John McWhorter and ‘Woke Racism’

Hello, and I hope the holidays are going great for you and yours!

In late October, I was on a panel with Columbia linguistics professor John McWhorter on Bill Maher’s show in Los Angeles. I was impressed with John both during the show and backstage, and bought his book ‘Woke Racism’ immediately afterwards.

John’s book is about how a belief system – battling racial power differentials between whites and blacks – has become the dominant culture in much of media and academia, and how this is not actually helping black people who are struggling with very real issues. In particular, John calls out the bullying and, in some cases, firing of people who have been accused of a racially insensitive statement or action. He argues that the fixation on statements and attitudes does little to advance real policies that would benefit black people, such as ending the war on drugs or investing in quality reading instruction early on.

John also argues that many people are now pushed into a culture of fear of being called a racist, which has now led to many being afraid to express themselves lest they be attacked on social media or elsewhere. John finds this to be illiberal and counterproductive.

I enjoyed John’s book a great deal and thought it made a very important and compelling case. John graciously agreed to appear on my podcast, and our conversation was one of my favorites to date. He talks about how this belief system has become powerful, its internal contradictions, how it actually is hurting black people and much more. You can see it here.

There are very real inequities in American life. I made the case for giving everyone $1,000 a month during my presidential campaign, which I thought would help those with the least the most. John argues for other solutions that I agree with, such as broad vocational training.

Perhaps that’s what I liked most about John – he’s about solutions to the real problems we see around us. Let’s fix the problems as quickly as possible, which includes doing away with a culture of attacking other people as being somehow less worthwhile than we are.


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