John McWhorter
@JohnHMcWhorter
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Columbia linguist, weekly at NYT, biweekly Lexicon Valley podcast and Glenn Show. 9 NASTY WORDS and WOKE RACISM in 2022. Earlyish next year: PRONOUN TROUBLE!
Joined March 2013
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I'm "very conservative" like Clarence Thomas and Ben Carson? She has clearly read barely a word of my work. At least when I slammed her book I had read every word, and I maintain that White Fragility is literally the worst book ever written. It's so bad it's an achievement.
“I do not believe he speaks for the vast majority of black people.”
Race hustler Robin DiAngelo responds to
@JohnHMcWhorter
’s Atlantic article calling her out on the ridiculous Woke “white women’s tears” claim.
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Just back from taping Bill Maher. Methinks that ten minutes is going to make me a lot of friends and a lot of enemies. I had a blast.
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The tipping point is here. It'd really be good if Claudine Gay resigned now. The mere 11 papers was unseemly, but just maybe a university president doesn't need to be a top-class scholar. But the sheer volume of the plagiarism ON TOP OF THIS is a really bad look.
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In which academic discipline is this circular, naive, deer-caught-in-the-headlights response to a basic and urgent question considered insightful or excellent?
A national culture exempting this (which, sadly, is typical of him) from judgment is unintentionally racist itself.
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"Amen and A-woman" is a long-lived Southern/black preacher signature. Rep. Cleaver meant it as a kind of witticism. He doesn't think AMEN actually has the word MEN in it; he wasn't being hyper-anything.
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This, from someone with the formal credentials of an academic, is buzzwords and rhetoric in the guise of reasoned engagement.
The same McWhorter merry-go-round of denial. He offers readers an escape from the discomfort of antiracism for the pleasure of demeaning Black folk as they deny they are demeaning Black folk. McWhorter has reduced himself to a popular amusement ride. He's an embarrassment. 6/6
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Buttigieg is neither a liar nor a motherf-----r, despite that hideous attack on him the other day from The Root, and plenty of black people know it. I write here, for them.
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The notion that I have "racist" ideas - be that under any definition including those of the ever so intellectually nimble Dr. Kendi - merits no response, and this is the closest approximation to one that there will ever be.
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Overall, the social media universe must hear this. I am no longer a whipper-snapper. I am a jaded 55, and if you diss me where I can hear it, it's your ass. I will no longer be polite.
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Bravo to this honesty. Since May I have gotten almost an email a day from a professor who fears speaking out against the modern distortion of progressivism would get them fired.
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It pains me that this cheat sheet documents truth. The Elect don't think of their ideology in these words. But this is indeed what, and how, they think. We must understand this sheet in order to fully know that we are not evil to disagree with them, and in fact, MUST do so.
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This is so stupid it sounds like something from the Onion. Here is this witch-hunt mentality that supposedly isn’t a real problem, including for the 25 professors who wrote me in fear yesterday.
I cannot believe this is real, but it is.
This USC Professor is on leave after students were offended that a Chinese word he used during a lecture on foreign languages sounded like an english racial slur.
Watch the video for yourself:
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Kendi is under the impression that anyone who disagrees with him simply hasn't read him carefully. This makes him neither imperious nor a hustler, but naive. "Dr." Ibram is inadequately trained academically, and engaging him requires knowing this going in.
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You're Black and keep to yourself that it treats you like a toddler. You're non-Black and keep to yourself that it feels like racism in a new bottle. Time for truth on this dangerous little book. And many of you will guess which book I'm getting to next!
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Finished this book last night. Now to sell the damned thing. Prospective takers will worry that I sound angry in it. But I meant to.
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This takedown of the "decolonization" term should be required reading nationwide. Bravo, Simon Sebag Montefiore for exemplifying that we must be able to hold two (or more) thoughts at the same time, even amidst imbalances of power.
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I said I won't dignify Kendi calling me a racist - in terms of defending myself. But call me self-hating and I'm done with courtly. Here I get out what I think Kendi is. I am only saying what legions have noticed all year.
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An organization dedicated to linguistic analysis must punish a leading, brilliant scholar
@sapinker
because in the wake of George Floyd's murder, his politics aren't sufficiently leftist? Folks, it's time to stand this gospel down.
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And as we near 8 PM, I have heard from a good 25 professors and grad students TODAY who fear for their futures because of the current McCarthyism. Yes, my tweeting about it brought out an especial number, but claims I was lying last weekend are deep-sixed.
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Yes, folks - I have the honor starting next Tuesday. Twice a week. Sometimes race, sometimes language, and sometimes things a lot of you don't know I care about! Subscriber-only benefit, btw. See you next week!
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As always, "Professor" Kendi is dim.
But in the mind of McWhorter—like Trump and the White supremacists McWhorter claims to oppose—antiracist changes, ushering in racial equity and justice, will destroy our institutions, will destroy America. 8/9
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Pleased to announce that I will henceforth be a Contributing Editor at the
@TheAtlantic
. I like this.
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Everybody should listen to her. A model for the only way we can get past what The Elect are doing to education nationwide.
I spoke from my heart to the
@fcpsnews
school board. Watch board chair Ricardy Anderson rage at me. Didn’t she get the memo that watching the clock is “white supremacy”? She reveals the board’s true anti-Asian animus.
@ricardy4Mason
, YOUR time has expired.
#recallFCPS
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I second this. He said "Haitian mai-gr ..." as a slip of the tongue for "migrant," carrying "Haitian"'s "ay" sound into the following word. People do this in ordinary speech now and then. And no, I'm not "downplaying racism." We just need to look elsewhere for it than here.
I’ve known Rich for a long time. There is no chance that this was anything but a tongue tied moment. That word is alien to his character. Rich is a good man.
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Folks - my point was: if Kendi weren't black (yep, that's what I meant!) there are people who would hunt him down like a varmint for the mere "implications" of the way he imperfectly phrased his point. It just bears mentioning.
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I'm not at all surprised she wrote things like this. I've known black people like her my whole adult life. What's not right about our current moment is how many white people are now pretending to agree with her.
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Brilliant people may be bad spellers and even inarticulate. But there are things about Trump's sloppy tweets and diluted vocabulary usage that suggest qualities of thinking (or not) that suggest his unfitness for his office.
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Racism means pretending that because she’s the same color as George Floyd, Hannah-Jones must be judged as “misunderstood.” The condescension to her and all black people is revolting. I celebrate the pushback emerging against the Awokening’s excesses.
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Robin DiAngelo Plagiarized Minority Scholars, Complaint Alleges
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A claim that a test is biased must answer this simple question: What is biased about the test's questions? Not about who composed it, or for what reasons. It's time to stop pretending that's an unreasonable (or racist) expectation.
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I approve this message!
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There are indeed degrees of plagiarism. What we're seeing is just how *ordinary* a scholar Gay has been. Her main commitment has never been to research and writing. It's a kind of "let's just get on with it" text-grabbing typical of ...
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And to those who smugly tweet that only white people agree with me, have you actually looked at who my followers are? Stop dissing so many utterly authentic black people. Now.
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The tragedy is that he actually thinks he has "historicized" - via facile comparisons, btw - and "defined" [??] ideas he clearly hasn't actually processed. He again demonstrates my point, it stands, and I'm finished with this.
@JohnHMcWhorter
I hope people read your writings degrading Black people, blaming Black racial attitudes for inequity and claiming racism is no longer a serious problem—and then my historicizing & defining your ideas. Readers will assess whether my work—or your ideas—are sloppy and fantastical.
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If anyone wants to see the whole 10-minute version of my Maher stint, look here. Such a good time!
via
@YouTube
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Black kids shouldn't have to learn math because it's too exact and too hard and Because Racism. Advanced thought or bigotry? (And yes, serious people are pretending there's some question ...)
@JohnHMcWhorter
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I rarely put things like this on Twitter, but given the rampant dehumanization on it, I'm throwing on this passing moment in my real life recorded in stealth by my older daughter. We'd been doing Looney Tunes, a home obsession.
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For those who are waiting for it, my book on the problem with wokeness is now 2/3 done. I will submit the first draft by Columbus Day at the latest. The news week by week basically writes the book by itself.
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Every fucking line of this is must-reading on the attempt to defenestrate
@sapinker
. Decide for yourself about the erudite demons at the gates.
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Wokeness is just "something in a few private schools" or "bad people being called to account"? This black leftist's story is an invaluable portrait of why people like me have written books about this scourge infecting our thinking culture.
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@cvaldary
@DrIbram
@darth_leveon
@MD_Ed_Memes
What’s racist is pretending an observation like that is deep thought, especially given its originator’s apparent idea that it’s actually self-evident rather than simplistic, and that to disagree with it is a form of racism ...
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The people who got Donald McNeil fired from the NYT think they are exhibiting strength. I suppose they did, but on the pain of making black people look fragile and unintelligent. A fine way to celebrate Black History Month!
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I want this on the record. I meant it. Detractors who tell me it's off or oversimplified? It isn't. They just don't want their bullying, anti-logical take on human history aired for all to see. EQUITY is EQUALITY forced via a hard-left and unreflective lens.
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This morning on Morning Joe with Michael Eric Dyson. I said exactly what I wanted to, which one does not always quite get to on such shows, which is why I tend to avoid them. But there are urgencies these days.
via
@msnbc
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Whew! Because of the Atlantic article today, I am now getting another flood of missives from academics deeply afraid. Folks, I hear you but the volume outstrips my ability to write back. Please know I am reading all of them eventually, and they all make me think.
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Meanwhile, the implication will be that this kind of mediocrity and sloppiness is somehow okay for black scholars, that the symbolism of our blackness, our "diverseness," is what matters most about us. I am unclear where the black pride (or antiracism) is in this.
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Keeping this going because HER. Stay silent about me and you'll hear nothing from me. Call me out and it's on. I have on good authority that she has said she's the Neil DeGrasse Tyson to my astrologer. Ah, yes! Discuss ...
I'm "very conservative" like Clarence Thomas and Ben Carson? She has clearly read barely a word of my work. At least when I slammed her book I had read every word, and I maintain that White Fragility is literally the worst book ever written. It's so bad it's an achievement.
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Preach, preach, preach, Chloe. Imagine if the people in this photo were sitting around talking about "complicitness" and "intersectionality" as if doing that was what activism was. Note that they were, well, engaging in actual activism. AND IT WORKED!
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Behold in my feed - Elects uncomfortable with their views spelled out in cold print. Don't be scared by their confident sneers. Note: they feel caricatured when depicted in few words - but lustily depict their detractors in few words (w GIFs) and call it truth. They aren't deep.
It pains me that this cheat sheet documents truth. The Elect don't think of their ideology in these words. But this is indeed what, and how, they think. We must understand this sheet in order to fully know that we are not evil to disagree with them, and in fact, MUST do so.
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A certain crowd think the “Trader Jose”/“Trader Ming”/“Thai Joe” line of products is not a little joke but, well, you know. Trader Joe’s has refused to receive that opinion as a Commandment. Bravo - we need more of this.
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A student at the Dwight-Englewood school (which all parents should be ditching) has written in support of the whistleblowing resignation by
@dstangelplowe
. And the student notes he is hardly alone.
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This. I don’t which is more disgusting, Jessica Krug (the new Rachel Dolezal) or this episode. No parents should send their kids to this school for ten years.
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Behold an antiracism that is about real things and real thinking, about humanity as it actually is. Chloe is what it should be.
A profile of Chloé Valdary ("Looking for an antiracism program that actually fights bigotry instead of spreading it?" her company asks.)
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Assess the ideas of
@DrIbram
not based on what someone else says, or his appearance (sorry, but these things matter). Hear and assess his logic, and PLEASE get past the idea that if the person is black you should let dummy logic pass.
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The outcry over this one sentence was seriously overblown. I doubt most people bothered to look at the whole document. I am mystified by anyone who did, and yet came away thinking of the document as a scourge and a menace.
Based on coverage of a single, flawed passage in Florida’s slavery curriculum, writes
@JohnHMcWhorter
, “one might suppose that it was a central plank in the curriculum. Instead, it was but one passage amid hundreds of others.”
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The sad thing is that this is barely a cartoon.
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This is where we are. The idea that stories like Shaw's are one-off eccentricities is past its sell-by date, as is the idea that this kind of thing is "social justice." Something is tragically wrong at way too many colleges and universities.
Everyone knows something wrong is happening in liberal America. Few want to say so out loud. But the hour is very late. It calls for courage. Courage has come in the form of Jodi Shaw, who today resigns from Smith College. Proud to publish her letter:
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Whites beating themselves up about how racist they are “deep down” is unnecessary to forging change. Too many now see it as normal. Protest? Bring it. Performance art? Wouldn’t the energy have been better spent getting out votes and lobbying legislators?
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Beto saying "fucked up" isn't profane because f--- is no longer profane in any sense an anthropologist would recognize. It's just salty -- and honest, and sometimes le mot juste. Slurs are our modern profanity, not sex and body words.
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But - Harvard won't dismiss her, out of fear of being called racist (and, I suspect, out of a quiet sense that it's racist to expect the best from black people ...?). Prof. Gay should do the right thing for Harvard, herself, and black America and step down.
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What is happening to Paul Rossi is an indication of the mendacity behind this purported "antiracism" infecting the curricula of schools across the country. Here's hoping at least some teachers, students, or parents at Grace Church can join him in his honesty.
Paul Rossi stood up to neo-racism at Grace Church School. But the school doesn’t see it that way. The school “relieved him of his teaching duties” and claims he now threatens the "well-being" of students. We stand firmly behind Paul. Here’s his response:
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Stop pretending about Ibram Kendi. You are not alone in finding his ideas primitive. Go with it and walk on. Maybe even tell your friends you don't get the hype. You'll likely find that they never did either!
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Black kids were at Stuyvesant in very decent numbers in the 90s, when racism was much worse in all ways. What happened was gifted programs in public schools were shut down because they had too many white kids in them.
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My current take on cop killings and race - there is much we simply aren't told. via
@Quillette
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This is key. Whatever you call it, there is a KendiAngelonian strain in educational circles these days nationwide, and it needs either defense or elimination. But coyly insisting that "CRT," specifically, isn't being taught won't cut it.
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This nails him. He used to call me sometimes. We’d talk drunk. More, I’d listen to him drunk. He was authentically black by any standard and yet refused to settle for noble victim status. His work helped spark mine. He was, well, the shit.
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I am one of the signers. To promote genuine social justice, there needs to be a sincere apology about this to many people.
BREAKING. 1776 Unites, our Scholars group, and over 40 Black leaders are calling on
@smithcollege
to apologize to its service workers!
Smith has sacrificed its lifetime workers under the banner of "anti-racism."
Please RT!
#1776Unites
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We are at a peculiar sociohistorical stage, where someone could think being black and jumped by white thugs makes them more interesting than being a star on a hit TV show. And sadly he’s right. (Did he not lie? I’m open, but ...)
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Some told me Sunday that I was lying that an academic writes me almost daily fearing for their occupational safety. Hm. Got one Monday, woke up to one this morning, heard from a grad student yesterday. And we're only halfway thru the week!
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I wrote this a few years ago, but it's directly relevant to how we process the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd. America has a major cop problem indeed. But how race intersects with that is not as simple as we are told.
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"Lived experience" people aren't grifters. They think they have found the gospel. Our job is to tell them we know they haven't - and be ready for them to depict us as heretics on social media when we do. Hunker down. Or we return to the Dark Ages' version of serious thought.
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Go Coleman. And then go some more. This is key material.
Here's an excerpt from my latest solo episode and an update from my offer to have Ibram X. Kendi on my podcast. This will be available tomorrow for my members. If you'd like to gain full access to this episode, consider becoming a member via
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A masterpiece from
@bariweiss
. In future anthologies of articles on the Great Awokening, this will always be near the front. Learn here about The Elect's takeover, assuming they are bringing Good News and happy to make people cry while doing it.
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Thomas Sowell's mind and work ought be much better known. It is splendid that
@cliftonaduncan
is creating a one-man show about him. He needs our help. Click here.
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Want to know what to read about racism other than the fashionable wokeness hymnals? This book is now two years old and remains a must-read. Central pillars of woke wisdom are precisely what psychologists teach people OUT OF to function as healthy adults.
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Some will recall me called a liar for saying academics write me constantly in fear of The Elect scotching their careers. Here’s a report on that supposed extended hallucination on my part - and why, yes, what these academics are dealing with does matter.
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This all ACTUALLY HAPPENED. Note the sense among The Elect here that their view is beyond discussion. 2000 years ago: the birth of Christianity. Today: the birth of a new religion. It's all here.
@conor64
writes:
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I have often written that we simply never hear about whites killed by cops in the same ways as blacks. But I've never quite known of a parallel to one case: what happened to Tamir Rice - till now.
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When "Black" has appeared in my pieces, the editors put it in. My drafts didn't have it.
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This is about half of my talk with Maher yesterday. I'll post a full version soon.
via
@YouTube
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Anticipating: has Sowell gotten every single thing right? Of course not. But overall, he is infinitely wise, a font of crucial data and conclusions. Smackdown: His detractors have no problem celebrating their leftist heroes as gods despite cracks in the plaster.
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Law prof Jason Kilborn - banned from the UIC campus for having "n*****" on an exam about employment discrimination (!) - tells me that his inquisitors have restored him to polite society. It was because normal people shouted to the heavens. KEEP IT GOING!
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All of this. As of this week, I will no longer have to stress that modern antiracism is not LIKE a religion but IS one. The parishioners are now not even pretending.
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Jason Kilborn, law professor, had his classes cancelled, is barred from campus and is on admin leave - for using the N and B words in EXPURGATED form on an exam. This isn't social justice. It's punitive piety capitulated to by cowards.
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@DrIbram
You are wrong, Ibram. Your notion that I consider black people inferior is based on a grievously sloppy and even fantastical reading of my work. If you're proud of that, it only reinforces my observation of this morning.
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Tomorrow morning.
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Quibbling over degree and awareness of plagiarism has its place, but at THIS point how can she hold her head high on a campus where students are allowed no such quibbles? It makes Harvard look even worse than it already does.
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A key statement for our times, which I signed. Debate, even caustic, is great. The new fashion for cleansing is not, as enlightened as it seems to so many.
A statement signed by 150 people incl. Bill T. Jones, Wynton Marsalis, Jennifer Finney Boylan, Noam Chomsky, J.K. Rowling, Margaret Atwood, and Salman Rushdie expresses concern over the illiberal trend intensified by our national reckoning.
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Folks, I sense I need to specify two things. 1) When I said I would take on anyone who dissed me, I meant people who did so in public forums where "the world" listens. I did not mean that I would address every person who writes me nastily on Twitter.
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This. The simple question is: after these people savor giving the middle finger to dead people and showing one another that they're doing it, whose life, whose suffering has been improved in any meaningful way?
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My review of Coleman Hughes' book on colorblindness. God, if I had only known half as much as Coleman does now when I was his age.
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We should all see this. Did Chauvin murder George Floyd? A documentary is skeptical, and all should watch it. But evidence beyond it must be considered as well. This is one of the five or so most important conversations Glenn and I have had since 2007. Where do you stand?
This week at TGS
@JohnHMcWhorter
and I speak with the filmmakers of the new documentary, "The Fall of Minneapolis" (on the death of George Floyd and its aftermath). Here's they state the heart of their case.
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If Dolezal and Krug eagerly took on oppression by proxy, they are indications of progress on race despite the setbacks. If being black really were the daily degradation we are often told, these two would have chosen other ways of performing their lives.
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I explore the fine line between being "woke" about racism and indulging in a kind of replacement Christianity complete with original sin, an Old Testament God and judgement day. Too much of the latter since about 2014. via
@aminterest
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Folks - my tweets about Kendi yesterday were too much. I shouldn't have gone there. Sincere apologies.
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