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:
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I applaud and will defend the right of any American to speak their mind, protest and be as "woke" as they want to be....but...
Let me give those of you who are a little dose of reality. I will do it in digestible bites so that it is easy to understand.
1. Most companies in the US are small to medium sized concerns.
2. For every job opening, the hiring manager will receive hundreds of résumé's.
3. The hiring manager is looking to hire somebody who will do a job and do it with a minimum of hassle. If, he/she thinks the potential employee will be a problem employee that potential employee is passed over.
...So...
4. The hiring manager starts with a series of screens to quickly weed out people that will not be hired. A list of potential screens include:
-- A liberal arts degree from a liberal arts college especially ones on either coast.
-- A statement of preferred pronouns.
-- A poor GPA.
-- Hobbies that have anything to do with societal hot button topics.
5. Any résumé's that check one of the above boxes are immediately discarded into the "no" pile.
6. Only then do they sort the résumé's for potential phone interviews, face-to-face interviews and the selection of a person to fill a position.
I don't think today's universities are helping their students to understand that businesses are not in business to provide jobs. A business is created to make a product that customers want. The business then sells that product at a competitive price and reap the profits for reinvestment, new hiring, expansion and a plethora of other actions.
If a hiring manager believes that the value trade-off for hiring you will not help achieve his/her goals and get the work done, you will not be hired. And, I would suggest, hiring managers are becoming ever more discriminating as much of our "woke" brethren are proving themselves to be not worth the risk.
For what it's worth...g.
Reading the paper today I noticed a piece from the news organization Anonymous Propaganda (AP) where the writer was describing a shooting and he kept referring to the Negroid shooter as a “Black” man and the Caucasian victim as a “white” man. First, I wondered why Black was capitalized and white was not. Then I thought, what if the people weren’t 100% black or 100% white but of mixed races? If we aren’t 100% black or 100% white, we should not be identified as black or white. It isn’t fair to the people who are 100% black or 100% white.
Originally, there were only three races: Negroid, Mongoloid and Caucasian. Later, Australoid was added. Currently, Harvard University recognizes African, European, Asian, Oceania and Native American. Some even list “Black” as a race but that doesn’t seem fair to the aboriginal people of Australia who tend to be very dark skinned but are considered to be of the Australoid race. The fact is, various organizations disagree on a precise list of races. What most organizations do acknowledge is that there are very, very few people today that are 100% pure any race. So, what do we call these people of mixed races especially since most of us are, at least a little, mixed race?
Let’s say a purely black woman (Mary) marries a purely white man (Joe) and they have a son which they name Grayson. Is the child gray? Brown seems wrong for two reasons. First according to color charts black mixed with white results in gray and secondly, some other group has already claimed brown. The first and most important question is, obviously, do we capitalize “gray” when referring to Grayson’s race? After all, the white parent’s race isn’t capitalized but the Black parent’s race is.
Now if Grayson’s Black mother instead married an Asian man, what would be the color of Grayson’s race? We know it would be capitalized since “Black” is capitalized and “Asian” is capitalized but what color can we call this person without offending them? If Black is a race and white is a race then we are not being fair to the other races if we do not give them a color. There are only two options. One is to give these other races their own color and the other is to remove black and white from the racial description. If we remove color from race, Grayson would be Black-Asian “Blasian” (notice the capitalization) or Asian-Black “Asack” (again capitalized). But I digress.
For the purposes of this discussion, let’s say Grayson’s parents are Black and white. Now let’s say Grayson, who is gray, grows up and marries a purely white person and they have a child. Now this child would be light gray but, again, would it be capitalized? It is ¼ Black (capitalized) and ¾ white (non-capitalized).
What if, instead of marrying a purely white person Grayson marries a purely black person and they have a child. This child is dark gray sure, but capitalized? ¾ capitalized, ¼ non-capitalized. What if, Grayson marries a Native American. No idea what color but ¾ capitalized and ¼ non-capitalized. Native American-Gray “Nagray”?
Now, half-way around the world, while Mary and Joe were raising their kid, a Mongoloid woman (Bopha) and an Australoid man (Jarrah) married and gave birth to a daughter which they named Billy-Jo. Billy-Jo’s race is obviously capitalized because both her parents came from capitalized races but what color? Again, perhaps it’s not a color but “Monaus” or “Ausmon”.
Now, let’s say Grayson and Billy-Jo are all grown up and Billy Jo is on a business trip to where Grayson lives. They meet, fall in love, get married and have a child which they name “Hyoomon”.
Who can tell me what color and what race Hyoomon is and should it be capitalized?
Over thousands of years the races have become somewhat mixed and they are becoming more and more each year. Did you know that race cannot be determined with DNA? Race is really not a biological thing. It only exists because the media keeps it alive. Morgan Freeman has the best advice on how to get rid of racism: “Stop talking about it.” When Mike Wallace asked Morgan Freeman on 60 minutes “How’re we supposed to end racism…?” Freeman responded, “Stop talking about it. I’m going to stop calling you a white man. And I’m going to ask you to stop calling me a black man. I know you as Mike Wallace. You know me as Morgan Freeman. I’m not going to say, ‘I know this white guy named Mike Wallace.’
Freeman is absolutely right. The media doesn’t say the “Protestant” kid was killed by the “Baptist” cop. They don’t say the “gay” cop shot the “straight” robber. They don’t say the “Democrat” man robbed the “Republican” man. They don’t say the “smart” guy killed the “stupid” guy. Why draw the line at race? Should a “journalist” for Anonymous Propaganda (AP) write, “Yesterday a short, black, middle aged, gay, Catholic, Libertarian police officer shot a fat, bearded, half white, half Native American, Democrat, burglar whose sexual preference was not immediately known”? Why is it impossible for them to avoid saying the “black” guy shot the “white” guy or vice versa? If a black man shoots a white man, isn’t the real news that a human being shot another human being? Who cares what color they are? We are all human beings regardless of race, so why bring it up?