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Hey rayiner, love your contributions to HN. I think you're missing a big piece here that I have very recently started to see myself. I would be delighted to sha

Hey rayiner, love your contributions to HN. I think you're missing a big piece here that I have very recently started to see myself. I would be delighted to share with you. Are you aware of Dr. Ibram X. Kendi's book "Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America"? I am just about done reading it. Before I may have side-eyed "criminal-justice racism" "health-care racism", etc. After, it is clear as day how racism in America should be a first-order question when examining any social issue/problem. I really hope you check out the book! https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25898216-stamped-from-the-beginning https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25898216-stamped-from-th... As for "health-care racism" I even caught that in the news recently. "Racial bias in a medical algorithm favors white patients over sicker black patients" https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2019/10/24/racial-bias-medical-algorithm-favors-white-patients-over-sicker-black-patients/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2019/10/24/racial-bias...

haberman 7y ago
If you cherry-pick data, you can advance a narrative even if there are lots of counter-examples. Coleman Hughes argues that Kendi cherry-picks data quite a lot: https://www.city-journal.org/how-to-be-an-antiracist https://www.city-journal.org/how-to-be-an-antiracist
- heymijo 7y ago
  I look forward to reading this.
  - heymijo 7y ago
    I gotta say one of the three top articles on City Journal is a big bag of 'yikes'. "The Administration’s First-String Team Two of Trump’s top lieutenants have their eye on what’s crucial." https://www.city-journal.org/william-barr-mike-pompeo https://www.city-journal.org/william-barr-mike-pompeo - This in reference to Attorney General Barr and Secretary of State Pompeo who I hold in no esteem at all. So I will certainly read this critique of Kendi's work albeit with my eyes wide open for right leaning bias.
    - haberman 7y ago
      I can't speak to City Journal at all, but I find Coleman Hughes to be a very fair-minded person who certainly has no love for Trumpism.
- rayiner 7y ago
  > The book is weakest in its chapter devoted to capitalism. “Capitalism is essentially racist,” Kendi proclaims, and “racism is essentially capitalist.” Oh Geez.
- heymijo 7y ago
  I read Hughes' article set it aside and read again then wrote out my thoughts. A point first: 1) Hughes' critique is of Dr. Kendi and both of his books "Stamped", which I referenced above, and "How to Be an Anti-Racist", which I have not read so if you would like to critique my critique of Hughes' critique, there are items I ignore because they reference ideas I know are not from Kendi's book that I have read. I recommended the book Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America in my earlier post because it paints a clear picture how racism is alive in well in America in 2019, both in overt, covert, and systemic forms. Hughes' critique shows errors Kendi made, and discredits unsubstantiated claims Kendi made. Yet in the end Stamped from the Beginning, and its central tenets are still standing. Hughes' critique of Kendi suffers from some of the same issues he charges Kendi with. Hughes cherry picks facts and claims from Kendi's work to critique, and takes a broad brush to make some unsubstantiated claims of his own. Unfortunately this gives Hughes' work the air of pseudo-intellectualism. In Stamped from the Beginning, Kendi weaves the ideas of racism, anti-racism, and other forms throughout his book as major ideas in America's past and present. Those include assimilation, segregation, "uplift-suasion" (the notion that black people could gain equality in the eyes of white people by being model minorities), and others. As core themes of the book Hughes neglects to mention them or in some cases discusses them in isolation from each other and not in reference to Kendi's core idea of racism/anti-racism. For example, when countering Kendi's claim that "capitalism is racist" Hughes cites Plessy v. Ferguson The most famous is the Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court case, when a profit-hungry railroad company––upset that legally mandated segregation meant adding costly train cars––teamed up with a civil rights group to challenge racial segregation. Here, Hughes conflates anti-segregation with anti-racist. This is an unfair treatment of a core idea of Kendi's work. It belies either ignorance or intellectual dishonesty on the part of Hughes. One of the biggest take aways from Kendi's history is that one could be against segregation, slavery, or other ideas we associate with racism, and still be racist. The latter chapters of Stamped from the Beginning show just how the language we hear today around "law and order" and other political slogans emerged from Richard Nixon knowing exactly how to appeal to racist voters without saying the n-word. The lineage is traced from Nixon, to Reagan, Bush I, and up to Clinton (could go further, but I have a few chapters yet to finish). So if you are considering Stamped from the Beginning, I don't see Hughes' critique as one worth keeping you away from it.
rayiner 7y ago
Thank you for the reading recommendation. To be clear, I credit concepts like "criminal-justice racism," "health-care racism" as applied to African Americans. I just disagree that there is any taboo against talking about it. The U.S. has never squarely dealt with the fact that it enslaved a group of people that now make up 1 in 10 americans, and even after that ended denied them political participation, access to capital, etc. Lots of problems follow from that. My point of disagreement is about the assertion that the decline of U.S. civil society is "mostly driven by racism." Our civil society and institutions are declining, but systemic racism against African Americans is, if not better, not worse than it was decades ago.

haberman 7y ago

If you cherry-pick data, you can advance a narrative even if there are lots of counter-examples. Coleman Hughes argues that Kendi cherry-picks data quite a lot: https://www.city-journal.org/how-to-be-an-antiracist https://www.city-journal.org/how-to-be-an-antiracist

heymijo 7y ago
I look forward to reading this.
- heymijo 7y ago
  I gotta say one of the three top articles on City Journal is a big bag of 'yikes'. "The Administration’s First-String Team Two of Trump’s top lieutenants have their eye on what’s crucial." https://www.city-journal.org/william-barr-mike-pompeo https://www.city-journal.org/william-barr-mike-pompeo - This in reference to Attorney General Barr and Secretary of State Pompeo who I hold in no esteem at all. So I will certainly read this critique of Kendi's work albeit with my eyes wide open for right leaning bias.
  - haberman 7y ago
    I can't speak to City Journal at all, but I find Coleman Hughes to be a very fair-minded person who certainly has no love for Trumpism.
rayiner 7y ago
> The book is weakest in its chapter devoted to capitalism. “Capitalism is essentially racist,” Kendi proclaims, and “racism is essentially capitalist.” Oh Geez.
heymijo 7y ago
I read Hughes' article set it aside and read again then wrote out my thoughts. A point first: 1) Hughes' critique is of Dr. Kendi and both of his books "Stamped", which I referenced above, and "How to Be an Anti-Racist", which I have not read so if you would like to critique my critique of Hughes' critique, there are items I ignore because they reference ideas I know are not from Kendi's book that I have read. I recommended the book Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America in my earlier post because it paints a clear picture how racism is alive in well in America in 2019, both in overt, covert, and systemic forms. Hughes' critique shows errors Kendi made, and discredits unsubstantiated claims Kendi made. Yet in the end Stamped from the Beginning, and its central tenets are still standing. Hughes' critique of Kendi suffers from some of the same issues he charges Kendi with. Hughes cherry picks facts and claims from Kendi's work to critique, and takes a broad brush to make some unsubstantiated claims of his own. Unfortunately this gives Hughes' work the air of pseudo-intellectualism. In Stamped from the Beginning, Kendi weaves the ideas of racism, anti-racism, and other forms throughout his book as major ideas in America's past and present. Those include assimilation, segregation, "uplift-suasion" (the notion that black people could gain equality in the eyes of white people by being model minorities), and others. As core themes of the book Hughes neglects to mention them or in some cases discusses them in isolation from each other and not in reference to Kendi's core idea of racism/anti-racism. For example, when countering Kendi's claim that "capitalism is racist" Hughes cites Plessy v. Ferguson The most famous is the Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court case, when a profit-hungry railroad company––upset that legally mandated segregation meant adding costly train cars––teamed up with a civil rights group to challenge racial segregation. Here, Hughes conflates anti-segregation with anti-racist. This is an unfair treatment of a core idea of Kendi's work. It belies either ignorance or intellectual dishonesty on the part of Hughes. One of the biggest take aways from Kendi's history is that one could be against segregation, slavery, or other ideas we associate with racism, and still be racist. The latter chapters of Stamped from the Beginning show just how the language we hear today around "law and order" and other political slogans emerged from Richard Nixon knowing exactly how to appeal to racist voters without saying the n-word. The lineage is traced from Nixon, to Reagan, Bush I, and up to Clinton (could go further, but I have a few chapters yet to finish). So if you are considering Stamped from the Beginning, I don't see Hughes' critique as one worth keeping you away from it.

rayiner 7y ago

Thank you for the reading recommendation. To be clear, I credit concepts like "criminal-justice racism," "health-care racism" as applied to African Americans. I just disagree that there is any taboo against talking about it. The U.S. has never squarely dealt with the fact that it enslaved a group of people that now make up 1 in 10 americans, and even after that ended denied them political participation, access to capital, etc. Lots of problems follow from that. My point of disagreement is about the assertion that the decline of U.S. civil society is "mostly driven by racism." Our civil society and institutions are declining, but systemic racism against African Americans is, if not better, not worse than it was decades ago.