Is it Racist for a White Man to Bounce a Brown Baby on His Lap?

The Good Fight

Yascha Mounk

News

4.7 • 963 Ratings

🗓️ 10 July 2020

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Please sign up to become a member of Persuasion, the new community Yascha has founded for those who believe that a free society is worth fighting for. Just go to www.persuasion.community A few days ago, a rather strange exchange caught my attention on Twitter. At a public meeting of a local New York City school board, one member accused another of perpetrating racism by holding his girlfriend’s nephew. “It hurts people when they see a white man bouncing a brown baby on their lap,” she said. Asked for an explanation as to how this might be racist, she suggested that the man “read a book. Read White Fragility.” When I delved deeper into this strange story, I discovered that another member of the board had spoken up against this twisted view of the world with lucid rage; to be honest, it was one of the most compelling speeches I have heard in months. Edward Irizzary is, himself, a product of the New York City public school system. He grew up under difficult circumstances, and joined the local board of education to fight for students just like him. In conversation with me, he explains why the ideas of people like Robin diAngelo, or reforms that are focused on what he calls “cosmetic diversity,” make it harder to improve a deeply flawed educational system. Please do take the time to listen to our conversation. Email: goodfightpod@gmail.com Twitter: @Yascha_Mounk Website: http://www.persuasion.community Podcast production by John T. Williams Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	There's a lot to be said for the existence of racism in the schools. I mean I wasn't really taught anything in the schools about the Spanish in South America.
0:10.0	There's a lot to be said about those things, but that cannot take the place of an
0:14.7	honest and objective analysis of what is really ailing our schools and our students and how
0:21.2	best to educate them and to prepare them to be employable adults and it is and
0:26.1	that's the danger that we're facing now.
0:28.7	And now the good fight with Yasha Monk. Welcome to the first edition of the new version of The Good Fight.
0:39.0	As I told you last time I was starting an exciting new venture. I'm trying to build from the
0:47.3	ground up a community of people around the world committed to defending the values of philosophical liberalism, the values of the free society,
0:56.4	the values that are at the core and have been at the core for three or four years of the Good Fight
1:01.8	podcast. of The Good Fight Podcast.
1:04.0	Now, when I was last talking to you, I had no idea how all of this would go.
1:09.0	I had no idea whether anybody would be interested.
1:11.0	I had no idea that anybody would join up.
1:14.0	Folks, the reception over the last days
1:16.0	has been just incredible, just wonderful.
1:18.4	We have about 20,000 people who have signed up
1:21.4	to receive our articles. We have a phenomenal number of paying
1:25.4	subscribers. I really think we're going to be able to build this community from
1:30.2	the ground up. Now we have wonderful articles about the state of liberty and how to defend it
1:39.2	around the world that are already on the website and that is still coming out in the next days and weeks and months.
1:45.1	We have some wonderful events coming up, including many that will feature paths
1:50.9	contributors to this podcast.
	...

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