Towards a Colorblind Society: A Conversation with Coleman Hughes | Tuesday, February 6, 2024

Nearly 60 years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the goal of living in a colorblind society remains stubbornly out of reach. Recent polling revealed that Americans are more pessimistic than optimistic about the country’s ability to ensure racial equality of all people regardless of race or ethnicity. What has led many Americans to have such a dismal view of race relations? In what ways have policies and institutions strayed from working towards a colorblind ideal?
In a new book, Coleman Hughes argues against the rise of the anti-racist movement, which in Hughes’s view has only led to more grievance, victimhood, and marginalization among Black Americans, rather than prosperity and upward mobility. The pursuit of anti-racist policies-including those under the banner of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)-will only create the illusion of racial equality without leading to any substantive change.
Hughes discusses the abandonment of colorblindness as an aspiration; how Americans can reflect constructively about race relations and their own lived experience; and the prospect of achieving true equality and progress.

[@ManhattanInst]

NOTE: Please stand by momentarily as our cameras focus at the start of this video.

[@rosemaryalles6043]

Coleman is (truly) a national treasure. He brings out the best in me, in all of us. 💜

[@jeffsmith1798]

Very thoughtful and enlightening talk.

[@jon123xyz]

Features Coleman Hughes therefore I must watch it. It's like math. A true rock star thinker, writer and speaker. Best wishes from a guy in Canada.

[@ericm3089]

This was a fantastic discussion. I am impressed and excited to read your book. I hope your insights and ideas gain traction.

[@BB-cf9gx]

Thanks Coleman.

[@markrussell4682]

My dad was red/green color blind and when he got dressed up, he was not fly.

[@louislemar796]

There are no bad effects created by modern technology like social media. There are only bad effects from the way some humans haven’t matured enough to act responsibly when using the tech. The solution is not to penalise tech companies but to raise the standard for what we expect from our fellow citizens.

[@UnderTheIceburg]

I think progressive criticism of "colorblindness" is heavily misunderstood. Every progressive subscribes to "colorblindness" as an _ideal_ but an ideal is not reality but rather a state of being to work towards. At a minimum, it's not a state that society is presently ready for. I mean, we had relative colorblindness for ~20 years and there has been no meaningful improvement in racialized outcomes so it's clear this simply hasn't been working and a different tact is needed.

[@henrytep8884]

What do you mean by racialized outcome? You think a Taiwanese is going to be in the NFL? You think an African American is going to be able to design chips for TSMC? There are just certain genetic barriers that will now allow for equal outcomes at all jobs and things in life that are built into the genetic code that give enough marginal differences to affect the extreme. But I don’t know what “racialized” outcome means relative to meritocracy. You looking for equal outcome or equal opportunity?

[@UnderTheIceburg]

@@henrytep8884 Ignoring that what you say is pretty racist on it's face, isn't the underlying concept in support of colorblindness the idea that there is no mechanical reason those things couldn't happen? That people ARE inherently equal? The reason progressives don't like colorblindness is because what you say is certainly true today but we believe there is no mechanical reason for it to be true forever, however people need a more equal starting point to get there and we simply don't have that yet.

[@henrytep8884]

@@UnderTheIceburg how is it racist what I’ve said? It’s a trade off based off probabilities and based off realistic expectations of gene expression in a given population. Your response doesn’t even get to the heart of the matter, are you looking for equality of outcome or opportunity? Also I’m for the proposed support based off socioeconomic conditions, but it should be colorblind. But you thinking that genetics isn’t a factor is ignoring reality, and I’m not doing the race realist thing, this is just fact such as women generally being weaker than men is a fact. IQ is highly inherited, I’m not saying that blank people should only be athletes or Asian people should only be engineers, as anyone should pursue what they want to be but also within a rational and reasonable coherence to reality. You talking about mechanical reasons, don’t make any sense as it means nothing as you can’t even explain what a mechanical reason is. You talking about how different humans develops through gene expression? You talking about a future where gene editing will free the genetic process from needing half the genes from the father and mother? I think that’s a possibility to surpass how we pass genes today that will exist in the future. But this is eugenics, otherwise you have the Flynn effect, where we do see that given the most amount of environmental resources, there will always be a limit to genetics outcomes based off race or ethnicity that will lead to an average difference in outcomes especially in IQ. But please try to have an intelligent conversation instead of just shouting “racism” At everything when there is a literal reality to this concept embedded in genetics. I used two extreme examples, yeah looks racist, but it drives the point home that genetics does matter and you thinking that it doesn’t is insulting to anyone’s intelligence. It matters, so we need up compensate with realistic policies, not one that gives special treatment that is known to fail (affirmative actions in the past 10 years) but one that promotes as much meritocracy while also helping the most underserved socioeconomic class, but thinking that genetics isn’t a factor gets us nowhere.

[@henrytep8884]

@@UnderTheIceburg even if the starting points were the same, you can’t ignore that genetics gives a marginal difference of outcomes that leads to a severe difference on outcome at the most extreme cases. In America, most people do get an amazing starting point all across the country, some are good, few are bad. I’m ok with giving more support to the bad, but I’m no no way does it mean guaranteed better outcomes if you ignore one of the largest pie in the equation, which is genetics, and expecting equal outcomes, then you’re literally ignoring reality in a foolish way. There’s not going to be a Taiwanese team in the NFL because of genetics, just as much as there isn’t going to be a advanced chip manufacturer at the level that TSMC operates in Africa. But that doesn’t mean Africa can’t have a chip manufacture or that Taiwanese can’t play sports.

[@henrytep8884]

@@UnderTheIceburg people are inherently equal in their rights to live. They aren’t equal in their right to any job that requires competency and meritocracy. People have the right to their own agency, they do not have the right to compel themselves into position of power they have no reason to be in. I can play this game all day, you saying that people are “equal” is a vacuous empty general statement that can be seen a million different ways. Be clear with your language otherwise you just give anyone the right to define your useless statement for your. Because people are not inherently equal, there’s literally a book on hard determinism by Robert Sapolsky that would explain this better than I, but it doesn’t meant we can’t help those that are born with less advantages, the point is to get people to live satisfying and meaningful lives within reason and coherence to reality especially when most of our outcomes is probabilistically based off our spawn point, which we don’t even get to choose. Point of hard determinism, and I’m not saying that hard determinism is the way of the world, not the case is made there especially for spawn point advantage and why we should make policies to alleviate those advantages.

[@Bumper_jed]

Coleman Hughes is another on the path begun by Booker T Washington