FAIR Weekly Roundup
December 12th, 2021
This week on the Fair for All Substack, law student Chad Williams wrote a powerful piece titled “From white supremacy to race-conscious discrimination.” The essay outlined the conceptual differences between what Williams calls “traditional” racism, which “describe individuals, organizations, and institutions treating people differently on account of their race,” with racism according to the tenets of so-called “critical race theory,” which is defined as “disparities between racial groups.”
Williams points out that these different concepts of racism stem from two types of discrimination according to civil rights law—disparate treatment of individuals versus disparate impact on groups. While everyone appears to agree that disparate treatment is racist, there is considerable disagreement over whether disparate impact also constitutes racism, given the many other causes that can influence group outcomes, such as demography, geography, and culture.
Williams states:
In my view, our concern as black people should not necessarily be with closing all disparities between ourselves and other racial groups, but rather with ensuring that we become ever safer, healthier and wealthier—a process that may eventually close these gaps on their own. Relative success or failure should not be determined on that metric.
Read the full article here.
FAIR Advisors Steven Pinker and Melissa Chen sat down at a FAIR event to celebrate the publication of Pinker’s new book—Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters. They explored the nature of rationality, the power of group-think in corrupting it, and the social dynamics on both sides of the political spectrum that lead people to hold outlandish beliefs.
According to Pinker, “it shouldn't be such a feat of mental gymnastics to both believe that [racism has declined] and to believe that racism still exists in the United States, but I find that it's surprisingly difficult to get people to acknowledge those two ideas.”
Read the full conversation here.
For Newsweek, Xavier Bonilla, a doctor of psychology and clinician, wrote about how the word “Latinx,” an “inclusive” gender-neutral term created promoted by activists to describe Latinos, is instead alienating and offending the Latino community. A recent poll found that only 2 percent of Hispanics use the term, and over 40 percent actually found the term offensive.
Bonilla believes that an overly academic focus on nomenclature is distracting many Democratic politicians from understanding the real-world concerns of Latino voters, which is causing many to abandon the party in favor of the GOP. Bonilla states:
[I]nstead of offering Latinos things they actually care about, understanding large parts of this community as sharing the concerns of the middle and working classes to which they belong, Democratic strategists ignore the concerns of the Latino community, and then rebrand it in a language foreign to its self-conception, and even lecture struggling American Hispanics about people living in other countries.
In order to retain Latino voters, Bonilla believes the Democratic party needs to start prioritizing class issues over race.
Read the full article here.
This week, USA Today published the final column by Senator Bob Dole, who died last Sunday. In his column, Dole explained the synergistic relationship between the political Right and Left in America, and “why teamwork is needed in Washington now more than ever.” Dole wrote:
During my years in Congress, Democrats and Republicans were political combatants, but we were also friends. I learned that it is difficult to get anything done unless you can compromise – not your principles but your willingness to see the other side. Those who suggest that compromise is a sign of weakness misunderstand the fundamental strength of our democracy.
Dole is worried that extreme partisanship within both parties is harmful to the country as well as democracy itself. The unwillingness to even speak to the other side on important issues, driven by fear of accusations of guilt-by-association, is unsustainable because, according to Dole, “a functioning democracy thrives on debate between those with opposing views.”
Read Dole’s last USA Today column here.
For Tablet, senior writer Liel Leibovitz describes what he calls as “The Turn”—the personal process of coming to realize the party you had previously voted for no longer reflects your core values.
Leibovitz explains how serious issues surrounding identity politics, COVID-19 policies, and free speech, to name only a few, has caused many to rethink their political identities. For Leibovitz, The Turn caused him to switch his political identity from the Left to Right. He says:
I still remember how confusing and painful it felt to know that my beliefs—beliefs, mind you, that, until very recently, were so obvious and banal and widely held on the left that they were hardly considered beliefs at all—now labeled me an outcast.
Read the full article here.
On her Substack, The Truth Fairy, FAIR Advisor Abigail Shrier reveals what she spoke about in her private talk at Princeton earlier this week. She addressed one of the most commonly asked questions of her—What’s it like to be so hated?
Shrier explains to the students that she is not “a provocateur,” and nor does she “get a rush from making people angry.” Rather, she frequently finds herself at the center of controversy simply because she is “effective, and unwilling to back down.” While many would find being the frequent target of vitriol unnerving, Shrier tells the Princeton students that it’s actually freeing, and urges them to take back the freedoms that they have lost.
Take it back. Take it back. It’s yours to demand. Take back the right to speak your mind—thoughtfully, courteously, with a goal in mind beyond giving offense. The list of unmentionable truths expands so rapidly, without reason other than the attempt to suffocate a free people so that they forget the exhilaration of a lungful of air.
Read the full article here.
For Newsweek, FAIR Advisor Angel Eduardo wrote about the term “Latinx,” referencing a recent poll finding that the vast majority (98 percent) of Hispanics don’t use the word, with 40 percent claiming to even be offended by it.
Eduardo asks “why are we witnessing the ascendancy of a term loathed by 40 percent of the population it's purported to describe?” He believes this is because they are not actually addressing Hispanics at all, but rather upper-class Left-wing activists. Eduardo points out the hypocrisy in this “lexical imperialism,” as he calls it.
So much for being anti-colonization, and not mislabeling others based on preconceived notions about their identity! As if bigotry can be eradicated by breaking a language. The gesture is as empty as it is insulting.
Read the full article here.
For the The Thomas B. Fordham Institute, FAIR Advisor Robert Pondiscio wrote about the phenomenon of “luxury beliefs,” a phenomenon coined by University of Cambridge Ph.D. Candidate Rob Henderson, which are defined as “ideas and opinions that confer status on the rich at very little cost, while taking a toll on the lower class.”
Once you become aware of the concept of luxury beliefs, their prevalence in our culture becomes all too apparent, and that “nowhere is [this] gulf between upscale ideals and everyday reality wider or more obvious than in education policy and practice.” Pondiscio says that:
Too few of us know or have personal experience walking in the shoes of the families and students we claim to serve. Instead, we opine about what’s best for other people’s children from the safety of our respective bubbles, indulging our own set of luxury beliefs.
Read the full article here.
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