Smart People Pretending To Be Dumb For Social Approval

Words like “bigotry,” “racism,” and “transphobia” find themselves doing an awful lot of heavy lifting lately. 

Do you feel like playing a video game about wizards? Pure transphobia. Do you still listen to Kanye West occasionally? You’re clearly a bigot. Do you think you’re not racist? What more evidence could we need that you’re racist?!

In my article, The Rise Of The Racism Industry, I pointed out how nonsense like this distracts from (and erodes empathy for) genuine instances of discrimination. But it continues because there’s a lot of money in stirring up meaningless outrage.

Jax offered another example. 

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Jax:

Excellent article per usual, and also per usual, wonderfully sourced. A smorgasbord of links!

I was excited to see one of those links be about the racist soap dispenser. Normally I would laugh that off, but I was recently in a work-sponsored DEI training (it was actually pretty good, which surprised my cynical self) and was shown this very surprising video:

Just thought I would share. Not sure what to make of it.

Always love to see a DiAngelo bash, brief as that was. Such a trash writer & charlatan. I have more mixed feelings about Kendi. I took a lot of positive things from his key book (despite disagreeing with his central thesis that EVERYTHING is about race), in particular his attack on the idea that prejudice + power = racism can only be enacted Whites. And that book shares the thoughts you expressed in your paragraph starting with "Focusing on our struggles..." But then I see him on MSNBC and I read articles from him in the Atlantic, and I feel like he is an entirely different person. Book Kendi believes that reality is composed of multiple perspectives. Popular Media Kendi seeems so much more reductive.

Anyway, sorry for the ramble and thanks again for another fantastic article.

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Steve QJ:

“Book Kendi believes that reality is composed of multiple perspectives. Popular Media Kendi seeems so much more reductive.”

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm talking about. That's the grift.