RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.city-journal.org/conversation-on-race-and-equality

On June 24, amid great cultural upheaval and unrest, Glenn Yu reached out to Glenn Loury, his former teacher, to record his thoughts about the current moment. An edited version of their conversation follows.

Glenn Yu: I’ve asked to speak to you because I find myself in the awkward position of being at once uncomfortable with the liberal stance on race that seems to deny the underlying reality of the black experience today while also being uncomfortable with conservatives who seem to disdain the George Floyd-related protests in a manner that makes it hard for me to believe that they have any empathy for the problems. I am also confused about whether it’s even my place to talk about these issues.

Glenn Loury: Well, I can’t exactly answer that question, but I happen to be suspicious about the assertion of authority based upon personal identity, such as being black. Let’s take this example. Were the actions we’ve all seen of the police officer in Minneapolis, Derek Chauvin, expressions of racial hatred? I happen to think that we have no reason to suppose that about him, absent further evidence. There are plenty of alternative explanations for his actions that could be given, from negligence to him just being a mean son of a bitch. Sure, we could project a motive onto him, onto the expression on his face, onto his smirk; we could feed thoughts into his head that make him symbolically emblematic of a certain trauma or sickness in American society, and this all may or may not be true. It might be true. But it might not be.

You may or may not have an opinion about that, but suppose the question were to arise in the dorm room late at night. Suppose you have the view that you’re not sure it’s racism, and then someone challenges you, saying, “you’re not black.” They say, “you’ve never been rousted by the police. You don’t know what it’s like to live in fear.” How much authority should that identitarian move have on our search for the truth? How much weight should my declarations in such an argument carry, based on my blackness? What is blackness? What do we mean? Do we mean that his skin is brown? Or do we mean that he’s had a certain set of social-class-based experiences like growing up in a housing project? Well, white people can grow up in housing projects, too. There are lots of different life experiences.

I think it’s extremely dangerous that people accept without criticism this argumentative-authority move when it’s played. It’s ad hominem. We’re supposed to impute authority to people because of their racial identity? I want you to think about that for a minute. Were you to flip the script on that, you might see the problem. What experiences are black people unable to appreciate by virtue of their blackness? If they have so much insight, maybe they also have blind spots. Maybe a black person could never understand something because they’re so full of rage about being black. Think about how awful it would be to make that move in an argument.

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

Risk is confrontation with fear. Seventy years ago, my wife, as a young girl, would put on her roller skates and, with her older brother, sail down paths in New York’s Central Park. They went unaccompanied. At the same time, on a rocky farm in southern New Hampshire, I would get on my horse, along with a brother and/or sister, and gallop off along trails through the woods, also unaccompanied by an adult. Any concern our parents may have had, they kept to themselves. They loved us as much as we love our children. We were told to be careful; we respected their advice. Nevertheless, we took risks.

Immigrants, from the early 17th Century to today’s migrants, did and do take risks. The earliest immigrants had no idea what they would find when they set sail across an unmapped sea, yet they were willing to take a chance that a better and freer life could be had than the one left behind. Social media, communications and government largesse have mitigated those risks, but emigration is still a leap into the unknown.

Success is impossible without risk. Entrepreneurs take risks, as do writers, musicians and artists. However, in all societies, risk-taking is never ubiquitous. Success comes to the talented and the aspirant – and those willing to take risks. The result is a society unequal in outcomes, but a fair one. What makes for a fair society are equal opportunities and the willingness to take risks, to grab the ladder’s rungs and make one’s way up, step by step. Consider the obstacles overcome by Americans like Abraham Lincoln and Clarence Thomas. At birth, neither had material advantage. Both were born in rural poverty. What they had was diligence, a desire for self-improvement and a willingness to take risks. They both recognized that victimhood was not the answer. While they were endowed with aspiration, dedication and intellectual talent, they knew they had to take risks and work harder than their peers.

https://amgreatness.com/2020/07/16/the-left-uses-junk-studies-to-show-racism/

“If unconscious bias could be demonstrated through properly designed and validated studies, it wouldn’t be necessary to rely on junk studies. Without the meddling of biased researchers and social justice advocates, our country would be much further along in the principled goal of true legal and social equality regardless of race.”

On March 23, 1989, a room full of reporters and scientists was buzzing in anticipation of an announcement of a breakthrough that, if it panned out, would propel humanity into a new era of unlimited pollution-free energy. The University of Utah’s vice president for research introduced two scientists, Dr. Stan Pons, and Dr. Martin Fleishman. The scientists then announced that a simple device using palladium and heavy water could generate energy from a type of cold fusion resulting from chemical reactions.

We still don’t know whether this “discovery” was an intentional hoax or merely wishful thinking. 

At the time, real scientists—including my father who is a professor of mechanical engineering—immediately knew to roll their eyes with skepticism. They demanded the details of the experiment so they could attempt to replicate its results. Nobody could reproduce the results these Utah professors claimed to discover and the episode remains a cautionary tale to all of science. 

Scientific studies “confirming” America to be a racist country have become the modern equivalent of the cold fusion experiment. 

A research psychologist can attain fame and lavish funding if she can publish a study demonstrating an urgent need for government intervention to correct the epidemic of systematic racism. Most calls for drastic social change rely on platitudes and, “we know”-type statements. Asking for evidence or support for charges like these can be risky and might invite retaliatory criticism. But if one is patient and drills through the links, one can uncover the allegedly scientific studies said to support these assumptions about a racist America. 

Advocates commonly cite the Bertrand and Mullainathan study from 2004 to demonstrate that racial bias has infected all hiring decisions in America. This study submitted fictitious job applicants with names associated with African Americans to real employers. The study appeared to conclude that African Americans are far less likely to receive job interviews than applicants with traditional European or American names. 

In 2016, however, scientists could not replicate the conclusions of the Bertrand study. In the scientific community, that would mean one could not use the earlier study to make any further generalizations. But this fact doesn’t stop the New York Times from continuing to cite the study to advance its social justice agenda.