Coleman Hughes is a young Black Man, a student of philosophy, a writer and a pod caster who in Feb. published “The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America.” On Nov. 1 “Goodreads” cited a paragraph from that book which succinctly identifies the absurdity of the logic underlying the Left’s devotion to the statistical rationale of D.E.I. [Diversity, Equity and Inclusion]. The paragraph reads as follows:
” The more I have studied disparities in multicultural societies, the more I have found the language of “overrepresentation” and “underrepresentation” to be fundamentally misleading. These words assume that there is something normal or “to be expected” about seeing different ethnic groups represented at precisely their share of the total population in every domain, statistic, and occupation, when in fact nothing is more normal than for different subcultures to specialize in particular sectors and occupations and experience very different group-wide statistics as a result. The vast majority of such disparities are not plausibly explained by bigotry, systemic racism, or unfairness, but by demographic and cultural differences between the groups in question at a particular time.”
This is not to suggest that racial or sexual biases have nothing to do with the contemporary social/economic dynamic. As we are an imperfect species, there will always be bigots of one sort or another! But what Hughes finds absurd is the notion of Systemic Racism, the Left’s transparently inane attempt to conflate racial prejudice with perfectly rational evaluations of the quality of the ideas and values embraced by various peoples. In a second paragraph from his book cited by Goodreads, Hughes laments the 2018 decision by New York City’s Department of Education to eradicate racial bias by teaching its elementary and secondary school students that values such as literacy, objectivity, personal responsibility, etc., are merely aspects of “White Supremacy” of no legitimate significance. Think of the ramifications of this decision! It virtually exonerates illiteracy, disdain for the truth, and rampant self-indulgence, on racial grounds. It spells the end of constructive, civilized discourse, all opinions being equally valid given the demise of Objectivity. It in fact explains the degenerate state of contemporary Western Culture, a realm in which rational, intelligent, conscientious criticisms, when applied to members of an “oppressed” minority, are inevitably dismissed as “hate speech,” no matter the inarguable legitimacy of those criticisms. Yes, teaching Science in our schools, I have read more than once, is a product of Western Arrogance, the cultures of those Indigenous tribes of the Americas who had not yet discovered the Wheel when Western Man arrived, being just as worthy of our admiration as any other. While Post-Modern Relativism, the elimination of Intelligence, Merit and Achievement from the Political Debate, is integral to the contemporary Left’s “anti-racist” agenda, Coleman Hughes declares that it is in fact Racist to its very core, its object, ironically, being the incitement of Hatred towards Whites! Thus does he say: “The idea that perfectionism, objectivity, and good grammar belong to white people and shouldn’t be taught to blacks and Hispanics is exactly the kind of idea that leaders of the civil rights movement fought against.”
While justifiably outraged by the treatment of Blacks in America 70 years ago, Martin Luther King, Hughes suggests, would be equally appalled by the absurd notion that the pursuit of Intellectual and Moral excellence is no more that a White idiosyncrasy from which all others ought to be excused. Actually, when one thinks about it, it is a world-view that is insulting to both Blacks and Whites and indeed to the species as a whole.