The End of Race Politics - Coleman Hughes

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- VIDEO NOTES
Coleman Hughes is an American writer and podcast host. He is the author of "The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America".
- LINKS
Buy the book: amzn.to/4bpmjqZ
- TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Seeing People Through The Lens of Race
03:26 When Should Race Be Relevant?
06:18 Can Government Treat People as Individuals?
10:19 Racial Discrimination in the Workplace
24:53 The New Age of Race Obsession
30:28 A Better Cause to Get Behind
34:24 Do Children Have a Racial Bias?
37:20 Is Social Media Enabling a Rise in Traditional Racism?
42:19 Responses to Coleman’s Work
47:04 Who is the Book For?
50:21 Can Social Media Crush These Elitist Ideas?
53:25 Is Twitter Better or Worse Under Elon Musk?
58:59 Outro
- SPECIAL THANKS
A special thanks to my top-tier supporters on Patreon:
Tom Rindell
James Younger, DDS
- CONNECT
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Alex O'Connor
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------------------------------------------

[@CosmicSkeptic]

Try AG1 today: www.drinkAG1.com/withinreason For early, ad-free access to videos, support the channel at www.Patreon.com/AlexOC

[@barrykp]

You're in the top league now 😂

[@Bids-Shadowbread]

Hey you, reader of this comment, do not click on the link Alex has posted because by your own moral system - it's possible you're undeserving to click there. Why? I don't know, it's your moral system not mine. You tell me if you think you deserve to click there. Ask yourself this, do you REALLY deserve this?

[@samalama5000]

Im a big fan of how much you tend to challenge your guests in this podcast, especially in the more philosophy/religion oriented episodes, and have to say that I was pretty disappointed with this one. Maybe it's because it's mostly focused on (American) government policy and statistics, but it felt like Coleman got to sneak In several sketchy arguments that you didn't really have the knowledge to push back on. The most egregious is the Yemeni restaurant argument - Coleman should be perfectly aware that US discrimination laws already have exceptions for those kinds of businesses and that it's not a particularly hard distinction to make. Hiring bias is another - pretending that the problem is solved if there are no names in the CV is preposterous and not at all the point of the studies. The bias will still be there if applicants get interviewed or hired.

[@christopherchilton-smith6482]

​@@Bids-Shadowbread No one deserves anything.

[@Johnwick-wi8zw]

Big fan of ur show mate .keep rocking as usual .❤️❤️❤️💪💪💪

[@jeremiahbok9028]

Agree or disagree with Hughes, he's a calmly passionate thinker who considers his positions carefully, is open to debate, and doesn't consider having an opposing opinion something that makes you a stupid or a bad person. The world needs more people like him, and more conversations like this! I wish it was twice as long.

[@realbangbang]

True but also, how could you disagree with his argument in good faith

[@yonaoisme]

nobody cares about actual thoughts and policies. it's all just who is more charismatic

[@K_-_-_-_K]

Let's see him debate Jared Taylor.

[@endi3386]

@@yonaoisme Speak for yourself.

[@Wolfboy607]

@@realbangbang Here's mine, it's pretty minor in the scheme, but that's how the majority of leftist disagreement is. It's certainly not bad faith. "Race certainly shouldn't be relevant, but the fact remains it is... In my family home, South Gate california, black families were being refused the sale of homes at least through the 60s. I can't claim superior knowledge about Jersey, but in California the American Sanctuary state, black families were systemically prevented from accruing any form of generational wealth, while my family's ability to do so was protected by law. That is an unfair advantage, in living memory. How do we not call this institutional racism? Even if we pretend it all ended 60 years ago, 60 years ago is fucking recently.... My grandma absolves herself by saying she didn't know, but not only did she benefit, but I did too. Reparations matter. Especially in the US. Not cash reparations, but access to education, for example. Your guest is so weird. He's right about how class issues divide us all, but he's using it to try and hide other issues, that's pretty oof. Intersectionality will free us. It started as intersectional feminism, but their main point was that all these issues intersect and they were right. It's a gordian knot, and if we only tug at one string at a time, we run the risk of making the knot tighter and harder to undue.... It's good that we have him to tug on the strings of class, it's not one person's job to undue the whole knot, and that's why it's good actually that so many leftists are focused on so many different issues. It's unfortunate that he seems to think of the rest of us as misguided, though. Our infighting is the best." Black families, by and large, have not even been allowed to accrue generational wealth until a generation that is still mostly alive today. Generational wealth is the majority of wealth in this country. We don't often recognize it because today boomers hold the vast majority of it. But this is more than a thumb on the scale, the law might be equal now today, but the playing field still just isn't, not by a long shot. That's why it matters, because we still have a chance to make it even, and we can't actually do that by being colorblind.

[@LazyInnovator]

Suggestion from a fan: Alex please ask your editors to show on screen the graphs or text or images that are referenced by the guest. Kind of like how Joe Rogan has it. That adds further contextual depth to the conversation. Thanks!

[@beanbrewer]

He's not referencing anything but his own vibes

[@ayylmao2710]

@@beanbrewer If Hughes could submit to the editor the sources he wishes to cite before the podcast, he wouldn’t have to cite “vibes”.

[@beanbrewer]

@@ayylmao2710 he doesn't have sources to cite is the point

[@daylanhammer4551]

@@beanbrewerstfu he’s written an entire book filled with sources

[@allrequiredfields]

​@@beanbrewer He literally did cite studies and statistics, mouthbreather

[@fustilarian1]

Kids being colour blind in the sense that they don't treat you any different based on race only applies if those kids are used to being in a multiethnic environment. If you're the only black kid in a school you will be treated differently. If you go to parts of rural china where they've never seen foreigners, the children will always be pointing at you and shouting "foreigner" because you're unusual to them. Another issue is how well integrated a multicultural society is, there are still in-group out-group dynamics that cause tension; different races form cliques in school, speak a different language etc.

[@Theactivepsychos]

I think the tests were done on preschoolers. Once education starts that’s when the relation ship with skin colour and perceived status begins.

[@danielakalamudo4360]

I believe what he means is that children don’t understand stereotypes linked to certain groups, so a child in rural china or Nigeria would see a white person as strange but not have any information to judge them negatively or positively. Children typically don’t have a sense of danger that why they can play with strangers easily , now in the process of teaching children safety, Parents can teach bias but it takes a while for it to set in , probably junior high school and depends on the intensity. Some may argue teaching children about race may prevent this which I agree but 2 problems arise. Race and ethnicity are complex topics to teach and takes years to fully understand so how do you simplify it without teaching something wrong, also present methods of teaching focus more on racial injustice than understanding differences. This creates an even more detrimental effect on children than the biases their parents pass on directly or indirectly.

[@butterflyvision3084]

That's missing the point. He's saying children don't judge character based on race and don't see race as a barrier for friendship etc. I had a great example of this when I visited a small Kenyan village for a few weeks with my daughter who was 6 at the time. Most of the kids there had literally never seen a white person IRL, only on tv, and being Swedish we are pretty much as white as it gets. So the children was all over her, curious about her blond straight hair, her skin, her strange language etc etc. But not one of them assumed she was stupid, or smart, or wouldn't want to play with them, or wouldn't like their food and so on. There was endless fascination with her race, but none of it was racist. She had friends everywhere in no time at all, while I had to work much harder to get over the social barriers in the adult world.

[@sam6000]

The way I see it countries, that are foreign are still nice to visit, because they've got a respect of persons regardless of who these persons are. When you move somewhere culture, language, and norms all get in your way as you integrate. But as someone who lives in Miami brother is strong division by way of language, where you could easily see how people that speak exclusively English or Spanish divide themselves up, even if by preference, I don't see that as a problem. It's kind of like complaining that cats and dogs don't get along. They don't understand each other. I don't know what else we can do. Hopefully the cultures would adopt a feeling of respect for the misunderstood. But it's ridiculous to assume you just become friends with someone you can't talk to.

[@samalama5000]

@@butterflyvision3084 Yes, that kind of curiosity can be wholesome. But it doesn't last forever. Say that instead of just visiting for a few days your daughter enrolled in a Kenyan school as the only non-Kenyan there. Do you seriously think she wouldn't be in danger of being singled out, or have trouble integrating? Racism as a belief system is indeed something that's taught, but it didn't come from nowhere. Tribalism and in-group preferences come naturally to people, even kids, and it can absolutely get ugly. If you work in early schools, especially very homogenous ones, you'll see kids with any sort of visible difference (accent, skin color, looks, neurodivergence) get pestered relentlessly. Some of them learn to deal with it or manage to integrate, but not all.

[@raucousriley143]

Never heard anybody phrase that question better. 'Why is seeing people through the lens of race cool again?'

[@Sui_Generis0]

Caught him off guard

[@lukemcadie6984]

As a brit and as someone who has grown up in London (perhaps the most multiracial society in the world) the idea of affirmative action, or segregation in the name of social justice was and is mind blowing. It seems like putting out a fire with more fire?!

[@reveluvv0]

@@lukemcadie6984 why would you think the idea of equality of outcome to fight for those who have been historically and continuously in a position of disadvantage mind blowing, and im saying this as a brit who has grown up in London. Are you also against the idea of contextual offers for university students who live in disadvantaged areas too?

[@CyclingAMP]

​@@lukemcadie6984 ppl are asking for equality I don't see why that is mind blowing 😂

[@holynder3181]

@@lukemcadie6984 I agree completely. There is no need to focus on race when you could just as easily categorize people by where they live, their income, or any other meaningful factors. Why should wealthy black people get more stuff from the government than wealthy white people? They’re not at a disadvantage. They don’t need affirmative action. The poor people with no opportunities in an economy where every job requires something they don’t have? Those are the people who need help.

[@dapostop7384]

Here is my statement before i watched 30 seconds

[@hisky.]

LMAO

[@spencerantoniomarlen-starr3069]

I disagree and conclude that you are a bad person.

[@TheStrategist314]

Lol.

[@SamoaVsEverybody814]

U better criticize the talking pts or your early comment isn't valid lol

[@user-xx3wh9dd2l]

i watched 45 seconds(15 more than you did) and i must say that you are entirely incorrect

[@oscarclark4702]

The main takeaway from the callback studies is that it indicates a racial bias that continues into the workplace. Blind hiring for the first stage of applicants doesn’t address that racial bias which would be present once the applicant is hired.

[@samalama5000]

Yup, they really missed the point of those studies. Bias doesn't stop being an issue after callback - in most cases follow-up interviews (and even being hired as you say) would still expose the applicants to the same conscious and unconscious biases. I'm also surprised that neither of them mentioned the various reasons (besides racial profiling) that companies have to want to know an applicant's real name. Background and social media checks are extremely common nowadays and would be impossible if you tried to hire blind.

[@jo-mi4966]

I suppose you have a better suggestion?

[@viinisaari]

Theoretically you should have blind metrics every step of the way: school, university, hiring and promotions. Among other measures to make sure there is equal opportunity. In practice, it can be difficult. But blind hiring is definitely an improvement.

[@steggyweggy]

@@samalama5000​​⁠​⁠well the first idea that came to my mind is that you have those done by separate HR people. One person checks purely off of nameless résumé’s while the other uses the names to look at backgrounds. Then do a phone interview instead of in person in order to avoid visual bias. Of course, vocals can also bias someone, but I’m not sure if text interviews are necessary.

[@samalama5000]

​@@steggyweggy That does sound better but still runs into similar issues and comes at a cost to the company. How would we be sure that bias wouldn't influence the background investigation?

[@epg644]

Blinding in hiring is great. We should do that as much as possible. But a huge piece of this conversation is missing. Where does the talent pool come from? And are people given equal (or at least good) access to the education and resources that would qualify them in the first place? We've made progress certainly. But oppotunity without education is meaningless. And which community you are born into still matters.

[@brianmeen2158]

@Letsthinkaboutit-mb7nn “equality of opportunity” You will never reach equality of opportunity in a nation as large as America. It is a pipe dream especially since the overall wage gap is only widening .. just examine various zip codes and you will see large disparities .. redistribution of wealth seems like a very messy idea - when in history has that ever worked?

[@jordandthornburg]

You can’t ever have fully equal opportunity. It would require communist like control over resources and schools. You can improve those that are doing bad, specifically if they are tax payer funded. It wont ever been fully equal though. The good thing is it doesn’t need to be.

[@peenusweenus7801]

I love these sorts of comments because if you've ever been in the kind of schools where these "undeserved" people are you quickly understand it's got nothing to do with anything but the kid themselves. Even people in education want to get out of these places as soon as possible because they know there's nothing to be done.

[@danielakalamudo4360]

@Letsthinkaboutit-mb7nn I disagree, equality of outcome is not a fair or realistic solution because it has never existed. Culture plays a major role in opportunities people are interested in. If you break down demographics to their barest minimum, these disparities exist even within racial groups. The location where a group resides and their family heritage plays a major role in it. I believe the best solution is to expose people of all communities to take various opportunities and provide them with support for which ever they’re interested. Equal outcomes would not solve the supply problem or the family problem. And disparities does not always equate racism as for example, I won’t expect a majority of abortion providers or male gynecologist to be of Islamic heritage due to their cultural background. Trying to employ more won’t change the supply side

[@Nick-o-time]

​@@peenusweenus7801I went to predominantly black schools in poor neighborhoods as a white kid. You're literally just a racist.

[@lobsterboy2020]

On grading papers, in my degree it was just standard practice at my university that you put your 'student number' at the top, never your name.

[@LadyArete]

Here to back the latinx comment, we all considered it a type of Newspeak slur. Latino is already gender neutral when used for a group. It was very insulting to imply our language was toxic.

[@daniel-panek]

I don't personally know any progressives that use latinx. I've seen it used on a business from once talking about being a "latinx owned business". The subject is as absurd in the level of criticism as it is to be criticized. No one really actually uses it or cares.

[@Besseloff]

I use a survey on this in class to show the class divide around political correctness and how elite and on the ground linguistic values and norms often differ.

[@plasmanip3998]

Latinx was invented by Latinos/latinas/latinx

[@TheCdr19]

Agreed, the Spanish language is very clear and has a variety of ways to express complex thought. Reducing the language because of mere American social grievance is absolutely disgraceful.

[@plasmanip3998]

Latinx is a term made by Latino people…

[@shakacien]

In short: isn't it location/income/luck? and then that correlates strongly with race due to old and modern factors based on combinations of injustice, including a lot of racism.

[@kjamestaylor]

HOPE YOU WERE BEING IRONIC

[@warbler1984]

Yeah you've got it backwards though base your social policies on class and you'll help a given race in proportion to its disparity otherwise you'll leave poor whites in poverty...use better proxies

[@Bigball_Bill]

Not really. It's mostly quality of education dictated by cultural values. Definitely luck in the sense of the family and proximity you are born into and whether they teach the importance of education. You can argue that cultures value education less due to past injustice but I don't see how that changes the fact that the required solution is better education in any case so that people are self determined to offer their goods and services in trade with others.

[@FinnAppelt]

Kind of, yea Thats basically what systemic racism/oppresion is

[@Machinegundon64]

​ @kjamestaylor How so? Early New Deal Policies specifically excluded African Americans. These policies made a clear path to homeownership and the concept of the middle class in America. Why would the ripple effect stay in past? If you own a home which passed down generations. You can pull equity from your home for college, starting a small business or emergencies. Something you can't do when you rent or are mandated by government policy to only buy depreciating homes.

[@cliffordcameronmusic6]

Give people healthcare, housing, yes maybe UBI and access to food/water that isn't going to give them and their children cancer and none of these problems will manifest themselves. "BUT the state will have too much power" ok fair enough. Democratize our workplaces so that the workers determine where the fruits of THEIR labor are spent and we will have all of these things and more.

[@MachFiveFalcon]

I mostly agree. I think the majority of modern American racism is based on social class and culture that is heavily influenced by social class. The negative (and positive) associations between race and social class should go away in a generation or two after socioeconomic equality between races has been reached. > There's a much smaller number of people who (even with good education) are biased towards their own race for solely biological reasons, and the only way I see a world without those people is after all races eventually (more or less) combine into one.

[@brotherben4357]

“Democratize workplaces” - In certain workplaces, especially government workplaces only, right? Or do you think it should be more widespread, entering into private organisations?

[@jacobstamm]

I have little faith that such a system could ever exist successfully for very long due to traits that will always be a part of human nature: fatigue and apathy. Direct democracy takes a lot of work. Inevitability, the majority of people will prefer to outsource most of that work to representatives. As with government, so also with labor. Soon, you end up with executives again. This will never not happen. Hierarchies will always manifest. Governments who forbid them from existing will find their workforce and economy far less productive and competitive than economies where they’re allowed to exist. Anarchist libertarians have the same problem. The system they want can only exist if the population is interested in spending far more of their time and effort on communal governance than they ever actually will. Socialists and anarchists are so close to each other on this matter that they almost bend the horseshoe into a closed circle.

[@Mmoll1990]

I agree. We SHOULD seize the means of production as the laboring class.

[@samnero387]

​@MachFiveFalcon Black culture is terrible. Period. That's the problem. No one wants to be around blacks because of their behavior. Some blacks with money are even worse.

[@Moley1Moleo]

I'm not entirely convinced that external threats are reliably good at uniting people. The cold War was a bit before my time, but my understanding was that gay people were often persecuted in countires of either side of it, with the USA thinking that gay people were communist spies sent to corrupt the culture, and Soviet countries sometimes viewing gay people as capitalist decadence. And didn't the US have Japanese internment camps during WW2? It could be the case that it is true more often than it is not, but I think that requires some analysis, since there are certainly cases of divisions getting deeper despite being faced with external threats.

[@alanho6814]

Aren't all your examples just once in-group people got labelled as the collaborators of the external threat? That they're viewed as "not properly in-group", you know, they're supposed the to be enemy within, the fifth column, etc. In this sesne, an external threat is uniting the people beacause the marginalized are conveniently not considered to be part of the people proper, or the silent majority, what have you. It's the old trick of Bismarck, negative integration: just make some enemies, then your people will consolidate.

[@Shadescape12]

@@alanho6814 Sure but if we just pick groups we don't like and label them as part of the enemy it isn't really banding together is it

[@Synthesia-ef7hj]

well yeah but who are you gonna make the external threat then?​@@Shadescape12

[@Nathouuuutheone]

I was really unsure about what he was saying, but I enjoyed hearing him walk through it calmly, up until he mentioned meritocracy... Meritocracy is a myth.

[@danw5760]

Call everything you disagree with a myth, never lose an argument again. But never get any closer to truth. Congrats winner, winning in the shadows.

[@Nathouuuutheone]

@danw5760 lol did you have any arguments or do you just believe in every ideal the rich present you with? Meritocracy is literally a myth. People don't get what they deserve based on intelligence or productivity. They get what they are lucky enough to get from people who like them enough and aren't too bigoted to exclude them. People get an appartment because the landlord thinks they deserve it, not because they literally worked for it. Money sometimes acts as a great equalizer, until you realize the people making money are also not selected based on merit but based on simply being born to rich parents, having sucked up to a rich benefactor, having had enough to make your own investments, being lucky enough to have a decent job, and so on. Look, you clearly have nothing useful to say, you only replied because you believe deeply that you deserve good and others deserve bad, just like all the people who bought into competitiveness and social structures which do not exist at all. Someone disagreeing with you is an opportunity to look deeper, not to reply some strawman bullshit. You can do better. I looked deeper before realizing it was a myth. Did you? Or are you just having a knee-jerk "I must defend my fake cultural standard" moment?

[@danw5760]

@@Nathouuuutheone you didn't present any argument yourself originally did you? Double standards already appearing. The arguments you later presented are totally unconvincing and laced with unfounded personal attacks. It is of course the case that aspects of success are attributable to factors that people have no control over, such as family, wealth, looks, height. But your suggestion that the individual can play no role in their fate is very extreme. Let's take a very basic thing, timekeeping, anyone of average IQ can turn up on time, clearly they are more likely to succeed than someone who doesn't. Have we not clearly identified at least one area where success is under the control of the individual?

[@Nathouuuutheone]

@danw5760 so I make a short reply to a video and I'm supposed to detail my arguments like a pro, but someone replying directly to ME shouldn't put any effort into it? And I'M the one with a double standard? Also, you double up on your strawman. "The individual can play no role in their fate" is such an idiotic misrepresentation of what I said. Move the fuck on, I am not wasting more time on your nonsense. You came here to pick a fight without any respect or rigor. It's shameful. Grow up.

[@La0bouchere]

This is a common misconception people have about the term. "Meritocracy" means selecting the best person for the thing. EG, if you are trying to hire people for a moving company, having a test to see which one of them can lift the most makes it a meritocratic process. It does not mean that individuals are rewarded fairly for their abilities, or that people have equal access to things that will make them better, or anything else you said in the second comment. (Not that those things don't matter, they just aren't part of meritocratic systems).

[@MrNightcoreFM]

I am stupid or does the US fail to acknowledge net worth and annual income as the most driving factors of privilege? I am from germany and it is normal that some laws or governmental supports require you to disclose your income in order to be alligeble for those kinds of supports?

[@lexaray5]

Well we do have to disclose income in order to receive aid from government programs, but Americans that care about social justice seem to think race and gender are more important proxies than income.

[@beanbrewer]

The police don't check your income before they shoot

[@256shadesofgrey]

@@beanbrewer They also don't care about your race when you reach for their weapon.

[@satisfiedconsumer649]

You seem to be under the mistaken impression that the people in America who need help the most will ever be allowed to get it. We have a very brilliant and meticulous system in place that demolishes the unlucky and impoverished.

[@Hailfire08]

A lot of Americans believe that if you just work hard, you'll rise to the top. Helping the poor, then, is throwing away your money - if they were able to make use of it, they'd have climbed the ladder already.

[@MFYouTube683]

I was hoping for some time you two would get together! Really excited! Going to listen to this now, thanks in advance

[@christopherchilton-smith6482]

I'm about 13min in but I'm already starting to realize that whether I agree with him really comes down to what he means by words like harm, discrimination and phrases like "bleeding out". I need to know the nature and scope of these words in the context with which he speaks. For instance a meta-analysis of call backs is a very thin slice of data and I'm not entirely sure his language is always bounded by that scope when talking about harm and discrimination in that context.

[@tsahihanuka4461]

“you never zero out on crazy people “

[@user-td4do3op2d]

I’m surprised Alex didn’t mention that blind marking in universities is common practice in the uk.

[@Khellendros_]

@20:00 That is a great topic, It's easy to find articles from 2013 highlighting the merits of blind auditions and yet since 2020 apparently ethnicity should be considered (according to some journals) when selecting members of an orchestra. I'm exhausted by these stands. Hiring the best person is such an easy concept and at the same times solves most issues of bias.

[@toby9364]

Looking forward to this one

[@wadetisthammer3612]

11:52 to 13:48 - Coleman Hughes acknowledging that racism exists, citing solid evidence for it existing, and providing a solution to remedy it. 12:42 to 13:52 - Companies virtue signal caring about racism but don't implement this common sense antiracist practice. 36:37 to 36:17 - Coleman says what colorblindness is. 43:33 to 47:03 - Remarkable differences between elites (e.g., Ivy Leagues and legacy media) and non-elites.

[@Flynn-hl7ug]

Nice one 👍

[@weaq84]

Hmmm, I saw no remedies being proposed except "companies should be less racist". Well, erm, yeah, I could have told you that. That's no different at all from what the social justice warriors say. They just don't think that a podcaster wishing it is going to make much of a difference.

[@wadetisthammer3612]

​​​​​@@weaq84 _Hmmm. I saw no remedies being proposed except "companies should be less racist"._ One remedy Coleman proposed is to remove the names from the resumés when evaluating them to help avoid the type of racial bias he talked about in 11:52 to 13:48 (which is also the time stamp region he talked about his proposed remedies). Coleman didn't just say "companies should be less racist" he proposed more specific policies for companies that would help accomplish that goal.

[@olemew]

@@wadetisthammer3612 WHen I moved to the US I was surprised by resumes not having pictures. Now I think it's a great idea and encripting names for the first filter seems natural.

[@ogonzaleznyc]

CH may be a bit mistaken. I think that according to the 2020 Pew Research "Latinx" poll, it was only 76% of Hispanics who had never heard of it, and only 3% of Hispanics actually use it. Regardless, yes, I hate that term for several reasons.

[@FireTemplar]

I had the talk with my eldest daughter the other day about skin colour. We talked about why people’s skin colour is different, in that it is reflective of where someone’s ancestors evolved. Anecdotally I can confirm Hughes’ assertion on this topic. Kids notice the difference, but don’t prescribe any other value judgement to skin colour. They are wiser than us in that they judge someone by the content of their character.

[@kardra9714]

So great seeing two of my favo(u)rite people on the internet together! I've been following both of you since the very early days. Great interview.

[@j.spiegel3650]

I'd like it if you'd interview someone from the other side of this debate, as you've interviewed several anti-woke activists already. EDIT: I am not saying that Coleman Hughes is an anti-woke activist, but several people he has had on in the past definitely fit that bill.

[@barryoffeastenders]

I wouldn’t call Coleman “anti woke”. That’s very reductive

[@beyamoth]

Like who?

[@cmo5150]

People who still operate under woke/antiwoke dichotomy legit are not even thinking.

[@blet8137]

@@barryoffeastenders youre right. i guess cringe grifter suits him better

[@Pivotcreator0]

"Of this debate" if you think we're being treated to guests on either side of some single two-sided debate I don't think you're paying much attention to the channel

[@GTNover]

Absolutely love both of these minds! What a great collaboration.

[@ExterminatorElite]

58:00 worth mentioning that when rating community notes, a pool of contributors is brought together to assess notes that intentionally includes other contributors with whom you've voted in opposition before. This means that notes must have some degree of concordance in a pool selected for a certain level of disagreement. It seems to have worked out very well in practice and it's kind of brilliant.

[@domsnow6418]

For a mainland European, it‘s always so utterly bizarre how Americans use the term race. Where I‘m from, if someone uses the term race (Rasse) unironically, it’s pretty clear he‘s a right wing nutjob or utterly clueless about biology which makes it very clear there are no such things as races of humans but only phenotypes. Also the clear cut borders between so called races are strange because it‘s clearly a spectrum (unlike biological sex which is pretty much a or b most of the time). I mean, if my grandmother was black, my grandfather white, my mother thus half black half white and my father asian, what even am I? Utterly confusing.

[@panulli4]

If you consider race to be a social construct, then there's nothing wrong with using the term. It just has to be implicitly clear, that you don't mean a set of biological traits but a more abstract concept. Unfortunately in the German language we have a very strong negative connotation to the word "Rasse", which admittedly makes it hard to use it in a context of social constructs.

[@domsnow6418]

@@panulli4 we do have the word „Ethnizität“, but it‘s much more fluid and less rooted in outdated biology than „Rasse“. My problem with the american discourse about race is exactly this proximity to race realism and seeing race as a biological category and not a fluid social construct.

[@MrPMO918]

You're incorrect about the biology if you think races are only phenotypes. There are clear clusters across genetic variation that map to geographical places of ancestry. Of course the delineations will not be clear cut, but it's absurd to think the whole project is socially constructed. People of different races share easily identifiable characteristics that result from their sharing similar genes, that result from their common ancestry. Of course there are mixes, but do the existences of mutts or pink mean that there are no such things as dog breeds or colors?

[@domsnow6418]

@@MrPMO918 no, this is no longer the case in biology. Biologists talk about „populations“ or „ethnicity“ to describe human diversity. There is only one race of humans, namely „homo sapiens“. Of course there is a huge amount of genetic variation between humans but that does not justify separating them into different races like we do with dog breeds. The mere comparison between the two concepts is utterly offensive in my part of the world. At the very least, the options available in the us caucuses (white, black, asian, native, other) are laughably reductive and are kind of what i‘m getting at: what americans call „race“ is a much too fluid concept to ever pin down. How much % of african genes do I need to have to pass as „black“? Is it 50%? Is it „one single drop of blood“ as was suggested in the darkest days of american racial delusion? Also what benefit is there to put humans into racial categories? What does my perceived „race“ say about me? I‘m talking strictly about biology here. I understand that the US and Canada have a difficult past with their history of slavery and oppression of natives and want do do amendments. TLDR: In biology, race does not exist. In sociology, it‘s unhelpful and vague.

[@MrPMO918]

@@domsnow6418 I have to disagree with you here. If biologists want to use terms like populations or ethnicities instead of race to describe statistical clusters of genetically similar individuals, that’s fine, but it doesn’t alter the underlying the biological reality. I don’t have any particular semantic attachments, so if the word race is offensive to you, feel free to discard it in favor of something else. But it is a fact that different populations of people cluster statistically, with divides that map directly onto continental boundaries. Further, there are genetic markers like Y-chromosome haplogroups that indicate particular ancestries. This is how services like 23andMe identify what we traditionally refer to as race, using only your biology (DNA). The fact that people’s 23andMe results match their own racial self-affiliation is good evidence that the sociological construct has a biological basis. You might say the options available in the US census are reductive, but if you were to run a k = 4 cluster on human genetic variation, the clusters would roughly correspond to European, Asian, African, and Amerindian ancestries. Again, the existence of edge cases or mixes doesn’t mean that categories are not useful. In your own counterexample, you acknowledge the existence of so-called African genes, indicating that you yourself are cognizant of natural patterns of human variation. You might not be interested in the concept of race, but your lack of interest doesn’t mean the concept itself has no biological basis. I happen to be mixed race, and do not place any particular importance on my background, but I wouldn’t begrudge anyone who finds that their ancestry is important to them.

[@Dreamprism]

Amy Goodman still says Latinx in her videos on Democracy now, and I wish she would stop.

[@jayvee5686]

We can't even say it easily in Argentina. The Spanish doesn't flow into that word. We hate, hate, hate when white US liberals tell us to use thay

[@abrlim5597]

One important point that is easily missed is this. Race and religion are two different things. One's religion is determined by what one believes in, by what has been going on in her mind. One's race, on the other hand, is not determined by what one believes in. Racial identity should never be taken into account when we consider how to treat a person. Religious identity is different. When someone subscribes to some religion that discriminates against certain group of people, then we are required to take this person very cautiously.

[@beatonthedonis]

Great strides have been made in combatting racism, but they're being undermined by gross economic inequality which resuscitates systemic racism of the past that might have disappeared without that economic inequality. If you truly want equality of opportunity, all children must be given as similar a chance of succeeding as possible - and that success when manifested in adulthood must not be used to create a whole new generation of inequality.

[@Steventrafford]

Blind interviews work. Been doing it for the last 4 years.

[@davecarew1116]

Coleman's book is excellent. HIGHLY recommended for those who want to reflect on this issue more deeply. THANK YOU, Alex and Coleman, for a very illuminating and memorable discussion!

[@tonygange7636]

He's just copied Jared Taylor but you validate this because it comes from a non-white mouth

[@drexelrep]

The reason government gets involved in these things (often times ineffectively) is because relying on the individual themselves (an employer for instance) on self-enforcement is inherently reliant on that enforcer acting in good faith. This country (the US) has never been great at good faith. Great points raised, dont get me wrong. It's the lack of there ever being a well structured/considered alternative to government stepping in where he loses me.

[@TheZectorian]

On the color blind hiring mandate you could always make it a mandate only for companies above a certain size and/or for publicly traded companies, then there are no problems for the Yemeni business

[@felixmidas3245]

The most important aspect about identity is that you are only identical to yourself.

[@Oneoneone111One]

You mean the least important most point eliding?

[@ghostlack]

I'm not sure that actually really means anything significant. But nice try! ( ˘ ³˘)♥︎

[@carlossardina3161]

He’s implying that identity is not a something that can be assigned to a group :3❤️

[@jacobstamm]

Seems like mental masturbation to me

[@ghostlack]

@@carlossardina3161 And what do you do when one identifies with all as one?

[@jrpence]

Try to judge people individually... If a person judges groups it says more about them than the group.

[@ChrisFineganTunes]

He’s arguing against a straw man. CRT and ‘wokeness’ are not calling for judging people by race. They’re calling for noticing trends in outcomes and for acknowledging the very recent past that has repercussions in present day.

[@epsteindidntkillhimself69]

You can judge people individually and judge groups as groups. There isn't a conflict there. The problem is when people's judgements about groups supersede their judgements about individuals, rather than the other way around.

[@256shadesofgrey]

@@ChrisFineganTunes That's the excuse they give. In practice they are just judging by race as reflected in the policies that they put forward.

[@ChrisFineganTunes]

@@256shadesofgrey nope. What happens is that people with a genuine interest in understanding the remaining effects of widespread overt oppression in recent history will teach the truth about it. This in turn makes some white people feel like they’re being directly attacked rather than simply being educated on reality. They then argue that they’re being directly labelled as oppressors when that isn’t actually the argument of these critiques. The actual argument is that there are still subtle remnants of historical racism in the way society is organised that are often not directly remedied by things like legislation and other rules. It involves trying to understand the ways on which we are all subtly biased. And some people *really* don’t like to even entertain the idea that they’re not perfectly objective individuals. Those people, ironically, misrepresent things like CRT both in purpose and in impact, pretending that little white children in kindergarten are being actively taught to hate themselves.

[@La0bouchere]

@@ChrisFineganTunes This isn't accurate. California recently tried to repeal a law requiring race-neutrality in certain hiring practices so that they could hire based on race to correct for alleged racism. Also, he was almost banned from giving a talk at TED on this topic because an employee organization said that colorblindness promotes white supremacy. Be aware of "reverse nutpicking" whenever you're trying to say a certain group is "just" trying to do this-reasonable-thing. Odds are your projecting your own political opinions into something and haven't seen the evidence that the other person is arguing against.

[@anainesgonzalez8868]

So interesting debate! This issues are just about to begin to get discuss in my country (which is wild) so the discussions are, in my opinion, still inmutare. At the same time globalization brings new ideas so quickly so it is a challenge

[@DaboooogA]

Great discussion - I suspect Coleman and Alex have much more to discuss on other subjects.

[@charlesparsons5171]

This episode is FRESH

[@barrykp]

Great interview. I hope Hughes gets as much air time as possible.

[@bastiaanvanbeek]

To be clear, in the case certain people are not aware of it, they are talking about UK and US society mainly, of which they only briefly mentioned doing that. In the Netherlands where I live, we have a very different situation. In this video, they also talk about universal things that thus apply to every country on the world, or at least most countries. I wanted to make these distinctions as an important nuance.

[@bastiaanvanbeek]

Btw, especially 27:25 - 27:57 minutes is an example that wouldn't apply to the Netherlands, a largely secular society where people lead a happy and meaningful life in general full of guidance. This video is, and I would say many of Alex's videos and those of other podcasters, is clearly from an American or British perspective.

[@notthere83]

About Twitter and conservatives largely being able to say that they wanted to say: Probably. But to me, that's not the problem. The problem is how readily people block you just for disagreeing with them. Also here in KZbin with non-offensive comments being deleted. Many people have become unable to talk to people who politely disagree with them. (Of course many aren't polite, which is also a problem.)

[@zomakaja]

Nice! An anime crossover

[@skepticalbutopen4620]

I’ve been wanting to see these two talk for years now. Thank you both!

[@mohamedgoldstein5565]

Two of my favorite thinkers. What if in a color blind hiring process we end up hiring mostly chinese and indians?

[@zachvinka6764]

Pride in individual difference vs pride in communal difference are quite different yet the same. Vantage is in the "tool". If a poll was taken in the US to verify the knowledge of "tool" use by ethnicity what would we find?

[@samwhite4961]

8:23 not very far in and curious to see how it will progress but immediately this man gives me a “smart person for dumb people” vibe. There’s a few reasons for this, the summary of his ideas have a lot of appeals to intuition, this alone usually raises my skepticism. Also the first question is immediately met with an obvious, to me at least, canned answer. This quadrant statement seemed to be loaded in the chamber but only shared similar rhetorical signifiers with Alex’s question. As if he has trained himself to pick out keywords that can be tied to canned statements he wants to make. I felt this quadrant answer didn’t meaningfully address the actual question and came across a bit as nonsense only sharing some terms and themes with the question. I think he wanted to set up this framework but because it wasn’t a natural response to the actual question it falls apart when Alex asks a follow up. Curious to see how the rest of the conversation plays out but wanted to drop a comment about the, in my opinion, poor first impression

[@shakacien]

Certainly the most suspect part is when an intellectual that way sits back and thinks of how some majorly large forces on the outside actually operate. Conceptually the law might be too hard to enforce, but is that true in practice? Maybe not, likely it only comes up when people have been pretty noticeably racist for awhile, for instance in the case of what they've been talking about.

[@samwhite4961]

10:12 hmm so far he continues to make some pretty poor arguments that once again aim at intuition and people’s weakness considering large numbers and statistics. A single year over year revenue can hold as many predictive problems as selecting for race and gender when determining “need”. Once again this is about using things that we feel intuitively are more linked. Business revenue and financial need feel more fairly associated because they both carry the signifier of usually being measured in dollars. However without additional data it’s certainly possible that race and gender have a higher correlation with financial need than decreased earnings. Especially if you are limiting it to just one year over year metric. Then even if it was found to have a higher predictive utility there might be a cost issue in information collection and processing that would reduce the overall benefit and create a less effective outcome even if you can direct the total benefit more efficiently. The truth is a rollout of billions to millions is a lot more complicated than “they should have given it to people who need it and not just black people” but as a sound bite it sure sounds good

[@samwhite4961]

37:06 I’m further in and this is a terrible conversation to be frank. Interesting, but terrible. I’ve seen Alex push back far harder on others in past conversations and I’m not sure why the kid gloves on somebody who is, really just making a bunch of stuff up. He is constantly strawmanning his opposition, making contradictory claims right after one another, and crumbling under the extremely light questioning Alex is doing. I don’t want to just list examples because it’s almost every claim he makes. Why are dolls and cartoons implied to be worthless indicators for a child’s reaction to race? What’s a better indicator? If you read any opposing views at all you will understand the opposition to “color blindness” is not “we can see people are different colors” not even remotely it’s that these social groups related to ethnicity often do have generally different experiences and “color blindness” can be used nefariously but sometimes unintentionally to ignore these unique perspectives and challenges. He also accuses opposition of trying to frame things only through gender or race (which already is multiple layers of analysis and is only one method of analysis if you group everything you don’t like into one category based on the related trait of your distaste) but then uses this as grounds that we should reject those frameworks entirely. This amounts to saying “people are restrictive in their analysis and we can fix this by being restrictive in our analysis”. I can’t know a persons mind but I can make a reasonable guess, if he has read about this subject, read his opposition then he is probably aware that his claims are unfounded but rather is constructing his arguments to be marketable versus accurate. I’d be surprised if these beliefs are genuinely held but of course I can’t know that…

[@barryoffeastenders]

You seem very upset by this. Are you black yourself?

[@samwhite4961]

@@barryoffeastenders interesting line of questioning. Do you believe I have no grounds to have an emotional response to the conversation? Should I feel neutral when I think something is doing very little to push back on bad ideas? I’m curious why you feel my race is significant. I’ll play along though, I felt relatively mild about the conversation, I just type a lot. Also I’m white, but not American. Hopefully your curiosity is satiated

[@mindchimp]

Did they address critical moustache theory ?

[@markleavitt3297]

That's what I'm saying!

[@notthere83]

It's a shame that they dismissed government intervention so quickly. Like Alex said at the end of that topic - it doesn't have to be an all or nothing approach. Mandating that companies (maybe of a certain size and within certain industries) use some service that anonymizes incoming resumes seems totally feasible. It's likely cheap and can be audited easily. (And some companies ARE doing that already.)

[@joannware6228]

"The Church refuses to explain sin away or make excuses for it or call it by another name. " Bishop Robert Barron

[@TheViktorofgilead]

I agree, racists should voluntarily stop their racist hiring practices, I don’t understand why they won’t and I refuse to get the government involved. I am very smart and work for the heritage foundation btw.

[@BDnevernind]

Hahaha, yes I love his insistence that it should be easy to get racists to change their racist policies.

[@shelovinthecrew]

« Im also just a liberal who’s funded by the heritage foundation and work with Christopher rufo and the Manhattan institute » who believed this shit

[@shreenybeany1751]

There’s racist people for sure, but did you not catch he was talking about unconscious bias, which is different than conscious bias aka what you’re talking about

[@ericspickermann5317]

@@shreenybeany1751 even if I grant the unconscious bias is always totally not conscious and not backed up by post hoc justifications those people create in their minds: what about the “conscious” racists? Should we allow them to deny people careers based on race?

[@gamechairphilosopher950]

⁠@@shreenybeany1751if someone unconsciously breaks your legs, are your legs not still broken? Most racism, I like to believe, is unconscious. When you look at sentencing disparities between black men and white men, I like to believe that those judges who have essentially created those statistics at least THINK they are acting unbiasedly. That said, do you think the black man with the 60% longer sentence for the same crime really gives a 💩 if the judge has self actualized and is in touch with his inner biases?

[@shelovinthecrew]

Good interview Alex couple points I think would should’ve pushed back on but I don’t begrudge you for not knowing every detail of anti discrimination US law would be good if you got someone on the other side of the spectrum to Coleman perhaps a Nathan J Robinson or even a vaush

[@stephenjohnson9745]

I wouldn't want Vaush in this space. Regardless of how anybody feels about him, I think his argumentation is just okay and there are less controversial and better qualified people to discuss these topics with. He's become such a relatively loaded figure in online spaces that it might do more harm than good to bring him on

[@shelovinthecrew]

@@stephenjohnson9745 I don't disagree a lot of people already head into any video with him with loaded biases that make any conversation with him no matter how uncontroversial what he says kinda fruitless why I was fairly apprehensive including him

[@shelovinthecrew]

doesn't help that he's also fairly supercilious in his cadence

[@mathemagician26]

A few points: the conclusion of “every individual should just do their best to be less racist” with no systemic support or education is not a solution, it’s just a dream. “You never zero out on crazy people” is a terrible way to describe the phenomenon. Basically no matter how we format most surveys, every possible response will be picked a few times if we get a large enough sample to take it. Some people answer randomly or misunderstand the question. There’s a good example from ~10 years ago where a survey found an absurd amount of people believed holocaust-denial claims. Turns out the question was worded with a triple negative and a bunch of people probably misunderstood. The data now says nothing useful. Same with the racism surveys: some will legitimately own up to racist beliefs, but many of those responses are simple mistakes and can’t be used for serious statistics.

[@Wulfshade]

Coleman is my spirit animal

[@Nick-o-time]

I'm pretty sure your spirit animal is one of Hitler's dogs.

[@JMENE409]

Rarely have I clicked on a video faster. Two of my favorite people on KZbin 👌

[@purpleniumowlbear2952]

I have been waiting for this interview (and nagging Alex for it in his comments section) for years. Only thing that would make this better is if they also did a collaborative music track together after the interview.

[@PeruvianTreeProductions]

I love your videos Alex. But my god, could you somehow make it so we don’t get ads interrupting every few minutes? It ruins the experience of listening.

[@thismakesnosense]

Use an adblocker

[@notthere83]

Something that everybody in the US can "easily" do right away is when applying online and you're asked about race and gender, always specify "Prefer not to say". I put "easily" in quotes because if progressive people are in charge, they will probably hold that against you. And we generally don't apply for jobs just for fun...

[@malgrosskreuz01]

Identity politics is a cancer in our society

[@zombiesingularity]

Indeed. Unless it's Israel of course in which case we must send in the national guard to protect Safe Spaces. Protesting is literally the holocaust.

[@VampireSquirrel]

Easy to say when you arent directly being targeted for your identity by politicians and policies ( and therefore police)

[@Morning404]

Racism is a cancer in our society. Big money in politics in a cancer in our politics. The military industrial complex and wall street is a cancer to our society.

[@James-wy6qu]

​@@VampireSquirreldid you listen to Hughes argument properly?

[@KYSMO]

That's your takeaway from this video? Did you even watch it and listen to it? Is English your first language?

[@Michael-zr4kg]

I don’t think race necessarily is being used as a proxy for disadvantage. Instead of reducing inequality across all populations, we’re trying to have each population proportionally represented in each level of socioeconomic status. It’s never been about getting people out of poverty - our system needs people in poverty. It is in fact about having more lgbtq drone pilots and bipoc CEOs. I think the more representative hierarchy is better, but not by much, and far from ideal.

[@luxeayt6694]

How would you go about getting more LGBT drone pilots or bipoc CEOs? That's the fundamental disagreement. Quotas aren't the answer, that's racism. You're not letting certain people in, despite their skills, just because of their skin color. I fundamentally disagree with this approach. Why is it that there aren't many bipoc ceo's? I think we should investigate that, and see if they have a disadvantage we can address, instead of artificially pumping up quotas.

[@Michael-zr4kg]

@@luxeayt6694 yeah i agree quotas aren’t a good idea. To me it would be outreach programs and things like that to introduce people to possibilities they might not know exist because of the environment they’re in (this is called affirmative action). You can also have scholarship programs for different groups - we had the GI bill, there are pell grants, and a bunch of others exist for women in stem, national society of blacks in engineering etc. My dad went to undergrad as part of a push for affirmative action. There were people who said he didn’t deserve to be there, but he finished and proceeded to earn two masters degrees - seems like he deserved to be there to me. To your point about what disadvantage exists, it’s a historical and systemic one. Racism and race generally can’t go away until race stops being cultural shorthand for socioeconomic status. We probably agree that it shouldn’t be shorthand now, but it is because some groups factually are doing disproportionately poorly in our society. Also not sure if you caught my broader point that the whole hierarchical system is not ideal. I think affirmative action is nice, but we need class consciousness, class solidarity, and wide systemic changes that reduce inequality across the board.

[@zachvinka6764]

For example, could you imagine a vr/ar community which plays in a real world type sandbox geared toward industrial processes in order to train ai robotics. We would probably need a cbdc more nuclear power and more compact high capacity batteries.

[@russell6011]

Sure these cell phone videos are catching the scene midway. But then people are learning to turn on their phones and dash cams immediately before the cop walks up to their car door. Also we get an FOIA for the chest camera film and find out the cops turn off their cameras, delete the footage, or we get the cop's footage. Then, with the camera footage from the victims and bystanders and the cop's chest cam, we see what happened. If the cop was in the wrong, by public standards, not police standards, the police force never, not once, adjusts their training policy for what the public will find acceptible to consent to by the handling of the police. Also, the police force never fires the cop. The cop gets to resign and just rehires at the next police station in the next county over, etc. There's zero accountability held to the police force at all that the public finds acceptable. And Coleman, you know this is the point of what the public is addressing. So stop lying with these BS responses on this topic. This is why people asked to defund the entire police force because the police force couldnt police itself. Its the catholic church rape scandle all over again but in blue uniforms. At least the CC relocated these rapist priests back into Rome and exhiled them there. These police officers are still driving around our neighborhoods and our government still allows qualified immunity to be the law of the land. So yes there will be civil unrest when the police and the government are in bed together to ignore the will of the populace. It was never about these bad cops doing what they did, it was the fact that the system of governance to hold these cops accountable continues to be broken despite all these years of cell phone, dash cam, and chest cam footage of these bad apples getting away with it. Funny how much of a vacuum was left in this discussion by Alex to not point this out. 27:00 You can be religious and Secular. Secularism is just the inclusion of all people to the discussion of how to live the good life through governance. Theocracies are innately non-secular because they are explicilty non-inclusive to every other religious and nonreligious group. Secular governments are the safest governments for religius pluralism. Theocracies crush different cultural religions in every count in recorded history. 27:50 God and Country are no longer cool because the unifying factor here is that people are asking these entities to justify their implied power over the populace. When these entities cant, like religions, gods, governments, etc. Then we, the people, start to remove these power structures over us to a level we, the people, would consent to being governed. The reason that younger generations are challenging these systems is because the older generations have too much to risk at addressing these issues. The older generation have careers and family to care for and cant risk political activism to change the system so these older generations rely on the bravery of younger generations to do the work that the older generation refuses to do. As Thurmberg pointed out. How dare you be cowards to have to rely on children to fight your battles and to fix your messes. We should be in school, not on picket lines or testifying to the UN. 30:30 The reason that populations are uncivil during peace time is because the powers that the voting populace gave their government during a time of crisis was to be temporary, not perminant. Coleman knows this, Alex knows this...and yet neither pointed this fact out. Which shows their ignorance in interview discussions that you can challenge and still be civil. Being agree able is not being civil because there's no conflict of ideas. You're civil and respectible in the face of adversity, not the absence of it. The populace is having political upheavals because the voting populace is trying to force their government to relenquish its temporary powers to address a temporary crisis. That's all it is. We want to the government to not force its populace into a police state as a the norm.

[@batsysgonebats664]

Honestly, the least convincing I find here is the idea that people need some kind of replacement for religious or national idenitities when historically speaking nationalism or religious identities have always been used to fill gaps created by bad material conditions or convince them to join wars. Rich people don't need idenitification with group catagories like that feel a sence of contentment, whatever identity politics people do engage in, they don't do so becuase its fun. Women need politics around the female identity to tackle issues of femicide, domestic violence etc. Any discussion that leaves out the historical development of identities and the circumstances they are reacting to is bound to come with borderline nonesensical explainations for where that identity comes from.

[@Steventrafford]

To me he’s talking sense, thanks for the interview. I didn’t teach my son that he’s an oppressor. I taught him why humans have different skin. He has a basic understanding on melanin in humans and ancestry. He thinks it’s a cool thing about being human. He’s like me and has bright red hair. He knows that roughly only 5% of the UK have natural red hair like him. He’s proud of being ginger ❤.

[@yn7751]

Not surprised at some of the comments here, too much emotion, very little facts. Coleman is a good guest.

[@markleavitt3297]

I couldn't have put it better

[@gamechairphilosopher950]

You should reply to any of the hundreds of rational arguments addressing specific claims instead *looks around* absolutely zero emotional appeals I saw on the way down to your comment. Just saying “people are appealing to emotion” is nonsense when just about every comment is a rational arguments.

[@jacobstamm]

I have to agree with ​​⁠​​⁠@gamechairphilosopher960’s comment, and I’m even an admirer of Coleman’s. Very few of this video’s comments disagreeing with Coleman are emotional/illogical. Seriously, there’s not a whole lot of them. Just scroll and see for yourself. In light of this, your comment comes across as a lazy dismissal one might resort to out of frustration, which ironically qualifies it as one of the few emotion-driven comments it was ostensibly intended to criticize.

[@markleavitt3297]

@@gamechairphilosopher950 I don't know what to say other than this is not the case. There are a lot of people expressing disappointment in Alex for either having Coleman as a guest or not pushing back against his arguments.

[@gamechairphilosopher950]

@@markleavitt3297 one can express disappointment for Alex not pushing back on some dubious statements by Coleman and that not be appealing to emotion. I said as much in my own reply to the video.

[@tychostation2423]

Wow. Never thought I’d see this crossover 👏

[@kingjoeblack5]

Why am I not surprised that Coleman “Underoos” Hughes plays the trombone?

[@jimb9063]

Thanks gents, great conversation. Regarding a replacement for religious and nationalistic beliefs in some parts of the world. It's like a lump in the cushion scenario. We've stayed just as superstitious, and as one lump gets squashed down over time, another is forced up to replace it.

[@EBurstyn]

Another option for government intervention is not only punitive, but incentives. Tax subsidies for adopting color blind hiring policies, etc

[@widedogg]

not sure we should solve ALL our problems by just giving more money to rich people

[@EBurstyn]

@@widedogg I’m open to hearing other options

[@egilskallagrimsson2941]

It’s relevant when you’re talking about crime statistics, making immigration policy, picking a neighborhood to live in, when you’re picking a school for your kids to go to. Pretending it isn’t leads to disaster.

[@reinforcedpenisstem]

For example, most violence is internal to race

[@Toanleigh]

@20:49 Eh...what?...yeah, they actually did. Because integration didn't just mean multiple colours of people played the sport it. It fundamentally changed the game. Just look at what the average height use to be for players. Good lord, I know this seems a silly point but integration actually really did change how the game was played. The fact that he fumbles this basic of a thing brings in to doubt any other insight he might offer. :(

[@Nick-o-time]

He has no insights. It's a minstrel show.

[@tyruskarmesin5418]

@@Nick-o-time So true. Black people who disagree with you totally warrant racial insults.

[@williams.5952]

I don't get what you're saying here. He's saying no one claims the NBA has racist hiring practices because of the predominance of black players.

[@bob3ironfist]

Should have Dr. Anthea Butler on! Dr. Butler can speak well to religion and race in the US.

[@davidwilson8096]

He fails to see that companies have always had the ability to "blind" hire, but still choose not to adopt that methodology.

[@989Baron]

Coleman's deflecting on the hiring standards point. The restaurant hiring family members that happen to be Yemeni is not not hiring them on the basis of race. For the Italian restaurant example, there are already carve outs in the law to hire certain classes of people if it's relevant for the job. Hooters isn't going to be made to hire men. Current anti-discrimination legal standards already handle these cases, he's trying to obfuscate that to make a broad attack against fairness standards.

[@Xaphedo]

I also found the example confusing. Expecting small family businesses to keep to the same standards and scrutiny as corporations is bizarre and not something anyone seriously involved in these conversations would be advocating for. Also, I'm not sure why the government couldn't mandate bias-blindness procedures for companies above certain thresholds. If they're so advantageous, where is the harm in making them compulsory? I expected Alex to ask these questions and I can't lie, I was disappointed at how much the guest was able to get away with unchallenged.

[@BDnevernind]

This is the only way Hughs operates, especially when being interviewed by someone less familiar with race policy in the US. He straw mans and distorts the situation so he can sound more reasonable. He absolutely knows better about the ethnic restaurant example, and Alex sadly does not pick up on it.

[@ChrisFineganTunes]

Yet he’s happy to dismiss cherry-picking the occasional liberal being banned on pre-Musk Twitter. Total double standards.

[@shelovinthecrew]

This is a common theme with him and the rest of the Manhattan institute ghouls perpetually obfuscatory and disingenuous

[@maaikevreugdemaker9210]

He reacted to the question whether a government should implement this. He argues that a government wouldn't look at the details of such a business to be able to hire one ethnicity and therefore argues against the statement.

[@BlueBarrier782]

Race in politics is relevant in regards to racist government and corporate systems. Individuals that are racist, while stupid and reprehensible, can't be exorcised through government policy, unless said individuals are instituting these policies in government and labor.

[@alethein359]

I was actually just planning to comment on one of your videos suggesting you have Coleman on the podcast. I guess God works in mysterious ways!

[@colbywalters9860]

I think the point about people seeing through the lens of what they are obsessed with is super important. I would add I think it's myriad, and can have a lot to do with what we do for money (as that often takes most of our day up). Regardless of whether it is work or just your hobby, your obsession can very easily cause you to miss a lot of alternative perspectives. I wish we lived in a society that promoted constant universal education rather than intense specialization or that we had much better sort of liminal bridges between specializations to have a better global understanding of human behavior, desires and needs. I do think that CRT has a role in society but people who have specialized in it don't necessarily have good bridges. People like me who didn't really get the most out of their CRT education but have empathy for suffering and have instead come from a lot of different perspectives as a student of life are often shunned from the political left. As an optimist though I want to say that there are good and bad values coming out of what some people call "woke ideology" and that although some people have become obsessed I don't think race is quite as much of a non issue as the interview might have made it seem. We have data showing not just disproportionate hiring practices but discrimination across the board from high to low stakes and while I agree many of these issues can also be characterized as a class issue there is all real practical value in pointing to the racial component as it illustrates how the social mechanism operates. We do divide people up into groups and were it not race it would be eye color or something else. It doesn't essentially matter what race someone is but what does matter is that the state can use those differences as a controlling mechanism. Disproportionate incarceration rates effectively eliminate a large percentage of black votes in the United States where a felony revokes your right to vote. Having a base of oppressed people allows you to constantly pit your own unruly oppressed constituents against them. I could go on. The point is this, I think there is very good cause to point out race politics and practical value in talking about then openly. I sometimes see these color blind more moderate approaches as another arm of state control, conscious or not. All that said the goal should be color blindness in the very end. To me I just don't see how we get there by simply "trying our best not to be racist" whilst the state has a vested interest in maintaining racial tensions. The mechanism is fed by tension, there must always be an enemy. There's a good lecture series by Michele Foucault that kinda gets into the history of statehood that's worth a read.

[@tonybernard4444]

Race is important in medical situations, though I believe age, gender and the nature of your symptoms are the dominant factors. Beyond that, race is only relevant to those who need a reason to hate or feel hated.

[@psamkeast]

What do you mean “race is important in medical situations”?

[@tonybernard4444]

@@psamkeast I mean there are physiological differences between races, and the doctor needs account for that. I think black people are more susceptible to heart disease and maybe diabetes, something like that (I assume relevant medical studies factored out cultural variables). I know black men are prone to razor bumps and ingrown hairs, so they get a break in the military, while white guys have to shave baby butt smooth. Anyway, if someone needs medical attention, I believe they need to know not just age and gender, but race in order to prescribe effective treatment.

[@psamkeast]

@@tonybernard4444 So are you suggesting that melanin levels are related to heart disease?

[@tonybernard4444]

@@psamkeast Really? Melanin is the only difference between races? I'm not a medical doctor, and I'm not making a value statement. Just search for diseases by race, and the CDC among other reputable sources will cite differences. If I were a doctor, I would want every bit of information on my patient, and if studies showed more black people die of something, even if it's cultural and not genetic, I'd be more strict about it.

[@SDMF20]

Black people are generally a lot more susceptible to sickle cell anemia. So that's one medical situation. White people are much more likely to get skin cancer compared to other races who have melanin which offer much more protection against the sun.

[@DarthAlphaTheGreat]

Nothing wrong with addressing the remaining legacies of the racist past, and acknowledging the race based bias (we pretend we do not have). But it’s another to blame everything on it and ignore all other issues. Like Israel Palestine situation…apparently it’s anti-semantic now to criticize Israel.

[@beyamoth]

It is also islamaphobic to suggest Israel has the right to kill terrorists

[@robsquared2]

@@beyamothi very much doubt there were 30k terrorists in Palestine.

[@Nick-o-time]

​@@beyamoththe ANC were called terrorists. Your labels are trash.

[@shreenybeany1751]

@@Nick-o-timeANC went violent and accepted aid from the USSR during the Cold War, so of course it would be labeled as a terrorist organization. Its aims were noble and the civilians they killed in the crossfire were probably not intentional, so do they deserve the title of terrorists? Probably not. But Hamas on the other hand, is a clear cut terrorist organization. They launched a terrorist attack on oct 7, murdering innocent men, women, children and babies, then kidnapped 200 people and shielded themselves in hospitals, homes and schools. Their stated goal is to eradicate Israel, and kill Jews / Israelis all over the world. That was their charter somewhere in the late 1980s, then they switched the word Jew to Zionist in their most recent 2017 charter but essentially their goals for eradication stayed the same. They were able to successfully launch a disinformation campaign that led to all these college kids and people like you to believe none of this happened or was justified. Israel has to respond to murders and kidnappings, and that’s what they did. There’s innocent collateral on both sides, but Hamas’ intentions are clear in their own words.

[@shreenybeany1751]

@@Nick-o-time Hamas are terrorists. Read their 2017 charter. ANC was labeled terrorists due to paranoia by the US since it was the middle of the Cold War and ANC went violent with their car bombings and what not and accepted aid from the USSR. Not justified but historical context matters

[@TheLeonhamm]

Easily enough answered, as put .. if a little controversial. 1) For the Enlightenment Philosophy of 'man', 2) In the evolutionary theories of science-based eugenics, 3) With the politically corrected expressions of a political activist victimology. The end, like the origin, and its sustenance, is of materialist equation value-theory. A quantum (how much) component of some Marxian elements of Darwinian progress, i.e. in commerce, rather than a quantum (how many) expression of Mathusian use of Lamarcian effort, e.g. via economy. Its antithesis is the qualis - qualitas = quality of 'being' .. nature, condition, property, state (and the virtue or vice thereof, which interests no one very much today, as it is too spiritual or rather metaphysical). If 'man' is taken as a quantifiably different kind of ape, then the sums add up to make advanced tool-making is higher (in evolutionary progress) than regressive hide-chewing or nest-building, etc. And if this quantifiable difference is noted between human races - Anglo-Saxons and Celts, Greeks and Barbarians, Sapiens and Neanderthalis ('us' and 'them') - then the less advanced (or advanceable) race will be at an evolutionary disadvantage .. and the advanced advantage-holders will have only minimal evolutionary need to preserve the less advantaged (be they Noble Savage or dirt poor labourer in quality of life, they are an excess population). Today's Race Theory, being ostensibly about (imposing) equivalent equity in the summation of useful population against excess population, quantitatively, must therefore turn both the Malthusian (effort-improvement) and Marxian (State-controlled) progressive ideologies on their heads .. without altering the activist endeavour or the capitalisation of interest (in order to achieve virtue-signalling 'equality' measured in 'quantifiable' terms, within the realm of ever-changing goal posts as a 'norm'). Keep the Faith; tell the truth, shame the devil, and let the demons shriek. God bless. ;o) 'The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world is far too good. It is full of wild and wasted virtues. When a religious scheme is shattered (as Christianity was shattered at the Reformation), it is not merely the vices that are let loose. The vices are, indeed, let loose, and they wander and do damage. But the virtues are let loose also; and the virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do more terrible damage. The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone. Thus some scientists care for truth; and their truth is pitiless. Thus some humanitarians only care for pity; and their pity (I am sorry to say) is often untruthful.' Chesterton, Orthodoxy.

[@Bids-Shadowbread]

Well Alex thanks for addressing that some people hate a little bit on men and white people. Not saying I am oppressed or anything but it's nice just a tiny bit of acknowledgement as you acknowledged yourself. With that being said I'm not trying to call anyone "woke" or whatever just saying it's nice to be acknowledged. I merely talk about 49:00 to 49:33 . With that being said those are indeed just some out of a 5% of the population who behave in such a way it's not like I'm feeling threatened just not very nice to hear. It's nice to feel heard instead.

[@NoNo-nr2xv]

Amazing interview. Will be buying his book.

[@secondhandsnoke547]

My takeaways from Coleman’s thoughts on racism: 1. Racism is overstated 2. The most worrying forms of racism are now coming from the left. 3. It’s better to just persuade people not to be racist than apply any legislation. 4. Why can’t we just all get along? I didn’t learn a thing from this guy. He spouts a series of platitudes about how race should be unimportant to how we treat others, but offers no ideas about how we actually achieve this. His main problem is with people who are too vocal about discrimination in areas he believes are overstated. I laughed when he said white supremacy is not a major risk, and the US is 6 months away from likely electing one as president.

[@michaelhart1072]

You’re a clown. White supremacy is overstated and it’s stupid to think Trump is a white supremacist. He’s just a massive narcissist

[@ES-yc1tp]

When racism stops existing then and only then race politics will be irrelevant and then we can become as colour-blind as we want. But we don't live in a non-racist world. The take is not controversial, it's just not realistic, just as gender abolitionism and other well intended but radical ideas. We need real solutions for real problems for the world we live in and I think being colour-blind it's not the way to go. I do agree class inequality is more relevant than race inequality.

[@liquidcrystal47]

Every other podcast in the world introduces their guests

[@tedkoppel13]

This is incredibly frustrating to watch, for all the reasons that are obvious the moment this guy shows up. Nobody is arguing Yemenis or Italians or whoever else can’t hire whoever they want. Small family businesses can do whatever, no one cares. These laws apply to larger businesses. It’s fine that ideologically he objects to government intervention, but the reality is that if it weren’t for the Civil Rights Act, America would still have segregated restaurants and golf clubs. And he knows goddamn well that people very much did care that the NBA is so heavily black. It was a point of controversy until at least about the year 2000 if not later, and actually the NBA was dying on its feet until they revitalized it by hyping up the race-based Magic vs Bird, white vs black thing. I wouldn’t expect Alex to know that, but Coleman does and is pretending not to because conservative ideology is leading his every opinion. Which is fair enough, but it’s frustrating that he’s just lying.

[@user-yp6yr9te7l]

Your comment is incredibly frustrating to read. Coleman isn't referring to late 90s state of things, but to the 2020s state of things. Thinking that Coleman is an American Conservative is even more frustrating.

[@shelovinthecrew]

@@user-yp6yr9te7lhe might not personally be a conservative his talking points the people who pay him the think tanks he work for are all explicitly conservative

[@Zangelin]

@@shelovinthecrew Why are finding a label for him and his arguments necessary? So you have a good justification to dismiss it?

[@user-yp6yr9te7l]

@@shelovinthecrew They are also talking points of independents, libertarians and centrists, and also centre-Left liberals. He doesn't work for any think tanks. And I would caution against any application of the association fallacy. It also does not matter if something is conservative or liberal. It only matters if the conservative point is correct, or if the liberal point is correct, about a certain thing. But that is moot because his points are not exclusive to Conservatism.

[@shelovinthecrew]

@@user-yp6yr9te7l im not attributing anything to him I just fundamentally disagree with the things he’s saying bc he’s consistently one of the hackedut pundits around engages in gross obfuscation

[@daniel-panek]

I think the issue with colorblindness is that it's used to throw away the idea that people face discrimination based on their race. I don't think feigning colorblindness is a pathway to actually make a colorblind society, and I think the reality is that it's more feigning than actually being earnest.

[@wichitalineman86]

Did you listen to a single minute of the interview? You can't feign the colourblindness he advocates, which is that we should try to treat people without regard to race, especially in terms of public policy. That is exactly what MLK fought for.

[@daniel-panek]

@@wichitalineman86 yeah I listened to the whole thing. YOU must have read my statement and YOU disregarded it. I am all for doing things to FORCE colorblindness (like not having names on resumes and anonymous applications) within processes but it's impossible to do that with everything. I am just pointing out how "colorblindness" is used to remove race from discussion while a significant portion of this country VOTE based (in part) on their hatred of POC. I agree with the idea that uplifting people economically MAY help mitigate the bigoted beliefs if they don't have stereotypes associated with being poor and uneducated. I fail to see any solution aside from this basic idea that the guy presented - and I don't think it's simply because I didn't get it.

[@GTNover]

​@daniel-panek But you are just claiming it's being used that way without any evidence. And sure, there's going to be one offs in any group that think crazy. But the large majority of people advocating for colorblindless aren't doing it under some guise of racism. Especially since what Coleman is advacting for would certainly help minorities. And so even if they are using it as a guise for racism, I'm kind of okay with it since they are actually helping minorities, even if they don't realize it.

[@user-pf8hs7nv6z]

Even white people face discrimination in the face of wokeism. Blindness is stupid, yet it's still better than what we had to this day.

[@christopherharry2139]

@@daniel-panekwith all the hatred and disparagement directed towards white people in the modern day, I’d say POC are definitely not at the sharp end of the current poor state of race relations.

[@fullbodyunibrow7383]

As someone who grew up in a literal sundown town where the football captain ran over a black girl and got away with it, I'm confused by this conversation. This was post 2000 BTW.

[@kredonystus7768]

One thing I will disagree with is race never being relevant to policy decisions. One thing to remember is there are definitive differences between races. For example Australian Aboriginals are significantly more likely to have dangerous negative health effects than non-Aboriginal Australians from Covid, so the Aus government supplied extra RATS free tests for Aboriginal people to encorage them to test more often because of the extra risks.

[@barryoffeastenders]

The whole “white allies need to shut up and listen when ‘POC’ talk about race” thing goes out the window when we say the wrong things about race, doesn’t it 😅 A lot of heated white people in this comment section proves just that.

[@FatiguedFelines]

Yes, yes it does

[@Nick-o-time]

Black people don't know who this dude is for a very important reason. This guy isn't some spokesperson that mirror the popular sentiment among black people. His audience is white conservatives. Alex should talk to FD signifier. Someone who does have clout with black people. I got a good idea what he'd say about this dude though.

[@Zangelin]

@@Nick-o-time I'm not sure just interviewing hard core racists is as interesting.

[@Nick-o-time]

​@@Zangelinhe interviewed Sam Harris and a bunch of these goons ate it up.

[@Wolfboy607]

Race certainly shouldn't be relevant, but the fact remains it is... In my family home, South Gate california, black families were being refused the sale of homes at least through the 60s. I can't claim superior knowledge about Jersey, but in California the American Sanctuary state, black families were systemically prevented from accruing any form of generational wealth, while my family's ability to do so was protected by law. That is an unfair advantage, in living memory. How do we not call this institutional racism? Even if we pretend it all ended 60 years ago, 60 years ago is fucking recently.... My grandma absolves herself by saying she didn't know, but not only did she benefit, but I did too. Reparations matter. Especially in the US. Not cash reparations, but access to education, for example. Your guest is so weird. He's right about how class issues divide us all, but he's using it to try and hide other issues, that's pretty oof. Intersectionality will free us. It started as intersectional feminism, but their main point was that all these issues intersect and they were right. It's a gordian knot, and if we only tug at one string at a time, we run the risk of making the knot tighter and harder to undue.... It's good that we have him to tug on the strings of class, it's not one person's job to undue the whole knot, and that's why it's good actually that so many leftists are focused on so many different issues. It's unfortunate that he seems to think of the rest of us as misguided, though. Our infighting is the best.

[@Bill-ni3es]

Why aren't blacks being given access to education in the US? Isn't that unconstitutional?

[@lexaray5]

​@@Bill-ni3esThey are but historic redlining policies forced many black people into neighborhoods that were considered less desirable. This could be because of anything ranging from environmental polution to poor neighborhood schools. If you look at maps of the racial makeup in American cities, neighborhoods are still extremely segregated even though those redlining policies have theoretically ended (every now and then, some sort of discrimination that continues today gets brought to light but its unclear how widespread that is). And then neighborhood schools are, in part, funded based on property taxes. So many poor schools continue to be underfunded and more well off schools get better funding. We have programs that pour more funding into schools in these neighborhoods, but a lot of the problem is that they're starting off with crumbling infustructure and less experienced staff and in communities that have traditionally not cared as much about education because they haven't seen how education can help lift them out of poverty, and it turns out that the amount of additional funding they need to get caught up to these better schools is way more than what they're getting.

[@barryoffeastenders]

“Intersectionality will save us” ? Also, couldn’t your comment be what your type refer to as ‘whitesplaining’ ?

[@Bill-ni3es]

@@lexaray5 Is the way these funds are being managed, play a part in creating this inferior education system? Does the community issue of not valuing education lead to corruption and mismanagement? I know of several countries where money allocated to education, does not reach its intended purpose and simply pouring more money into the problem will just make corrupt individuals more wealthy.

[@Bill-ni3es]

Having researched that unjust law of black people not being able to own property - it was not only limited to black people though. In fact, land ownership was prohibited by 'aliens not of the white race'. That would include asians. So why are asians now being discriminated against? Asians are being restricted access to colleges. Why are asians excelling despite the huge injustices of the past and not being able to build generational wealth?

[@LunaticReason]

Race and Gender are only important to the superficial unfortunately we are all superficial. The idea of who a person is or who we are so intricintly tied to how we are perceived. Our external traits provided arbitrary value.

[@filipedias7284]

He says people "nowadays" think "race is cool" 'cause they no longer believe "God and country" are "cool", but why can't all three things just cease to be "cool"? Is the argument that there will _always_ be a bad trending thing, or that theism and nationalism are _indeed cool?_ 'Cause if it's the latter this doesn't advance the discussion in any way, indeed it'd take it a couple many steps back.

[@Flaakk]

A very unexpected dislike ratio from Alex's audience no less. A bit disappointing.

[@bigmannnyeah]

What's the dislike ratio rn? (I'm sorry, I don't have the extension that lets you see it)

[@FerventRebutter]

​@@bigmannnyeah Also commenting in the hopes of finding out the ratio

[@ZanderBarcalow]

487 likes - 58 dislikes

[@Zangelin]

Is it disappointing because there is a lot of dislikes or too few for your liking?

[@FerventRebutter]

@@ZanderBarcalow thank you, chief.

[@tomactually9285]

Excellent Thanks

[@rishtopia]

Ooo this will be interesting

[@margaretgreenwood4243]

Brilliant informative discussion. Thank you both

[@billyingles]

I've been following Coleman since the George Floyd riots. It's great to see him getting a lot more exposure these days.

[@brianmeen2158]

Sure is. Coleman is a very wise man

[@Nick-o-time]

​@@brianmeen2158yeah, if you're a dumb racist, I'm sure he is.