business advantages, zero "I'm going to pick a black woman for this position."
You get the point. The money will wash away all of the sins of the past.
And you may even agree with those conditions.
But I guarantee you, that 6 months after cashing his check, Al Sharpton and his ilk will be back to their old demagoguery demanding more and more money and concessions.
And that is why reparations are ultimately bullshit, because the whining is forever.
Angry Black Grifter.
An English professor in my college years once quipped that the Chem major premeds in his class were going to get MDs and be "mere technicians" the rest of their lives
If you’re not a surgeon it sure feels that way these days. Follow the flow chart..oh sorry- protocol. Deviate only if the Democrats demand it…
If a black got on TV and started talking about the details of calculating a net operating loss deduction for an individual, because of pass-through losses from a partnership and/or an LLC, I'd fall off my chair, and might even drop my beer.
This development pleases me to no end.
He's Zulu, when they need Xhosa to normalize empathy with their handmade tale.
He's Zulu, when only Xhosa would evoke the equivocal empathetic appeal.
Some, Select [Black] Lives Matter
Here are some Glenn Loury highlights calling Kendi an intelectual lightweight.
2 years ago! Talk about a thorn in... somebody's side.
"But what will help blacks better move on - constant reminding of how they are fucked or focusing on and celebrating their successes in making a better life for them and their progeny?"
'Forty acres and a mule' was mentioned in an earlier thread. The point of offering such would be to provide someone the tools needed to earn a living. People don't support themselves on a forty acre farm anymore, though- they get jobs. Companies all over the country have been searching for qualified blacks to hire for many years now. One of the tools useful for acquiring one of those jobs is a college degree and most colleges have been preferentially looking (affirmative action) for blacks who can be encouraged to enroll and earn one. It's not like nobody is making an effort to help.
Jamie said...
"Crack, how conservatives here react to you on the subject of reparations is by disagreeing with you."
No, it goes deeper than that. I usually have to take a break from here after a while because of the hostility.
"I just don't - can't - support reparations on three grounds:
1. (The economic and practical argument.) It's utterly unaffordable"
Yeah, just like Ukraine.
"2. (The social fabric argument.) What could possibly be a positive outcome of payment of reparations?"
The redemption of America, what else? How do you think blacks feel about Los Angeles now that the city has given back Bruce's Beach to the black people that they stole it from? Do you think that's a good thing? If you don't respect the social contract, you can't expect anyone else to, either. One of the reasons the rest of the world collectively shits on us, now, is because they realize we have no integrity and they're quick to say it's the treatment of blacks that lead them to their conclusions. I was reading World War II history just the other day and ran across a British politician saying he wouldn't have listened to Roosevelt, going on about colonialism so much, if he had known how blacks were treated in America. There is no way Goop could exist in this country if grifting was as serious an issue to you guys as you claim.
"3. (The philosophical argument.)... the "payment" of a debt for which there is no possible recompense."
Not even in part? You're going to tell me that if you did something to damage your neighbor's yard, say, though you couldn't make it all just the way it was, you wouldn't do as much as you could to make it right? What would you think your neighbor would think of you, if you didn't? Forget what they think, what would that actually make you? And what kind of society have you created? You think anybody else havs to pay attention to the rules then? Do you think they're going to think that you have the authority to enforce the rules after you did such a thing?
"I'm engaging with your opinion, as others have here."
No, you're not, you're being civil.
"You're well aware that part of the conservative ethos is that group guilt, group virtue, and group identity are not part of what at least used to be our shared American values (again, pointing out the obvious, not that this country or any other has ever lived up to those values perfectly)."
If you haven't lived up to those values, then those are not your values.
"My husband is more open to the idea, though he believes it founders on the rocks of practical execution (which is also a pretty strong strike against it in my book)."
$50-$100,000 each, going exclusively and directly to the descendants of American slavery, with a sincere apology attached to it. Then end Affirmative Action, etc. How difficult is that?
"But I'm very willing to listen - just don't expect that I'll simply defer to you on the basis of your unassailable moral authority, that's all."
William Tecumseh Sherman was for it, and I don't think you question his moral authority. Ulysses S Grant was for it, and I don't think you question his moral authority. I even think Lincoln was for it, and I don't think you question his moral authority. Martin Luther King was definitely for it, and I don't think you question his moral authority. I've just been talking about it for most of my life, as you can see in this recording from 1993. if that's not evidence of my sincerity, then I don't know what is.
My significant other was a professor of philosophy and political science with a primary interest in classical Greek philosophy. She holds a few left-leaning views, but she primarily is a liberal in the classical, non-US sense of the word, which made her an arch-conservative in the eyes of the campus Left.
She left academia a few years ago because of the departmental pressures on her to teach everything through the prism of gender, particularly since she was one of a very small number of women in her department. All she really wanted to do was to study and teach the classics, occasionally comparing and contrasting them with Enlightenment thinkers. Eventually, she came to believe that there was no place for woman to do that in today's academy without adulterating it with DEI nonsense. In practice, DEI initiatives led to her leaving her field entirely.
My basic question regarding reparations: Is the current population of potential recipients the only generation that would receive a benefit, or is this a continuing resolution for all time?
I'd like to point out that this writer doesn't have a problem with Kindi until his second book, which is a self help book in the NewAge tradition, even employing the term "journey" as if he was now "on the path."
That's how I know when people have gone wrong.
Mason G said...
"It's not like nobody is making an effort to help."
I haven't seen blacks marching for most of my life for help, but for justice
England wasn't English when the Romans conquered it. It was a collection of many Celtic tribal kingdoms. The Saxons and Angles invaded and conquered the Roman-Celtic kingdoms (one of whom is thought to be the model for Arthur) after the Romans pulled out. In turn the Saxon's were invaded by Danes and Norwegians, but ultimately assimilated them and were then subsequently conquered by William of Normandy who were descendants of Norse invaders.
So who owes whom in that history is unclear.
Lem the misspeller said...
"Here are some Glenn Loury highlights calling Kendi an intelectual lightweight."
I've never thought much of him, myself. His first book is supposed to be very good, but his second one definitely sounds like a NewAge monstrosity.
Mason G said...
"Forty acres and a mule' was mentioned in an earlier thread. The point of offering such would be to provide someone the tools needed to earn a living. People don't support themselves on a forty acre farm anymore, though- they get jobs."
First of all, it wasn't an "offer". It was a deal - the very first deal between the government and blacks - and the government reneged on it. That's where you start. Not on trying to figure out how flatter yourself that anybody's made any effort whatsoever.
"Companies all over the country have been searching for qualified blacks to hire for many years now. One of the tools useful for acquiring one of those jobs is a college degree and most colleges have been preferentially looking (affirmative action) for blacks who can be encouraged to enroll and earn one. It's not like nobody is making an effort to help."
Ahem.
"Blacks are the one group that can be relied upon to continue fucking up, and therefore requiring liberal solicitude, for the rest of Time."
Is a black intellectual different than a white intellectual ?
Seems like they should have the same conclusion.
gspencer said...
"If a black got on TV and started talking about the details of calculating a net operating loss deduction for an individual, because of pass-through losses from a partnership and/or an LLC, I'd fall off my chair, and might even drop my beer."
You are aware Thomas Sowell's black ass is not only one of America's leading economists, but also an almost God to the conservative movement, right? You are aware Neil deGrasse Tyson's black ass is one of America's leading astrophysicists, right? You are aware no one's sold more albums than Michael Jackson's Thriller, right?
Jupiter said...
"Blacks are the one group that can be relied upon to continue fucking up, and therefore requiring liberal solicitude, for the rest of Time."
By any measure, blacks have evolved from slavery faster than anyone has ever imagined, or seen in history, and yet you guys talk in the most negative ways possible. It's just amazing how little you understand anything.
You not only don't understand anything about b lacks, but you're not self-aware enough to understand how your negative attitude contributes to how bad things are.
I don't know why, but this seems like a fit:
"<a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/nfl/article-12576079/Michael-Ohers-conservatorship-of>Michael Oher's conservatorship is TERMINATED</a>: 'Disturbed' judge says she 'cannot believe' Tuohy family was allowed to control NFL star's finances in first place - and has never seen such an agreement in her 43-year career"
America is a racial mindfuck.
"First of all, it wasn't an "offer". It was a deal - the very first deal between the government and blacks - and the government reneged on it."
Screwed by the government? You're not really surprised, are you? It's a fairly long line.
"That's where you start. Not on trying to figure out how flatter yourself that anybody's made any effort whatsoever."
The personnel guy at one of my past employers told me the company made a point of trying to hire minorities ahead of whites when it was possible. "Anybody's made any effort whatsoever"? Your call, I guess.
Anyway, once hispanics begin to seriously exercise political power, this topic will become moot. Those folks don't feel any guilt over slavery, aren't likely to assume any blame for it and probably aren't going to tax themselves to pay for it.
"If a black got on TV and started talking about the details of calculating a net operating loss deduction for an individual, because of pass-through losses from a partnership and/or an LLC, I'd fall off my chair, and might even drop my beer.'
You from way back in the sticks, ain't you.
Crack,
"$50-$100,000 each, going exclusively and directly to the descendants of American slavery, with a sincere apology attached to it. Then end Affirmative Action, etc. How difficult is that?"
I for one would be tempted to consider accepting this idea if I saw anyone other than you proposing it seriously, especially with the "Then end Affirmative Action" part. (I assume you do mean it seriously, right?) I'd still likely be opposed both on moral and pragmatic grounds anyway, but I'd at least give it some thought.
In San Francisco, the reparations commission wants to give each eligible resident $5 million, not $100,000. The commission also has dozens of other recommendations, but ending affirmative action is not one of them. This in a state that never legalized slavery. Yes, it did discriminate against Blacks in all kinds of horrible ways. But interestingly, its discrimination against Asians in the late 1800s and much of the 1900s was every bit as hideous as Jim Crow in the South, including lynchings and massacres, prohibitions on land owning, immigration exclusion, etc. We did give $20,000 to each Japanese American incarcerated during World War II, but that's it.
My point is, reparations is a dead-end that would NOT end. The demands for affirmative action would continue, the sense of its unfairness would build and resentment persist, and the next generation of Blacks after the reparations generation would likely be goaded into the same stances of defiance and dependence on Whitey's largess. Like I say, it seems a total dead-end to me.
"$50-$100,000 each, going exclusively and directly to the descendants of American slavery..."
I notice you didn't include "coming exclusively and directly from the descendants of American slaveholders". I'm curious- why not?
Reparations for all people... persons harmed by slavery and diversity, and bonuses awarded to descendants of Union soldiers.
Crack Emcee: "You are aware Neil deGrasse Tyson's black ass is one of America's leading astrophysicists, right?"
LOL
What a joke.
Tyson was booted from the Univ of Texas PhD program (he couldn't hack it) but because he was who he was, if you know what I mean, he was handed a couple of gigs before Columbia brought him in and basically had an actual PhD hold Tyson's hand for a couple years to make sure he natriculated thru to get the credential.
Tyson has ZERO notable research or academic work credited to his name.
He's Bill Nye The Science Guy (actually just a MechE guy) for "handheld astrophysics". A pop cultural leftist "science" provocateur who cant tell us what a woman is...because its on a "spectrum".
Spoiler: its not.
This should be fun: Crack, what would you say Tyson's most notable astrophysics based research/insights/discovery is?
I mean, if Tyson really is a "leading astrophysicist" as you claim, your most difficult task will be selecting just one amazing discovery/insight/research breakthrough of Tyson's!
So go ahead and wow us.
We'll wait.
But you'll forgive me if I dont hold my breath.
I fear we are back to Crack Emcee's over the top embellishment of Harriet Tubman (whose actual amazing story requires no ridiculous embellishment) from scout and fighter status to brilliant campaign-wide strategist directing Union generals grand strategic moves.
Next up: Aristotle stole all his knowledge from black Cleopatra!
I feel like that last line could be the full title of a 70's blaxploitation movie starring the great Fred Williamson and the always delightful Pam Grier.
I contrast the enormous impact of black culture on US music with its impact on technology. A history of American popular music shows all its originality coming directly from black culture or referring to it or being a cover of it or having a representative of it at the side of a white singer, writer, composer, or band leader, or by a creation coming out of s study of it. Spirituals, swing, big band, rock, jazz, blues, hip hop. Slavery and segregation and poverty - nothing held it back. Take that as a baseline.
It is European culture that pushed the development of technology in America - the factory system, the railroad, telegraph, telephone, airplanes, electric power, oil power, electric lighting, radio, TV, movies, computers - isn't it?
Then look at American farming - consider the impact from North and South American indigenous women farmers and their culture - corn, beans, tomatoes, chilies, potatoes, chocolate. And not just the product but the developing of the product so that it was suitable to various climates and soils. And the roads and cities in this country are sited where the indigenous people first lived and traded because their arrangements were the best in creating a nexus of working farming and trade arrangements in relation to topography and soil.
The strengths of several major cultures flowed together here in this country and then spread out from here. This completed, effective and attractive diversity completely dwarfs feeble little attempts at an astroturf diversity formed by paying about with statistics in HR departments. It wasn't planned by the government and would never have happened had the government had the stifling power it now has.
Forget what they think, what would that actually make you? And what kind of society have you created?
I'm not concerned with "what they think." I'm concerned with the whole package - there is no way to recompense human beings for the offense of being considered to be "owned," there is no good social outcome to be realized (think it through, Crack), and the physical cost can't be borne on top of everything else the American taxpayers have to fund - all for the sin, and it is a sin, of taking 4% of the victims of the African slave trade and then not, in most cases, working them to death within months like Brazil or castrating them like the Arab world.
Crack. Just about everybody here is trying to engage with you - you say "being civil," but what are you expecting? It's not realistic to equate "engaging with" and "agreeing with." You suggested that reparations-as-debt ought to be paid because it's right to do so, even though reparations can't make it right - your lawn analogy. Again, I never denied that. I said that I can't see how the horrible social downsides of requiring taxpayers who had no part in slavery or Jim Crow to pay people who were not (directly) victimized by slavery or Jim Crow can possibly be worth it, given that this is a literally unpayable debt, and shay given that it's clearly possible, here and now, for those descendants of the victimized to succeed without themselves victimizing others.
I'm still unconvinced by your argument that society should pay anyway. But I'm very happy that you're so far willing to keep talking with me/us - it's just that you have a high bar to overcome.
Jon Burack said...
"I for one would be tempted to consider accepting this idea if I saw anyone other than you proposing it seriously, especially with the "Then end Affirmative Action" part. (I assume you do mean it seriously, right?) I'd still likely be opposed both on moral and pragmatic grounds anyway, but I'd at least give it some thought."
Yes, I meant ending affirmative action. And I left out one more thing: the country would have to be re-educated on the subject of slavery. Take like a week and do like we did with "Roots" and just straighten it all out in everybody's head. Not some "1619 project" but just a straight telling of what happened. I once read it in an encyclopedia and found the whole thing inspiring.
"In San Francisco, the reparations commission wants to give each eligible resident $5 million, not $100,000"
I know. Those are people who want the whole thing paid for, as opposed to the nation just making a token effort to say "I'm sorry." I understand them, but I don't think they're being realistic, if they really want to get this done, as I do.
"My point is, reparations is a dead-end that would NOT end."
I don't think that's true. I've heard Black people talking about this since I was a child and I'm 62 years old. This is something that should've been done along time ago. White people deciding what's gonna happen because of it doesn't affect my thinking at all. They always assume the worst. That's partially why the money needs to be paid. Having people living right next-door to you, who always think bad thoughts, hurts everyone and should cost something. That's what the government did to us, white and black.
Mason G said...
"$50-$100,000 each, going exclusively and directly to the descendants of American slavery..."
I notice you didn't include "coming exclusively and directly from the descendants of American slaveholders". I'm curious- why not?
Because it wasn't former slave holders who reneged on the 40 acres and a mule deal with former slaves - it was the government. And it was the government that enforced it. Just as it's the government that arrests people who get angry about it, as the government has kicked the issue down the road, for over a century. Hell, it's the government that keeps most Americans ignorant to the issues, so they think this is an attack on white people and not a campaign for justice.
Drago said...
"This should be fun: Crack, what would you say Tyson's most notable astrophysics based research/insights/discovery is?"
That "This should be fun" reminds me you're a lot like ">the asshole from "Goodwill Hunting". Anyway, Tyson's's gotten the most average Americans interested in Science, critical thinking, etc., and thinking it's cool, since Einstein. I never claimed he was perfect, but simply implied that his black skin didn't prevent him from being smart, as the previous racist implied.
wildswan said...
"It wasn't planned by the government and would never have happened had the government had the stifling power it now has."
Well said.
Jamie said,...
"I said that I can't see how the horrible social downsides of requiring taxpayers who had no part in slavery or Jim Crow to pay people who were not (directly) victimized by slavery or Jim Crow can possibly be worth it,..."
I'm 62 years old. So I grew up in a world where blacks had to get off the sidewalk for white people when they walked down the street. Almost all of my elementary school teachers were white. A lot has changed since then, but let's not pretend that nobody's alive that had to deal with the past.
You guys keep saying what you "can't see" and I don't understand how the assumption that's enough to deny an injustice is rooted in anything but America's historical racism. Whether or not white people understand something is NOT our national standard. Whether something is right or wrong is, and you guys have flubbed that one, many times before.
I'm 62 years old. So I grew up in a world where blacks had to get off the sidewalk for white people when they walked down the street.
Bullshit. The Voting Rights Act and Civil Rights Act were passed in 1964. Jim Crow and segregation were over before you started kindergarten. Black people have benefited from Affirmative Action and racial set asides your whole life.
By the way, I was raised to get off of the sidewalk when adults, especially women walked down the street. Where do I go for my reparations?
Because it wasn't former slave holders who reneged on the 40 acres and a mule deal with former slaves - it was the government.
"The government" didn't make that "deal", one man did, a man who had neither the legal nor moral authority to obligate the United States government to do anything.
Take like a week and do like we did with "Roots" and just straighten it all out in everybody's head.
Are you under the illusion that Roots was either true or accurate?
No White man ever jumped off a boat and chased OJ around. They sailed into port and bought him from other Africans who had chased him around and put him in chains.
Black Americans lost any moral claim to reparations in the 1930's when they started voting for the people who had enslaved them and continued to discriminate against them instead of the people who had freed them from slavery.
Whether something is right or wrong is, and you guys have flubbed that one, many times before.
Buring down your own neighborhood is right...right?
Mass, organized looting and shoplifting is right...right?
resisting arrest is right...right?
Young men committing drive bys every weekend in every major city is right...right?
Promoting thug culture is right...right?
Raising 75% of children in a home with no father is right...right?
Having multiple children with multiple partners is right...right?
holding up thugs and criminals as heroes is right...right?
Promoting segregation is right...right? (well only if you're Black)
referring to Black people as the "N" word is right...right? (again apparently only if you're Black)
Voting 90& democrat is right...right?
Being on time is wrong...right?
Trying hard in school is wrong...right?
Obeying the law is wrong...right?
speaking and writing proper English is wrong..right?
Having people living right next-door to you, who always think bad thoughts, hurts everyone and should cost something. That's what the government did to us, white and black.
Seconded. And part of my "social fabric" reason for not supporting paying reparations: resentment - on either side or both - is terrible for the soul.
And yes, I understand that it isn't fair. And yes, I understand that this country committed a terrible injustice - I called it a sin. And yes, I understand that asking black Americans to "move on" is a very big ask.
Just to be clear, I wasn't saying that "nobody's alive that had to deal with the past." I was saying that it is no longer obvious that the problems a 22-year-old black person contends with are caused by the actions or attitudes of a 40-year-old (to make this hypothetical person a likelier net taxpayer than a 22-year-old) person of any ethnicity. It's not even defensible on a honest basis, as far as I've ever heard such a defense.
And there are a lot of 22-year-olds of every ethnicity who believe, with some decent reasons, that they've been handed the dirty end of the stick, and to "pay off" one cohort and not the others is, at minimum, going to cause giant backwards steps.
I think I do understand that you're taking an essentialist view: doing the right thing, whatever the cost, ought to be our default. I am sympathetic to that view and it's one I've tried to employ in my own life. But this isn't "my own life," it's all of society - and pragmatism, realpolitik you might say, forces me to continue to say that I don't see how the upside of attempting payment on this debt - which upside would be, when you come right down to it, feeling good about ourselves as a society for having tried to do something in lieu of the right thing that we didn't do in the first place, ISTM - outweighs the corrosive and potentially dangerous downsides.
I suppose I've said everything I have to say - sometimes multiple times. You may win this societal argument in the end, and if you do, I'll be happy that American society has tried to make good, but I'll also be praying that it doesn't make our children and grandchildren hate one another again.
When Black slaves began to be imported to what would become the United States there was no nation, state or culture that rejected slavery as evil. When the United States was formed slavery was legal everywhere. It was Western Civilization, led by the British, that convinced the world that slavery was evil, and worked to eradicate it.
There's your reparations.
Gahrie said...
Whether something is right or wrong is, and you guys have flubbed that one, many times before.
Buring down your own neighborhood is right...right?
You gotta think of it as "your neighborhood" - and not just someplace the government put you - for it to be worth something to you
Gahrie said...
Take like a week and do like we did with "Roots" and just straighten it all out in everybody's head.
Are you under the illusion that Roots was either true or accurate?
No, I'm under the impression that you don't use logic and can't read.
Gahrie said...
Because it wasn't former slave holders who reneged on the 40 acres and a mule deal with former slaves - it was the government.
"The government" didn't make that "deal", one man did, a man who had neither the legal nor moral authority to obligate the United States government to do anything.
A thought nobody held until Lincoln was dead and Southerners were in charge. Well done, Gahrie - you're on their side.
"You are aware Thomas Sowell's black ass is not only one of America's leading economists, but also an almost God to the conservative movement, right? You are aware Neil deGrasse Tyson's black ass is one of America's leading astrophysicists, right? You are aware no one's sold more albums than Michael Jackson's Thriller, right?"
Walter Williams was also a genius who could take complex economic theories and explain them to an economically illiterate white boy like me.
Tyson on the other hand is a glorified planetarium manager who has some 'Me Too' issues. I don't think he helps your argument.
He is only 'leading' because he's good TV.
Gahrie said...
"There's your reparations."
Yessir, Boss. Thank you, Boss. You so good to me. I'm gonna write that down, right now, so's I don't forget it:
This is my reparations.
Now I'ma put that somewheres safe, so's I could look at it all the time, to remind me that you already so smart you done took care of that for me, already. What would I do without you to help me figure this stuff out? Probably go on imaginin' I got nothin' when you've obviously loaded me with riches that go beyond my imagination.
Is this how sharecropping worked?
40 acres and a mule was proposed by WT Sherman about the time his armies finished the Georgia march. It was never a policy of the federal government.
@crack:
Fuck you. You're a grifter and a race hustler. No one owes you a thing. Life isn't fair. Grow up, get a life and stop whining like a little bitch.
A thought nobody held until Lincoln was dead and Southerners were in charge. Well done, Gahrie - you're on their side.
Fuck you. At least I never voted for any of them like 90% of Black people did and still do.
Joe Smith said...
"Walter Williams was also a genius who could take complex economic theories and explain them to an economically illiterate white boy like me."
Indeed.
"Tyson on the other hand is a glorified planetarium manager who has some 'Me Too' issues. I don't think he helps your argument."
It's pretty obvious white conservatives are more upset with him than I am over his latest positions on gender. I agree with you, but I think your hostility still looks like racism, more than it does anything else, because this country desperately needs someone to give voice to Science and he's doing a pretty good job of that. Whether you disagree with him on one issue or not. What he's done is a minor miracle as far as I'm concerned. This is what I was saying about me and reparations here. I can agree with you guys on everything but we're gonna spend all our time talking about one issue because that's what you guys are so damn focused on. You can't talk about anything else once it's introduced. I'm one guy who's gonna have to talk to about half the people on this website about it and none of you are going to think that's weird. And then there's people like Gahrie who always show up, like we're old friends, just to engage in a little character and fascination while he spits nails to really make it fun.
"He is only 'leading' because he's good TV"
"Good TV" means he's actually gotten the same country that produced the Kardashians interested in Science. You guys are morons if you don't understand what a huge achievement that is. I may disagree with him on gender and religion, but I'm still grateful he exists, because I understand what a rare and amazing thing that is, in this lowest common denominator environment.
Like I said, before, I usually have to take a break from you guys, because you really make yourselves look bad when you act like this. You make no sense: The NewAge movement is what's eating the country alive, but you guys don't take that as the line in the sand that you will stop everything over. No, you piss on the Science guy, over one issue that's related to it. That's just stupid. In part, because neither you, nor he attach the gender issue to the NewAge movement in the first place, so neither of you know what you're talking about, when it comes to the phenomena we're faced with. I'd be more interested in bringing him around to my side than trying to hate on him or take him down.
Milwaukie Guy said...
"40 acres and a mule was proposed by WT Sherman about the time his armies finished the Georgia march. It was never a policy of the federal government."
It was not proposed by Sherman. Sherman asked the black people what they wanted and they told him what they needed. Where it was located was his idea and people had already moved there and started making preparation's for ownership. It never got far enough to be a policy of the federal government because Lincoln got killed.
"I agree with you, but I think your hostility still looks like racism, more than it does anything else, because this country desperately needs someone to give voice to Science and he's doing a pretty good job of that."
And he's an anti-Trump nut-job. Not a good look when you're trying to use 'Science' to bring the country together.
He also believes men should play in women's sports. He's a smart (though far from a genius) credentialed moron.
All of this divisiveness screws his credibility. He is a rabid partisan.
And you didn't address his women issues.
Guilty white liberals are desperate to have 'people of color' on TV, so he became the go-to.
Joe Smith said...
"Guilty white liberals are desperate to have 'people of color' on TV, so he became the go-to."
First, I don't know any more about white liberals and Tyson than white conservatives and Thomas Sowell or Clarence Thomas, but, while I find Tyson extremely smarmy, I can't deny as 'people of color' we make America cool, so ain't nothing wrong with everybody wanting more of that. I've lived in Yurp, and our white guys seem like Elvis and Steve McQueen compared to them, so rejoice. As someone old enough to remember when it was rare to see a black person on TV or anywhere else, it's nice to hear somebody was "desperate" to see us, other than blacks. Clearly, it's an oversight you didn't mind, but, if other Americans did, that's fine with me. Better than fine.
Second, if this reaction from Joe Rogan was fake, I might agree with you. But it's not. You guys are pretending the man isn't good at his job. He was the 'go-to' because educating the public about Science is something he - specifically - is very, very good at doing. I grew up on Carl Sagan, but Carl Sagan was no Neil Degrass Tyson, and Carl Sagan hated conservative politics, too.
Third, most Scientists hate conservative politics. Why? Because a fanatical adherence to religious superstition has always threatened-the-shit out of the rational, that's why. So the problem isn't that they don't vote the way conservatives do, but, ultimately, that conservatives don't couch their arguments in anything deeper than saying "God did it and I'll fuck you up if you get too pissy about it." In my battle against a NewAge movement, I know Scientists are on my side, so I'm going to engage with them better that that.
Lastly, I know this because I dohave conversations with Scientists, and the first thing they do is stereotype me as being religious and Republican, because I'm black (a red flag) and I support Trump. I'm neither. I'm an atheist who votes Independent. So they're no more perfect in their political assumptions than most - which, big brains or not, means they're still human. So probably persuadable. Definitely more persuadable than someone who thinks "God did it and I'll fuck you up if you get too pissy about it." So, while I disagree with Tyson on gender, I'm not gonna throw the baby out with the bathwater. I'd try and reason with him. I didn't grow up with women as delicate flowers, like today, so I see everyone's current argument - the right and the left's - as unreasonable to the circumstances we're faced with. Which shouldn't surprise anyone, since - as I've said many times before - we've been lying about gay-related issues since Harvey Milk's killing made them popular, under false pretenses.
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