3 Powerful Conversations on Racial Identity and Experience in America
Glenn Show | Uncommon Knowledge | Fifth Column/Honestly
Three recent conversations with FAIR Advisors on black identity and experience in America are worth a listen. FAIR Advisors include Glenn Loury (AM ‘82), Kmele Foster, Ian Rowe (MBA ‘93) and John McWhorter. We found The Glenn Show’s cross-generational conversation powerful and insightful, with both Steele and Woodson bringing firsthand civil rights movement experience into their current thinking on the ethics of racial identity in America.
Kmele Foster, Robert Woodson, Shelby Steele & Reihan Salam – The Ethics of Black Identity (Glenn Show, 11/21/22)— From Glenn’s Substack—”We discussed how we ought to think about the role of black identity now, in the year 2022, or indeed if black identity ought to have any continuing role in our political and social life in the US…Bob Woodson and I [Glenn Loury] defend black identity as a necessary element in political organization, community action, and historically embedded individual self-conception. Kmele Foster and Shelby Steele oppose the centrality of black identity in contemporary life, believing it to be a relic of a prior historical era best kept out of the public sphere today…..As you might expect, sparks fly.” Also see Glenn’s free posting.
John McWhorter and Glenn Loury 'Racial Identity, Abolition and Reckonings' (Fifth Column Podcast with FA Kmele Foster, 7/24/22); also see Honestly podcast 9/26/22—from Honestly—”In this episode, they [Loury, McWhorter, Foster] talk about the inadequacies of regarding people solely by their racial category, the dignity of the individual and what a future might look like if we were to abolish race all together. While all three men bring a contrarian streak to this discussion, you’ll find that they have disagreements when it comes to questions of race abolition and the so-called ‘Racial Reckoning’ of 2020.”
Not Buying It: Debunking Myths About the Black Experience in America (Uncommon Knowledge podcast, 7/29/22) — with FA Ian Rowe (MBA ’93), FA Glenn Loury (AM ’82) and Bob Woodson— “In this wide-ranging conversation, Glenn Loury, Ian Rowe, and Robert Woodson debunk The 1619 Project, advocate for the restoration of the Black family and the Black church, describe their own very different upbringings and formative experiences, and discuss the many reasons why they are optimistic about the future of Black Americans, despite the narrative commonly expressed in the media.”
