[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]

Originally Posted by Bill Dyes

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.

Originally Posted by John Riley

No matter how far we may feel progressed from race personally, we still live in a world where black kids are serving four times the amount of prison time for the same amount of drugs. We live in a society in which people go to prison at all for drugs because of racist drug laws.

The "war on drugs" is stupid and has never been proven to work.

Yesterday I was listening to this talk between Coleman Hughes and John Pfaff about that very topic (the criminal justice system). I haven't listened yet to the whole video, but plan to do so later today.

Deadly And Dangerous Prison Conditions | John Pfaff (Ep.6)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuHq_Y_xlt4