Perhaps a Title IX system which guards equally against anti-White bigotry and the loss of Black agency through inculcated Victimhood is a better solution…
This short essay arose as a result of a thoughtful essay by Michael Shermer in Quillette.
The campaign to ban Critical Race Theory and other ‘woke’ dogmas channels the same illiberal spirit that conservatives claim to oppose. (from the article).
A good article, and one which I largely agree with. Generally, we shouldn't censor ideas or curtail academic freedom. Of course, there are egregious exceptions. I watched one impassioned father telling other parents not to politicise parental concerns over books in school libraries. His point wasn't that he had a problem with a book in the library with the title 'How to be Gay'. His argument was that if there was a book called 'How to be Straight', which advised his twelve year old daughter how to sign up to adult dating apps and sleep with some twenty-six year old man, he would have had a similar problem.
I can't help thinking that the answer might be some version of Title IX for kids and students more generally. Surely white kids have as much of a right not to be slandered by teachers espousing anti-White bigotry as Black kids have not to be exposed to the agency-sapping cult of Victimhood which undermines their chances of joining the middle classes by about 8% in later life.
Besides, other than marginally increasing representation in the top 10% of the socio-economic spectrum it doesn't work. Otherwise, the Blue Strongholds in America would be experiencing better outcomes for marginalised groups. They are not. In K-12 education it's producing somewhat worse outcomes, no doubt because of the distraction of fringe ideas in education. In housing, America is witnessing something of a reversal of the Great Migration, as Black families seek out the jobs and cheaper housing caused by the Right's more libertarian take on zoning and taxes.
Plus, although the Left is largely right about structural racism (although they should have chosen a more appropriate label for it), they are almost completely wrong in assuming it must be caused by racism and implicit bias. There were many things which contributed to the dissolution of the Black family, but by far the greatest cause was deindustrialisation. Quite apart from sabotaging the natural hypergamy which leads to stable family formation, by robbing blue collar Black men of their livelihoods and chances of making a family work, it created the legacy of worse outcomes which stem from an absence of fathers in a community, as well as the primary engine of social mobility.
Dr Raj Chetty's research on social mobility is quite clear in this area- productive fathers at the community level are even more important than the quality of education in K-12. Where conservatives have always gone wrong is in assuming that the individual dynamics of personal responsibility can be applied at the community level. The Opioid epidemic, with its plague of overdoses and older male suicides, has laid waste to socially conservative White communities just as thoroughly as it did to Black communities through deindustrialisation only a few generations ago.
Labour is a Basic Need, especially for Blue Collar men. It's why America could stand to be fairly Laissez-Faire in most aspects of immigration, if only it insisted that the higher status and better paid blue collar jobs- those of trade professionals, construction workers, etc- were the exclusive purview of birthright citizens. The tighter labour markets which would doubtless ensue, might not only lead to higher wages, but also help with issues like holiday entitlements and worker safety, hopefully avoiding the types of corporate malfeasance so recently seen with the Ohio toxic train disaster. After all, the Nordic states seem able to operate political systems which are both more free market than America, friendlier to capital (no inheritance tax in Sweden) and yet also possess stronger worker protections.
But here is an even deeper problem with the implicit bias/racism theory of structural racism. Studies have shown that discrimination in hiring is strongest in customer facing roles. This means mostly the service sector, which in turn means that the manager/s involved are more likely to be women and more likely to Left-leaning liberals. Added to this natural skew, service sector work is mostly in cities, which tend overall to be Blue Strongholds which vote Democrat. The stereotypical staunchest practitioner of implicit bias or racism through discrimination is a middle manager and white women in her thirties or forties who still hasn’t gotten over Hillary.
A couple of things are probably going on. She probably drastically overestimates the percentage of her customer base who care whether their server is Black. The best stats suggest 5% to 10% of Americans are still racist enough to matter, and two-thirds of them are over 65. What’s worse is that our stereotypical white liberal woman is probably publicly virtue signalling on race, whilst acting cynically and in her own self-interest when it comes to her own career- being racist, by drastically overestimating racism in others.
The other problem is the soft bigotry of low expectations stemming from fears over cultural erasure. Most White kids have their speech corrected in order to equip them with the basic unaccented corporate English which is so necessary to service the increasingly non-Western rich found as customers in the better paid service sector. Do Black kids get the same access to corporate English, or do progressive teachers quake at the mere thought of telling a Black kid their speech patterns, mannerisms and pronunciation might need to temporarily modified when commercial opportunity knocks? The White British seem to be able to maintain their rich tapestry of regional dialects and local cultures without cultural erasure. Are White teachers simply too culturally sensitive for minority kids own good? We shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but we do- as do our customers- and this might be creating a structural barrier to opportunity which most liberals and progressives would be loathe to acknowledge.
Perhaps a Title IX system in which both White students subject to anti-White bigotry and Black students made to feel as though they are victims robbed of all agency can anonymously complain specifically on the grounds of their treatment might be better- especially if it was a corrective, rather than punitive system. Besides, it's not as though White Guilt and the need for White Atonement have worked well for Black America in the past. Notwithstanding the Rights Revolution and equality under the law, 70% of Black Americans have joined the middle class not because of government, but despite it.
I don't think the white teachers are too culturally sensitive for minority kids. They are terrified of being called racist and kicked out of their morally superior tribe. Who are these elite white women who are the self-anointed saviors of the black people? Who are the people perpetuating the fallacy that black people need these impostors to receive agency in their lives? Ask any of these saviors to go live in the inner-city and walk what they talk they'll look at you like you've lost your mind. Because virtue singling is easy when you're sitting in your suburban enclaves.
Really, Geary? It's not that we have too much unaccountable bureaucracy in the US, it's that it's not the right kind?
"Perhaps a Title IX system in which both White students subject to anti-White bigotry and Black students made to feel as though they are victims robbed of all agency can anonymously complain specifically on the grounds of their treatment might be better- especially if it was a corrective, rather than punitive system."
Anonymous complaints? My God, this is so off the mark that I kind of can't believe you wrote it. We have laws here based on Due Process. That the powers that be have jettisoned a fundamental principle of our society to further their partisan aims ought to be very clear to anyone paying attention: January 6; COVID mandates; racial bigotry baked into hiring practices.
This may be a well intentioned thought exercise, but it is dangerous and uniquely un-American. The particulars of Ron DeSantis' educational motivations can and should be debated at a local level.
Nice to see you back. Here we are going to have a big fight.
The academia people, politicians, the Hollywood people, and all these people are in my most humble opinion, they need to go and start working in a factory from a blue collar/technician/ middle management/clerk perspective. Without being attractive/pretty, and starting there, after being some 5 years working there they can come back and tell us what they think about
1) who we call "the right" (conservative, liberals, neo-liberals, etc.), and who is the "actual right"
2) who we call "the left" (same as above) and who is the "actual left"
Because in my opinion all these people that you have mentioned are for the most part a few privileged that live in a bubble with little idea of the actual world, with zero or nil accountability for their studies and theories. Then they are ready of defining how other people should work or live, but pay attention "do what I say, not what I do".
Then why there are so much prevalent, well because when there is a group of minorities the most ruthless and violent imposes itself.
I would recommend a chapter of the book "the end of work" in which explains why the black people in USA have issues to progress. The country i come from, Spain, we have two regions that have a lot of subsides, where declaring some 35 days of work in a year you get a monthly subside for the whole year. You can now imagine the cunning ways to "declare" 35 days. This has been going on since the 1980's, result these two regions are the poorest and more backwards in Spain, they have very little or no industry, legions of public servants, the highest unemployment and they have to bring immigrants to do many of the agricultural work and the work in the hospitality industry. That will not change because the politicians buy the votes keeping that scheme.
I made an MBA from a university in UK located in Cambridge. On the subject of human resources, my assignment was the case of the Neo-Taylorism being applied in multinationals of the automotive, i knew about it, i had worked for long in one of them. The Assignment did not place the company in a bad view, but that it had some effects (positive and negative), and the strategy matched the company overall strategy. Well i did not get a very good mark, and the reason was, that "talking about neo-taylorism" is not "nice", and was out of the narrative that is being pushed. Should i have made the assignment about a "nice subject" and arrived to meaningless conclusions "inside the narrative" my mark would have been much better, even if the assignment would have been useless as a working document. So if you want to defend these lecturers and their work, we are going to "have fun".
They support these ideas, either because they are very short sighted (a big chunk of them) or because they believe that they will not apply to them (they would escape), and follow the tide for their benefit.
Ask yourself a question, how many, from these guilds will be happy of being associated with Greta, or with the EU politicians (that change parliament every month but we are the kings of the green agenda).
Best regards from the center of the Mediterranean, my bets of last year for some beers still stand.
Interesting you don’t provide a critique of the DeSantis position on education.
Given the heavy handed approach to indoctrination taken by academia, I’m not sure there is a velvet glove alternative to combatting the poisonous situation you identify.
There is no way to have government schools without politicized curricula.
If we're going to have government schools, insisting on a bias in favor of what is true over what is false seems more worthwhile than allowing other politicizations to take root. The root of our problem is that the half of us who don't believe in politicizing curricula have simply deferred to those who DO politicize, and that's the worst of all worlds.
Peace is preferable to violence, but killing your attacker is preferable to being killed. By the same token, mandating good curricula in government schools is preferable to receiving bad curricula, even if not having government schools is most ideal of all.
Welcome back - it's been quite a while. I particularly enjoyed the final paragraph of this article. The mentions of factors far too frequently ignored in mainstream commentry on the topic was very welcome.
What's a more appropriate label for structural racism? Not that I'm a fan of the current label. Seems too vague to mean anything at all?
I'm also not really a fan of your 'Karen' stereotype. Seems like woke-lefty framing.
But I am otherwise a fan of your writing. I've starting using the phrase the 'tyranny of low expectations' which I'm sure I modified from the way you used it, but you used it first around me, and I think it's your concept which best fits the issue of educating minority kids, black kids in particular.
Dr. Chetty is now part of my resource list.
Are you familiar with Jamil Jivani? I've followed him for a while, and he was just on the Agenda with Steve Paikan, last legit news program on TV that I know of. The debate is right up your alley, but you could also just skip everything everyone except Jivani says, since he's the only one arguing with substance. He challenges the new Peel board chair, repeatedly, to provide evidence that DEI approaches work, and all the chair's got are inane talking points.
You wrote 'the other problem is the soft bigotry of low expectations stemming from fears over cultural erasure. Most White kids have their speech corrected in order to equip them with the basic unaccented corporate English which is so necessary to service the increasingly non-Western rich found as customers in the better paid service sector. Do Black kids get the same access to corporate English, or do progressive teachers quake at the mere thought of telling a Black kid their speech patterns, mannerisms and pronunciation might need to temporarily modified when commercial opportunity knocks'?
So, as a (currently still cancelled) English high school teacher in Toronto, I've seen what you describe in action myriad times, but your example is wrong.
It's not a fear of correcting vernacular. At least not here. I've yet to meet a kid who didn't think they should know standard English. The problem is disciplinary. Black kids know they are the B in BIPOC ... in other words, they know that some of their educators are scared to discipline them, or approach groups of black kids who should maybe be in class or something.
When kids know they can get away with something, they will.
And every parent I've ever met wants me to help them correct their kids on the notion that they are already responsible adults, ready to make mature, adult decisions.
I'm with the Possum below - more bureaucracy is the not the solution.
In my mind, the solution is a sanity party. Working class immigrant families, the working class union guys that used to vote Labour, progressives like myself who worked in the trenches for decades and despair at what has happened to our movement (yes, to your readers, we exist). A class-based party.
We need to build bridges across the left-right divide between working class and middle class communities.
I hope you write more on the subject of education man! You remain a sane voice in an ocean of vague nonsense.
Geary!! Nice to see you back and with a Great piece, much truth and the conclusion is powerful. On another note, what are your thoughts on this? Vivek Ramaswamy on the hill discussing his politics. He sounds normal, can he be for real? https://youtu.be/Cl1NFPLexlo
I don't think the white teachers are too culturally sensitive for minority kids. They are terrified of being called racist and kicked out of their morally superior tribe. Who are these elite white women who are the self-anointed saviors of the black people? Who are the people perpetuating the fallacy that black people need these impostors to receive agency in their lives? Ask any of these saviors to go live in the inner-city and walk what they talk they'll look at you like you've lost your mind. Because virtue singling is easy when you're sitting in your suburban enclaves.
Really, Geary? It's not that we have too much unaccountable bureaucracy in the US, it's that it's not the right kind?
"Perhaps a Title IX system in which both White students subject to anti-White bigotry and Black students made to feel as though they are victims robbed of all agency can anonymously complain specifically on the grounds of their treatment might be better- especially if it was a corrective, rather than punitive system."
Anonymous complaints? My God, this is so off the mark that I kind of can't believe you wrote it. We have laws here based on Due Process. That the powers that be have jettisoned a fundamental principle of our society to further their partisan aims ought to be very clear to anyone paying attention: January 6; COVID mandates; racial bigotry baked into hiring practices.
This may be a well intentioned thought exercise, but it is dangerous and uniquely un-American. The particulars of Ron DeSantis' educational motivations can and should be debated at a local level.
Hello Geary
Nice to see you back. Here we are going to have a big fight.
The academia people, politicians, the Hollywood people, and all these people are in my most humble opinion, they need to go and start working in a factory from a blue collar/technician/ middle management/clerk perspective. Without being attractive/pretty, and starting there, after being some 5 years working there they can come back and tell us what they think about
1) who we call "the right" (conservative, liberals, neo-liberals, etc.), and who is the "actual right"
2) who we call "the left" (same as above) and who is the "actual left"
Because in my opinion all these people that you have mentioned are for the most part a few privileged that live in a bubble with little idea of the actual world, with zero or nil accountability for their studies and theories. Then they are ready of defining how other people should work or live, but pay attention "do what I say, not what I do".
Then why there are so much prevalent, well because when there is a group of minorities the most ruthless and violent imposes itself.
I would recommend a chapter of the book "the end of work" in which explains why the black people in USA have issues to progress. The country i come from, Spain, we have two regions that have a lot of subsides, where declaring some 35 days of work in a year you get a monthly subside for the whole year. You can now imagine the cunning ways to "declare" 35 days. This has been going on since the 1980's, result these two regions are the poorest and more backwards in Spain, they have very little or no industry, legions of public servants, the highest unemployment and they have to bring immigrants to do many of the agricultural work and the work in the hospitality industry. That will not change because the politicians buy the votes keeping that scheme.
I made an MBA from a university in UK located in Cambridge. On the subject of human resources, my assignment was the case of the Neo-Taylorism being applied in multinationals of the automotive, i knew about it, i had worked for long in one of them. The Assignment did not place the company in a bad view, but that it had some effects (positive and negative), and the strategy matched the company overall strategy. Well i did not get a very good mark, and the reason was, that "talking about neo-taylorism" is not "nice", and was out of the narrative that is being pushed. Should i have made the assignment about a "nice subject" and arrived to meaningless conclusions "inside the narrative" my mark would have been much better, even if the assignment would have been useless as a working document. So if you want to defend these lecturers and their work, we are going to "have fun".
They support these ideas, either because they are very short sighted (a big chunk of them) or because they believe that they will not apply to them (they would escape), and follow the tide for their benefit.
Ask yourself a question, how many, from these guilds will be happy of being associated with Greta, or with the EU politicians (that change parliament every month but we are the kings of the green agenda).
Best regards from the center of the Mediterranean, my bets of last year for some beers still stand.
Ramonchu
Interesting you don’t provide a critique of the DeSantis position on education.
Given the heavy handed approach to indoctrination taken by academia, I’m not sure there is a velvet glove alternative to combatting the poisonous situation you identify.
There is no way to have government schools without politicized curricula.
If we're going to have government schools, insisting on a bias in favor of what is true over what is false seems more worthwhile than allowing other politicizations to take root. The root of our problem is that the half of us who don't believe in politicizing curricula have simply deferred to those who DO politicize, and that's the worst of all worlds.
Peace is preferable to violence, but killing your attacker is preferable to being killed. By the same token, mandating good curricula in government schools is preferable to receiving bad curricula, even if not having government schools is most ideal of all.
Welcome back - it's been quite a while. I particularly enjoyed the final paragraph of this article. The mentions of factors far too frequently ignored in mainstream commentry on the topic was very welcome.
Glad to see you back man!
What's a more appropriate label for structural racism? Not that I'm a fan of the current label. Seems too vague to mean anything at all?
I'm also not really a fan of your 'Karen' stereotype. Seems like woke-lefty framing.
But I am otherwise a fan of your writing. I've starting using the phrase the 'tyranny of low expectations' which I'm sure I modified from the way you used it, but you used it first around me, and I think it's your concept which best fits the issue of educating minority kids, black kids in particular.
Dr. Chetty is now part of my resource list.
Are you familiar with Jamil Jivani? I've followed him for a while, and he was just on the Agenda with Steve Paikan, last legit news program on TV that I know of. The debate is right up your alley, but you could also just skip everything everyone except Jivani says, since he's the only one arguing with substance. He challenges the new Peel board chair, repeatedly, to provide evidence that DEI approaches work, and all the chair's got are inane talking points.
https://www.tvo.org/video/is-the-peel-school-board-ready-to-lead
You wrote 'the other problem is the soft bigotry of low expectations stemming from fears over cultural erasure. Most White kids have their speech corrected in order to equip them with the basic unaccented corporate English which is so necessary to service the increasingly non-Western rich found as customers in the better paid service sector. Do Black kids get the same access to corporate English, or do progressive teachers quake at the mere thought of telling a Black kid their speech patterns, mannerisms and pronunciation might need to temporarily modified when commercial opportunity knocks'?
So, as a (currently still cancelled) English high school teacher in Toronto, I've seen what you describe in action myriad times, but your example is wrong.
It's not a fear of correcting vernacular. At least not here. I've yet to meet a kid who didn't think they should know standard English. The problem is disciplinary. Black kids know they are the B in BIPOC ... in other words, they know that some of their educators are scared to discipline them, or approach groups of black kids who should maybe be in class or something.
When kids know they can get away with something, they will.
And every parent I've ever met wants me to help them correct their kids on the notion that they are already responsible adults, ready to make mature, adult decisions.
I'm with the Possum below - more bureaucracy is the not the solution.
In my mind, the solution is a sanity party. Working class immigrant families, the working class union guys that used to vote Labour, progressives like myself who worked in the trenches for decades and despair at what has happened to our movement (yes, to your readers, we exist). A class-based party.
We need to build bridges across the left-right divide between working class and middle class communities.
I hope you write more on the subject of education man! You remain a sane voice in an ocean of vague nonsense.
Geary!! Nice to see you back and with a Great piece, much truth and the conclusion is powerful. On another note, what are your thoughts on this? Vivek Ramaswamy on the hill discussing his politics. He sounds normal, can he be for real? https://youtu.be/Cl1NFPLexlo
Nice.
Thx, Geary.