Weekly Roundup

Reading List

The legacy of Malcolm X should be change, not hatred

For FAIR’s Substack, Angel Eduardo, the former editor of FAIR Substack and current member of FAIR's Board of Directors, writes about the birthday of Malcolm X and asks us to rethink his popular legacy as the antagonist to MLK.

It’s impossible to overstate both the importance and the rarity of such a foundational and extremely public personal transformation. Given the climate we find ourselves in today, where admissions of mere error—let alone shifts in an entire worldview—are cynically interpreted, selfishly exploited, or flat-out denied in favor of tribal allegiance, financial gain, or personal pride, what Malcolm did and said in the last few months of his life almost beggar belief.

Here was a man who had made it his life’s work to preach and promote ideas he would later come to renounce and regret. And rather than double down out of fear or self-preservation, he had the courage and strength of character to not just renounce those ideas, but to do so with the world watching closely. I can count on one hand the number of current public figures I would trust or expect to behave the same way. That alone should justify us thinking of Malcolm differently than we do.

The Anti-American Psychological Association

For FAIR’s Substack, originally published in Lee Jussim’s Unsafe Science Substack, Eddie Waldrep writes about psychology and the declining public trust in institutions.

These changes came as a result of the changing focus of APA, and academia in general, from traditional social justice movements to Critical Social Justice (CSJ). Traditional social justice sought to end institutional oppression, discrimination based on immutable characteristics, focus on universal humanity of every individual, and for equality of opportunity for each to pursue their own self-directed goals. These are indicative of aspirational goals found in Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech. There are contemporary organizations promoting the same pro-human ideals such as the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR) and many others. On the other hand, there is CSJ that has skyrocketed in the public sphere in recent years and is much more pernicious.

The boom of CSJ is not a mere phenomenon. It is the result of decades of planning referred to as “the long march through the institutions,” a neo-Marxist approach to establish the conditions for revolution. This built upon the work of Italian Marxist, Antonio Gramsci who developed the concept of “cultural hegemony.” Cultural hegemony was posited as an explanation for why the grand Marxist revolution and utopia had failed to manifest itself. Basically, if people were able to have a comfortable life in a free market society, then they lack the motivation to burn down western society to make way for the grand utopia.

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How Therapists Became Social Justice Warriors

For The Free Press, FAIR Advisor Lisa Selin Davis writes about the problems that follow when therapists take it upon themselves to infuse their therapy practices with social justice ideology.

Cooney is not alone in finding therapy overtaken by the same kind of social justice ideology prevalent in schools, medicine, and the law. I spoke with more than two dozen therapists and clients who painted a disturbing picture of what happens in the treatment room when therapists make the tenets of this ideology central to their work, instead of offering empowering approaches that help patients make better choices and take control of their lives. Some patients, like Cooney, have also found themselves “fired” for expressing unacceptable thoughts. 

I spoke to new therapists, some still in training, who describe a profession that teaches the ascribing of oppressor or victim categories to patients, based on their innate characteristics, instead of seeing them as individuals. Several sources said their applications to graduate schools required them to make a written commitment to anti-racism. Some said they’d been penalized for asking the “wrong” questions in class, detailing how this ideological encroachment damages their own mental health. 

Is Musicology Racist?

For The New York Times, FAIR Advisor John McWhorter examines the claim in Philip Ewell’s On Music Theory, and Making Music More Welcoming for Everyone that the study of music theory is infected by racism.

The assumption, then, is that the “whiteness” or “maleness” of any given proposition must automatically be a mere power play rather than a reasoned aesthetic or logical conclusion. And that elicits a question we’re not supposed to ask: What if, where classical music is concerned, white people, in all of their perfidies otherwise, got something right? And I mean so right that all those trained in the close study of music should be familiar with it? Black people got it right with syncopation as default, with blue notes and, especially in Africa, with complex rhythm. All of these elements deeply season our modern musical experience. But Beethoven’s Seventh is just, in Ewell’s telling, white stuff? In a blog post, Ewell dismissed the composer as merely “above average” and fetishized by the white establishment.

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Homophobia in drag

For Spiked, Ben Appel writes about how transgender activists are contributing to a new form of modern-day homophobia.

In 2011, when I was 28, I fell in love with a man. The following year, I joined the fight for marriage equality. After we won that campaign, I knew I wanted to become a gay activist. I wanted to help create a world in which feminine boys and butch girls could exist peacefully in society. A world in which gender-nonconforming people were accepted as natural variations of their own sex. Minorities, sure, but real and valid nonetheless.

The Quiet Rise of Black Home Educators

For Free Black Thought, Connie Morgan writes about black families that are leading an exodus from public and private schools in favor of homeschooling.

Perceived unintelligence also manifests in well-intentioned woke ideology. Black parents are faced with schools that are lowering the standards for black children. Efforts to lower standards or do away with measurements in order to achieve equity are based, broadly speaking, in Critical Race Theory (CRT). Many black parents and educators have spoken out against the racial essentialism forwarded by CRT. Longtime black homeschool advocate and founder of National Black Home Educators (NBHE), Joyce Burges said the following in a 2021 interview:

“We don’t want our children to go to school and learn that, because of white supremacy, or white privilege – that’s why you can’t achieve. We do not agree with this. My concern is that parents understand that, and know, that our parents at National Black Home Educators stand firm against this. We will not allow a system to teach our children that the reason they cannot achieve is because somebody has a hammer over their head.”

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