Thread by @studentactivism

Amy Wax "described these views as the outcome of rigorous…thinking, while offering evidence that ranged from two studies by a eugenicist to personal anecdotes, several of which concerned her conviction that white people litter less than people of color." newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/a…

Wax: "I mean, this is not a race-realist question or point of view. It’s totally agnostic on that question."

In other words, "I'm not a 'race realist,' but I'm not NOT a 'race realist.'"

Something that really leaps out here is how ignorant and incurious Wax is about the topics she claims to be fascinated by. "Someone should really study this," she says airily, about a topic that's been endlessly studied for a century.

But of course she isn't actually interested in studying this stuff, because studying it would require her to drop her pose of feigned agnosticism and actually commit to a position.

Choitner asks her if she has data to support her claims about the relative acceptability of littering across cultures, and she says "sociologists don’t study this stuff."

Thirty seconds on Google scholar will show you a raft of studies on exactly that question.

"Whether or not something is 'racist'…the question is, is it true? And, in fact, it’s emblematic of sliding toward Third Worldism that we now have this dominant idea that to notice a reality that might be quote-unquote 'racist' is impermissible. It can’t be true."

As I said a year and a half ago...

https://twitter.com/studentactivism/status/971850261315637249

"Wax sent links to two studies whose lead author is Richard Lynn, a British psychologist who is known for believing in racial differences in intelligence, supporting eugenics, and associating with white supremacists."

This is a hell of a quote, when Choitner asks if she agrees that the KKK is racist: "Well, I certainly think that somebody who advocates violence, genocide, and killing people of a certain group is—do we even need the word racist? That person is evil. That’s an evil philosophy."

Choitner asks whether it's racist to say you don't want a black person to marry your daughter because you don't like the way black people look. Wax says "Well, I don't know."

"Well, I don’t know. I guess it’s racist, but I think people are entitled to have preferences about who they marry. It’s on a basis of race, and it’s a broad generalization on the basis of race…I don’t think every generalization on the basis of race is racist. I really don’t."

"We can argue about these niceties."

Astonishing. Choitner notes that Trump isn't exactly a poster child for the ostensibly white cultural values Wax lauds. Her reply:

"There are many things he says and does that I think are completely consistent with our core values. He engages in locker-room boasting about grabbing women, but, the fact is, he’s a serial monogamist but at least he’s gotten married. He’s never fathered a child out of wedlock."

It's pristine, isn't it? The racism in that characterization? You think of promiscuity as a black cultural trait, so you hold up DONALD TRUMP as a pillar of sexual continence.

I mean, she admits when pressed that she has no idea whether he's ever fathered a kid outside of marriage. And we know for a fact that he's cheated on his wives, so calling him a "serial monogamist" is just flatly false.

If Donald Trump were black, Amy Wax would be holding him up as Exhibit A of black people's squalid sexual practices. But he's white, so she makes the literal opposite claim. It's extraordinary.

And when pressed a second time, she falls back on "he does at least get married." As if getting married, cheating on your wife, then getting divorced and doing it again is somehow more morally upright—more admirably white—than being unmarried but actually monogamous.

Why does Trump, who has no interest in monogamy or fidelity, keep getting married? It's a legitimately interesting question, and one that gets to the kinds of cultural practices and signifiers that Wax claims to be interested in but isn't.

So much of what she claims, throughout the interview, as markers of race or ethnicity or nationality, are actually markers of bourgeois respectability.

"Germans take their kids to the opera, and the kids don't fuss!" Ah. Yes. Taking your kids to the opera, the classic German pastime that crosses all lines of class, education, and cultural aspiration. Of course.

"My rich friends all vacation in white countries because everything is clean and nice!"

No, dear, your rich friends all vacation in places that are set up to cater to the rich people who go there on vacation.

"Trump is a serial monogamist! That's why he keeps getting married!" Yes, right. It's not because having a trophy wife on your arm is an expectation of men of his class and station. It's because of his racial heliotropism toward monogamy.

Malignant doofuses, please keep answering the phone when Choitner calls. Thanks in advance.

PS: I am reminded that Wax's "he’s never fathered a child out of wedlock" claim is flatly factually false. Trump married Marla Maples two months after Tiffany was born.

Chotiner Chotiner Chotiner Chotiner Chotiner Chotiner Chotiner Chotiner. Apply throughout the thread as needed.