Patterico's Pontifications

7/22/2020

John McWhorter on Morning Joe Talking “White Fragility”

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 8:29 am



The great John McWhorter made an appearance on Morning Joe to talk about Robin DiAngelo’s “White Fragility.” DiAngelo says it’s racist to say “I disagree” and by that logic I guess McWhorter is racist, because he disagrees with this white woman who has gotten rich off of telling other white people that they are racists simply because they are white.

The segment is worth watching. I think the best line is where McWhorter says that if a black person read the book cover to cover they would come away with the impression that a white woman just told them they are five years old.

And here is McWhorter’s article in The Atlantic, referenced in the segment.

42 Responses to “John McWhorter on Morning Joe Talking “White Fragility””

  1. morning joke, proves it’s moniker, the most noxious thing since the 1619 project, I guess raising one tiny objection qualifies as something,

    narciso (7404b5)

  2. Errin Haynes’ harangue about Atticus Finch was also hard to take.

    lurker (d8c5bc)

  3. if there anything that deserve to be cancelled, it is this garbage, but it is allowed to spread like a virus, through corporate america, through the schools, by the churches,

    narciso (7404b5)

  4. Yet more disgruntled blacks on the TeeVee and interweb gadgetry?!

    …and ‘The Silent Majority’ smiled.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  5. Exactly who comes away from the saga of Jackie Robinson thinking he was the first Black baseball player good enough to compete with whites? “

    Well, if it was told to a 9-year old in sufficient shorthand form, he could believe that – for a while. But 9-year olds get misimpressions about a whole lot of things.

    And if that were true, it wouldn’t mean anything. It would mean blacks hadn’t played a lot of baseball before. Something like this might be true about hockey. But we all know about the Negro Leagues. It is an inextricable part of the story.

    DiAngelo insinuates that, when white women cry upon being called racists, Black people are reminded of white women crying as they lied about being raped by Black men eons ago. But how would she know?

    She knows what everybody thinks. That’s her job.

    DiAngelo: I can get through a teacher-education program without ever discussing racism.”

    Well, in her imaginary universe it is true. She not only knows what everybody thinks, she knows what everybody experiences.

    Sammy Finkelman (5b43a3)

  6. But if these people don’t even know whiteness is a category, just what are they now suddenly defending?

    They, like most people, instinctively defend themselves against false accusations, or just descriptions that are not true to life. Since they must be labeled non-false, it follows ineluctably. it is denied in order to protection of white supremacy = not doing what she recommends.

    Refer to a “bad neighborhood,” and you’re using code for Black; call it a “Black neighborhood,” and you’re a racist; by DiAngelo’s logic, you are not to describe such neighborhoods at all, even in your own head.

    As different, and as places not to go to, usually because of higher crime rates.

    But such neighborhoods often are different, and of course it is better to refer to some place as a “bad neighborhood” than as a “black neighborhood,” while meaning bad.

    Of course, anyone not treating it as different to the point of moving into a (mostly safe circa 2015 say) black neighborhood would be committing the sin of gentrification, but I guess her book doesn’t get into that. That would complicate matters too much.

    Remember, Whites aren’t even allowed to say, “I don’t feel safe.” There can’t be more black people who are bad. Its racist to say that or imply that. It is also reality in our time (though less so than it was in the 1965-1990 period) So reality is racist.

    There is totally confused thinking about race and bad people here.

    It is not racist, by the way, to say ALL white people are bad, though.

    Sammy Finkelman (5b43a3)

  7. Channeling Sammy and Prof McWhorter, is this a book by a 9-year-old advising 5-year-olds how to think?

    DRJ (aede82)

  8. It is what informs personnel selection and retention, and personnel is policy.

    Narciso (7404b5)

  9. Great comments, Sammy! They put the one I was going to make, before I read yours, to shame.

    nk (1d9030)

  10. This: “She’s atoning”.

    Dana (25e0dc)

  11. Its not confused its malpractice, making people abide by impossible rules

    Narciso (7404b5)

  12. But I have no shame, only scorn.

    Isn’t there anything Americans won’t figure out a way to make a buck from? “Raising Racism In Your Backyard For Fun And Profit: A How-To Manual”.

    nk (1d9030)

  13. What did lenin say ‘the capitalists will sell them the rope’

    Narciso (7404b5)

  14. George Will, the longtime libertarian-conservative commentator [also an accomplished author, newspaper columnist, magazine essayist, blatant Reagan apologist and aging media gadfly] said Monday [July 20] he’ll cast his vote for presumptive Democratic nominee [and KNOWN PLAGIARIST] Joe Biden in order to help defeat President Donald Trump at the ballot box. It will likely be the first time that he has ever voted for a Democrat, Will told USA Today’s Susan Page during a conversation for The Aspen Institute.

    So, a Pulitzer Prize winning columnist, a noted author, writer and Reagan torch-bearing-opinionator, desperate to remain relevant on any media platform, says he is voting for a KNOWN PLAGIARIST.

    Plagiarism is stealing; the theft of the work product of another or others. It is done surreptitiously; it is done dishonestly; it is cheating– and it is lazy. It is also a blatant character tell.

    There, in a nutshell, is where the hollow, empty and wholly unethical rhetoric from so-called ‘principled conservatives’ dies. What a bogus lot.

    “Never mind what I told you. I’m telling you!” – The Captain [James Cagney] ‘Mister Roberts’ 1955

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  15. George will is relevant as van johnson innsoylent green.

    Narciso (7404b5)

  16. 13.What did lenin say ‘the capitalists will sell them the rope’

    And how did unscrupulous Savile Row tailors respond: ‘never mind the quality…feel the width.’ 😉

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  17. 15.George will is relevant as van johnson innsoylent green

    More like Ronald Reagan in The Dirty Dozen.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  18. #12

    Isn’t there anything Americans won’t figure out a way to make a buck from?

    Going back to the Puritans, we have been merchandising and monetizing guilt and morality. See Elmer Gantry, and the guy who came up with your Kellogg’s Corn Flakes.

    I tend to think the culture war is class warfare by other means and garbage like this is how the administrative class keeps the lower classes down (and an excellent merchandising activity). Our friends who say “This is why we have Trump” do have a point. They would have done better if they had vomited up Cruz or Gingrich instead.

    Appalled (1a17de)

  19. You have learned nothing in 12 years, its extraordinary

    Narciso (7404b5)

  20. DiAngelo says it’s racist to say “I disagree”

    How about “Your ideas are stupid, and you are just exploiting the moment to make a buck.”

    Is that racist?

    Bored Lawyer (56c962)

  21. Thats most everyone on morning joke.

    Narciso (7404b5)

  22. Columbia professor John McWhorter and author Michael Eric Dyson join Morning Joe to discuss Robin Diangelo’s groundbreaking book, White Fragility, and what McWhorter calls Diangelo’s ‘dehumanizing condescension’ to Black people

    Wow, looks like someone agrees with me that much of the recent talk assumes blacks are morons or worse.

    Bored Lawyer (56c962)

  23. I fully support the Party in all things, because the Party is always right, but I need an extra dose of Doublethink to approve the inclusion of the Kardashian clan (of which Kanye West is a full-fledged member) in the pornography the Party provides to the proles.

    nk (1d9030)

  24. They would have done better if they had vomited up Cruz or Gingrich instead.

    They’ve deferred to those people who’ve excreted the mumbling moron Biden, who they’ve kept under lock and key in the basement.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  25. Trump feeding riots in the Pacific Northwest to Fox News so they won’t report the coronavirus rampage in the South. He planned a mini-series for Chicago, too, but I have a feeling that’s going to be cancelled before airing.

    nk (1d9030)

  26. He planned a mini-series for Chicago, too, but I have a feeling that’s going to be cancelled before airing.

    It’s a race to see if they can film and air it before the last Chicagoan is shot dead in the street.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  27. They would have done better if they had vomited up Cruz or Gingrich instead.

    They’ve deferred to those people who’ve excreted the mumbling moron Biden, who they’ve kept under lock and key in the basement.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 7/22/2020 @ 11:35 am

    They took a generic democrat and stuck him in a basement to come out occasionally and mispronounce platitudes. He’s still beating Trump by such a huge margin the senate might flip.

    Says a lot about what a terrible job Trump has done.

    Time123 (53ef45)

  28. Still lying…

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  29. romney outspent gingrich 50/1, then was michigan j frog in the general, against obama, cruz got to the playoff, but as I’ve pointed out, he had little support even among his supposed allies in the senate,

    we seem to how hosting nazguls at an annoying rate, coronello,

    narciso (7404b5)

  30. @30, let me introduce you to the concept for hyperbole. It’s often done for comedic effect. If there’s some part of my comment you thought was intended as a statement of pure fact let me know and I’ll try and help you understand it.

    Time123 (53ef45)

  31. McWhorter’s article is great.

    Dave (1bb933)

  32. in the echo chamber that gave coates too much deference and that fraudulent anecdote that sparked rosenberg’s little shindig, it’s ok

    https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/four-months-unprecedented-government-malfeasance/

    narciso (7404b5)

  33. let me introduce you to the concept for hyperbole. It’s often done for comedic effect.

    Comedic effect: yeah, this fella was “a joke all right”–

    “Well, let me tell you something. I knew Thomas Jefferson. He was a friend of mine. And governor, you’re no Thomas Jefferson.” – Ronald Reagan, 1992

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  34. @32.Hard to endure that program anymore w/o wondering if Mika was pitching or catching w/Joe 20 minutes before air in their dressing room.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  35. He’s still beating Trump by such a huge margin the senate might flip.

    So was HRC– right up until the night she lost.

    And ‘The Silent Majority’ smiled…

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  36. DSCA, Yeah, it was a mean joke.

    Time123 (53ef45)

  37. 31… when you’re right, you’re right narciso…

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  38. Great post – it’s not even a difficult argument and yet so many are too afraid of the Cancel Cults to speak simple reason.

    Been a listener and infrequent correspondent w John WcWhorter for over a decade since I first saw him on Bloggingheads. Even when we disagree he has always been receptive to hearing me out.

    Both he and Glenn Lourey (who is also standing up for black people as capable members of the human race) have been fighting the good fight for years. Both are definitely more conservative now than when I first started reading/listening.
    __

    One of my favorite McWhorter quotes from way back which like most greats is pure simple truth:

    If you finish high school and keep a job without having children before marriage, you will almost certainly not be poor. Period. I have repeatedly felt the air go out of the room upon putting this to black audiences. No one of any political stripe can deny it. It is human truth on view. In 2004, the poverty rate among blacks who followed that formula was less than 6 percent, as opposed to the overall rate of 24.7 percent.

    Even after hearing the earnest musings about employers who are less interested in people with names like Tomika, no one can gainsay the simple truth of that advice. Crucially, neither bigotry nor even structural racism can explain why an individual does not live up to it.“
    _

    harkin (5af287)

  39. If you finish high school and keep a job without having children before marriage, you will almost certainly not be poor.

    Baby steps.

    I finished college, excelled at my job, and had no children even after marriage. Not only am I not poor; I’m rather comfortable.

    norcal (a5428a)


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