It's so refreshing to hear these two remarkable gentlemen. Perhaps Mr. Kendi can be invited to have a respectfully and thoughtful conversation with them in good faith.
How in the world can anyone in the right mind entertain that a test is racist simply because of the disparities in results? How can any serious thinker take this seriously?
@@tinytanks agreed lol. my parents are going on 80 and are just as zippy as brother Glenn. My uncle is 85 and hasn’t skipped a beat with his career lol. His wife is 80, looks like she’s 60 and still rises early and commute to open her store and run her business. Brother Glenn is a young’n lol.
It’s truly sad that this conversation is not more broadly popular. Both John and Glen have an uncanny ability to take complex ideas and break them down into simple explanations uninformed examples and anecdotes. Simply marvelous!
There are THOUSANDS of talks like this or better. Unfortunately, only libertarians and conservatives watch them. All left and liberals watch Ibram X Kendi channels.
These guys are just awesome. They probably disagree on about as much as any two random people but they speak rationally and listen to each other. I wish more people could do that.
What I love about listening to Glen is he seamlessly goes back and forth from speaking very emotively to very analytically and when he speaks emotively it never betrays his analytical mind or his intelligence which often is not the case often emotion dulls the language and nuance.
Great point! IMO, it seems rare indeed to find someone these days who can carry strong emotion along with careful analysis and intellectual articulation. Glen IS a good example of such a rare breed. Jordan Peterson is another one.
Haha...the story tells about his friend Woody playing basketball reminds me of myself. All I wanted to do was play basketball when I was a kid, and when I played with a group of black guys I was always picked last. Glenn & John are right though. It lit a fire under me to play and practice harder and it was a sweet feeling when they realized that I could actually play. "Dayuuum...white boy can ball". I wore the term "white boy" like a badge of honor. Plus, you get to talk shit when you score on them. I would say "you gonna let a white boy score on you like that?" lol.
Playing basketball with "the Brothers" was a kind of Rite of Initiation for a lighter-skinned young man like myself. Taught me how to talk trash, not take sh*t from guys trying to outmuscle me, and to work on my game. All good, but I never liked any of them referring to me as Larry Bird. Is that all you got? LMAO. I didn't move like Larry, shoot like Larry, look like Larry, but given that Bird was one of the best ever in the pro ranks, it wasn't too bad of a nickname-reference. What offended me was the embarrassing LACK of creativity in just saying "Bird"! LoL. I mean, I played with glasses at times, so when one black guy referred to me as "Rambis", well, now THAT was creative and more accurate. Pick-up basketball across America has a rich sub-cultural history to it. Aside from a few bad experiences, I wish I could enjoy it 'til the day I die except for a bad injury that ended my "career". P.S. - A formative book in m younger years, a CLASSIC, was "The In-Your-Face Basketball Book". Give it a look.
@@machtnichtsseimann Haha...I was either called Jason Williams aka "White Chocolate" or The Professor from the And1 crew. Good times. That book looks interesting. I'll have to check it out
@@machtnichtsseimann That was a great book! It had all the local runs and what kind of players played there based on little shoe icons; you needed to know who you were dealing with because you didn't want to show up to the wrong level run and not be able to handle it. In college I wrote a paper comparing pick-up basketball to drop-in improvisational jazz and got a B (which was pretty good for me). Growing up in the DC metro, you had to be able to handle the brothers if you wanted any respect, but when you earned it, it was glorious.
Another great video. Kendi, and others like him, feel no need to explain how something is racist. The people inclined to agree with him, and that's who he is talking to, will simply nod along. When someone questions them, they just shut down or scream "racist!!" or use whatever other method is available to them.
I wish these guys were bigger stars and were quoted, and talked about more online, in the news, on Twitter, by influencers and talk show hosts, etc. They're just so sharp and logical. They articulate points so precisely, and always connect them perfectly to real-world situations. Really love their discussions and always mention them to anybody who will listen.
It's so surprising. 6 months ago I stumbled upon this channel trying to make sense of the current woke movement, BLM, and generally the racial narratives abroad right now. I generally listen to more religious intellectuals and some JBP, but have found myself for like 6 months now listening to Glen and John A TON! Such good conversation. You guys are awesome. Thanks for being willing to speak up, risk your own skin, and share your wisdom.
Same reason I started watching! However I did begin with Thomas Sowell, who has written many books and has many podcasts! However, he does not do anymore interviews! He’s retired!! Glen and John are intellectually awesome too! They deal more with today’s issues, and Thomas Sowell was history and economics, and more!
It's a disgrace that someone with so little capacity for open dialogue, so little desire to learn, so little respect for the opinions of others, and so little integrity holds a Mellon Professorship in the Humanities.
Oh but of course, the Humanities and humanistic values are racist. He bags the paycheck every month but I am sure he despises the whole institution of the university.
My gawd, I love these two men so much. Always look forward to their eye- opening conversations warm-hearted conversations ❣️ And Happy Birthday, Prof Loury!🍷❣️
I wrote a social commentary for our local paper entitled the 13% myth which was rejected. I would love to send it to Glenn or John for a critique regarding what is wrong with the piece.
We're a Mexican-American family. My son enjoyed taking the standardized test as an elementary student. He was just awarded the National Hispanic Achievement Award for his PSAT score last year. He took the SAT and scored a 1270 in the middle of his junior year. For me the scores have told me how good his teachers were the year before. The year he had a teacher that made them read 30 minutes a night his scores jumped in that area the next testing period. As a high schooler he has commented on how he forgot math taken the year before last. I was an average student and in part because I was busy with my social life. I do not believe the tests are racists.
Congratulations on your son. I keep telling myself I should volunteer to help kids (preferably one-on-one) read because I know how important it is and I love reading. I can read and understand what I'm reading in 5 languages including Spanish. I taught English as a second language for many years then substitute taught for many more years. I stopped doing that when covid came. I've been telling myself I need to find a way to work with kids and their reading. So, I'l go there; I'm a black American. I did notice while subbing that the students did have to read for at least one of their class for at least 20 minutes before the regular classes started.
@@victorbrown8389 I feel reading is so important for our students. Unfortunately, I've seen many parents complain if their kids had to read more than 15-20 minutes a night. It sounds like you can help many students find a love for reading. It is desperately needed!
I'm an art guy who was always bad at math. It was never interesting to me. Though Glenn makes it more interesting-I'd still do badly on the test, my skin color would not give me any advantage. There is a temptation to be a sophist which is "anything I'm not good at must have no value or even be evil."
Thirty minutes a day is a start, but more is better. My parents had an antiquarian book business and refused to allow a TV in the house. Small, weak and uncoordinated, I'd spend the day reading, hour after hour, some non-school days over 10 hrs. In the summer when my parents sent me out to play, I'd take a book with me to read outside. I'd tell my teachers I'd finished the school books when the class was on chapter 2 or 3 and ask for new ones. Although I do like math, I am not very good at it or particularly smart. But all that reading led to my skipping 3rd and 7th grades and to the Ivy League. Don't think TV let alone social media on a smart phone are too helpful.
@@Google_Censored_Commenter Exactly, he has nothing to gain and everything to lose. No one on the 'progressive' side of politics would dare challenge him, and he's unlikely to expand his flock, so why risk the status quo? It's cynically sound strategy.
@Davis Griffin he hasnt even debated it w/ a person of my intellect, pffft let alone anyone like Glenn or John. To borrow a line from John, the tests arent inquiring what wine goes w/ chicken.
I was raised by a single mother who didn’t have many financial resources or helpful connections, to say the least. But she valued books and promoted reading from very early. My mom, my sister and I went to local public libraries. She even got a job at a local library to be close to us when we were in school. We were read to a lot as kids and there were always books around. As a kid in middle school, I could pick up any of her old paperbacks. To my surprise, some of that adult literature and some of the volumes of adult history I found at the library weren’t so dense or abstruse and many were quite accessible. My mom had a BA from a solid state school. She didn’t and couldn’t spend money on a lot of special programs for us. As young kids, both my sister and I received interest from a local private school but there was no chance we could come close to affording that, even with scholarships. She sacrificed much else to ensure we lived, near the bottom of the pile in resources, in a good suburban school district where we were exposed to plenty of bright kids who loved learning. While being around so many thriving, professional, two-parent families (who did know people and knew how to use those connections) sometimes hurt and made me feel less-than, I knew even at the time I was fortunate to be in a mostly quite safe physical environment and a school system where kids generally wanted to learn and their parents expected them to try. There were plenty of things from our early upbringing to be anxious about or even traumatized by - people today call it CPTSD. But this was a great example of a single parent with very little money and without much help, doing her best on that very limited budget to encourage us to gain a love of language and ideas and learning. That, on top of whatever innate ability we might have had, is why we were able to generally do fine and often even excel among kids from generally much more privileged backgrounds who had twice the parenting input and resources we did. Thanks, mom.
What a fantastic story. I've been in education for 30 years and have seen this play put many times. Oh, if this were only more widespread in urban black and rural white culture - it would do more than just about anything else to fix our nation (along with far fewer single-parent homes which, although you did well thanks to your particular upbringing, is the leading correlation with negative outcomes for kids on average). But kudos to you and I wish you all the best - you've earned it!
Very telling how, in the thread in question, IXK explicitly refuses to engage w McWhorter, directing him instead to Kendi’s written works. This dodge is, I’ve learned, also an avowed tactic among Marxists. It’s nothing but obfuscation and the lack of the ability properly to defend one’s ideas, and it’s more than a little silly that anyone buys it. They’ve even developed a pejorative for people (like this community, presumably) who ask for reason, citations, and defense against rebuttal: when we do that, we are “sea-lioning.” Sigh. I mean, [sea lion call].
The problem is the tactic is allowed. Thomas Sowell has been smashing leftist arguments for his whole career and the leftists still make the same bad arguments.
25:28 It can be argued that structural forces created the cultural differences, and they certainly help shape them, but that ignores the high degree of randomness in how cultures develop within a given structure, as well as the path dependencies of that process, especially in a country of immigrants like the US. Cultures are not just actively 'imposed' on groups by society at large. There is also an element of reflexivity: Perhaps basketball courts just happened to be frequently built in inner city neighborhoods where blacks disproportionately lived (for very structural reasons) because it is a low cost sport that doesn't require a lot of space, and this led to lots of black kids playing basketball, which in turn led to their overrepresentation in the NBA. But now it is a part of the culture, it is highly valued, which surely makes the kids *want* basketball courts to be built in their neighborhoods. Should we deny them the agency of deciding what sport to play because the origins of this wish are tangentially related to structural racism? Should we build more basketball courts in orthodox jewish neighborhoods to try to achieve more equitable outcomes in the NBA? Is the ultimate goal of the identitarians that all cultures are identical? How does that square with their advocacy for diversity? I am as befuddled by the argument as Glenn.
Also, there is this surprisingly liberal (small "l") thing under the surface of Kendi's arguments - and yes, I've read them - that goes like this: if left free to develop without any coercion or problematic power dynamics, we'd all sort of develop the same way. Since we don't - since black folks developed an attachment to basketball and white folks to baseball, or whatever - that shows that some problematic forces must have been at play that artificially steered these groups in different directions. Now, to Kendi's point, there SURELY needs to be emphasis on all the ways legal, political, and social forces in the US DID steer black and white differently, often quite deliberately. There is a reason just about every place in the US has a "black part of town" that is distinct from the other parts and usually economically less advantaged. There is a Kendi-friendly story to be told there, and Kendi is right to want to tell it. BUT, as you say, there is also a lot of contingency in cultures and how they develop, just as there are in dialects and how they develop. Even if cultures had pretty equal cultural power and there were no problematic laws/policies keeping them separate, only someone committed to an odd cosmopolitanism - and surprisingly, this is Kendi - would say that we'd all develop in such a similar way that no disparities would emerge between cultures.
Football and baseball have a strong black contingent as well. Some say the reason black people are not often professional hockey players is they can't afford pads. But this is not a problem for black people playing football in the NFL which also requires pads. Preferring sports that are not cold seems a reasonable choice which has nothing to do with oppression. Unless one imagines that the cold weather is racist because some groups would rather be warm. And so there's an unequal outcome.
John, you are utterly fantastic. EVERY word is utterly sensible and logical. Keep arguing this and asking why disparities exist…unbelievable you have to defend that approach!
Currently sitting here watching this in a Seattle lodge restaurant and the college age, Caribbean waitresses (majoring in anthropology) asks me if I'm listening to something good. I tell her that I'm listening to an economist and a linguist. I ask her if she has any podcast recommendations...she said she recommends audio books by a guy named "McWhorter"...haha. Small world. Now I've turned her on to Glenn Loury and this show. There is hope yet.
Glenn beautifully describes the source of asymmetric representation of groups for any particular arena in a single sentence in this video. He says: "I think the groups differ in their cultures that orients their people towards spending their limited time developing different aspects of their human potential, which is then reflected in their performance in these different venues." The man is just having a conversation and he's better reasoned in a moment than most of us could be after hours of thought. He's one of the great minds of our time.
I'm back after a long absence as I'm very much looking forward to this topic and John's relationship if I can call it that with Kendi. That being said I'm a black vegetarian who grew up on meat and potatoes, not on soul / southern food. I like some of it and I don't like some of it. However, the point I want to make is Glenn's weight. I like Glenn (don't always agree with him) and I hope we can have him around for a long time. Yet when I get good views of him in some of his videos I'm a bit preoccupied. Dare I ask it? Glenn, are you taking care of your weight, exercising? Age plus too much weight are not good combinations. Every now and then I get a hip pain that lasts a few days then I'm fine until the next bout. Glenn has me thinking that maybe I have a bursitis problem. I'm gonna look into that. Now, onto watching the video. Oh sorry, Happy birthday Glenn, many more to come I hope. Finally, I don't think I've ever seen john with such a huge facial expression as he had when Glenn mentioned black eyed peas not to even mention his dropping of an F bomb.
I wonder at times if Glenn believes in any genetic contribution whatsoever in any context. You really thik the NBA has no genetic component to it? It is ALL cultural? Part of it might be but the idea that genes do not contribute to athletic performance is frankly absurd.
There may also be an explanation of lower black performance on social work exams that is similar to the "mismatch" hypothesis of college admissions. Having taken a free practice social work test after watching this (without any study or preparation--I got 3/10 right), I doubt that linguistic heritage has much impact on performance. The questions are phrased in relatively common language ,and any normally competent code-switcher wouldn't have.a problem. But....the pool of black test takers may be significantly biased down because those who are good enough at taking such tests are employed in more lucrative industries/professions due to racial preferences.
I'm not so much in agreement with John when he says some people believe that all cultural traits are good unless you're white. I'm black and I l consume a fair amount of so called black radio, news, media, etc. The hosts are black, the music if there is tends to be black, the callers are black, etc and I do not find it rare at all for some of these blacks to denigrate certain aspects of black culture by black people. They don't like some things about black culture so no, they don't have a 100% belief that everything to do with black culture is positive and or better. At the same time comments are made about what blacks perceive as negative aspects of white culture, but even that is not 100% negative. I hear blacks mention things they admire about white culture. I actually wish these guys would define what they mean by culture. Years ago I was listening to a lecture by a man from The Great Courses company for which John has some highly rated lectures. I forget the expertise of this man, but I think he was a linguist and he defined culture, and to remember his definition I made up an acronym. Now this man's definition is not the definitive definition of culture but I do use it as kind of a guide as to what culture may and may not consist of. The acronym I use is BBCTV from beliefs, behavior, customs, traditions and values. Remembering BBCTV has served me well over the years.
These guys need to travel to Africa, India, etc, so they can see the holes in their argument. The classroom should prepare students to face standardized testing, not society or parents at home. In Africa, parents know nothing about their child's education. They don't even speak English at home or in the community yet, these students outperform their black counterparts who grew up overseas. And the conditions in African schools aren't even ideal for normal education. Some students learn under trees, or walk like 10 miles each way to get to school without any food, but those teachers deliver quality with the little resources they have. I know it's hard to believe but human vices get in the way in the US. I had never seen such organized forces of jealous until I got to America. And this is not exclusive to white people, minority groups too sabotage each other. This is what needs to be addressed in the US, collective negative attitudes of people who hate to see others succeed. Also, there's this social engineering where people feel the need to control outcomes. In other words, people have to be free first before society could see fair outcomes.
36:11 I wish this was something white and black men were more willing to relate to each other on. I see it all the time that they both describe feeling this way for different reasons in their respective environments. But this was a very eloquent way to summarize what a person may feel as a black man that invites others to participate and show mutual respect and empathy.
There's two sides to the blacks and athletics argument. Yes, it's part of the culture but it's also the only avenue that honors true meritocracy. There's little or no barriers to blacks who want to pursue a career in entertainment or sports.
Is it really surprising that when you lower academic quality at the University's front door (because -"racism").......that you also have to lower or eliminate test scores at the end of the curriculum? BTW this follows all the way through every field and into employment. you obvioously have to lower or eliminate job testing.....then you have to give bonuses to those who who woul otherwise not merit bonuses becasue if the "numbers" of bonuses are not proportional to the national percentage of race, well that's ...more evidence of racism......likewise, promotions have to be meeted out to those who would otherwise not deserve them or the disparity in promotions would be evidence of racism.......“O what a tangled web we weave, When first we practise to deceive!’....of course my using a Sir Walter Scott 's epic poem Marmion ( 1808 ) quote to highlight the situation obviously marks me as a..........wait for it....................wait for it........racist!
Glenn first wrote about the Woody story in 1992 if anyone cares to read more detail. Woody's story makes me think about most of the civil rights activists in history, those who still have name recognition like Angela Davis in particular, and that they are very light skinned. When I worked for the Black periodical we did a cover about the current crop of black activists, all celebrities, and so light skinned including blue eyes it would be difficult to convince people they're black. Think of Megan Merkel. These people can trace black roots, yet they are far from them, still they need to prove they are black by becoming civil rights activists. But why? In Woody's day perhaps this was more of a psychological need to fit in; now it seems that victimhood is a status symbol. Year's later, however, nothing's really changed. Lght skinned people are still in charge. And it's reached such a bizarre cultural level that actual white people now can claim identification as black. They change their hair and name--just like Kendi--and we're being expected to accept them as civil rights champions. Meanwhile, the bulk of working class blacks get pushed further back by these so-called activists as they appropriate another group's identity.
I argued with Kendi in the margins of How to be an Antiracist. He set himself up as Grand Poo-Bah of Antiracism by creating a structure, making the rules, and placing those who question them in danger of being labeled "racist". After all, calling attention to culture does not further equity among the races, Next question. Move along now.
at @32 min: this is the experience of many rural folks in elite academic/cultural schools, meetings, workplaces: we cannot afford to waste our time and emotional energy by being 'indignant' at being stereotyped (sometimes racialized?) as INFERIOR intellectually, morally, and aesthetically. Transferring to a elite NE school for rural working class Virginia I would often be stereotyped for my accent and pronunciations. But my insights in classes were second-to-none. And when elite-secondary-school educated, world-travelled, culturally sophisticated students read the professors' comments on my papers ... I had nothing to prove anymore with them. And it became a pleasure to swing some rural Southern accents and vocabulary at them.
74? My friend has told me that, "Black don't crack," now I know what he means. I hope I am doing as well as you are when I am in my 70s. Happy belated birthday Glenn, thanks for you and all you're interesting content.
I love watching you Glenn, but I would love it more if you stopped eating dinners like you described lol. I want you here with us as long as possible. Once you get past the age demographics with homicide as the leading cause of death for black men diet related health conditions takes over as the leading cause. Love all your perspectives. Wish more people would engage with your content
On my first day as a freshman at Rutgers I participated in a game of Trivial Pursuit as did John, who was a senior living in the same dorm. And he kicked butt. The Stanford guys chose extremely poorly.
Another great episode, thank you both. Regarding testing, the value of any test is how well the test scores correlate with the thing you actually care about. For example, SAT scores are highly correlated with subsequent success in college. That is why they are useful. Furthermore, we know the SAT is not biased because black kids and white kids with the same score achieve (on average) the same level of success in college. In other words, whatever factors cause one group to get higher scores will also result in the same group being more successful in college.
Your friend Glenn whom you didn't stand up for was a BIG GOOD man . I think that it's good and brave of you to admit your not standing by your fine friend ...
Happy birthday Mr. Glenn. For me the peach cobbler sounds fantastic. Been so long. What no whisky? Lol. Glad your health scare turned out. You and John are two of my favorites utubers, together contrast is fun as well as what you agree on. Not and Ibram X fan by a long shot, but he's unavoidable. Oops. Just realized I watched this show partially before. May have double dipped on comments.
As a white guy, I'd like to say that spelling bees ARE racist. And ever since Jason Seehorn retired from the NFL, football is, too. Don't even get me started on Blues and Jazz.
Blaq children are traditionally held back to allow the slower whytes to come through. For most of my young life I simply assumed that whytes were inherently stupid. Not true, but I have NEVER met a whyte of my intellectual level. The thought is ridiculous.
On the subject of, "being the hero..." One of the more annoying sign of these times is to declare what isn't particularly heroic as heroic. People won't take risks with their words or actions by doing either in a potentially hostile situation. I started calling it, "safe space protesting." I also think that the defining characteristic of the American Left and the American Right is when a person is confronted with adversity, the left tends to think that the responsibility is with society to vanquish the adversity while the right sees it as part of personal responsibility to fix the problem.
Glenn knows better than to assert that there is 0 genetic component to who gets picked for athletic teams. And he should know better than to even assert it for mental competitions.
Dr. Loury’s account of an experience with his childhood friend Woodward “Woody” Jordan Sr. tugged at my heart. It is an honor and a delight to witness the thoughtful, unflinching discussions Dr. Loury and Professor McWhorter generously share with the public.
Dayyym . McWhorter is wilding. Out here in these streets calling out Ibram by his government name. New Yorkers do not mess around especially when going up against Boston clowns. . GO YANKEES !!!
