Coleman Hughes on recent podcasts

[jeffk]

Coleman Hughes has written about 4 articles that have gotten a lot of discussion going race related stuff. He was on the Sam Harris Waking up Podcast and the Glenn Loury podcast in the last week.

It is one of those things where people commenting about the podcasts either think that he is saying racism is no longer a problem or he is blaming the victim of racism and not taking into account history. I don't think he is saying either. His main message is that there has been a lot of progress made.

Affirmative action: He doesn't think he or any of the Obama kids should get preferential treatment to go to colleges. It doesn't make sense. He is for socio-economic affirmative action. He can accept an argument for affirmative action based upon diversity.

If you agree with him or disagree with him, I don't see how you cannot agree that he is a smart dude, especially for being only 22.



1:51 Why Coleman dissents from the racial orthodoxy at Columbia University
7:23 Why is race America’s most radioactive topic?
14:40 Social injustice vs. cosmic injustice
23:26 The allure of racial grievance
35:20 Does the black community need better public policies or just self-help?
41:45 What’s the point of affirmative action these days?
54:43 The case against Columbia’s “Great Books” curriculum

 

[Bobby 3 Sticks]

Are minorities not getting lynched? Sure that's progress

 

[jeffk]

Best comment I saw that wasn't just nitpicking the Sam Harris podcast with Hughes. I thought that was one of the best recent Harris podcasts.


------------------------------------

1 The history of racism is a cause of inequality

• 2 Some aspects of black culture leads to inequality
  
  3 Modern day racism is a cause of inequality
  
  All three of these statements are true.
  
  Left wing intellectuals don't talk about 2 enough.
  
  The wider reactionary movement doesn't talk about 3 enough.
  
  Each group scolds the other for their bias and their hypocrisy and the sheep take sides.
  

 

[panamaican]

Speaking solely about the 35:00 minute component, he says 2 things I disagree with.

1) Self-help and government. The idea that black America isn't exercising a form of self-help when petitioning to the government is subtle in it's insidious implications. All Americans petition the government for protection from malfeasance and redress for their grievances. In fact, petitioning the government is the very point of having a representative government that you elect officials to. It is unfathomable that the concept of self-help within the black community must exclude turning to their government for support.

When farmers are suffering they lobby their government. When banks are suffering they lobby their government. When the handicapped are suffering they lobby their government. When pro-free speech or pro-2nd Amendment activists believe in something, they lobby their government. When black America lobbies their government, they're told that they should rely on self-help.

I say it's insidious in its implication because it implies that the government is not a tool that black America should be using in the context of "self help". But if the government isn't a tool for tax paying citizens...what's the point of being part of that government and, by extension, that country.

2) Acting white - The implied element of this allegation against the black community is that the black community is unique in castigating those who strive for academic excellence. Yet, in simple terms, "nerds" are castigated in all racial groups. The specific label might change but in every group, those who choose to primarily focus on their intellectual interests suffer social ostracization. One of the biggest cultural flaws surrounding "acting white" is embracing the idea that black America is somehow more anti-smart kids than anyone else. There's simply no truth to the idea that nerds do better with any other group socially than they generally do with black America. The only exception is college prep schools where academic excellence is coupled with increased social positioning and that applies to the black kids and the white ones.

The narrative that black America views education less positively than other groups just isn't true (there is significant research supporting this and contradicting the narrative). And black America needs to stop feeding themselves that lie about their black neighbors.

 

[jeffk]

Thanks for the thoughtful response.

There are people like McWhorter who say the acting white thing hasn't been true to be false in integrated schools and simply asking kids if they value school isn't the correct way to go about things.

Crappy poorly funded schools are a different issue and Hughes recognizes this by supporting affirmative action based on socio-economics.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/no-acting-white-has-not-been-debunked?ref=scroll

 

[panamaican]

Thanks for the thoughtful response.

There are people like McWhorter who say the acting white thing hasn't been true to be false in integrated schools and simply asking kids if they value school isn't the correct way to go about things.

Crappy poorly funded schools are a different issue and Hughes recognizes this by supporting affirmative action based on socio-economics.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/no-acting-white-has-not-been-debunked?ref=scroll

McWhorter completely misunderstands what is being said. It is 100% true that black kids face the "acting white" label when doing well in school. That has not been "debunked". Where he is wrong in understanding the research is in the claim that this is unique to black kids or in what it is a reflection of culturally.

There is more research in this area than just Fryer and it is more recent as well.

In all groups of kids (with some exceptions), smart students experience a decline in peer group loyalty as they differentiate themselves academically. It does not only happen to smart black kids. Smart black kids might get the label "acting white" but smart white kids get different labels while experiencing the same social decline.

The difference is that when smart white kids get labelled and suffer social decline, no one claims that white people don't value education. They properly recognize that this is just a normal part of adolescent and teen social development. When smart black kids get labelled and suffer social decline, people extrapolate it to claim that black people don't value education. They fail to properly recognize that this is the exact same social experience that other groups of kids are going through.

Outgrouping among kids is normal. The outgrouped kids then form new ingroups reflective of their specific characteristics. This has been going on for as long as we've had schools and kids. Black America didn't create anti-nerd sentiment, lol.

One of the biggest issues facing black America, imo both internally and externally, is taking things that are considered completely normal in other groups and treating them as aberrations when black American demonstrates them.

 

[superpunch]

I thought I was in the UFC section and this was about a podcast with Mark Coleman and Matt Hughes. Disappointed.


<{gspressed}>