To help Black people, focus on policy

 Author John McWhorter recently published this  article, which appeared in The Economist.  McWhorter, who is Black, is a professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University, and the author of more than a dozen books. His specialty is linguistics, however he has also written extensively on race relations. He makes the case that the anti-racist movement, as it is being interpreted, harms black people .

From the article:

"As popularised, this framework, previously little known outside of academia, makes fighting perceived power differentials the paramount commitment of intellectual, moral and even artistic endeavor. It deems unquestionable claims of racism from non-whites, out of an idea that they speak from a group-wide and existentially defining experience of oppression by an all-powerful “whiteness”. Many proponents of critical race theory include, as aspects of oppressive whiteness, such things as objectivity, punctuality and clear writing."

"Critical race theory has become a religious movement in all but name, in which white privilege is original sin, the blasphemous is “problematic”, and transgressors are banished from the public sphere just as heretics were in medieval Europe. The people wielding this ideology genuinely believe that they represent reason and morality in flower. But for a movement purportedly intended to improve the lives of the disadvantaged, its proponents are incongruously obsessed with mere cultural policing."

"...The naive observer would be shocked at how thin the undergirdings of this sea change have been. For example, given their massive sales numbers and near-Biblical status among fans, the two principal testaments of this religion are stunningly underwhelming works. Robin DiAngelo’s “White Fragility” is a tinny extended pamphlet replete with circular reasoning. Ibram X. Kendi’s “How to Be an Antiracist” is founded on dichotomous aphorisms typical of the street preacher, its facile and slipshod reasoning rendering Coleman Hughes’s book review title “How to Be an Anti-Intellectual” sadly accurate.

"...Sadly, the new antiracism leaves us with yet something else we must overcome. The notion that what black America needs is a vast, unprecedented and ultimately impossible transformation of white psychology is an idle distraction from how justice actually proceeds."

"Instead, people who genuinely want to improve the lot of black America should focus on policy. Legalising drugs, for instance, would end the black market, and save countless young black men from police encounters that send them to prison. They would instead seek legal work—which we know because they did in the past. A public-school system more sensitive to different backgrounds and learning styles would ensure that children who happen to not come from middle-class backgrounds and book-lined homes aren’t left behind when it comes to literacy."

"Lavishly supporting vocational education, and ceasing the nonsensical insistence that a four-year university degree is the only route to secure adulthood, would provide underserved young people, both black and white, with solid middle-class incomes after just a few years of training. Advocating for these policies may not provide the same thrill as shouting down lexical transgressors and proselytising the antiracist gospel. But it will do a lot more good for a lot more people."

A couple of personal observations about so-called critical race theory.  Much has been said about it being an academic construct which has been around for decades.  However, authors such as Robin DiAngelo  have brought it out of the halls of academia into the mainstream. DiAngelo (who is White) has parlayed her book "White Fragility" into speaking engagements, seminars, and workshops. In other words, she has made a career out of critical race theory.

One of the marks of CRT is a rejection of conventional research; believes science and evidence are a White way of knowing and that storytelling and lived experience are a Black alternative. Last time I checked, data was not the plural of anecdote.