Resetting the Conversation on Race - Coleman Hughes and Kenan Malik | Intelligence Squared
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- Опубліковано 24 лют 2023
- Does the conversation on race need a reset?
Coleman Hughes and Kenan Malik sat down with Intelligence Squared to explore this question in January 2023. Hughes is an acclaimed American writer and podcast host. In 2019 at the age of 23 he testified before Congress against reparations for slavery and has roundly criticised the work of other Black writers on race such as Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo. In his view, their brand of anti-racism encourages a sense of victimhood among Black Americans and sows division between different racial groups. Malik is a British author and broadcaster, whose new book Not So Black and White explores the history of the idea of race and invites us to challenge many of the assumptions behind today’s culture wars. Are Black or Asian people who are conservative or don’t fit the script in some other way not really Black or Asian but straining to be white, as some anti-racists suggest? Do the current conversations about race hide the reality of class-based injustice? Can we ultimately free ourselves from racial categories while also ridding society of racism?
Join these two original thinkers from both sides of the Atlantic for a conversation on one of the most important issues of our times.
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#racediscussion #antiracism #colemanhughes #kenanmalik #intelligencesquared #iq2
Rarely have I found a book so engaging to the moment, or as helpful to me.
The world needs this discussion. One note though for coleman, the irish ,english, welsh, scottish and all the other euro groups definitely *do not* see each other as the same, similar or familiar for sure but distinct. That is a very American race focussed society thing. That is like saying chinese japanese korean etcetc see themselves as the same. Not so. It's true that uk/white folk are all a mix of euro dna, some more mixed than others.. But we tend to identify with our the culture we were raised as/in. I guess it is easier to do so when people around you look phenotypically similar as you discuss here.. Thankyou for your content.
Edit* nvm kept listening, it was explained and much more elequently than i was able to hehe :)
What's even more fascinating about the physical differences is that nobody knows why, but they don't always match up with their actual ancestry in predictable ways. Once a person is just over 30% European, they are more likely to self identify/ "pass" as "white."
Under 30% European, one is more likely to self identify/ "pass" as "black."
I've seen the genes for darker and lighter skin, inherited to varying degrees within even a single family. My Father had a DNA test done and he has genes from all over the world. Even 6% from East Africa, 40% British, 20% Irish, some percentage of 10 other places I can't recall...
If you consider that this data comes from those companies that sell ancestry DNA kits... and they don't have a whole lot of "giveaways. " ... I'd bet my bottom dollar that the majority of the samples are from middle class and upper class Americans, and a considerably small number of the samples are random.
Maybe we should raise some funds to buy ancestry DNA kits for a bunch of working class & "poor" folks...
My hypothesis is that whatever percentage of intermixing is already shown in the samples they have now (and it's already significant); it will be even more so with the addition of those parts of America that have been mixing at higher rates for some time, but usually can't afford to buy ancestry DNA kits. I am personally fascinated by that whole subject but have yet to have the funds free to spend $50-$100 to buy one for myself (or for me and my husband around Christmas time to get the half off deal). 😉
It would still be $100, though. I doubt I'm the only person who'd jump at the chance to participate in that study.
I emailed you a few months ago, and you didn't respond, but I will try to ask you once more... *Please* reverse your decision to have ad breaks every five minutes. I love your content, and wish I could listen... but just can't bear to, if the ads blast out between every other sentence. Please consider the advice, as there is so much competition on UA-cam from people who space their ads more considerately. Thank you!!
I'm sure you're a good person, but I am left to wonder...have you ever used a shovel? I mean really used a shovel, for hours. It's really not the shoveling I'm interested in, it's the struggle. Have you suffered...have you toiled? Do something difficult, it'll cure you of ever complaining, to this great degree, about ostentatiously small inconveniences. Good day to you.
There is a point of empowering the next generation with role models, and as you discussion has noted people are drawn to physical similarities.
Two people I listen to when they speak.
Per Malik's excellent discussion of identity politics, I think of it this way: it's less about whether we should have identity politics, and always more about what aspects of identity are relevant and irrelevant to politics. Put it this way: talk about human rights is talk about identity politics for the mere fact that they are "human" rights and not mammal rights or everything-in-the-animal-kingdom rights. And even the most fervent identity politician doesn't believe we should organize our politics around very real differences of hair color and pinky finger size. It's always a question about what borders you want to draw in defining your politics, not whether or not you want there to be borders.
Another excellent point he makes in his book and here: the question can't be which is the better choice between universalism and particularism. This, because everything stands or falls on how you apply your universalism or particularism. Universalism has led to really humane versions of liberalism and has also justified colonialism ("we are the representatives of the universal, and we need to catch them up to us"). And particularism has led to very tolerant live-and-let-live forms of relativism, but also to standing idly by while truly horrible practices (clitorectomy?) are performed in distant cultures.
All depends on how you apply the framework, not the framework itself.
Thanks Kevin, very thoughtful response!
@@kevincurrie-knight3267 Excellent! So as a credo, something like "Does my universalism exclude anyone from equal treatment? And does my focus on particular needs, diminish the general rights of all?" I haven't quite thought it all through or fine-tuned the value statement, but I think this reflects what you say and also what I think.
'When black is a prosperous outlook, desire to look up to, feel close with, or, as an aspirational identity, colour will matter only to the cosmetic prosperity industry which ferment capitalism lends. In so, if market value to blackness is not necessarily dependent on divisions of blackness (classes of blackness) possibility of an undivided blackness would be mutually inclusive to the prosperity and thus such formation of unity. ~ VF. Luvall
I think these two gentle men/people in the video are exploring, if unity and the prosperity of blackness (classless blackness) is something dependent on the division of the races or not, though I am not sure its crossed their mind that blackness is not classless and as such economically determined.
I say in about 100 years all the racial and ethnic lines will be blurred. And a growing mixed race population.
Reflecting on theme contrasting value of defining your mutuality through shared principles, aspirations, etcetera versus shared culture, apearence, heritage etcetera....
The first is subject to growth through persuasion and attraction, the latter not so much, and would seem to be much more reliant on growth through the power to control physically, narratively, or both. Or maybe just be a path to a negotiaded, guarded seperatism with particular orthoxies adjusted for mutiality.
That strikes me as the a pessimistic, regressive, stultifying and depressing approach to "progress".
Intelligence Squared
Did Coleman just say West Indians aren't Afro American?
I was wondering if someone could help me find the source. I remember reading years ago that some upper class Englishmen were worried about working class englishmen "polluting" the native american nobility by marrying into it etc. Has anybody else read this somewhere? Maybe it was in relation to pocohontas and john smith or something
Eugenics, it was francis Galton and Karl Pearson who popularised it
Thank you Coleman for this discussion on race. Ethnic identity is nature among all group . There is a certain benifit to the appreciation to diversity. It is the exchange of knowledge from different cultures that has helped to advance human kind. It becomes a negative when we perpetuate the myth of inherent racial inequality . Thinking one race is superior or inferior to another has denied the world much of its intellectual wealth. In America racial a d ethnic division is used to keep the common people at odds with each other so they can not unit to fight for a common cause that we'll beifit them all. It the most powerful in control of the system over the masses. Every time black and white come together there is a political push back which is design to stir up racial divisions and animosity. It would be beautiful if all people could be respected and appreciated for the richness of their culture and see the value in other cultures.
At around minute 14: The fact that it was only later in the history of slavery that race was used as justification for slavery I first heard from Thomas Sowell.
Not sure how accurate that claim is though. The medieval arabs certainly had plenty of negative things to say about blacks and did use such ideas to justify enslavement. The Egyptian historian Al-Abshibi (1388-1446) wrote that "[i]t is said that when the [black] slave is sated, he fornicates, when he is hungry, he steals." This is pretty similar to what later Europeans would say. Similarly Al-jahiz (an african) wrote a book entitled "Superiority of the Blacks to the Whites". So this idea that the Europeans were unique in justifying domination with "racism" is weak to be honest. I suspect it is a common anthropological phenomenon to dehumanise groups that you have defeated. Many tribal names literally mean "the people" as opposed to other people. For example Cherokee means "Principal People". Europeans are probably unique in the degree to which we codified, researched, developed and changed ideas over time though.
@@LS-xs7sgthroughout history all people everywhere took slaves. Any outsider could be taken as a slave no matter their color.
@@LSMitchell I don't disagree; slavery was the norm back then. I just don't find it particularly surprising that in that context a powerful race would encounter a particularly weak race and decide that they were particularly "fit" for slavery. Especially when in-group preference seems to have been a human universal. Like I said above. There are examples of racial supremacism from Arabs & Africans. I think if Africans or Arabs had reached the scientific, economic and military prowess of the Europeans the roles would have been reversed. And their intellectuals would be trying to explain to themselves why the "whites" were so "backward" and finding reasons to justify their enslavement.
@@LS-xs7sg right. Which reminds me of what Jared Diamond wrote in his book Guns, Germs, and Steel.
Why does Dr. Drew have an accent all of the sudden?? Fret not folks, I'm a father 5-times over, so I am fully licensed & qualified to be making really bad Dad-jokes.
You’re never going to force a blending melting pot coalition, nor do you need to, all you have to do is make sure resources aren’t shortchanged to groups of people because of who they are or where they are from, as long as you have a fair system, people will be fine, people want respect, not to hold hands
Fair, but identity politics makes people much worse at judging what is/isn’t a fair system. Just look at what race hucksters on both sides (e.g. your average white supremacist and Kehinde Andrews et al.) think about the state of society, they’re incapable of basic probabilistic reasoning
True
If you're in a minority group how do you expect to make sure resources are distributed equally without building a cross-racial coalition? It's not going to happen by magic.
Agreed, but could we also hold hands? How about a brisk high-five...I'm a white guy, so we like to high-five.
@@scottsherman5262 No, just stop being so needy, people that are socially needy like you end up getting way too comfortable. Keep your high-five let me just get this money.
Robin DiAngelo is black?
🔥🔥🔥🔥
If there's only one race, then there are no races -- which is fine with me. We are one species.
Amazing conversation. As a "white passing" Jew, I certainly appreciated both sides of the skin color argument. Antisemitism is very much on the rise, and haters know how to find the Jews in spite of our ability to sometimes blend into a white landscape.
This is one of the main frustrations white people have with Jewish people tho. You will blend with us when it’s convenient for you but (many of you) are overwhelmingly left wing and progressive politically/socially and (many of you) preach from gospel of anti-whiteness
Really important comment here...I wish more Americans could understand what you're saying.
We need to work towards a future where race is no longer an option of personal identification for people.
Agreed, Its so stupid we have been treating people and making ridiculous myths about them simply because of the continent they originate from. Its diabolical
Kenan Malik has come to the fore in recent days in the UK due to his book as well as commentary about Diane Abbot's comments. What shocked me in listening to this is the gap that Americans (yes, especially Black/African Americans) have with the rest of the world.
The discussion was almost as if Kenan and Coleman were speaking about completely different things but with a faint thing in common. I am not impressed with Coelman at all though tried hard to like him despite his lack of self-awareness.
*A final point* - if you think I am saying anything controversial, please listen in on the emerging hostilities between 'original African Americans' and more recent migrants from Africa.
I'm not understanding your discontent with Coleman, perhaps you could explain it in other words. Whatever it is about him that leaves you wanting, perhaps it'd help to remember he's a very young man & still becoming?
Americans live in a cultural bubble. They've been fed race identity politics for generations now, and they're all in their own echo chambers. They don't tend to discuss these issues with non-Americans so Coleman is doing well by stepping away from the consensus and exploring different ideas.
@@user-ln1yz2ow5t I agree about the 'cultural bubble'. The myth making is woven into its DNA. Eg. That great truth teller George Washington never told the truth about cutting down that cherry tree. There was no tree! The lies were collectively woven into truth, just like the Stars and Stripes by Betsy Ross. Where I somewhat disagree is over the assumption that cultural identity itself leads to disadvantage. There are many in the US who identify as a something-American, though many say the Amarican part is the most important. There are also many more multi-ethnic and blended families, making generalisations less plausible. 'Progressive' 'critical' voices in the US seem overly keen to point to problems and only suggest solutions that require reversing time. Sure progress costs money and we can all be angry about the rich getting richer. But burning down the house that you rent will only get the insurance money to the owner and you will be homeless. (Not YOU literally!)
@@scottsherman5262 a lovely turn of phrase... "still becoming". I'm a Grandma closer to Kenan's age and closer to un-becoming, I rather value Coleman's willingness to be open and therefore vulnerable. He is courageous. As a "mixed race" transracial adoptee in the U.K. I found this gentle and kindly exploration most useful. Neoliberal capitalism has a lot to answer for imho
Scholastically it is a highly contested position which places white servitude of the 19th century and black slavery as mutually inclusive. Most, if not all, historians of the early Atlantic world would reject the “white slave” thesis particularly from 17th century Caribbean.
Its weird to me, 4 of my irish and 1 english ancestor (a woman) was sentenced to life/ labour in australia in the v early 18th century for petty crime..stealing a cabbage, a hat, drinking on sunday and for politically protesting the english in ireland. 1 of their spouses and 1 kids were also sent, their agreement to this meant the accused punishment was changed from "sentenced to death" to transportation to aus.
They were in prisons and sentenced to hard labour for years in poor conditions, one (a child born there, my great or 2nd great grandfather) 13 and sent to a "master" (they were kept in shackles in basement when they misbehaved) after his mother died and grandfather killed himself, he ran away once his father got his pardon (after 10yrs forced labour) and stowed away on a ship along with his father to where i currently live. sounds pretty slave like to me. Suffering is suffering.
@@hermitpermit2553 the suffering of the white working class (poor class) to rights not afforded is undeniable - the sad history stories as your grief recognises.
The academic point I was addressing, is, to conflate white indentured labour and the less common white slavery at the time of a transatlantic black slavery era;
suggesting their numbers were comparable or their living conditions were occupied equally (harvesting babies in slavery) simply lacks evidence.
Now, were there concerns of the white working class finding commonality with the plight of the black transatlantic slave trade (including the Caribbean)? Regarding America, that may of differed north to south, which ever way, there isn't much of an argument against the view stating, 'it didn't take very much' to convince the white working class so completely and evermore their superiority.
@theviewfinder8923 Academia refers to indentured labour as slavery. The definition of slavery is a condition in which one human being was owned by another and/or the condition of being forced to conduct hard labour without renumeration or the freedom to leave. The workhouses in Britain which were full of British and Irish people from the working class who could not find paid work (or had come to England to escape the potato famine) - and it absolutely was slavery. Even the National Archives in Britain refers to the Poor Houses as slavery, and discusses conditions as being on par with the Atlantic slave trade conditions. If women gave birth in the work house their child became property of the workhouse and if they survived, was enslaved there to work too. If they didn't do what they were told they were "knocked on the head without trial and their bodies sold to the surgeons" (National Archives, 1824 Poor Law). Many died. Comparable in nature to the Atlantic Slave Trade but pertaining to white people was that conducted on the Barbary Coast Pirates who traded European slaves - historians estimate millions. Civilisation since the beginning were enslaving all races of people. Anyway, academia doesn't reject the that white people were slaves at all - at least not any credible ones.
"color blindness" and "defund the police" are just perfect examples of poor political slogans...
I just added a word or two to my vocabulary, u·ni·ver·sal·ism
CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY
the belief that all humankind will eventually be saved.
"Christian universalism would insist that Christ's atonement did atone for everyone's sins"
2.
loyalty to and concern for others without regard to national or other allegiances.