I think race issues would get a lot less polarized if we just substituted “systemic bias” for “systemic racism.” There are all kinds of biases in our systems that many people can relate to. Biases against the poor. Biases against ugly people. Biases against fat people. Biases against the less-educated. Biases against people with a strong southern accent.
Imagine a sort of implicit bias test that incorporated those factors instead of just race.
The essay is absolutely correct, but once we're free to ask what a variety of blacks think about their experience and their situation, we should be free to ask as well:
How important is it to get a black's perspective on black issues? After all, we see that some blacks have the same views on it as some whites, and that some of the most vocal whites have views that aren't shared by large numbers of blacks. And many of us believe that humans can share experiences and understand one another, largely, because they're all human.
Is race really as vital an issue as is currently popular to say? Maybe poverty is more important. Maybe the plight of women. Maybe our public discourse, or political dysfunction, or police brutality.
Free Black Thought makes sense. It's a good thing. Free Thought in general would be a good thing as well.
Classism is vastly more punitive than racism and yet racism is an easy way to avoid that. If you are poor and you are uneducated your odds of being treated badly by the dominant class are much higher than if you are Harvard educated, despite your race. But race is the more trendy way for the white Mrs Jellyby gentry to assuage their guilt and feel good about themselves. Michael Che was probably not kidding when he said on SNL 3/27 "I just bought a gun now that all those white kids are talking about defunding the police." His brother is a cop.
In addition to the pet dimensions of the MSM I have always enjoyed splitting up black America into two sets of quintiles {Jazz, Rap, Gospel, Blues, R&B} x {Atheist, Baptist, Pentecostal, AME, Congregational} . I myself like electronic music, and am an Episcopalian. My wife is from Detroit. I'm from LA. My kids were born in Brooklyn and Atlanta. My mother is from New Orleans, my father from New Haven. It's a miracle anybody calls us black at all. A miracle or a curse.
Thanks, Erec Smith. Such a project is essential even as the need is so much larger than any possible intervention. I've always tried to challenge students' belief that there is one authentic way of being X, often by introducing alternative perspectives on any particular topic by other Xs. I've also refused to embrace the fashionable progressive viewpoint that on any topic that bears on Xs, only Xs (and of course, only Xs who hold the appropriate, authentic beliefs) should be permitted to speak. Of course, for decades some students have been intrigued by this kind of pedagogy and others have been mildly offended and impatient for the experience to end. The difference between then and now is that, under the tutelage of their professors and other mentors on the left, students now characterize attempts to acquaint them with alternative perspectives and nudge them to reckon with complexity as indoctrination. I suspect this is what many students would do with FBT. The benefit is obvious: those who are routinely educated in a way that fits the definition of indoctrination get to condemn it while ridding themselves of the meddlesome priests of intellectual heterodoxy.
The notion that every voice is relevant to a conversation is laudable. Why then limit it to “all black voices”? A true move to anti-racial behavior requires all races to explore their experiences & potentially uncomfortable thoughts openly & together, not as separate groups—racial, or otherwise.
Isn't CRT a rehash of the old Ebonics(?) idea that inner city kids speak a different language. If memory serves me correct Black parents absolutely hated it.
Brittany Talissa King’s article in Tablet from September 2020 has the same title as your website. You mentioned her, but you didn’t mention that article. Hopefully you aren’t just taking that title from her. I imagine you aren’t, but so many people take ideas w/o crediting the creator these days. Her article is linked below. https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/dubois-washington-black-lives-matter
This interested me enough to go to your site, but the site itself didn't make it clear how to read anything. If you had something like a feed of articles on the main landing page, I would definitely stick around / visit regularly / subscribe. But I had to scroll quite a ways down to even find where the articles are, and then once I went there, I saw a giant nested list of topics. I just can't see myself navigating something like that for this purpose. I only mean this as constructive feedback, not criticism of what I'm sure has been a difficult endeavor.
"All ____ people are _____" can never be true. Each of us is an individual, and any philosophy that insists otherwise is flat out wrong.
I think race issues would get a lot less polarized if we just substituted “systemic bias” for “systemic racism.” There are all kinds of biases in our systems that many people can relate to. Biases against the poor. Biases against ugly people. Biases against fat people. Biases against the less-educated. Biases against people with a strong southern accent.
Imagine a sort of implicit bias test that incorporated those factors instead of just race.
The essay is absolutely correct, but once we're free to ask what a variety of blacks think about their experience and their situation, we should be free to ask as well:
How important is it to get a black's perspective on black issues? After all, we see that some blacks have the same views on it as some whites, and that some of the most vocal whites have views that aren't shared by large numbers of blacks. And many of us believe that humans can share experiences and understand one another, largely, because they're all human.
Is race really as vital an issue as is currently popular to say? Maybe poverty is more important. Maybe the plight of women. Maybe our public discourse, or political dysfunction, or police brutality.
Free Black Thought makes sense. It's a good thing. Free Thought in general would be a good thing as well.
Classism is vastly more punitive than racism and yet racism is an easy way to avoid that. If you are poor and you are uneducated your odds of being treated badly by the dominant class are much higher than if you are Harvard educated, despite your race. But race is the more trendy way for the white Mrs Jellyby gentry to assuage their guilt and feel good about themselves. Michael Che was probably not kidding when he said on SNL 3/27 "I just bought a gun now that all those white kids are talking about defunding the police." His brother is a cop.
In addition to the pet dimensions of the MSM I have always enjoyed splitting up black America into two sets of quintiles {Jazz, Rap, Gospel, Blues, R&B} x {Atheist, Baptist, Pentecostal, AME, Congregational} . I myself like electronic music, and am an Episcopalian. My wife is from Detroit. I'm from LA. My kids were born in Brooklyn and Atlanta. My mother is from New Orleans, my father from New Haven. It's a miracle anybody calls us black at all. A miracle or a curse.
Thanks, Erec Smith. Such a project is essential even as the need is so much larger than any possible intervention. I've always tried to challenge students' belief that there is one authentic way of being X, often by introducing alternative perspectives on any particular topic by other Xs. I've also refused to embrace the fashionable progressive viewpoint that on any topic that bears on Xs, only Xs (and of course, only Xs who hold the appropriate, authentic beliefs) should be permitted to speak. Of course, for decades some students have been intrigued by this kind of pedagogy and others have been mildly offended and impatient for the experience to end. The difference between then and now is that, under the tutelage of their professors and other mentors on the left, students now characterize attempts to acquaint them with alternative perspectives and nudge them to reckon with complexity as indoctrination. I suspect this is what many students would do with FBT. The benefit is obvious: those who are routinely educated in a way that fits the definition of indoctrination get to condemn it while ridding themselves of the meddlesome priests of intellectual heterodoxy.
The notion that every voice is relevant to a conversation is laudable. Why then limit it to “all black voices”? A true move to anti-racial behavior requires all races to explore their experiences & potentially uncomfortable thoughts openly & together, not as separate groups—racial, or otherwise.
Isn't CRT a rehash of the old Ebonics(?) idea that inner city kids speak a different language. If memory serves me correct Black parents absolutely hated it.
Brittany Talissa King’s article in Tablet from September 2020 has the same title as your website. You mentioned her, but you didn’t mention that article. Hopefully you aren’t just taking that title from her. I imagine you aren’t, but so many people take ideas w/o crediting the creator these days. Her article is linked below. https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/dubois-washington-black-lives-matter
This interested me enough to go to your site, but the site itself didn't make it clear how to read anything. If you had something like a feed of articles on the main landing page, I would definitely stick around / visit regularly / subscribe. But I had to scroll quite a ways down to even find where the articles are, and then once I went there, I saw a giant nested list of topics. I just can't see myself navigating something like that for this purpose. I only mean this as constructive feedback, not criticism of what I'm sure has been a difficult endeavor.