WE HAVE NEVER BEEN WOKE, due in 2023, should make *all* readers uncomfortable:
It will show how wokeness is used "as a weapon, often at the expense of those who are actually marginalized & disadvantaged in the prevailing order...
1/7
2/7
The new book "will dismantle popular (and self-serving) narratives about the ‘losers’ in the system – leaving readers with a totally different understanding of social inequality, and unnerving questions about what it would take to meaningfully address it.
(con't)
3/7
The book shows that "the primary producers & consumers of content on antiracism, socialism, feminism, etc. also happen to be among the primary beneficiaries of gendered, racialized & other forms of inequality – and not passive beneficiaries [but] active participants.
(con't)
4/7
"The core tension roiling U.S. society is fundamentally not about whether science, education or journalism are good, or whether minorities should enjoy basic civil rights. [The elite 'symbolic analyst' class likes] to frame the conflict as being ‘about’ these things...
5/7
"...because it allows them to position themselves as being ‘on the side’ of truth, reason, the vulnerable and the disadvantaged, while their opponents are portrayed as being ‘on the side’ of ignorance, fanaticism, oppression, exploitation and the like.
(con't)
6/7
"That is, the ‘losers’ in the system are portrayed as being somehow responsible for most social problems, and it is implied that giving still more power or authority to those who currently dominate the system will somehow ‘solve’ those problems."
(con't)
7/7
Al-Gharbi's new book subjects his own class (our class!) to "reflexive" soc sci analysis, revealing the real origins of social inequality & asking "unnerving questions" about what we'd need to do to *truly* address it.
[Your proposed curriculum outline] "is the praxis of Critical Race Theory. I wholeheartedly believe that the tragedies and triumphs of differing ethnicities should be known, but I strongly oppose the ideological hijacking of Ethnic Studies and the unequal and inequitable treatment of some ethnicities as proposed by your suggested curriculum outline.
🔥🔥🔥🧵
2)
"What's being put forward is not a true celebration of heritage or shared American values. It is the quiet embedding of the praxis of Critical Theory, especially Critical Race Theory—ideas that do not unite our children, but promote some, demoralize others, and divide all. This course outline repeatedly uses the language of systems, resistance, collective identity, Marxist terms, terms drawn and defined by Critical Race Theory, and reinforces the idea that power structures frame our reality.
3)
"A course embedded with the practice of Critical Race Theory will teach students to see themselves primarily through the lens of race, oppression, and power. It replaces character with color and encourages children to view themselves either as historic and perpetual victims or oppressors based on immutable traits they cannot control.
"I have a word now...about races and race lines. I have no hesitation in telling you that I think the colored people and their friends make a great mistake in saying so much of race and color. I know no such basis for the claims of justice. I know no such a motive for efforts at self-improvement. In this race-way they put the emphasis in the wrong place. 🧵
2)
"I do now and always have attached more importance to manhood than to mere kinship or identity with any variety of the human family. Race, in the popular sense, is narrow. Humanity is broad. The one is special the other is universal; the one is transient, the other permanent.
3)
"In the essential dignity of man as man, I find all necessary incentives and aspirations to a useful and noble life. Manhood is broad enough, and high enough as a platform for you and me and all of us.
"BLM de-policing policies seem to have taken thousands of (mainly Black) lives. During the BLM era, the age-adjusted Black homicide rate has almost doubled, rising from 18.6 murders per 100K African-Americans in 2011 to 32 murders per 100K in 2021. Murders of Black males rose to an astonishing peak of 56/100K during this period (in 2021), while Black women (9.0/100K) came to 'boast' a higher homicide rate than White men (6.4) and all American men (8.2)." 🧵
2)
"Yet for all our lambasting of BLM, police unions and leaders have not covered themselves in glory, largely supporting precinct level decisions to de-police the dangerous parts ('no-go'- or 'slow-go'-zones) of major cities, and refusing to support reforms that do cut crime but discomfort cops. Astonishingly, high homicide rates have little or no impact on whether police commissioners keep their jobs, giving cops few incentives to do better rather than just well enough.
3)
"The real question for those of us who want to make police better rather than run for office or get government grants, is how we can get low-performing police departments to learn from the best, and how we can get the mayors, city councils, governors, and state legislatures overseeing police to enact the sort of civil service reforms, like higher pay coupled with abolishing civil service tenure, that are likely to succeed in getting police to make all lives matter.
Remember when the neo-segregationist left told you that white doctors were killing black babies?
Turns out they were either incapable of analyzing their own data or outright lying to you.
A new study demolishes the failings and falsehoods in that first study. We unpack it: 🧵
2)
The original study claimed black newborns had lower mortality rates when cared for by black physicians. This got a lot of attention and influenced legal discourse, despite its, ahem, limitations. Classic 2020: it was as if they wanted you to think black people and white people couldn't live together.
The study was so influential it was even cited (with clumsy inaccuracies) by Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson in her dissent in the 2023 Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard case, demonstrating how far-reaching its conclusions became.
"In December of 2022, I published on our university library website a research guide consisting of a bibliography of black writers with heterodox views. By May of 2023, five months later, I had been labeled a racist, placed on administrative leave, and targeted for firing."
3)
"The bibliography was created and compiled by folks at an organization called Free Black Thought whose mission is, in their own words, to represent the rich diversity of black thought beyond the relatively narrow spectrum of views promoted by mainstream outlets. Although their website contains a variety of resources, my librarian’s eye was immediately drawn to their bibliography, which they named the Compendium of Free Black Thought (). They presented it as an open access work and encouraged folks to use it as they see fit.bit.ly/36FTtDQ
"How could it be that the university is zealous about policing pronouns but blasé about the advocacy of hateful violence?"
Roland Fryer's latest for the WSJ, "Anti-Israel Protests and the ‘Signaling’ Problem," reproduced here in full. 🧵
2)
"The anti-Israel protests on college campuses present a puzzle for observers of academic norms and mores. Today, even relatively minor linguistic infractions, like the failure to use someone’s preferred pronouns, are categorized as abuse at many elite institutions, some of which even define potentially offensive speech as 'violence.' One need not even speak to run afoul of campus speech codes; I recently participated in a training in which we were warned of the consequences of remaining silent if we heard someone 'misgender' someone else.
3)
"Definitions of 'harmful' speech have become so capacious that one assumes they include antisemitism. In some cases, they surely do: A university wouldn’t take a hands-off approach to a student or faculty member who expressed prejudice against Jews in the manner of Archie Bunker or the Charlottesville marchers. Yet that’s what many of them have done when faced with protesters’ speech that is offensive to Jews, even when it crosses the line into threats, intimidation and harassment.