From reading the piece, he seems more of a Friedman/Brooks hack (much more common in the mainstream media), but still a hack.
> This article is the very definition of a straw man. Absolutely no one subscribes to the position it critiques.
McWhorter seems to be really keen (not just in this piece) on adapting the old and problematic waves of feminism model and applying it, badly and without much basis, to “antiracism”.
> What no one has yet done is provide an actual reference to anyone going on the record to endorse the ten-point position that McWhorter calls "third-wave anti-racism."
I doubt you could find much support for people supporting any of them (except maybe #3, which is perfectly internally consistent without even superficial contradiction, and #10, in which the implication of contradiction is based entirely in the fallacy of division, like, come to think of it, much racism.)
Most of them have superficial resemblance to things people actually believe, but have been subtly twisted to make strawmen.
As one example, McWhorter’s number 2 is:
> Black people are a conglomeration of disparate individuals. “Black culture” is code for “pathological, primitive ghetto people.” But don’t expect black people to assimilate to “white” social norms because black people have a culture of their own.
An actual real thing many antiracists believe is:
> Black people are a conglomeration of disparate individuals. Reference to a singular “Black culture” is code for “pathological, primitive ghetto people.” But don’t expect black people to assimilate to “white” social norms because black people have cultures of their own.
The differences are subtle in terms of the change in words, but gigantic in terms of change of meaning.
From reading the piece, he seems more of a Friedman/Brooks hack (much more common in the mainstream media), but still a hack.
> This article is the very definition of a straw man. Absolutely no one subscribes to the position it critiques.
McWhorter seems to be really keen (not just in this piece) on adapting the old and problematic waves of feminism model and applying it, badly and without much basis, to “antiracism”.
> What no one has yet done is provide an actual reference to anyone going on the record to endorse the ten-point position that McWhorter calls "third-wave anti-racism."
I doubt you could find much support for people supporting any of them (except maybe #3, which is perfectly internally consistent without even superficial contradiction, and #10, in which the implication of contradiction is based entirely in the fallacy of division, like, come to think of it, much racism.)
Most of them have superficial resemblance to things people actually believe, but have been subtly twisted to make strawmen.
As one example, McWhorter’s number 2 is:
> Black people are a conglomeration of disparate individuals. “Black culture” is code for “pathological, primitive ghetto people.” But don’t expect black people to assimilate to “white” social norms because black people have a culture of their own.
An actual real thing many antiracists believe is:
> Black people are a conglomeration of disparate individuals. Reference to a singular “Black culture” is code for “pathological, primitive ghetto people.” But don’t expect black people to assimilate to “white” social norms because black people have cultures of their own.
The differences are subtle in terms of the change in words, but gigantic in terms of change of meaning.