Weekly Roundup
Weekly Roundup
Reading, watching, & listening list
Believing and Doubting
For FAIR’s Substack, Laurie Hornik presents a framework for critical thinking and avoiding biases.
On the surface, believing and doubting might not seem very different from agreeing and disagreeing or from arguments and counterarguments. But Elbow’s terms do something special: they evoke empathy. They keep the thinker focused on the ideas themselves while also pointing them toward the fact that it is our fellow humans who hold these particular opinions. This calls for putting oneself in the metaphorical shoes of the other, as well as humanizing those whose opinions you don’t share.
Eli Steele: Why Blaming Racism For Everything Is a Trap
FAIR Advisor Eli Steele speaks with Magatte Wade about his work and why blaming racism for everything is a trap.
A Princeton Professor’s Advice to Young Conservatives
For the New York Times, FAIR Advisor Robert P. George offers advice to young conservatives about how to navigate a campus they worry will be hostile to them.
And there is still more you can do: Defend others’ right to think for themselves and express their views. When someone is targeted for “cancellation” by an outraged mob for expressing an honest opinion, stand up in support of that person, even if you do not hold the same view.
You should be the boy or girl on the playground who rushes to the defense of the kid who is being bullied. When you defend the robust right of free speech for all, you help to secure a central value without which the university cannot pursue its mission as a truth-seeking institution.
When Will The New York Times Correct Its Flawed Reporting on ‘Unmarked Graves’?
For Quillette, FAIR Advisor Jonathan Kay writes about how the same reporter who helped spark Canada’s 2021 social panic has published a new article walking back his original errors—but those mistakes remain uncorrected on the Times’ website.
I’m not one of those conservative culture warriors who performs an eye roll at the mention of The Times, which I regard as an (otherwise) highly respectable publication. I’ve been a seven-day-a-week print subscriber since the mid-1990s, and have noted with admiration how its editors will correct even small mistakes, such as misspelled names or incorrect dates. And so I am completely at a loss to explain how Austen (whose long and successful tenure at the Times, I should note, is otherwise unblemished) and his colleagues on the Canada desk have managed to avoid editorial accountability on this file.
White Women's Tears of Laughter
For her Substack BROADVIEW, FAIR Advisor Lisa Selin Davis writes about Matt Walsh’s new “documentary,” “Am I Racist?”.
So it was with mixed feelings that I watched conservative provocateur Matt Walsh’s new “documentary,” “Am I Racist?” released in theaters earlier this month. Walsh has adopted the Borat-style approach, assuming a costume—in his case, a man bun wig and skinny jeans—and infiltrating inner sanctums of anti-racism, exposing these ideas and the people who profit handsomely by spreading them. He lists fees each DEI expert charges, which reach as high as $50,000; that amount secured him a meeting with a black mom who insisted her six-year-old daughters were harmed when a mascot in a Rosita suit at Sesame Place didn’t greet them.
‘We’re Ignoring Our Common Values and Interests’: A Conversation with Monica Harris
FAIR Executive Director Monica Harris talks to Greg Berman, the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation’s distinguished fellow of practice, about how she came to lead FAIR, what’s really dividing us, and why race relations in the United States have gotten off track. This transcript of their conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Even if we got rid of racism overnight, even if tomorrow every one of us woke up and we were the same color and we couldn’t distinguish between each other physically, we would still have an enormous problem in this country relating to class. There are generations of people who have been cut out of the American dream because they lack access to education and decent-paying jobs. Their families are being torn apart by drug addiction. That’s something that we don’t talk about nearly as much as we should. The fentanyl crisis is affecting White families more than Black families. And again, not wealthy White families. It’s mostly middle-class and working-class families.
Overcoming America's Manufactured Racism Revival: Solid Ground Live with Monica Harris of FAIR
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