[Martin Elster]

Since there has been a fair amount of discussion in General Talk lately about racism in poetry, art, and society in general, including the interesting thread about the Rita Dove poem, I thought people may like this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxLJCXKT8MQ

Coleman Hughes is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor at City Journal, where his writing focuses on race, public policy and applied ethics. His writing has been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, National Review, Quillette and The Spectator.

He and John discuss Black Lives Matter and consider the validity of their protest.

By the way, I found Coleman's podcasts, which I have started listening to.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas...n/id1489326460

[Bill Dyes]

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Khalil+Gibran+Muhammad&ru=%2fvideos%2fsea rch%3fq%3dKhalil%2bGibran%2bMuhammad%26FORM%3dHDRS C3&view=detail&mid=237837AE83349A8F629A237837AE833 49A8F629A&&FORM=VDRVSR

Mr. Elster:

I am hesitant to bring this back to the top because I think Mr. Novick's thread on the current actions of Trump is vastly more important. But I'm doing it anyway.

Coleman Hughes is impressive. Rational argument based on data seems to be his touchstone.

I do not believe in 'reparations'. I do not believe in defunding the police.
But I am an angry old black man who is concerned by the over one-hundred-year-old concerted effort by America to create a link between criminality and the black race.

Bill

[Martin Elster]

Hi Bill. I respect your feelings about having lived through and experiencing some unfortunate and unsettling American history, and it's also interesting about what Khalil Gibran Mohammad says about big data. But have you listened to this podcast? Coleman Hughes gets into much more detail about his views. I think it's worth listening to. At least I found it informative.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wt95ct2gISA

Martin

[Bill Dyes]

Martin:

I will indeed listen to Mr. Hughes podcast.

On the other hand, read Mr. Muhammed's book "The Condemnation of Blackness" it is the most extended & enlightening account of the accusation of racism directed against the criminal justice system.

Bill

[Martin Elster]

I think you would enjoy Coleman's podcast, Bill.

I'll check out The Condemnation of Blackness. I read the blurb about it and it sounds like a truly fascinating read. In my opinion, it's unfortunate that we still, in 2020, put so much emphasis on the pigmentation of a person's skin, instead of looking at the whole person.

It is similar (more or less) to judging someone solely by their hair color. Perhaps one day, skin color (due to UV rays from the sun) will be no more important than whether a person has blond hair, red hair, or brunette hair. Perhaps that will happen a hundred years from now, or maybe never. Who knows?

[Julie Steiner]

Martin, while hair color may be irrelevant to how American men of European descent get treated by others, the same is not true for women--mostly because American men of European descent have been culturally encouraged to decide that they have a "type" of woman that meets their personal specifications, and hair color is often the primary identifying characteristic of that "type." (And doesn't a stated preference for blondes or redheads or brunettes strongly imply a preference for white women?)

Also, haters don't just hate skin color. They hate all the other physical signifiers of difference--facial features, hair texture, etc.--that tend to accompany differences in skin color, because they regard these as symbols of the cultural, political, religious, and economic gulfs between their own group and other groups.

[Martin Elster]

Good points, Julie. I agree with you about the "haters." It's too bad that, on this tiny blue dot of a planet in the infinite vastness of space-time, there have been people all throughout history and now who feel they must hate. Can we not learn to get along? That's just a question.

As far as hair color goes, I read, a year or two ago, that a survey indicated that men, on average, actually prefer brunettes. I recently read that women with lighter skin are considered healthier, because of the fact that light skin absorbs more sunlight and therefore produces more vitamin D, which helps make their milk more nutritious for the infant. On the other hand, light-skinned men are considered unhealthy.

All through human history, some people have put a great deal of importance on skin pigmentation, either in positive or negative ways. Did you know, by the way, that all babies are born with pale skin? Another thing I learned is that there is no genetic basis for dividing humanity into races. "Race" is a purely social construct.

[Martin Elster]

Here’s a thought experiment:

There are people, for instance a black man married to a white woman with mixed children, one black, one blond and blue-eyed. He doesn’t quite fit into the black community or the “white” community. When a cop pulls that man over, he probably expects that black man to behave like a black man. Should this man, who is an individual, try to behave as if he were “black” or should he behave like himself? Should he try to talk with a typical African American accent, or talk like he normally talks?

Why do so many people think in a black/white way, when there are so many groups of people in this country (America) of every kind: Asian, Jew, Catholic, Irish, Indian, etc. And if you are a member of one of these groups, does that mean you have to look and act like other members of “your group”?

Added in: After I wrote the above, I accidentally found and listened to this short video, which got me thinking and learning a bit more about Woke, which I haven't thought about much at all before (because I only recently got slightly more interested in social and political issues). I just read something (from Wikipedia) about Murray, so I'll take his comments in this video with a grain of salt.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0eg_q8fCmA

[Andrew Mandelbaum]

Martin, maybe take some time and do the reading and investment required to really even begin to understand a tiny bit the experience of black persons in the US before opening your class. We (people of the color we don't see as color) have a shit ton more listening to do and even a few months into some of that listening your post above will make you cringe. I am sure someone on here could give you a great reading list to start with. Maybe you already have one. But I think it is time to listen for us and these thought experiments from Mayberry are premature.

[Andrew Mandelbaum]

Some good questioning of Coleman Hughes' suggestions can be found at the link below. Don't know much about the writer and his title is certainly polarizing but the entire piece is a good starting point for examing what might be obscured by the work of Hughes which is unsurprisingly lauded by the intellectual dark webbings.

https://alexsheremet.com/coleman-hug...ot-be-trusted/