John McWhorter, the anti-antiracist

The Gray Area with Sean Illing

Vox Media Podcast Network

Society & Culture, News, Politics, News Commentary, Philosophy

4.6 • 10.8K Ratings

🗓️ 1 November 2021

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sean Illing talks with John McWhorter, linguist, New York Times columnist, and author of Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America. They talk about the effects of modern antiracism, why McWhorter compares it to a religion, and the societal implications of the way we talk — and don't talk — about racism. Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), Interviews Writer, Vox Guest: John McWhorter (@JohnHMcWhorter), author References: Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America by John McWhorter (Portfolio; 2021) How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi (One World; 2019) White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo (Beacon; 2020) “What Hope?” by John McWhorter (New Republic; Aug. 10, 2010), a review of Race, Wrongs, and Remedies by Amy Wax (Rowman & Littlefield; 2009) “The Case for Reparations” by Ta-Nehisi Coates (The Atlantic; June 2014) The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks by Randall Robinson (Plume; 2001) “Alison Roman and Chrissy Teigen’s feud is about more than selling out” by Alex Abad-Santos (Vox; May 11, 2020) “Professor Not Teaching After Blackface ‘Othello’ Showing" by Colleen Flaherty (Inside Higher Ed; Oct. 11) “The Middle-Aged Sadness Behind the Cancel Culture Panic” by Michelle Goldberg (New York Times; Sept. 20) Enjoyed this episode? Rate Vox Conversations ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Subscribe for free. Be the first to hear the next episode of Vox Conversations by subscribing in your favorite podcast app. Support Vox Conversations by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts This episode was made by: Producer: Erikk Geannikis Editor: Amy Drozdowska Engineer: Paul Robert Mounsey Deputy Editorial Director, Vox Talk: Amber Hall Vox Audio Fellow: Victoria Dominguez Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Is anti-racism harming black people?
0:04.0	I'm Sean Elling and I'm your host for Vox Conversations.
0:11.0	Anti-racism is a term most Americans would never have heard just a few years ago.
0:25.0	But it became commonplace last summer after the murder of George Floyd and the success of the Black Lives Matter movement.
0:32.0	Like many ideas, anti-racism is hard to pin down.
0:36.0	If you've heard about it recently, it's likely connected to one of two writers,
0:41.0	E from X-Kindy, author of How to Be an Anti-Racist, or Robin DiAngelo, author of White for Jailies.
0:48.0	Both of these books were massive bestsellers.
0:51.0	For Kindy, anti-racism is all about outcomes.
0:55.0	Any policy that produces racial inequalities is by definition racist.
0:59.0	Any policy that reduces racial inequalities is anti-racist. That's it.
1:04.0	DiAngelo's anti-racism is more personal and symbolic.
1:08.0	The focus is on white people looking inward and grappling with their own complicity in a racist society.
1:16.0	Unsurprisingly, DiAngelo, who is white, has become a darling of corporate diversity consulting.
1:23.0	Whatever you think of Kindy and DiAngelo, and whatever you think of anti-racism,
1:29.0	it's become a force in American life, and that means it has lots of critics.
1:34.0	Chief among them is John McWhorter, a linguist at Columbia University, and now a writer for The New York Times.
1:41.0	His new book makes an intentionally provocative claim.
1:46.0	He says that anti-racism functions more like a religion than an ideology or a political project.
1:52.0	And its adherence, he argues, are obsessed with performing virtue, not for the sake of societal change,
1:59.0	but because of the sense of purpose it offers them.
2:02.0	But McWhorter's more serious charge is that anti-racism isn't merely wrong or perform it.
	...

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