Heather Mac Donald And Glenn Loury On Policing, Race, And Ideological Conformity

good afternoon everyone, i'm hannah myers, director of the manhattan institute's initiative on

policing

and public safety. The primary goal of this new effort is to produce innovative thinking about

policing

based on empirical research and creative ideas. This requires not only rigorous but also courageous and genuine scholarship. voices because without the commitment to sincerely articulate what we see, how can we reject what is wrong and move toward what is right? Our two guests today have earned loyal fans for their deep knowledge, their enthusiasm in tackling difficult topics, and their honesty even when it goes against popular narratives or even niceties.

I'm sure you'll share my delightful anticipation of your back-and-forth today on

race

policing and

ideological

conformity

as you challenge each other on these issues, so I excitedly turn the proceedings over to Glenn Lowery. to introduce

heather

mc

donald

and himself and start your conversation thank you

glenn

thank you hannah hi, I'm actually

glenn

lowery professor of economics and public and international affairs at brown university and I'm delighted to chat with

heather

mc

donald

, who is the Thomas W Smith, a member of the Manhattan Institute and also a contributing editor to the Institute's City Journal, prolific writer and friend.

Can I call you friend? Heather, I would be honored if this is your first time and I can call you. a friend then, yeah, okay, great, let's be friends because I really get a lot out of your contributions to public debate and so on, so here we are talking. It could say a lot about you. I'm supposed to introduce you. in english from yale oh in english from clear college uh cambridge university jd and stanford law clerk for a federal judge and all that best selling books the war on the police which was a monstrous intervention in the public discussion on one of the most important things I can think of about the diversity hoax.

I know what you're talking about because I live in academia and the gender and

race

obsession of my colleagues and our institutions is worthy of criticism, if not outright ridicule, IMHO, but In any case, how are you doing? good? Yes, I am receiving comments. You no longer have to live in academia to know that the diversity hoax is out of control. It is arguably one of the defining characteristics of our world. Today, as Andrew Sullivan says, we're all on campus, now you know we're all in gender studies, so thank you very much Glenn for being part of an institution that is in the process of overthrowing Western civilization, I would say. strong statement, heather, well, the guardians are absent, but you know, what I'm seeing is the betrayal of the guardians, uh, there is not a single art teacher, literature professor, head of a classical music organization who does not is facing the legacy that it is your obligation to defend yourself against these false accusations of racism and sexism, it is terrifying, if this does not stop, there will be very little left that we can love and honor in our civilization, within a time frame. about a year, but I know the Manhattan Institute wants us to talk about surveillance, so I'm afraid I put us on a different path.

No, it's okay, but I was going to go further, but maybe you're right. I mean, I was going to qualify a little bit by saying that there are pockets of sanity that fight to say that you know if you work really hard at it you can get an education. You can find students who are interested in you. Great books and great ideas, etc., and there's a lot of cowardice and cowering, you know? from people who agree with you and me on this basically, but who are just afraid that my inbox is full of letters from people all over this country, I mean. dozens and dozens of them saying thank God that you are out there doing what you are doing but and here they tell me a story but I can't say anything you know why because my career would be affected because my friendships would be ruined life would be miserable and so on, so it's a problem, but yeah, we're supposed to be talking about policing Heather, we're in a moment of racial reckoning, every time a police god helps us if he's white and shoots a citizen. who is black in the process of carrying out his duties becomes a federal case.

Mobs gather in the streets. Literally, mobs gather around courthouses demanding particular results from the judicial process. Politicians file charges against people without any merit to placate these mobs. Um, I wonder what the hell is going on. I mean, you've been writing about this kind of stuff for a long time and it seems like we've reached a critical moment with Brianna Taylor, George Floyd and Ahmed. Arbouries and so on in this world and these incidents and I should say they are unfortunate because I think they are unfortunate. I think the loss of life is unfortunate because I think it's unfortunate, but I'm wondering whether or not.

The reactions are doing more harm than good, including to the well-being of the black lives on behalf of which these reactions are offered, and I just want to give you a chance to talk a little bit about that. Well, I agree that this is an incredible time when there is not a single aspect of the criminal justice system that is not under attack and possibly in the process of being dismantled due to the disparate impact of anything a justice system does. criminal, whether arresting criminals or sentencing. them if that falls on a black criminal even though that black criminal has been taking advantage of the millions of thousands of hardworking, law abiding black citizens in this community, that criminal justice system is suspect.

California is passing a law that would allow any criminal defendant. basically stopping the proceedings against him by challenging his sentence by challenging the way he was charged based not on actual evidence of discrimination at his trial but on statistical evidence that supposedly similarly placed the defendants in their position of a different race, That is, whites or perhaps Asians or Hispanics were not charged or sentenced as harshly. This is ridiculous. Statistical evidence rarely takes criminal records adequately into account. The real seriousness of a crime. But this will stop in California, at least it will stop. the possibility of prosecuting gang members and I find it amazing, Glenn, that for the last few months, as shootings increase exponentially in inner-city areas, the only conversation we've been having nationally is about white supremacy.

I've collected just a few of the shootings that haven't gotten a response from the press in recent months and I'm only going to read a few of them from the last two weeks, but this is what's happening and people are looking away from October 2nd . 14-year-old girl shot in Chicago's west Englewood section while standing on sidewalk Sept. 26 15-year-old boy shot to the head in Chicago's west end Sept. 1. One-year-old boy in Kansas City, Missouri, killed when someone approached the car he was riding in and riddled him with bullets September 15 15-year-old girl shot to death in St. Louis September 11 14-year-old boy killed and driven away shot in northeast Baltimore September 10 mailman on Chicago's far side killed by gunshot wound to head abdomen legs and buttocks September 7 six-year-old boy shot at annual Juve party that opens Valentine's Day parade west indies august 29 seven seven year old girl murdered at family birthday party in south bend indiana needless to say all of those victims are black children, they comprise only a portion of the 40 black children who have been killed in shootings since vehicles since the tragic death of george floyd and we look away from them because they don't fit the narrative instead we are talking about phantom white supremacy it is a notable failure i would say that in our public discourse the press is playing a Fundamental role in this, people are deciding what stories to write, what broadcast to do, and then what. comments to offer What do you think explains the coloring of the press reaction to these issues?

I mean, what's going on? I'm really asking a question because I don't know the answer to this. Can't. I mean, I get it. blatant partisanship Trump said it I hate Trump, therefore I have to be against this I understand it but the pathos the loss the tragedy the pain the humanity of these situations imagine a father who loses a son to a gunshot at age five or something like that This is a story, I mean, I don't care what color these people are. This is certainly a part of our contemporary lives that deserves to be given voice.

I want someone at the funeral. I want him to cover. I want them. Interview parents and young children who are friends. I want you to go to the school where these young people may have been. uh, going to a class every day and talking to the teachers in the press. Where are these stories? Now you know. It's something that I really, you know, I don't understand, partisan politics aside, why curiosity about the human dimension of this aspect of our contemporary life doesn't drive reporters and maybe not the New York Times, but the Dayton or whatever. You know that to cover these things with a larger debt, what do you think about it?

Well, not to answer directly, I would point out and I am dismayed by the speed with which the left plays the racism card these days and I think it is again what is destroying our civilization as well, but in this case I am very tempted to to say that it is objectively racist because if we change the race of those children who have been murdered to white, I don't have a moment of doubt. that there would be a national revolution that this would be a big story uh that politicians would be held accountable uh and the media would be there if I was a black activist I would be furious if I was a black lives matter activist I would be furious if we saw what What happened with Newton Connecticut, you know, two dozen murdered white children who became the source of public discourse for months and now they were all at the same time, but the cumulative toll in black communities from gang shootings since vehicles reaches the level of Newton Connecticut, you know, in a matter of months, and what is remarkable is another proof that black lives matter, activists, that it is all just a fraud, a sham, and a political power play , is that they don't bring these black lives to light.

I have never, ever seen a Black Lives Matter activist at some of the very local vigils and protests against this violence that good people in inner city communities put together without the attention of the national media, except the black ones. Lives Matter activists don't give a damn because it doesn't fit with what turns out to be an enormously powerful, uh, narrative about white supremacy. Elite whites' capitulation to that narrative is so automatic and the reward that comes from their capitulation at this point. so magnificent in its princely generosity that there is simply no reason to change the tune and I would just quickly add I think you know what is driving this is that well-meaning Americans are desperate to change the culture of the inner city and would rather look away because maybe they fear it can't be changed, which I don't agree with, but that's my explanation of the root cause.

I don't know what your explanation is Glenn, yeah I don't know if I have Actually I think there's something to what you're saying but the point of racism is a profound point if you really cared about black people you'd stick your neck out of the trench of, you know, the Overton window, a kind of trench of what's allowed. what to say and you go out on a limb and denounce what you call a thug thug you would call it vicious uh you know kind of lack of uh disregard for the value of human life you call it what it is you would be willing to confront you know, joe biden goes to jacob's bed blake and then he issues a statement about jacob blake and this is no disrespect to jacob blake no, you know, gratuitous disrespect to jacob blake, but is he an honorable man?

You would have questions about whether or not he is an honorable man, no matter what happens to him, you would have questions about whether or not a presidential candidate should speak to the country from his bedside and tell us his hopes and dreams for recovery. I simply, but who is going to write? that piece and she's going to say uh no no to that kind of uh that kind of behavior so candace owens I mean, she basically proved herself to be probably the bravest person in history by recording a video several months ago about george floyd and lamenting the fact that most of the martyrs now being celebrated for police violence have very, very questionable backgrounds, they are criminals and that points to a reality of police violence that is overwhelmingly caused by criminal behavior or resistant behavior on the part of individuals who this It's something that criminology has known for decades that the biggest predictor of an officer's behavior is civilian behavior, you know, if a civilian resists a legal effort to achieve thecompliance, the officer will increase his own force. to achieve compliance and it can reach tragic levels, obviously, but that's what's happening, virtually all of these shootings could have been prevented if someone had resisted arrest, uh, george floyd, I want to talk about that and this.

We're talking now about the kind of self-censorship and, you know, the limited ability to have open discourse about what's really going on for fear of offending or for fear of violating some restriction and appearing racist or uncaring, it affects everyone. and it certainly affects even me, so a friend emails me and says a gold coffin really, this is george floyd's funeral, okay, caisson, you know, you would have thought it was jfk, you would have thought that you knew it, it's really okay and I'm thinking I'm African American, I'm saying, oh my God, look at my people, my blacks, look how we know, I see Al Sharpton up there doing his tricks, uh, you know, I hear all the dreary recitations of clichés and all that. now I didn't speak ill of the dead I certainly don't speak to the black dead brought to uh you know, death at the hands of a police officer, but come on, this is really it and what are we telling our children, I mean, this is what I want to discuss. with people, I mean, when Obama was elected, you told me role models, he's going to change everything, young black people are going to have another one, you know, whatever, there's a flip side to that if you make scoundrels, uh, you know , not even close to making Wells bombs against your heroes.

What do you tell your children? What are you offering them? It's a vision for how those of us who are now African Americans should live, so I guess we can keep it that way. Heather, I'm not sure, I should probably try it. Well. Yeah, I guess that would be a counterargument here, but I mean you know it's heartbreaking to see the nobility honor the courage of black people in the early part of the 20th century, who did the best they could and contributed so much to American life. culture the musicians elephants gerald duke ellington dressed to the nines giving us beauty, sublimity in their music in their dignity at a time when they were subject to such heartbreaking hatred and contempt and yet they had the breadth and greatness of spirit to keep moving forward with the belief that integration was possible and that they could strive and meet high standards and that ultimately we would be a culture and now we have a culture of opposition.

You know the identity of a large part, I wouldn't say the whole, but at least. The least of many black leaders and some black American citizens are oppositional, you know the whole anti-white ethos in schools that defines academic endeavor as a betrayal of black identity, and this is part of a broader movement that just emerged from the '60s, when protests were celebrated as necessarily right because civil rights protests were necessarily right, but from then on, the idea that America was inerratically evil, you know, took hold and now you have people celebrating like You say, some of them. bullies simply because they are a polar opposite of authority, but what I would like to ask you is that I have been tracking this summer a piece that I have never been able to finish yet, but the whole law and order meme that is I used the New York Times in the Washington Post incessantly and said that every time Trump invokes law and order, that's a dog whistle and that's a racist phrase.

Well, I would be interested to know your opinion on this. Is it that correct? The strange thing about that statement is that it implicitly seems to acknowledge what is forbidden to say explicitly, namely that there is an extraordinarily disproportionate level of criminal offenses among black people, so if you are talking about law and order, you are talking about trying to protect themselves from criminals who are disproportionately black now, one wouldn't be allowed to say that in the New York Times, but what do you think: they are references to law and order now fatally poisoned by the rhetoric of the fifties and sixty or is that a legitimate campaign platform, you know, show my cards, I think it is, I think we are, you know, the breakdown of law and order in these last few months is terrifying, we are on the brink of civility. anarchy, but what is how do you respond to that phrase? uh I think it's perfectly legitimate I think it's actually necessary I think it's imperative frankly I think Obama should have used it I said it Obama when Baltimore was on fire after Freddie Gray when Ferguson Uh Missouri was on fire uh after uh michael brown, the president of the united states, a black man could have done something that could have saved us this heather if he had stood in front of the microphone instead of saying things like he had a son He would look like Trayvon and things like uh, you know, I can't quote him.

We could do the research, but basically let's not overreact to this. Let's give people a chance to vent after all. They have a problem instead of saying. that if I had said as a black man the first priority the first imperative of the government is to protect individuals in their person and their property no political objection justifies setting fire to anything no political objection makes it right we are a country of laws and I am the main The country's law enforcement official, and despite my commitment to civil rights and my love of African-American culture and my appreciation for the frustrations of people in the president's office, I must insist that I could have said it, but he didn't say it.

I can't tell you why he didn't say it, but I can say that if he had said it, it could have completely changed, in my opinion, it could have changed the political possibilities established for anyone who holds that office because then the race card The argument that is Trying to expose white racists through the use of the law would have no credibility whatsoever. Trump or anyone could say: Well, wait, wait, here's Barack Obama, your first black president. I am the president of the United States. he says I'm just doing my job, he could have said yes Obama etc, so who is going to suffer if civil society collapses in these cities?

Who will be the people not only because of criminal violence but also because of the collapse of the economy? activity like you, as you have pointed out in some of your writings, I know that I am not going to invest my life savings and open a small business on a parkway, when I look and see a housing project two miles up the road and I have To contemplate the probability is 0.15 that I'm going to get burned if a police officer has to wear this, uh, etc. I wouldn't do that, I wouldn't make that investment, so of course it's legit now that I can see. what counterargument could be here, they would say, uh, look, this is something that republicans have used for a long time, uh, richard nixon, etc., after all, there are people out there who will answer yes I know that, yes I say the suburbs are endangered by civil disorder, they'll think the suburbs are white, the inner city black, whatever, then they'll say there's some kind of historical precedent for using the law and order trope is a way to activate the subconscious racist racism of American politics, but if you ask me and you know, I've told you what I think, I think President Obama should have responded very differently to civil disorder. that took place during his administration if he had, I think we would have had a very different situation in the future, well, those that were just an absolutely inspiring speech, uh uh, and I wish you had been a speechwriter and I think you have you have one race ahead, you have to go out more, uh, and that poses a problem when you say it's his, you know, the argument is good, there is historical precedent for that trope and therefore when we use it today it must mean what same.

That is one of the questions we face today with the supposed reckoning with white supremacy and white privilege. How much can a culture change? Know? Is it possible to make radical change or is it unrealistic and I would say contrary to all expectations, you know, if you had observed the fervor with which segregation was defended for as long as possible in the '50s and '60s and the apparent blindness of the majority of America to his founding violations of principle and his resistance, you know. If you didn't know today, you could say yes, the 1619 project is plausible, you know, Tony, he sees coats, that is the very essence of America, destroying the black body, that is possible, but I would say that the country has changed fantastically, we all talk about white privilege, let's be honest, you know, you don't have to look at these, these, these professors who were trying to pass themselves off as black, to realize that if you have a child applying to college today , has a lot. better chance if you're black than if you're white and let's be honest, that also applies to getting a job in school getting a promotion getting a job at google getting a job at the paul weiss law firm getting a job at bank of america , apparently when it comes to the overwhelming experience now again, one has to add the obligatory disclaimer, well, of course there are racists out there.

I'm going to do that just to acknowledge that it's required, but I actually don't think it's very helpful because those people really have no effect on the course of life for most black people today and if we're going to say that, I insist that we also say that we recognize black racism against white people, which is very real, of course, if you know that you don't. I have to spend a lot of time outside of Sharpton's national action network, which I have done to hear some real racism against white people for understandable reasons, but that's pretty ingrained, I would say, so I would say we've changed our history and We have to I could say it's so unrealistic, but conservatives often point to the fact that when it comes to gay rights, that was also an extraordinary change in a period of time that no one would have expected, so I think that We should not be held hostage to what was actually a very blind and very insensitive history if people go back and open Gunner Merida's two-volume treatise, An American Dilemma, written in the 1930s and 1940s, and take a look at what he describes as the social situation. of the black uh at that time I think the modal occupation of a black man was a farm worker and of a black woman was a domestic worker.

I think the ratio of black to white median household income was like point four, something like forty percent of a dollar. uh, family income and it's going to be like point seven right now uh, I think the representation of African Americans in the professions was essentially zero, I'm talking about engineering, legal medicine, etc., segregation was rampant, lynchings were still going on. course, etc. It's within a lifetime of uh my life I was born in 1948 uh of uh of uh transformation is really quite remarkable. I don't think you can find another example, frankly, of a country of any size with a substantial racial ethnic minority of subordinates. people who have been kept in a kind of indentured status whose position within society has improved to the same degree and extent that has been the case for African Americans, I mean, we lose sight of this because the little progress that remains to be made I realize that it looms so large in our minds, especially for activists, but I think a fair historical reading would contradict the narrative that comes out of people like the Colts tonight, but I want to say something else, Heather, and see how you react. because you mentioned disparate impact and I think that's the heart of the matter, the heart of the matter is that there are racial differences in the average success rates and certain types of activities and a failure in certain types of activities there is an overrepresentation of blacks among the people who are in prison, that is called mass incarceration and it is said to be racist.

There is an underrepresentation of blacks among the people who are achieving outstanding results and some of these academic specialties and that is called there are not enough black professors in the physics department, there are not enough blacks. Professors in sociology departments at universities are beating themselves up because there is not enough representation and what I think we have is the juxtaposition of two things. I think we have the fact of this dramatic historical transformation in the status of African Americans from a kind of servitude to something that is very close to equal citizenship and in some cases privileged benefits because of affirmative action and so on, we have that, but we also have the persistence of inequality, we have the overrepresentation of blacks among those who are incarcerated we have a huge achievement gap in educational spheres and so on, and people are just having a hard time dealing with both of those things and it requires denying a or another, requires saying that it is the fault of the system which is Where I think systemic racism comes from is basically saying that yes, there are disparities, but no, it is not the fault of African Americans whothey suffer the worst part.

Yes, there is an overrepresentation of black people in prison, but no, it is not because they are older. criminal offenses is because the police are biased, the bias laws and so on, etc., yes, there is a shortage of black teachers, but no, that is not the case. Princeton University declares to the world that we must do better. Brown University doubles down on its commitment to diversity. and inclusion harvard university declares diversity inclusion and belonging and belonging in the face of insufficient numbers of African Americans the stench of failure in the air and people just can't stand it I say this as a proud African American failure not to see the opportunities that exist in society , the existence of which is demonstrated by the fact that other people who are not of European origin, who are coming to our country by the millions over the last two generations, are taking advantage of these same opportunities, so that is what I think is at the center of this temperament and I think it's full of all kinds of interesting things. psychological and really philosophical, moral, philosophical aspects, shame, shame, shame of failure, uh, uh, kind of a bluff, a bluff that goes on where people challenge you to say you know they bring up the evidence of disparate impact who assume that the only acceptable explanation for this is unfair treatment and basically dare you to contradict it, dare you to call whoever george floyd was as he really was, dare you to say that if you don't resist the rest, You wouldn't finish. in a physical conflict with a police officer whose consequences can be fatal, etc.

Well, the cardinal rule in progressive or liberal discourse is that you will not observe behaviors or cultures that are dysfunctional when it comes to official victim groups, you are simply not allowed. To look at it as you say, the only explanation allowed is the system and the structure and this started with that book in the 1960s so you can't blame the victim, I don't know where that came from but that was going to happen , was a reaction to I See the Moynihan River, so we have to treat black people as automatons, as people who have no agency, who are inevitable, pawns of the structures in which they live and who cannot make good decisions through of their own individual choices, they are doomed. and destined to end up in situations where they are not competitively qualified for a wide variety of jobs and I have said this before, to me the basic division between a conservative perspective and a liberal one is that conservatives are more likely to see great - results at scale or individual results as a result of bad or good choices and decision making and liberals will see the structure now both sides are blind.

You might be willing to admit that perhaps conservatives are not sufficiently attuned to inherited structural disadvantages. but I think it is simply a strategy for success, it is better that one errs on the side of yes, you have been dealt a bad hand, but you can make certain basic decisions that will greatly improve your lot in life and you know it. It's the success strategy we've heard about from William Galston, but instead you know you have an elite culture that is now fighting for any explanation other than the lack of a fanatical school culture, the disappearance of parents , which is not only important. for any particular child, but it is equally important to have a culture that values ​​parental responsibility and marriage and sends a message to young men that they are expected to develop those bourgeois habits of deferred gratification and self-sufficiency that would make them acceptable companions. .

What we have now is really a kind of pathos of these burnings of statues and desecrations of monuments with the idea that if we get rid of some statue in some public park, no one for the last two centuries has known what the hell it represents and who. that person is but if we get rid of all these statues uh and and names on the streets that somehow black academic performance is going to improve I can guarantee you that we can throw down everything we can we can get rid of washington dc we can break into the mall Washington nothing is going to change because it's not the statues that are responsible for the academic achievement gap, I say that the statues are a symbolic emblem or a representation of a history of racial domination, etc., and you know, I mean, but I'm I agree with you about the depressing efforts it's all a kind of symbolic thing and it doesn't get to the cases it doesn't get to the cases it doesn't get to how children are raised how they are educated etc. they are also going to say I just have to say this they They are also going to say look at those deficiencies that you see in African American social life, family life, etc., they are in themselves the consequences or at least some degree of history of exclusion and so on, they are going to say that slavery was a kind of total domination where families didn't have a chance to breathe, they're going to say that the denial of access to employment opportunities for black men helped undermine their position within a family and encouraged the evolution of a sort of matriarchal dynamic, etc. , so they are going to say that a first-order observation would leave us thinking that these people are not behaving appropriately, but a deeper and more sophisticated historical view would understand that the reasons why blacks are like this and Jews are like this and Asians are like this and so on are themselves the product of a structural dynamic, that's what they're going to say. to which I would say please, I really can't shape my own life.

I am completely a prisoner of something. uh, you know, I'm a puppet at the end of a string being pulled back and forth by historical forces. I think for a minute I mean do I think what kind of way to be in the world is to think that I have no control over what happens in my own life or in the lives of my children I would say and here I write from uh echo amy cera yeah , I mentioned amy cera if you step off the sidewalk a negligent bus driver runs you over that is obviously not your fault you are a victim of negligence but if you don't go to physical therapy you will never be able to walk again now who is responsible for getting up doing the painful exercises and regaining the ease of walking is your responsibility even though the bus driver should have been paying attention and to me that is where we are as African Americans here now it is our responsibility to raise our children, it is our responsibility to make the most of what better from a hand that you know to some extent has been a bad hand but, nevertheless, it is our responsibility, nobody is going to do it for us, nobody will come to do it. save us, that's the speech they gave me, yes, I was going to mention precisely that Amy Wax has rights and remedies and it's not just responsibility, it's effectiveness, you know, what she also emphasizes is that if they don't have it, we have a responsibility.

We cannot do it, there is no substitute, government programs do not replace parents and the idea that there has not been a massive effort by society as a collective to try to change these urban pathologies is ridiculous. and it's not just the trillions of dollars that have been spent on government transfer programs and social services. I don't know a single wealthy Republican donor who isn't trying again, with real good intentions and good will, to help inner-city people. Whether it's the after-school chess program or the tuition payment guarantees, the idea of ​​returning to this ridiculous white supremacy meme is ridiculous.

I believe that the vast majority of white people today have nothing but good will toward black people and those with power, exercise that power. try to change and close that skills gap as much as possible, but the question is whether that worked and if it can work, it can't without individual effort and about the type of statues and their history of discrimination, a point I recently re-read , uh, bitches, the way we live now because I was recording a discussion about a book about George L, it's mid-March with Michael Knowles and I just wanted a comparison of Victorian novelists in terms of style and, well, I'll just say this .

I love this about you, Heather, that you're a very cultured woman, musical opera literature and all that, but you write the most scathing essays on political and social issues and that's a rare thing to find, I'm telling you, so you know , congratulations to you, thank you. I wish I could dedicate all my time to beauty as I'm sure you do it well and not take on this, these tragic things, but anyway, what was clear in the whore was at least the frank representation. and if it is shared by trollop, one can question anti-Catholicism but particularly anti-Semitism.

There is a character in the way we live now who is a very successful Jewish merchant and is the target of absolutely unapologetic, shameless and proud. antisemitism from a family whose daughter is so witty and because she's not married she's not and thinks she's turning into a spinster who's actually contemplating marrying this guy who turns out to be one of the most noble characters in the book, so if trollope shares that such antisemitism is questionable but ultimately irrelevant as far as I'm concerned, my point is just that, uh, the history of antisemitism, as you know, you mentioned Princeton, uh, that's one of the things that Princeton is currently beating its chest about, but it hasn't been anti-Semitic for decades, huh, but there was a very real disdain and hatred towards Jews and they basically said to hell with it and beat everyone up anyway , uh, they endured the segregation that gradually made their way, but they embraced Western civilization, I mean, some of our greatest literary critics have been Jews and they read these books by the 19th century English Victorians with insight and gratitude, so you know that one does not want.

It's like pitting one group against another, but there are historical examples of the possibility of overcoming discrimination throughout society through hard work and we are simply not willing to send that message today, no one says they are very curious and come back. to the original question that you posed to Glenn, which is what the hell is going on here and I repeat that I think white people want to preemptively solidify the myth of prejudice and the explanation for prejudice, uh, because they don't want to contemplate other possible explanations for the persistence of those large-scale inequalities well, other possible explanations include essential or genetically based differences between populations and that is, you know, and we know that that's racist and we know that that argument exists, so it should be I noticed it, but you talk of the Jews, you talk about the Jews and I want to highlight two points: one is that if you count so much, you are talking to me about underrepresentation every time there is some type of selective activity, like who enters the faculty of a large university and there is no enough black people, they're not, they're underrepresented, well, you know, representation numbers have to add up to one, fractions have to add up to one, so if there's underrepresentation, there's overrepresentation.

I don't know how to go down the path of a discourse on underrepresentation without implicitly accusing the overrepresented that somehow another doesn't deserve their status, well, in many cases it will be the Jews, okay, so you better think about that, um, the other point. What I want to say is I agree that you know as an African American I have had to deal with this personally. People have doubts about your abilities. They don't know if you're fit or not. I'm sure there are a couple of ways to respond now. one of them is to dismiss their doubts, call them racists and tell them to go to hell, another is to redouble your efforts and dispel their doubts here you look at what I just achieved you think I'm not fit to deal with it um there Actually, it's a case in point. favor the second way of doing it because the first way invites condescension, invites people to tolerate you by saying oh yeah, you're right, you're right, we have to do it.

Doing it better the second way is a form of power. I have a friend who is an African American scientist and he is always talking about racism and science to whom I say: do you know what would happen if Albert Einstein was? I think it was 1903. When he published those three great papers on special relativity, the brownie and motion, and on the photoelectric effect, he published three papers, each of which in one year could have been worthy of a Nobel Prize, I mean, if Einstein had spent as much time thinking about being Jewish as you've been thinking about being black, he would never have had time to write those articles.

They also won't hire you today because many schools are now making commitment to diversity and diversity status the precondition for being considered. at the mother school after school in the University of California system, the initial evaluation procedure is your diversity statement of sufficient enthusiasm and fanaticism, uh, or are you going to contribute to diversity, that is, are you a woman or minority, uh, what if you don't approve of that? bar, your uh, your request to teach is to put in the junk file, it's remarkable, so if Einstein would have made it through, uh, if thepeople who were developing nuclear physics, you know, Lawrence Liverpool's laboratory, none of them would have done it, uh, because they were too involved in the eros of knowledge of pursuing the ability to understand our universe, that's right, it's really incredible the deviation of our scientific talent.

Someone sent me a notice from the University of California Davis, a science department that sent out a memo saying that I had a very long conversation about this and they decided that they have to stop holding their weekly meetings and brown bag lunches within the department. Oh come on, this is what our scientists are doing, you fool. I'm sorry, it's nonsense. do it I have everything is nonsense everything is nonsense I mean this is who we are I don't know I don't believe I don't believe in conspiracy theories but now I'm getting to the point where I do believe it It's conceivable that China is the financier of our ideology because this is suicide, this is scientific suicide, okay, Donald J.

Trump, his name appeared briefly before we only had a few minutes and I wanted to mention the name again because I believe, without being able to prove it, that the arrival of Trump and the schism in our politics that has occurred due to Trump's success in being elected president and appointing three Supreme Court justices will be soon. enough um and the hatred of Trump by many quarters, including some Republicans, is somehow involved right now, I mean I can't prove it, but somehow I feel like if we ask why the press doesn't report differently , the answer at least in part is because if they did, they think it would help Trump if we asked them why activists exploit certain types of tropes.

I think the heightened sense that they are behind the barricades and under duress because Trump represents a certain momentum in American culture. and politics is pro-life he's pro-guns he wants a border uh he's not an internationalist and all of that threatens people in ways that they somehow react to I've said enough I want to hear what you think about the role Trump plays ancestry contributes to contribute and people's reactions contribute to this moment of crisis in which we find ourselves. I agree and disagree. I think you're being too charitable to the press to think that before Trump we were reporting the facts, I mean Glenn, you know that's not the case that the New York Times has been publishing, they're stories about diversity in business and whether it is gender, sex or race forever, they have been promoting racial division.

I think I see this more as a result of another, let's say, look at the first iteration of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2015 and 2016. Things are much worse, crime, what I call the Ferguson effect, we can reduce it. The Ferguson 2.0 effect or the Minneapolis effect is much worse, the collapse is much faster, crime is increasing much faster. I attribute it to another five years of poisonous academic ideology and, with all due respect, I agree, Glenn, you are right that it is possible if you are an extremely enlightened student by finding professors like yourself in the social sciences and hard sciences and you are doing very, very hard work.

Those students are working hard, but the import or export of universities today is overwhelmingly like that. poisonous ideology, so that's what's happening: we're increasingly becoming a society marinated in academic allergy. That said, I think yes, the degree of hysteria and sheer insanity of the mainstream establishment is accentuated by the hatred of Trump, but nevertheless, if we get rid of Trump, like for example, here is a thought experiment, there are many people Optimists who say that when Biden is elected, this will all end with us opening up the economy, no more talking about white supremacy, no more white-privileged training, I don't agree. completely, I think this is a monster driven by something that long preceded Trump, but do you think if yes, when it's Biden, I'm saying when no, yes, and I'm going to piss off all the Trump supporters, which He is very angry, yes?

It looks like he's going to be chosen, but do you believe it? Do you think we're going to come back to sanity or that Biden is just going to continue with the left-wing agenda that I think he's a giant of right now? This last one, I mean, we might have one less public schism, you know, tortured, uh, uh, uh, uh, I don't know how Trump's people will react to the loss, maybe they'll react better than Hillary Clinton's people reacted to the loss, so I may lower the temperature a little, but I just had an alum who works for the aclu just send me a notice saying I'm on a task force to try to figure out what an administration should do Biden, what are your three best ideas for anti-racist policies in case these people are getting ready to, you know, roll back everything that Trump was trying to do and move forward with their own thing, right, they might let's get candy, we might get the amendment, I mean, am I so pessimistic that I'm not going to rule out us getting an anti-racism amendment to the constitution?

If that happens, we'll see that we didn't get the equal rights amendment, how are we going to get it? and there are many more women than black people because we've had another 40 or 50 years of this, we've had more and more people coming into corporations, into law firms, into government, into arts organizations, uh, who have been marinated . In these things again, it breaks my heart to see Julia, the director of Juilliard. Well, no one is defending civilization and that's because of the academic culture that tells us to hate our past and hate each other. This is Glenn Lowery.

I'm with Heather McDonald, we've been having a conversation and I've really enjoyed it, but now I'm going to hand it back to Hannah and Manhattan Central Institute, so thank you so much, Heather, thank you Glenn, I'm looking forward to talking. to you again, me too my friend, well they say the better the company the darker the conversation, so thank you both for allowing us to be flies on the wall while two newly coded friends discussed some of the issues most disturbing and threatening things that surround us right now. Well, we really appreciate your time and thoughts before we close.

I would like to invite our public audience to register on our website to receive updates on the police and public safety initiative, including information about our two events taking place next week. one will focus on different models of police reform, including completely overhauling the department, and the other on the experiences and perspectives of Black police executives. On our website, you can also explore the Manhattan Institute's research and subscribe to our newsletters, if you can, please also consider supporting the institute at the link you see below. Mi is a nonprofit organization and our work depends on the support of people like you.

Thanks again to our two fantastic guests. I have never heard such depressing information. I introduced her with so much charm. and uh and it was a pleasure listening to you both, thank you all.