Race
April 14, 2022 — Scott Johnson
The good news is that our friends at the New Criterion have appointed Joshua Katz to serve as one of its Visiting Critics next season. Professor Katz is Cotsen Professor of Classics at Princeton. A linguist by training, a classicist by profession, and a comparative philologist at heart, he is the recipient of numerous awards for his teaching and scholarship on the languages, literatures, and cultures of the ancient and
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March 25, 2022 — Scott Johnson
Harvard screwed Roland Fryer. That’s what happened to Roland Fryer. National Association of Scholars President Peter Wood’s Spectator column “When Harvard canceled a black professor” {UPDATE: published in accessible form by the New York Post here] applies Wood’s academic expertise to tell the story. As if we didn’t have enough to be indignant about, we now have the case — the rise and fall — of Professor Fryer to digest.
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March 4, 2022 — John Hinderaker
This is a familiar story: at Marquette University, Native American students complained that the school’s seal was “disrespectful to indigenous people.” Here is the old seal. It shows, among other things, Father Marquette, after whom the university is named, in a canoe with an Indian who is said to be his guide: Per the College Fix, the seal was taken from this painting of Marquette with a group of Indians:
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March 2, 2022 — Steven Hayward
• Guess what’s racist this week? Mainstream media reporting on Ukraine! Behold the Washington Post: Opinion: Coverage of Ukraine has exposed long-standing racist biases in Western media Putin’s criminal invasion of Ukraine has generated an inspiring wave of solidarity around the world, but for many — especially non-White observers — it has been impossible to tune out the racist biases in Western media and politics. Yes, it’s “impossible to tune
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February 21, 2022 — Steven Hayward
One of the mysteries of the COVID era is that there has been no attack on vaccine mandates for their racial “disparate impact,” since vaccination rates are so much lower among blacks especially. When New York City imposed vaccine mandates for access to restaurants and other public accommodations, I expected some eager civil rights lawyer to file suit because of its racially discriminatory effects. After all, as reported here last
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February 16, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
The National Football League has enlisted former U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch to defend it in the class action race discrimination suit filed by former Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores. I wrote about Flores’ case here. It strikes me as weak, at least as to his individual claim. Lynch is a partner at Paul Weiss, the prestigious New York law firm. Paul Weiss frequently represents the NFL in lawsuits,
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February 10, 2022 — Steven Hayward
That race has become the central obsession of the left is hardly news, but reaching new levels of racial absurdity is always good copy. Today’s racial ridiculousness come to us courtesy of National Public Radio (figures). Start with this tweet, which is authentic and not a Babylon Bee parody: “Some academics argue.” Always a promising start. And here’s some of the actual article, in case you don’t believe it: A
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February 5, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
A.C. Cordoza is a newly-elected member of the Virginia House of Delegates. He’s Black and he’s Republican — the only member of the Virginia legislature who answers to that description. As such, Cordoza sought membership in the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus. It excluded him. Cordoza says he was excluded because of his answers to a questionnaire from the caucus. Among the question he apparently answered “incorrectly” were ones pertaining to
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February 2, 2022 — Steven Hayward
Those who recognize the name Aaron Wildavsky will rightly wonder how the great political scientist could possibly comment on the Whoopi’s whoopsie, since he died in 1993. But I want to suggest he was highly prescient about what is going on today on racial politics in America. In a classic 1990 essay on “The Search for the Oppressed” (not available online unfortunately), Wildavsky noted how the left was trying to
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January 18, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
Brian Flores was the coach of the Miami Dolphins until Miami fired him at the end of the NFL’s regular season. Flores is black. His firing came as a surprise. Flores’ record with the Dolphins was 24-25, but that’s misleading. Miami went 5-11 in Flores’ first season and 19-14 in his next two. The Dolphins have had only three winning seasons since 2008. Two of them were under Flores. The
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January 17, 2022 — Steven Hayward
It is not news that today’s so-called “civil rights movement” has turned fully away from Martin Luther King’s vision of a color-blind America. Today’s evidence comes from Psychology Today magazine: Colorblind Ideology Is a Form of Racism Monnica T Williams Ph.D. At its face value, colorblindness seems like a good thing—really taking MLK seriously on his call to judge people on the content of their character rather than the color
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January 16, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
As Scott pointed out earlier today, Washington, D.C. is among the jurisdictions that will now require vaccination cards to enter restaurants, bars, and other public places. In D.C., the requirement is for proof of having received one dose or more of a covid vaccine. Scott alluded to the disparate impact this requirement will have on Blacks. In D.C., the disproportionately adverse impact on Blacks will be pronounced. According to this
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January 15, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
Time is finally up for Ralph Northam as governor of Virginia. Today, Glenn Youngkin replaced him. Had Northam been a Republican, his time might have been up two years ago, after it was discovered that he once dressed up in black face and he admitted doing so (Northam later tried to weasel his way out of this admission). And there were, in fact, loud calls from some Democrats for Northam
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January 15, 2022 — Steven Hayward
Guess what’s racist now? Yes, everything is racist, as we know, but specifically what new thing is racist? Traffic cameras. ProPublica reports: A ProPublica analysis found that traffic cameras in Chicago disproportionately ticket Black and Latino motorists. . . An analysis of millions of citations found that households in majority Black and Hispanic ZIP codes received tickets at around twice the rate of those in white areas between 2015 and
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January 10, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
A friend called my attention to a show on YouTube called “Black Conservative Perspective.” It features commentary by Greg Foreman. I enjoyed the two episodes I’ve seen, which can be viewed below. The first is a report that MSNBC might fire Joy Reid, whom Foreman calls a racist, seemingly with good reason (I’ve never seen Reid’s show — just a few clips that support Foreman’s characterization.) The second is Foreman’s
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January 10, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
Eric Adams, New York City’s new mayor, has hired his brother to serve as a deputy NYPD commissioner. The brother, Bernard Adams, will be responsible for the mayor’s security, among other duties. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this appointment. In fact, it’s natural, assuming Bernard Adams is well qualified for this position, for the mayor to want someone with a close personal connection to be in charge of keeping him
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January 7, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
Kevin Porter was the point guard on some outstanding Washington Bullets teams in the mid-1970s. He’s a local legend in the D.C. area. Kevin Porter Jr. is the fine young point guard for the Houston Rockets. Like the old Bullet, he’s African-American, but the two are not related. Porter Jr.’s father served prison time in the 1990s for killing a 14-year-old girl. He claimed the gun went off accidentally. He
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