Enjoyed this a lot. I think some of the commenters are being uncharitable, especially given that everyone complains that people on the extremes of the Left never want to have the conversation. I will happily take the notions that Davidson expresses, some of which I think are the results of an unexamined, leftist upbringing (which were exactly the same as mine), in exchange for the hope of synthesis. I think by the end, a little bit was had, and I look forward to having him and TCW on again to take this further. I left with continued respect for Kmele and TCW's perspectives, and more admiration for Davidson that I expected to have going in. This sort of thing is genuinely what needs to happen more often.
Well, I know how you feel. But I was heartened by their agreement to hash this out like adults, and it only reinforces for me that Twitter is the lowest quality, most ironically inefficient method of communication, the only antidote for which is verbal conversation.
Davidson did a lot of hand-waving and filibustering in the beginning but it got better towards the end. Regardless, it is good to have these conversations and I echo everyone in the comments saying that we need more of them and I applaud him for having the courage to show up, despite being a mediocre white guy.
If hand-waving and filibustering is the natural tactic of the leftist, excessive throat-clearing is the “necessary” move of the heterodox thinker. This is exactly what I see in my own conversations though: the “received wisdom” starts off dominating in the beginning, but invariably, my interlocutor eventually gets to a place where a little relief sets in when they realize they can be real, and not have to uphold The Message to the nth degree.
This is a depressingly bad faith interpretation. Unless I just haven’t read further down the thread and missed it.
Did you actually expect him to change his mind over one podcast? Over one discussion? He’s right. Not one person changed their minds, but they left with more to think about. Each person said that they would take what they could from the podcast discussion and think about it. Maybe it’s less a bad faith interpretation, then a sad representation of “I didn’t immediately change their mind to reflect how I think.” With respect, that’s really not a great reaction if you care about influencing people. 
Man, lots of Adam haters on here! I thought it was big of him to dare to debate kmele and tcw about race! Kudos to him for that. I thought everyone made good points -- including Adam. Like when he talked about being comfortable in certain settings and knowing he got a job based on perceptions and assumptions.
This might not be an analogous episode for this “series” but I’d really love a deep analysis of Ken Burns’s upcoming Holocaust doc from the Fifth plus a guest. Eli Lake feels like the obvious choice but John Podhoretz might also be hilarious.
It feels like Ken Burns is doing this doc for political reasons. He was on CNN New Day and compared DeSantis sending migrants to Martha’s Vineyard to Nazism 🤯🤯🤯 I don’t know how much of that I can take, especially given how antisemitic the (progressive) Left has become. Anyways, that’s my humble request!
Agreed. Adam came on and had a conversation that left both him and TCW/Kmele with a better pov of where they are coming from. These kind of conversations between strangers should be normal; especially for these three guys who spend their lives talking in these circles.
I feel you on Adam stepping up. I agree. We definitely need more courageous conversations amongst thinkers who disagree like this! I really think doing more of this is a big part of the solution. In my critique of Davidson I tried to criticize his ideas, not him personally. Big difference. But you are right, Gabrielle!
No, it’s totally the same, except in one case, the political pawns on the plane went to Martha’s Vineyard, and in the other case, the political pawns were tortured and murdered in ways almost impossible to comprehend.
I’ve always known his politics were on the fringe, but I’ve usually been able to ignore it and appreciate his art. Maybe it makes me a simpleton, but I’ve always enjoyed his documentaries. It’s going to be harder to do that going forward.
I’m going to watch it to see for myself but this one hits me wrong at first glance. Why now? Why this framing? The Israel/Palestine stuff is so wrapped up in BLM language, I think I’m nervous about that happening here and what that means.
The following applies to any issue on podcast for the fifth column listeners (ie the crazy commies and trumpiest trumpers, politically whatever but temperamentally asshats or annoying).
I tend to think anyone who wastes their money on this podcast has to be a bit less horrible than the worst people on Twitter.
The convo was impressively civil and productive. I like how TCW said he didn’t want to silence white people trying to help. Where else can you get this content?!
I liked every bit of this conversation. The willingness of all parties to respond to the most generous interpretations of what one another said made it easier for listeners - or at least this listener - to let his guard down and consider perspectives he instinctively opposes.
On a related note, several times Kmele did something to set his guest at ease, namely laughing heartily at a joke that deserved, instead, a spontaneous chuckle. For example, at around the 12:45 mark. Instead of hearing it as awkward or even disingenuous, it struck me as a genuinely friendly and authentic thing to do. Thanks for hosting a great conversation, Kmele. I hope you'll have Adam back and include other guests with a range of viewpoints as their willingness to engage allows.
I just started listening. I agree with Kmele that it's astounding to have discussions with those you disagree with. But it's worth noting that the first thing out of Davidson's mouth was pretty ignorant and revealing. He commented that his tweet was a reaction to "some rich white British guy." This is one of the fundamental problems with Wokeism and the lazy labeling process. What about the 75 million Trump voters, the majority of whom are white working-class people who have been dying in the tens of thousands of the opioid epidemic, who have been losing their jobs to AI and jobs being shipped overseas for decades, who are killed in sadly high numbers by police compared to the amount of crime they actually commit, who are low-income and struggling? The idea on the fringe Woke left seems to be that Whiteness is a condition; it means you are wealthy, powerful, and have all life's advantages. If you're a middleclass black person, are you still more of a "victim" than a poor white struggling to survive a nasty meth addiction? It makes me think of the founding of America. Everyone always talks about how slaves couldn't vote and had no rights. You know who else couldn't vote, didn't own propery, and essentially had little to no rights? Poor whites. Also, read Gordon Wood: European Indentured servents were very close to being synonymous with slaves: They couldn't vote; they had no rights; they could be beaten and raped at will; they were even sold at auctions. For the record: I am a Biden-voting centrist. I am NOT a Trumper. I just have a healthy relationship with reality.
A thought I had that a reasonable person could say in response…
————
Eventually many of those European indentured servants became, “white” and therefore were not as oppressed for as long (ie there were a few generations that built wealth and could pass it on to their now “white” ancestors).
I don’t really think that this point is an end all for the back and forth someone might have, but it’s something worth considering how to respond to what that means we should or shouldn’t think (culture/media) or should or shouldn’t do (policy).
———
I understand why you put the disclaimer at the end of that comment, and I probably would have too if I were you, but thats kinda sad you/we have to do that. Sports fanaticism aside, I have a healthy relationship with reality, or at least I think I do.
To be fair, a lot of those indentured servants would die before their contracts were completed. And if they did manage to survive, they often did so despite manipulation that dishonestly extended their term of service.
Exactly. I don't want to fully equate the two. On the whole I'm sure slavery was worse. But I think it's worth comparing the two just for the sake of observing that there are some crucial and striking similarities.
If any of ya'll are interested in seeing more of my writing (fiction, personal essays, cultural commentary) check me out and consider subscribing! https://michaelmohr.substack.com/
I thought this podcast was nuanced and is worth a second listen. Adam's example of being able to joke around with his boss reminded me a little bit of something I heard Glenn Loury call "social capital". I'm not sure if they are the same, or related, or not. I need to listen again. Thanks for having the conversation!
Glenn’s concept of social capital, which I kinda think is a foundation to Raj Chetty’s recent work about social mobility (Adam briefly mentioned Chetty’s work) is one of the most interesting ways of understanding many of these issues. I believe I might have forgotten and then reconnected Rajs work to Glenn when I am thinking about this kind of stuff, but I believe Raj credits Glenn or acknowledges his work as some weight on the scale favoring Glenn’s “social capital” theory ad a real phenomenon.
I think Glenn had him on, but I’m pretty sure Raj was also on Tyler’s Cowens podcast as well as EconTalk w/ Russ Roberts.
When I first heard Glenn explain it, It seemed so damn obvious that it was a helpful framework to understand why some gender/racial prob even class disparities can persist in spite of having equal protection and equal opportunity under the law (de jure?). However sometimes things that are intuitive and seem obvious are also very wrong.
This was great guys. I used to love listening to Adam Davidson on Planet Money and his recent tweets have been disconcerting, but I'm glad he can still be as nuanced as I know he can outside of Twitter. Bravo for the enlightening conversation.
This whole white privilege discussion is ridiculous. I agree that the statement is racist. The only privilege i have is to be born to parents that in their lives tried to always make the correct decision. Their parents did the same. Maybe it was to uproot their lives and come to this country that offered them opportunity that they did not have. With the examples of my parents and and my wife’s parents we have worked to give our kids ‘Privilege’. If you look across all people, if they have ‘privilege,’ it is mostly because of their parents or others that have provided them guidance
I enjoyed this a lot, something I find kind of strange though is Thomas and Kmele more or less match up in this convo with who they are and where they are at on this issue in all forums. Davidson on the other hand presents views that are at least much more measured and nuanced if not actually different than I've seen from his Twitter and writing on the issue. I'm not saying you guys should have played gotcha with other things he's written or anything, thought it was a great convo and one of the reasons I like your podcast is you don't bring people on to just try and crush them. I just thought that was a weird asymmetry between you.
We need to normalize that it is OK for people to be wrong. Trust me, all of you are wrong all the time on the things where we disagree. I've learned to live with it.
This is a thought provoking discussion, and all the participants are having a good faith discussion. All three of you guys should get the hell off twitter.
Now hear me out, as I understand telling anyone to get off twitter is like talking to a drug addict or someone in an abusive relationship.
One might say "This great conversation happened BECAUSE of twitter!" and that is accurate. But by my perspective, saying that is like "I met my best friend in chemotherapy!" and then thinking people they should get cancer cause of all the friends they may make.
At this point I have heard all kinds of excuses for people being on twitter. I used to think twitter was just one of many problems with online discourse. It wasn't twitter per se that was the cancer in the system, as there are other, plenty toxic platforms out there that share the load of this mess of our public discourse. But now, after a few years of watching many of the people I respect most get more and more deformed by the platform I am certain twitter is uniquely responsible.
At this point if you are on twitter, you are willfully and knowingly participating in a system that does significantly more harm than good. It is not even close. It is so lopsided an argument as to be meme. I could list prolly a dozen examples, numbers, incidents and news cycles directly attributed to twitter. But to be honest I don't have too because we all know them. It is as known as the dangers of skydiving or gambling.
So yeah, there are my two bits. Whatever YOU get out of twitter, is IMHO not worth what it is doing to the world, and more importantly to the thought leaders in our world.
I'm totally with you. I have been trying to quit, and feel addicted. It really meets all the criteria of addiction: I think about it and use it obsessively, (I believe) it is having a negative impact on my life, I want to quit, but keep coming back to it. The platform seems to squeeze the worst out of everyone. I believe there is a utility to it, but find that it is outweighed by the negative aspects.
I really think I got lucky RE twitter. I had an account years ago for work purposes (I am a designer and needed an account to test out stuff for clients). But once I stopped doing that kind of stuff I got rid of it. I should have prefaced all of that with the fact that I am becoming more and more convinced that the internet itsself is the actual black ball Nick Bostrom spoke about in Super Intelligence. So my tinfoil hat could be playing a part in my perception here. :D
it kind of sounded like Davidson believes a non white applicant is not capable of being able to get experience in technical fields in 2022 (like his example of audio software). This struck me as slightly racist? I got a superiority vibe from him throughout the whole conversation.
I’m a teacher. This episode comes on the eve of the first meeting of Discourse Club who’s members are high school students hungry for a way to have conversations big and small where they can express their opinions without being called names and talking past each other. Thank for this model of respectful discourse across differences! May the conversation continue and generate more light than heat.
One thing that struck me frequently when listening to Adam talk was the tacit and seemingly un-self aware assignment of certain universally accessible positive traits as wholly owned and operated White People products. The ability to navigate workplace relationships with superiors, self-govern, navigate complex systems by accruing social capital through intelligent behavior - I’d always thought those things were open to all of humanity, but nope, to hear Adam and his ilk tell it, those are naturally the provenance of white people and can only be imported, with great effort and cost, by people of different phenotypes.
Those ideas alarm me more than overt racism; at least with that, I know where someone stands and I know their priors. With people like Adam, who engage in the soft bigotry of low expectations, it’s much more insidious.
One small, obliquely related topic that was kind of touched on in passing (the discussion of Nigerian immigrants, and the chimeric nature of “whiteness” in the way that it’s been applied over the years to immigrants of various origins) is the cartoonishly simplistic flattening one must do to assign people to broad racial buckets. That is, the “white” label conflates the fourth generation Californian descendent of Dust Bowl migrants with coal miners in West Virginia, the card carrying DSA member Oberlin grad son of a hedge fund manager living in a Smith St brownstone, and Michael Moynihan. All of those people have dramatically different backgrounds, subjective knowledge and experiences, and values that it’s ridiculous to lump them all together and say “you’re all having the ‘white experience’”.
Enjoyed this a lot. I think some of the commenters are being uncharitable, especially given that everyone complains that people on the extremes of the Left never want to have the conversation. I will happily take the notions that Davidson expresses, some of which I think are the results of an unexamined, leftist upbringing (which were exactly the same as mine), in exchange for the hope of synthesis. I think by the end, a little bit was had, and I look forward to having him and TCW on again to take this further. I left with continued respect for Kmele and TCW's perspectives, and more admiration for Davidson that I expected to have going in. This sort of thing is genuinely what needs to happen more often.
I was kinda hard on Davidson but I agree with you here. These conversations are crucial and we need more of them.
Well, I know how you feel. But I was heartened by their agreement to hash this out like adults, and it only reinforces for me that Twitter is the lowest quality, most ironically inefficient method of communication, the only antidote for which is verbal conversation.
You might like my Sub: https://michaelmohr.substack.com/
Couldn't have said it better myself. Exactly. Dialogue is the only way forward.
Davidson did a lot of hand-waving and filibustering in the beginning but it got better towards the end. Regardless, it is good to have these conversations and I echo everyone in the comments saying that we need more of them and I applaud him for having the courage to show up, despite being a mediocre white guy.
If hand-waving and filibustering is the natural tactic of the leftist, excessive throat-clearing is the “necessary” move of the heterodox thinker. This is exactly what I see in my own conversations though: the “received wisdom” starts off dominating in the beginning, but invariably, my interlocutor eventually gets to a place where a little relief sets in when they realize they can be real, and not have to uphold The Message to the nth degree.
Love this.
This is a depressingly bad faith interpretation. Unless I just haven’t read further down the thread and missed it.
Did you actually expect him to change his mind over one podcast? Over one discussion? He’s right. Not one person changed their minds, but they left with more to think about. Each person said that they would take what they could from the podcast discussion and think about it. Maybe it’s less a bad faith interpretation, then a sad representation of “I didn’t immediately change their mind to reflect how I think.” With respect, that’s really not a great reaction if you care about influencing people. 
Man, lots of Adam haters on here! I thought it was big of him to dare to debate kmele and tcw about race! Kudos to him for that. I thought everyone made good points -- including Adam. Like when he talked about being comfortable in certain settings and knowing he got a job based on perceptions and assumptions.
This might not be an analogous episode for this “series” but I’d really love a deep analysis of Ken Burns’s upcoming Holocaust doc from the Fifth plus a guest. Eli Lake feels like the obvious choice but John Podhoretz might also be hilarious.
It feels like Ken Burns is doing this doc for political reasons. He was on CNN New Day and compared DeSantis sending migrants to Martha’s Vineyard to Nazism 🤯🤯🤯 I don’t know how much of that I can take, especially given how antisemitic the (progressive) Left has become. Anyways, that’s my humble request!
And stop the Adam hate, people! He stepped up.
Agreed. Adam came on and had a conversation that left both him and TCW/Kmele with a better pov of where they are coming from. These kind of conversations between strangers should be normal; especially for these three guys who spend their lives talking in these circles.
I feel you on Adam stepping up. I agree. We definitely need more courageous conversations amongst thinkers who disagree like this! I really think doing more of this is a big part of the solution. In my critique of Davidson I tried to criticize his ideas, not him personally. Big difference. But you are right, Gabrielle!
No, it’s totally the same, except in one case, the political pawns on the plane went to Martha’s Vineyard, and in the other case, the political pawns were tortured and murdered in ways almost impossible to comprehend.
I’ve always known his politics were on the fringe, but I’ve usually been able to ignore it and appreciate his art. Maybe it makes me a simpleton, but I’ve always enjoyed his documentaries. It’s going to be harder to do that going forward.
I’m going to watch it to see for myself but this one hits me wrong at first glance. Why now? Why this framing? The Israel/Palestine stuff is so wrapped up in BLM language, I think I’m nervous about that happening here and what that means.
The people on here angry at Adam are no different than the people angry at Kmele and Thomas.
The following applies to any issue on podcast for the fifth column listeners (ie the crazy commies and trumpiest trumpers, politically whatever but temperamentally asshats or annoying).
I tend to think anyone who wastes their money on this podcast has to be a bit less horrible than the worst people on Twitter.
I agree. Adam was thoughtful and engaged. He kept cant to a minimum. He challenged race abolition so I can think some more about it!
The convo was impressively civil and productive. I like how TCW said he didn’t want to silence white people trying to help. Where else can you get this content?!
And he really dove into examples of how his racial category is somewhat negotiable as a "white" presenting and Jewish. Good stuff!
Was that what he said on Twitter before they talked?
I liked every bit of this conversation. The willingness of all parties to respond to the most generous interpretations of what one another said made it easier for listeners - or at least this listener - to let his guard down and consider perspectives he instinctively opposes.
On a related note, several times Kmele did something to set his guest at ease, namely laughing heartily at a joke that deserved, instead, a spontaneous chuckle. For example, at around the 12:45 mark. Instead of hearing it as awkward or even disingenuous, it struck me as a genuinely friendly and authentic thing to do. Thanks for hosting a great conversation, Kmele. I hope you'll have Adam back and include other guests with a range of viewpoints as their willingness to engage allows.
Agreed
I just started listening. I agree with Kmele that it's astounding to have discussions with those you disagree with. But it's worth noting that the first thing out of Davidson's mouth was pretty ignorant and revealing. He commented that his tweet was a reaction to "some rich white British guy." This is one of the fundamental problems with Wokeism and the lazy labeling process. What about the 75 million Trump voters, the majority of whom are white working-class people who have been dying in the tens of thousands of the opioid epidemic, who have been losing their jobs to AI and jobs being shipped overseas for decades, who are killed in sadly high numbers by police compared to the amount of crime they actually commit, who are low-income and struggling? The idea on the fringe Woke left seems to be that Whiteness is a condition; it means you are wealthy, powerful, and have all life's advantages. If you're a middleclass black person, are you still more of a "victim" than a poor white struggling to survive a nasty meth addiction? It makes me think of the founding of America. Everyone always talks about how slaves couldn't vote and had no rights. You know who else couldn't vote, didn't own propery, and essentially had little to no rights? Poor whites. Also, read Gordon Wood: European Indentured servents were very close to being synonymous with slaves: They couldn't vote; they had no rights; they could be beaten and raped at will; they were even sold at auctions. For the record: I am a Biden-voting centrist. I am NOT a Trumper. I just have a healthy relationship with reality.
A thought I had that a reasonable person could say in response…
————
Eventually many of those European indentured servants became, “white” and therefore were not as oppressed for as long (ie there were a few generations that built wealth and could pass it on to their now “white” ancestors).
I don’t really think that this point is an end all for the back and forth someone might have, but it’s something worth considering how to respond to what that means we should or shouldn’t think (culture/media) or should or shouldn’t do (policy).
———
I understand why you put the disclaimer at the end of that comment, and I probably would have too if I were you, but thats kinda sad you/we have to do that. Sports fanaticism aside, I have a healthy relationship with reality, or at least I think I do.
To be fair, a lot of those indentured servants would die before their contracts were completed. And if they did manage to survive, they often did so despite manipulation that dishonestly extended their term of service.
It was a very rough deal.
Exactly. I don't want to fully equate the two. On the whole I'm sure slavery was worse. But I think it's worth comparing the two just for the sake of observing that there are some crucial and striking similarities.
If any of ya'll are interested in seeing more of my writing (fiction, personal essays, cultural commentary) check me out and consider subscribing! https://michaelmohr.substack.com/
I thought this podcast was nuanced and is worth a second listen. Adam's example of being able to joke around with his boss reminded me a little bit of something I heard Glenn Loury call "social capital". I'm not sure if they are the same, or related, or not. I need to listen again. Thanks for having the conversation!
Glenn’s concept of social capital, which I kinda think is a foundation to Raj Chetty’s recent work about social mobility (Adam briefly mentioned Chetty’s work) is one of the most interesting ways of understanding many of these issues. I believe I might have forgotten and then reconnected Rajs work to Glenn when I am thinking about this kind of stuff, but I believe Raj credits Glenn or acknowledges his work as some weight on the scale favoring Glenn’s “social capital” theory ad a real phenomenon.
I think Glenn had him on, but I’m pretty sure Raj was also on Tyler’s Cowens podcast as well as EconTalk w/ Russ Roberts.
When I first heard Glenn explain it, It seemed so damn obvious that it was a helpful framework to understand why some gender/racial prob even class disparities can persist in spite of having equal protection and equal opportunity under the law (de jure?). However sometimes things that are intuitive and seem obvious are also very wrong.
This was great guys. I used to love listening to Adam Davidson on Planet Money and his recent tweets have been disconcerting, but I'm glad he can still be as nuanced as I know he can outside of Twitter. Bravo for the enlightening conversation.
completely agree!
This whole white privilege discussion is ridiculous. I agree that the statement is racist. The only privilege i have is to be born to parents that in their lives tried to always make the correct decision. Their parents did the same. Maybe it was to uproot their lives and come to this country that offered them opportunity that they did not have. With the examples of my parents and and my wife’s parents we have worked to give our kids ‘Privilege’. If you look across all people, if they have ‘privilege,’ it is mostly because of their parents or others that have provided them guidance
I enjoyed this a lot, something I find kind of strange though is Thomas and Kmele more or less match up in this convo with who they are and where they are at on this issue in all forums. Davidson on the other hand presents views that are at least much more measured and nuanced if not actually different than I've seen from his Twitter and writing on the issue. I'm not saying you guys should have played gotcha with other things he's written or anything, thought it was a great convo and one of the reasons I like your podcast is you don't bring people on to just try and crush them. I just thought that was a weird asymmetry between you.
It's just so easy to dunk on privilege on Twitter. It would take a lot of self restraint not to seek that dopamine hit.
Perverse incentives creat perverse outcomes.
We need to normalize that it is OK for people to be wrong. Trust me, all of you are wrong all the time on the things where we disagree. I've learned to live with it.
This is a thought provoking discussion, and all the participants are having a good faith discussion. All three of you guys should get the hell off twitter.
Now hear me out, as I understand telling anyone to get off twitter is like talking to a drug addict or someone in an abusive relationship.
One might say "This great conversation happened BECAUSE of twitter!" and that is accurate. But by my perspective, saying that is like "I met my best friend in chemotherapy!" and then thinking people they should get cancer cause of all the friends they may make.
At this point I have heard all kinds of excuses for people being on twitter. I used to think twitter was just one of many problems with online discourse. It wasn't twitter per se that was the cancer in the system, as there are other, plenty toxic platforms out there that share the load of this mess of our public discourse. But now, after a few years of watching many of the people I respect most get more and more deformed by the platform I am certain twitter is uniquely responsible.
At this point if you are on twitter, you are willfully and knowingly participating in a system that does significantly more harm than good. It is not even close. It is so lopsided an argument as to be meme. I could list prolly a dozen examples, numbers, incidents and news cycles directly attributed to twitter. But to be honest I don't have too because we all know them. It is as known as the dangers of skydiving or gambling.
So yeah, there are my two bits. Whatever YOU get out of twitter, is IMHO not worth what it is doing to the world, and more importantly to the thought leaders in our world.
I'm totally with you. I have been trying to quit, and feel addicted. It really meets all the criteria of addiction: I think about it and use it obsessively, (I believe) it is having a negative impact on my life, I want to quit, but keep coming back to it. The platform seems to squeeze the worst out of everyone. I believe there is a utility to it, but find that it is outweighed by the negative aspects.
I really think I got lucky RE twitter. I had an account years ago for work purposes (I am a designer and needed an account to test out stuff for clients). But once I stopped doing that kind of stuff I got rid of it. I should have prefaced all of that with the fact that I am becoming more and more convinced that the internet itsself is the actual black ball Nick Bostrom spoke about in Super Intelligence. So my tinfoil hat could be playing a part in my perception here. :D
it kind of sounded like Davidson believes a non white applicant is not capable of being able to get experience in technical fields in 2022 (like his example of audio software). This struck me as slightly racist? I got a superiority vibe from him throughout the whole conversation.
Is it Sowell who talks of the soft bigotry of low expectations? I heard a lot of that in Mr. Davidson.
I was wondering if anyone could share the names of the Austrian economists that were mentioned and the one paper that Kmele referred to?
This is the Hayek paper: https://oll.libertyfund.org/page/hayek-the-use-of-knowledge-in-society
Thanks for finding the link and sharing.
Thanks
Thanks! Came to the comments looking for this
I’m a teacher. This episode comes on the eve of the first meeting of Discourse Club who’s members are high school students hungry for a way to have conversations big and small where they can express their opinions without being called names and talking past each other. Thank for this model of respectful discourse across differences! May the conversation continue and generate more light than heat.
I’m super excited that white privilege havers Michael and Matt have agreed to step back and not participate in the oppression of BIPOC voices!
So how many more edifying solo podcasts does Kmele have to host to make up for all of his so called “convention or conference” absences?
Davidson is a fucking dolt. My god.
One thing that struck me frequently when listening to Adam talk was the tacit and seemingly un-self aware assignment of certain universally accessible positive traits as wholly owned and operated White People products. The ability to navigate workplace relationships with superiors, self-govern, navigate complex systems by accruing social capital through intelligent behavior - I’d always thought those things were open to all of humanity, but nope, to hear Adam and his ilk tell it, those are naturally the provenance of white people and can only be imported, with great effort and cost, by people of different phenotypes.
Those ideas alarm me more than overt racism; at least with that, I know where someone stands and I know their priors. With people like Adam, who engage in the soft bigotry of low expectations, it’s much more insidious.
One small, obliquely related topic that was kind of touched on in passing (the discussion of Nigerian immigrants, and the chimeric nature of “whiteness” in the way that it’s been applied over the years to immigrants of various origins) is the cartoonishly simplistic flattening one must do to assign people to broad racial buckets. That is, the “white” label conflates the fourth generation Californian descendent of Dust Bowl migrants with coal miners in West Virginia, the card carrying DSA member Oberlin grad son of a hedge fund manager living in a Smith St brownstone, and Michael Moynihan. All of those people have dramatically different backgrounds, subjective knowledge and experiences, and values that it’s ridiculous to lump them all together and say “you’re all having the ‘white experience’”.