Thoughts on the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America

I know this week everyone is expecting one of my conversations with John McWhorter. But due to some unforeseen events, we ended up shifting things around a bit. Next week you can expect to see John and I speak with Harvard Law School professor Randall Kennedy, where we’ll engage issues of systemic racism, among other topics. Two weeks after that, John and I will be back to have our own discussion about systemic racism. We said we wanted to formulate serious responses to those who believe systemic racism is still the cause of racial inequality in the US, and you can expect to see that in the coming weeks.

For this week’s episode, I’m presenting a recent lecture I gave at Baylor University and the Q&A session that followed. The lecture distills some of my ideas about social capital, the bias narrative and the development narrative, and the problems that beset urban black communities. The students and professors also offered some fantastic questions that provoked me to think about intersectionality and mass incarceration, the language of racial discrimination, and whether my critiques of the bias narrative offer aid and comfort to the enemy. I’m grateful to Baylor for having invited me, and I’m pleased to be able to offer the lecture to you here.

Note: If you’re listening to the free audio version of this conversation, you’ll notice that there are now ads. I explain why I’ve started to take on advertisers at the beginning of the episode. If you’d like to continue receiving the podcast without ads, you can subscribe below for access to the ad-free podcast feed, as well as monthly Q&As with John McWhorter and me, early access to TGS episodes, and other subscriber benefits.

0:00 A quick announcement

2:00 “Structural racism is an empty category”

4:35 The bias narrative vs. the development narrative

10:43 Race as a social phenomenon

19:10 Racism is not the cause of behavioral problems in black communities

27:41 “White people cannot give black people equality”

32:31 Q&A: How has economic thinking about racism and the market changed?

39:20 Q&A: What strategies will help people engage in modes of development?

43:00 Q&A: What are the prospects for improvements?

48:54 Q&A: How has the language of racial discrimination changed?

53:12 Q&A: Is intersectionality a factor in racial inequality?

1:02:03 Q&A: Do Glenn's claims reinforce white prejudice against blacks?

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