Warning: Micro-Aggressive Statement To Follow

Statues of the Three Wise Monkeys
(Photo by Japanexperterna.se) (CC BY-SA) (Resized/Cropped)
Sensitive souls may want to avert their eyes or seek intellectual cover.
I’ve had it up to here with the smugly self-righteous pronouncement of many of the black lives matter devotees from whom I’ve heard so much in recent days. Most of these folks have nothing to useful to say — nothing beyond an extended whine that persuades nobody not already in agreement with them. They rely, unwittingly, on the patronizing generosity of a white establishment which, ironically, doesn’t take them seriously enough to vigorously criticize their inanity. They lack intellectual depth, rhetorical subtlety, moral seriousness, and political commonsense. They’re an embarrassment, frankly.
I mean, shouting-down Bernie Sanders because he doesn’t think that identity politics should trump (pardon the pun!) the class struggle? Idiotic. Infantile. Sophomoric. This witches brew of vacuous politics combined with self-righteous moral certitude, is the bitter fruit of one of the colossal intellectual failures of our lifetime — the feckless and unimaginative reactions of the left to the persistent subordinate social status of something like a third of the black American population — now a half-century after the height of the civil rights movement and the launch of the Great Society.
Homicide among young black men is a catastrophe — full stop. The state of family life among poor African Americans is dismal (though one is definitely not supposed to notice). The huge incarceration disparities by race (of which I have been a pioneering critic) nevertheless reflect profound disparities in anti-social behaviors by race which warrant to be directly addressed, but which dare not be mentioned in polite company. The gap in acquired intellectual functioning between adolescents and young adults of different races — as reflected in every available measure — is simply stupefying, a first-order social emergency in this country with profoundly deleterious implications for the prospect of achieving genuine racial equality.
Rather than confront these realities, a seemingly inexhaustible stream of talking heads busy themselves with papering over these palpable failures — employing a conceptual vocabulary honed in the 1960s and 70s, and resurrected seemingly without modification or critical evaluation over the past decade. They somehow think it is an argument to merely point a finger at that amorphous enemy called “structural racism.” Magic words the enunciation of which is meant to dispel all doubts about the mysteries of social causation.
Transparently, these arguments — in the face of the unfolding train wreck at the bottom of black society — are nothing but an attempt to change the subject. I mean, celebrating the one year anniversary of the “murder” of Michael Brown? (This was the characterization of one such talking head on Meet the Press last weekend…) I mean, putting the photo of his father on the front page of the NYT — letting everyone hear from the family of this latter-day movement hero, lest the “sacrifice” of this “martyr” be forgotten? Have they no shame? Will nothing shake them from their certitude — not even seeing the commemoration of last year’s “uprisings” in Ferguson marred with yet another young black man’s body lying face down in a pool of his own blood, having been shot by police when, again, this was the end of an altercation entirely of the young man’s making…
Sorry, I know I’m ranting, but I just can’t take it any more. Go on, have at me. I’m old enough now not to care (much)…
Reprinted from Glenn Loury’s Facebook postings.
Glenn Loury’s homepage and videoblog.
Glenn C. Loury, Merton P. Stoltz Professor of the Social Sciences, Brown University
Trending Now on Affluent Christian Investor
Sorry. No data so far.
The Affluent Mix
Government Spending And Your Heart Rate March 4, 2021 | David Bahnsen

Tucker Carlson Ices Industrial Policy By Criticizing Wind Power... March 4, 2021 | Roger McKinney

What This Supply Chain ‘Mood Ring’ Tells Us About The Recovery... March 4, 2021 | Jerry Bowyer

Internet Oligarchs Attack Free Speech March 3, 2021 | Frank Vernuccio

Envy And Human Nature March 3, 2021 | Jim Huntzinger

This Data Shows How Weird This Recession Was... March 3, 2021 | Jerry Bowyer

Another Theologian Falls For Socialism February 17, 2021 | Roger McKinney

GDP Bounced Back, Sort Of February 17, 2021 | Jerry Bowyer

Apathy And Envy For All February 17, 2021 | Jim Huntzinger

The Global Stock Market Decompression February 17, 2021 | Jerry Bowyer

Why Things Are Bad And What You Should Do About It... February 17, 2021 | Terry Applegate

Gamestop Scandal: Who Is The Real Culprit?... February 11, 2021 | Roger McKinney

Who Has Economic Mobility? Everyone! February 11, 2021 | Jim Huntzinger

Biden Deletes China COVID Evidence February 11, 2021 | Frank Vernuccio

How Companies Pay Shareholders: High Earnings Quality Companies Do More Buybacks... February 11, 2021 | Jerry Bowyer

Volatility Vs. Capital Erosion February 11, 2021 | David Bahnsen

When Will The Party End? February 11, 2021 | Michael Pento

Back To Buybacks: Is It More About Dilution Than Concentration?... February 11, 2021 | Jerry Bowyer

Even Amnesty International Is Criticizing Facebook Censorship... February 5, 2021 | Frank Vernuccio

The War On Poverty’s Results February 5, 2021 | Jim Huntzinger

How Companies Pay Shareholders: Total Shareholder Payout A Better Approach?... February 5, 2021 | Jerry Bowyer

Interest Rate Threshold Keeps Dropping February 5, 2021 | Michael Pento

Join the conversation!
We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, vulgarity, profanity, all caps, or discourteous behavior. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain a courteous and useful public environment where we can engage in reasonable discourse.