Currently, America is afflicted by a scourge of overt racism often going under the name “Critical Race Theory,” or alternatively under the even more Orwellian term “antiracism.” I call these doctrines “overt racism” because they squarely fit the definition: they accuse people of evil not on the basis of any act those people have committed or of any statement they have made, but rather solely on the basis of their skin color.

The most patent manifestations of the overt racism of Critical Race Theory and “antiracism” doctrine are found in their accusations of evil against people of the white or Caucasian race. Whites are “privileged”; they are engaged in “oppression” of people of other races; they are “white supremacists” — all of which claims are made without reference to anything the individual accused has ever done or said. Indeed, often the accusations are made to children as young as kindergarten age, as indicated in race training materials now spreading like a cancer through the American public education system.

But where do blacks fit into the CRT/”antiracism” worldview? The stated purpose of the CRT/”antiracism” project is to advance the position of black people, and people of other non-white races, supposedly by overcoming alleged white racism of the past or present. As these things are being practically implemented in the real world, is that what is happening?

For some reason, only a small number of commentators have been willing to take on what I consider to be the obvious negative and even disastrous effects on blacks of the CRT/”antiracism” project. Probably, if you find yourself in the hothouse of one of today’s universities, even mentioning this subject would get you canceled before you could make it to your office in the morning. I have myself broached this subject on a few occasions, notably here (an August 2018 post discussing progressive efforts to resist ever removing anyone from the food stamp roles, and thus continuing government dependency indefinitely) and here (an August 2020 post discussing progressive efforts to reduce or eliminate school discipline against misbehaving black students).

But the guys who currently really own this issue are John McWhorter and Glenn Loury. Those two are prominent tenured faculty members at Ivy League schools (McWhorter at Columbia, Loury at Brown), in fields unrelated to the current race obsession (McWhorter in linguistics, Loury in economics). Both — not coincidentally, I would submit — are black themselves. And both have found themselves spending more and more of their time speaking out specifically on the subject of the deleterious effects of progressive neo-racism on blacks. The two collaborate regularly on podcasts and articles on this subject. In addition, McWhorter has just come out with a new book on this specific subject, with the title “Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America.” (I have ordered that book, but haven’t received it or read it yet.)

For today, I’ll highlight a couple of recent postings from McWhorter and Loury. On December 4 McWhorter was interviewed by Yascha Mounk at the Persuasion website. Excerpts (McWhorter speaking):

A[n] example is what anti-racism means in education, where the idea is that school boards and teachers propose that to be anti-racist, you can’t submit black people to real challenges, because the sorts of things that involve real challenges are white things such as precision, punctuality and having to raise your hand; that those are wrong, that you need to turn your whole field upside down in order to adjust to the presence of people of color, such that, for example, a classics department makes Latin and Greek optional. That’s all harmful to black people, because it’s treating black Americans as if they aren’t as bright. In arguing that it’s racist to submit black people to standardized tests because black kids often aren’t as good at them, you’re effectively saying black kids shouldn’t be subjected to a test of abstract cognitive skill. . . . Or assuming that if a disproportionate number of black boys are suspended from schools for violence, it must be because of bias. What happens in schools where people take that anti-racist counsel into account is that more black kids, not to mention teachers, get beat up. . . . This stuff hurts black people.

On November 30, McWhorter appeared with Loury on Loury’s regular podcast, called The Glenn Show. The title of the November 30 episode was “Taking the Race Debate Seriously.” On that occasion, both Loury and McWhorter spoke out on why they feel compelled at this time to divert their attention from their main specialties and devote so much of their attention to speaking out on the issue of progressive neo-racism. Loury:

So much of what is said about race today—in newspapers and books, on cable news and social media—is flat out wrong, both factually and morally. And I can’t let it stand unchallenged. If these errors are taken as truth, this country risks abandoning a lot of hard-won progress on race. I care about my country and my people, and if getting the truth out means taking off the green eyeshade and speaking to the issues of the moment, then that’s what I’ve got to do.

McWhorter:

I'm fighting for the dignity of my people. I actually want racial equality, not a client patronage regime. Incompetent and mediocre black people get passed over and patted on the head instead of developed to their full human potential. Where criminals are looked askance at as they murder their own people in the scores, in the hundreds, on the streets of the cities of this country, and everybody pats them on the head and says, “No, no, no. You didn't do anything wrong. You're poor. You're marginal. And it's all about the police.”  So I'm fighting for the dignity of my people, because I don't think Americans, on the whole, are fools. I think they actually know what violent, criminal, savage behavior on the streets of America looks like. They know to fear it, and they know that the people who do it are beneath contempt. The fact that editorial writers at major newspapers are prepared to give them a pass doesn't mean that America is giving them a pass. The equality that I want is an equality of black people standing on our own two feet. 

So the reason I talk about race is because I'm not a fool.

To me, what McWhorter and Loury are saying seems completely obvious. How can a “client patronage regime” that won’t “submit black people to real challenges” and treats them like they “aren’t as bright” (McWhorter’s words) possibly be the right system to advance blacks to full equality? And yet that is exactly the path being followed with full unanimity by the progressives, with their black allies only too willing to go along.

We’re going to need a lot of other people joining Loury and McWhorter in speaking out on this subject before we can start to turn the disaster around.