John McWhorter || Nasty Words

the Gutter, Then, Now, and Forever. When John was five years old, he told his mother he wanted to be a quote book writer, and he is happy that it worked out. John, it's great to chat with you finally on the podcast. Thanks for having me. Lots to talk about. I'd like to start with your most recent work on profanity. So why the fuck did you write a book on profanity?

You know, for a reason that's a little bit cynical, which is that it seemed to me that there are four topics about language that had a chance of being the topic of a book that would really kind of get around. I wanted to have one book that really got around. I've written more than I care to even mention, and you don't write them in order to have them become bestsellers. But I wanted one that was a hit, and I thought it could be about whether there's a

universal grammar. Steve Pinker did that twenty five years ago. It was a hit. Then I could do one where I say that language usage is going to the dogs. No linguist believes that, and a non linguist wrote that book. It was Each Shoots and Leaves twenty years ago. She got rich on the basis of it. Then there is what is language? What does the Internet do to language? And Gretchen McCullough, my friend and colleague, did that book because Internet a couple of years ago, and so that's

taken care of, and it's not really my subject. And I thought, there's really only one other subject, and it's cursing. It's profanity. That's what people really care about. And I thought I can get interested in profanity because I would like to share my take on language, and I can't do that writing about itite and creole languages and novoo. There's a point beyond which most readers aren't going to come with me on that. I thought stealth linguistic lessons

might come through just talking about our twelve nine. It's really twelve twelve nine nastiest words. So that's why I did this book. That's a good enough reason. So it's an interesting question, you know, how and why words become profane. There are words that weren't profane that become profane, and then there were you know, there are words that weren't that we're perfene that that don't become Is that right.

I'm actually trying to think of an example of That's why I'm stumbling, because wait, are there any words that we're profane that are no longer profane? That One's harder for me to couple examples, but there's definitely examples of the former. Yeah. Well, to tell you the truth, damn and hell are not what any anthropologist would think of

as profane. A naive anthropologist analyzing the way we use those two words words would find that we classify them as profanity in the same way as we classify tomatoes as vegetables, even though we know they're all fruits. But damn and hell are now maybe a little bit salty. But I got my mouth washed out for saying hell in about nineteen seventy. I would never feel that way about one of my kids saying it now fifty plus

years later, so that can certainly happen. And then, of course there are words that start out as either nothing at all or as just salty and snickery, and then they become profane. It's in taboo. And that's the history of most of the words in our little collection of nine or twelve words. Okay, well, let's talk about some of these words. When you just you did talk about hell and dam maybe you could actually unpack a little more where what that was like like when those words

first became profane, were they like really really profane? You didn't take the Lord's name in vain. You were not supposed to indulge in blasphemy. And so we call it swearing because the idea was if you were going to and it was assumed that you would, that you would swear in sincerity. If you swore to God, it would be about something that is worthy of God's attention or Jesus's attention. To swear because you stubbed your toe or something like that was considered a very bad thing to do.

It was considered a desecration of the process of making an oath, and therefore it was blasphemous. That was how you cursed in early English by taking the lord's name in vain, and therefore damn and hell referred to in passing, which of course people always did to an extent, was considered a transgression. In the meantime, there was a period where oh my God, or talking about Jesus in that way was considered a terrible thing. But you could have a name like Henry Fuckbutter and it wasn't a joke.

That was just something somebody could be named, and it was just kind of a weird name. Or you could have Grope cunt Lane, and that was considered a perfectly normal thing to call a street where certain things went on. Those words were salty, but they weren't profane. That only started happening in the fourteen fifteen hundreds. So these things develop based on what the society has hung up upon. Yeah, and then I've I've heard the expression damn it to hell,

which the incorporates both. That's that's like superup uber bad. Yeah say that. Yeah, And and then there's something about the word fuck. You know, I started off saying, why fuck you write the book and profanity? I don't know if you if you caught that. I don't. That's not like my normal thing. It's not like like I have a normally I have guests on and I'm like, hey, Bob, why the fuck did you write your You know I did that, So I want you to be clear, that's

not how I normally talk. Yeah, yea, yea yeah yeah yeah. So you know. So why do we love the word fuck so much that? What is it about doing that or saying that word that makes me feel a bit like subversive m That's what profanity is. It's not that they're words that for some reason you're simply not allowed to use them. It's that there are words that it's assumed you are only going to use when you wish, as almost any human being will want to, usually to transgress.

And so a word like fuck is so satisfying because we use it not only to transgress, but also to transgress boundaries, say of intimacy. It encourages intimacy. It expresses extremes of feeling, It expresses happiness, It can express the erotic. There are all sorts of things that that little word can do. It's one syllable, it has consonants on both

ends of it. English prefers profanity to have that particular shape, and for that reason, fuck has made its way into the language in such a way that this naive anthropologist, again, if they had to learn actual colloquial American English, learning how to use that word would be difficult because of how subtle and rich it spread. Is. If they didn't know it was considered a bad word, they would have whole feces that they'd write about the subtle aspects of

the dozens of uses of that word we use. It starts as this verb referring to sexual intercourse. Now it's a gesture rather than a word. It's a fascinating little thing. It's utterly fascinating. And I'm and I also, from a psychological perspective, find of fascinating how different swear words actually light up or activate different areas of the brain more something regular language. Like if you did an fMRI scan when I asked, why the fuck do you write a

book in profanity? You know what would you see? Well, what you would see is that why did you write a book on? Profanity? Is generated in the left brain in two areas kind of near the ears, and most people ordinary vanilla language is generated on the left side. But then things like taking in what the tone of a sentence is, what its intonation is, you take that in on the right and then it gets passed to

the left. And so the right brain, the id brain, the dionition brain, that is where profanity is generated from. And so if you say something like why the fuck did you write that, the right brain is could tributing something to that sentence. And that's why that fuck makes no sense. You know what what part of speech is

the fuck? If you wanted to explain to somebody why you put it in there, other than to say I was trying to strike a jocular, transgressive, friendly tone, you couldn't explain why you need that there, especially if it supposedly means to have sexual intercourse with. That's because it used to be a word, but now it's just a gesture. You can turn off somebody's left brain and all they can do is curse. You can turn off somebody's right brain and they can speak vanilla, but they have a

hard time cursing. And that's because the curses are over on the other side of the corpus closm from the ordinary grammatical processing. Wow, is there like a deeper truth, like it's one hemisphere of the brain more subversive than the other in general. You know that you read some Sepolski or something too oversimplified. But yes, yes, I mean, I'm a cognitive scientist, so I can add. I can

add all the caveats all day long. But there is a certain truth in the way that the brain is organized, that there is a tyranny of consciousness or a tyranny of language, and the kind of brain areas that are sociate of the language that actually can suppress creativity that I have studied. I've published papers on, you know, the

neuroscience of creativity. So I just feel like there's something there, you know, where like you know, like sometimes are you know, like we think, oh, we should be politically correct, and even that thought, you know, and having those that inhibits what is actually wanting to just pop up right, what is natural? What wants to come and come into being? Yes, these I can imagine those would be tendencies, and in some cases that's quite a good thing. I should say

that we have those tendencies. We don't want to, you know, as we have degeneration of the brain. You know, that's one of the things that happens is people to start, you know, start cursing like sailors, you know, like you know, eighty year olds with like dementia, they'll just they just have no self control whatsoever. So so it is a good thing to let it all hang out right right in a society, is to not yes, exactly, yeah, for sure. So let's talk about the N word a second. That's

one word I won't say. So why do people transform slurs into terms of affection sometimes? You know, like you do you do see, you know, people in African American community, especially like you know, you listen to rap music, and the N word is considered in a lot of ways, like you know, like term affection especially is like well my N word, you know, basically human I mean, you know this human intimacy involves leveling. The idea is that

we're all on the same level. And one way that you indicate that you're all on the same level is you see, if you can all tolerate being called something that ordinarily would be aimed at you from the outside. And so that is a certain generation of white men

calling each other son of a bitch all the time. So, for example, Sinclair Lewis and Theodore Dreiser back in the early twentieth century used to get really drunk, and they were always calling each other how alias out of a that was also very hl menkn Nowadays that might be bastard, might be asshole, But that's something that people do. There's the Seinfeld episode where George Costanza runs in with these

guys who are always calling each other bastard. What black men do with the N word is the exact same thing. So people are calling us this slur. Well, one way that we're intimate is imagine if we are being looked at that way from the outside, all of us can be and so that's one way that we're all equal. And so you have this actually very natural evolution of that word into one that means buddy, which happens not only with words white anglophone men used, but also all

around the world. In Russian, mujik means peasant. That's also a word that some Russian men have been able to use to mean buddy, my friend. So in a way, if that hadn't happened to the N word, the question would have been why you knew that that was going to happen with either that or one of the other slurs that are aimed at black people. And then you get the complex aspect of it in that I know to many people that's complex. To me one is a linguist, two as a black person, that just feels like ABC.

What is complex is that now you have a generation of non black, mostly men, who have grown up listening to hip hop. They don't think of it as that exotic black music as their fathers did. They think of it their fathers as in people my age. They think of it as just music. They grew up with Kanye West, not being weird conscious rap that just arose to them. That's just music they heard at weddings, and so there's a part of them that feels very connected to certain

aspects of black culture. It includes that they've grown up listening to the N word as buddy in their ear daily since Earth practically, so they feel like they can use the word to mean buddy, and I can completely understand where they're coming from. But if anybody hears that from the outside, they're a polled. So the N word becomes one of the richer words in the English language

because of all of its many meanings. You could say that it's two different words, but that's hard to get across given the history of the word and the shape of the word. It's a tough one. Yeah, two different and sense that one ends with A and one ends with the R, and they have two very different connotations. One is enunciated in the Black English. Yes, one of them is the standard. Now for many people, that's just putting too fine a point on it. For me, it isn't.

And you know, to be honest, there are words in Scots that are the same but different from in English. And so in English English home is what we know. Hame is home to a Scottish person with whatever they eat, and you know, not London, but hame. It's kind of a different word. But not if you ask a scott they say hame is the way we say home. Fine line, the whole thing with the N word is the exact thing thing and so it's never going to be an

easy word for sure. What's interesting is also you think about how some cultures, religions, races, et cetera, don't decide not to ever adopt a word as a words of affection. I think the K word with with us Jews, you know, with you know. It's not like I ever say, hey, Mike, you know o K person you know like that doesn't

know that's gone, do you know what I mean? So it's interesting to think how some turn and morph and still are in the vernacular and are used affectionately in some ways, and some are just kind of gone from the the whole lexicon entirely. You know. I've never thought about that in itself, in that I'm going to go out on a limb here. Jewish people don't do that. And I don't know why Italians have, Irish have what I when I say, the question would be why not?

There's a question there. Why did not Jewish men ever say well, yeah, And I don't think there was any equivalent nobody used If I may heave that way, that did not happen. Somebody should do a study as to why that kind of affection, Like what did I'm going to take a stereotype, what did Tevia and Fiddler on the Roof call his friends? And it wasn't anything like that. That's interesting, you know, And I'm not in the play, but in real life, what did that person call his friends?

And I don't think there is a leveling term of that sort that started as a slur. That's interesting. Yeah, you know, yeah, I'm glad you find it interesting too, because my nerdy brain goes off in all these directions. I'm like, I wanted to study. Yeah, I mean, you get it, you get it. What is the other F word? Well,

that's the one that refers to gay men. That one has probably the most transformative history of any of the twelve words in the book because it starts out as a bundle of sticks, and then a bundle of sticks could be used as a substitute soldier. If people were trying to make your standing muster and you have the general coming to count how many people you've got, you can make it all look more populous if you've got some bundles of sticks standing in for the men, and

that means that it's anthromorphized. Next thing, you know, you have people calling women bundles of sticks as to insult them. You're just a bag of sticks. And that also extended to children, and so you know, get out of here, I'm cooking dinner, your little fagots. That's something that was said apparently on the other side of the pond as

recently as the mid twentieth century. And then if you're as worthless as a woman or a child, I say in irony, then it ends up being extended to gay men, the idea being you're as worthless as a as a woman or a child, you're diminished. And of course nobody thought about these steps, but it means that you start with kindling and it ends up being a slur aimed at a subgroup of male people. It's a fascinating evolution.

It is fascinating, and I'm also just interested in the evolutionary origins of why curse words exist in the sense that every language has profanity. I mean, it ticks the boxes in terms of an evolutionary something is spandrel I will say, it's probably a spandal. It's not like an adaptation, you know. But yeah, but what is that? You know? What is the spandrel off of? What is the underlying human and drive or a human what? What does you know?

It's you know, similar question is why does every language have or every culture have religion? Right? What function does that serve from an evolutionary survival or reproduction point of view? What? What? Yeah? You know? What what about? Well? I think you think?

I think in terms of the spandrel, what happens is that you use something that started as a word in order to be able to transgress or in order to be able to have certain things that are taboo, because that's part of what unite society a society together, what things you consider taboo and unite in that kind of odd respect of And so yeah, the spandrel analogy is

very apt. And yeah, there is probably and I haven't checked all of them, probably no language where there aren't things you're not supposed to say that are nevertheless said. And the only question is what domain are those words going to cluster around? It depends on what interests or horrifies or concerns the society. So yeah, that's what part of what it is to be human. Yeah, I love that. So I think that that puts a nice sort of completes that topic. And I think we can move into

the race topic. Now what do you think I think we can? And I should tell you that six o'clock is my cocktail night, and that change. That does not change. I'm going to take a slip of mine. I love it. Please feel free, And I feel like I didn't adequately prepare. I should have liquored up for to discuss this topic with you right now. I did not adequately prepare in the way you did. But yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So what what is it there? You're drinking? This is bullet rye.

It's delicious, and that is That's been one of my drinks lately. Six o'clock It's time, especially during the pandemic, is when I started getting very regular about it. So, no matter what's going on, cocktail time. Yeah, I love it. I love it. So tell me about this new book you're working on, which I believe you are pretty much done. Is that right? And is the title still The elect The Threat to a progressive America from anti black, anti racist?

Is that still the title? No, the book is going to be called Woke Racism, and to be honest, I forget the subtitle, but it will be coming out around Halloween. That is probably official news by the time this podcast is broadcast to everyone else, and so it will not be called the elect It will be called woke Racism. And so that means that this year I have two books coming out, which is something I'm never going to

do to myself again. But yes, the book that's being put out on substack in pieces has been considerably jiggered and will come out as a different version of that as woke racism in very late October. I'm actually surprised do you call it woke racism? Because I know that you've been trying to stay away from the word woke and talk about the elect differently. So that's probably from a marketing perspective, which I do understand. But can you tell me what the elect, what you mean by the

elect and why you think they're doing great harm to society? Well, the elect is not just woke people. I know many people would be surprised that I consider myself woke. It's woke people who are mean. It's a particular kind of woke person who feels that their view of things is the way humanity should be, that anybody who questions that is inherently a racist and therefore moral pervert and therefore dismissible, and that this particular imperative of theirs should be central

to all moral, intellectual, and artistic endeavor. Their idea is, and most of them are not going to name this explicitly, but as a kind of woke person who feels that battling power differentials and within that, the main differential is white people's power over black people and other brown people. Battling power differentials must be central to all endeavor systemic racism PERMEI society. That must be our main concern. And

you know, that's a view that one can respect. But there's a certain kind of person who feels that that is such a self standing truth that people deserve to be browbeaten, expelled from their jobs, socially shamed in the name of it. And that is a kind of person

who's existed for a long time. I've known people like that since the nineties when I was in grad school, but especially last summer, that kind of person acquired a certain purchase upon the national consciousness, and there at this point in a position to influence a great many institutions. And I think that they are well intentioned. I think they're sincere, but I think they're poisonous and I think

they're wrong. And nevertheless, a great many people are inclined to do what they say because their modus operandi is to call you a racist on social media if you don't do what they do. Social media gets around to a lot of people, and many people aren't up for being called a terrible thing on social media on a regular basis, And so everybody knuckles under to these quote

unquote anti racist imperatives. But it creates not only a lot of mendacity, but it creates an awful lot of obstacles for black people to truly succeed in this society. A great deal of the elect as I call it, ideology, is based on the idea that if black people are having some sort of problem doing something, they should just be exempt from doing it and we should change our sense of what standards are. That to me, is not how a society should be run in any post Enlightenment sense.

And yet there are a lot of people, and a lot of them have PhDs, who sincerely believe that that's the way things should be. They used to be that cranky, peculiar person on one end of the faculty meeting table there was one of those people. Frustrated. Now that kind of person is standing up and calling the shots. I don't think that's the person who should do that. No

one person should do that, but certainly not them. So I've been on a kind of a crusade, and woke racism is explaining that not only is critical race theory questionable, But nobody would want to read a book about that, and I don't think they should read a book about that. It's that this whole way of looking at things hurts black people. These people are supposedly battling racism, A lot of them are in a way some of the most racist people on earth. So that is what woke racism

is about. Yeah, I think that it's really good to like really define our terms, define what we're talking about, because it seems to me you're talking about a particular argument, you know, the kind of that Kendy and DiAngelo, there's

their style of anti of quote anti racism. And what makes it particularly difficult about having this conversation if you are someone like me, who well, for a million reasons when I'm white, but two I was I wasn't even thinking the white thing till that popped in my head. But but the fact that I care deeply about social justice, you know, I care deeply about I think there does exist a lot of problems that legitially legitimate problems that need to be solved in uh that that do sometimes

operate in the racial lines. You know that a lot of African Americans have a lot of inequalities that could be addressed. What makes that tricky is that I simultaneously can hold that in my head as well at the same time of saying, I'm not sure that this style of anti racism and the method is going to reach that aim. And so it's tough, right, and so what do you do? What do you say to someone who or how do you stop people from saying these things?

Without denying existence of systemic racism? You have to definitely have a certain equivoids, which is to say that there are problems that need to be solved, that racism is not just calling people dirty names and burning crosses on people's lawns, but that the proper response to systemic racism is not to blow up our whole sense of what we consider it meant to be, what we consider justice to be, what kind of standards we hold people who

are not white too. We have to realize that it's not incompatible with having a moral compass to question a lot of the things that we're being taught. And something that moves me particularly deeply and has for twenty five years now, is that when you put a certain kind of maniacally power differential focused orientation into society, you condition

a certain kind of black person to exaggerate. And I hate to say it, but I think all of us can see it that yes, racism exists in this post nineteen sixties atmosphere, but that there's a certain kind of black person, often joined by a certain white fellow traveler, who exaggerates. And I don't think that the people are doing it in order to curry power. I don't think that the people are doing it as a temper tantrum. I think that there is, as you have very nicely illuminated,

I want you to talk about it. Actually, there's a victimization mindset that is human. It's not about black people. It's a human tendency among some individuals to exaggerate victimhood because of a certain psychological bomb that it gives them. Not only are black people not exempt from that, because we black people are human beings, but our current climate encourages enables that particular human facet to emerge and to

be supported. And I think that one of our biggest problems is that as a society, we are at a point where we need to be able to say, like you're doing. On the one hand, there are systemic racism problems that need to be solved. But then on the other hand, they are people who are exaggerating, who are making demands that aren't based in reality, and that frankly aren't based in truth, and that those people need to

be gently but firmly dismissed. The idea is to say, you are exhibiting a certain psychological syndrome universal to humans, but it is not connected with the reality that the rest of us are in. The reality that the rest of us are in is a moral reality concerned with systemic factors. However, what you're asking, such as we're going to turn over our whole department to we're going to turn our whole department into a kind of anti racist

academy instead of doing what we were doing. What you're asking, we're not going to do despite the fact that we have what we consider the proper concerns, and if you don't like it, you're gonna have to find somewhere else to go. I wonder if we are a society where especially white administrators could tell black students or black faculty that and not feel like that makes them moral perverts.

Because if we can't do that, I'm really frightened as to where we're going, which is why I want this literature, which you've helped call my attention to on the victimization mindset, to be made more mainstream. We need user friendly ways of discussing that because if someone like me says you're exaggerating, many people say George Floyd. If someone like me says it's victim allah, it sounds like I'm making up a

cartoon term. We need you psychologists at this point. Yeah, I and I actually feel like a sense of purpose over this. But the point is from my perspective is that I'm not actually singling out African Americans. It's not like I wrote this article and that was what it surrounded this victimhood mentality article. Because the thing is I

treat African Americans as human. It's a human tendency. Yeah, so there's this human tendency that The point I want to make is that this kind of victim mentality, which can operate regardless of whether or not you've been victimized or not. It's there's an interpersonal trait tendency regardless to see in any situation that I've been the victim, and and it tends to the point here is it's a trait, so anyone can have this trait, and it generalizes across situations.

The problem with that is that it impedes growth. You know, plain and simple, there's no there there. And my question is if you want to specifically apply some of this psychological research to the race to mean, which we can do since I know you're interested in that. But even though that wasn't my original intention is that I would ask you this question, in what ways is having a and I think this operates at a group level too.

It's called collective you know, victimhood. In what ways is that impeding them from reaching the very goals that they want to reach? But what even are the goals? Is the goal to stay in the victimhood mentality forever? Or is the goal to transcend it? To grow? You know, just like I would say to an individual client who has that mentality, is your goal to be in that mentality and be rewarded for the mentality your whole life?

Or is the goal for you to have self actualization, to be have great healthy pride for who you are and to not have not focus so much on outgroup hate but focus on in group love. You know, These are the sort of psychological questions I would ask, does that make sense? It does make sense. I think that there's a certain kind of Black person who actually has a sense of pride from this victimhood. It is what

they seek. It gives them a sense of purpose, and as far as in group love goes, they feel that they're exerting in group love by supporting one another in these claims of victimhood, and there's a sense of bonding in it. And so the problem is that, I think with many one way of handling this, I think might be to say, are we looking to better Black America and to solve real problems as opposed to are we

looking to massage this sense of victimhood? Do you understand that massaging this sense of victimhood doesn't put more food in anybody's mouths, It doesn't train anybody for jobs, it doesn't change the police. That's something that might get through. But for many people, I think that the nurturing of that victimhood to them feels like a kind of healing. It gives them a sense of wholeness and purpose. I imagine that would be true among all people who have

the victims. Would complex that you have to teach them that that's not wholeness somehow, that you can do better than that. But there would have to be a race neutral language to get that across to people that you fashioning yourself as a victim is not a healthy form

of spiritual completeness. Yeah. I mean there's a whole field that I'm very passionate about in positive psychology called post traumatic growth, and I think it's very much correlated with this, or with what I'm trying to say, which is that I would my intention and my wish for everyone, regardless of your skin color, is that you, even if you've had traumas in your past or and there are legit there are legit victims of course, that you would be able to find some meaning in it that can help

you heal yourself and help others, you know, exactly. And I mean that's the point there is, you know, can you grow from the trauma as opposed to letting the trauma define you your whole life as the only thing about you, as the only thing that you are or could be or it could be. Yeah. You know. The funny thing is, though that Glenn Lowry and I were to this person too much but he really is useful.

I think that someone like Ibram Kendy, who wrote How to Be an Anti Racist and is now the current star on the black race circuit, I think he would say that it is growth. Learning about the various ways that racism has manifested itself is growth, is learning, is thriving. For him, that's an endeavor that's worthy. And I mentioned him because everybody knows who he is, but he's a type that's a kind of person that you meet quite often in the media and in academia and in college

towns and in cafes. And I wonder if there's a way to address not him personally, but people of that kind, because for many people of that kind, learning about the facets of racism is what it is to be an intellectual. And you feel validated, enriched by learning the ways in which the world has hurt your people, because if you know these things, then it means you know there's nothing wrong with you. For people like this, it's like that

nothing wrong with me. It's all about racism. But of course there's a lot more to engage in the world, and theatrically hating upon an abstract conception of some oppressive group is a limiting way to be a person. Hard though, to get that across to somebody who's never been anything else. These are and I'm not saying all these things just to talk smack about a certain kind of person. I consider this a real challenge to getting past the blockages

that we're dealing with today. That's one thing, and I can I can add on other bockages, and it's it's very tricky because you know I have I said earlier,

I care deeply about social justice. I have a lot of friends who you know, you would probably call the elect you know, they're close friends who who recognize real problems such as real, well documented disparities and sentencing for the same crime that exists even for defendants with similar histories, as well as there is a research on police contact such as traffic stops, where it's documented that police are more like the hassle black people the way I mean

I looked into the science and I mean I was actually thinking of writing an article and like the science of play and shorting out the fact from fiction. So there are real, you know, uh issues that a lot of people are are And I don't want to say complain about I think that really denigrates it that they're rightly, rightly what's the word, what's a better word? Real problems?

What's are better word than complaining? Uh that they're noting, they're pointing out, they're pointing out object they're objecting, they are you know, they're speaking out against and one should

definitely yes. So this is what is so tricky about this is is is holding that, keeping that and helping that while standing up against just nonsense, you know, nonsense in terms of uh, you know, some of these things I've seen, like we'll have school children say, well, if you're a white, step back, If you're black, step forward. If you're queer and black, take two steps forward. If your queer black and a woman take three steps forward.

And then and then I mean they actually have these exercises in schools, and so they say, now everyone look at each other, or do you you know uh you know uh? Or actually I did it reverse. Actually if you're back, I did it completely reverse. The white persons. The white person is going to be all the way up the front, and it'd be like, look, do you see how many advantages you've had because of your white privilege? And then and kind of but making that the focus

in as early and possible in school. You know, I look at that and and and I see from a psychological perspective that that can be pretty pretty damaging for people to h for especially young uh uh, labile minds, to developing minds, to cement into their brain that that's the only way they should look at their fellow humans. But how can I make that critique while at the same time fight for social justice. It feels like these are these are being treated as contradictory or or they

can never be connected. I think that there needs to be a sharper between a program for Black America that can really work, and that frankly is part of my book Will Racism. Things that need to be looked at, such as the cops, and then all of this ideology that puts people into little boxes that strom Thurman would have loved. We have to realize that we can criticize that while being interested in the other things. And that's why the other things we need to be very clear

on what needs to be done. And the problem is that, for example, the cops are nastier to black people. There's no doubt, however, the cops from all of the data. No matter how you look at it, the cops don't kill black people more easily, and so on the one hand, yeah, the sun goes down and fewer black people get stopped in carves. Yeah, that's true. Then on the other hand, there was a white version of George Floyd four years

ago that nobody ever heard about. There's a white version of every black guy that gets killed under unjustified circumstances. That is not the idea that a black person needs to be especially afraid of being iced by the cops. The data simply doesn't support it. We need to be able to keep both of those things in mind. But the problem with the current ideology is that a person

hears me say that and resists it. They assume that my numbers must be wrong, that I'm missing something, that I'm not on the right side of things, when really what I'm interested in is addressing what really is a problem for black people, which is this bias in terms of killing. We have a cop problem. We have a problem with the cops. The idea that we can't talk about that unless we talk about cops being people who

murder black people. That temptation is more theater I think or many people just sincerely under the misimpression because of what the media portrays than constructive. Because if we're going to think of the cops as these people who murder black people with impunity because they can get away with it and they don't think of black people as as important, we're going after the wrong thing because I think all evidence is that that's not what cops are like. So

we have real problems and we're encouraged to oversimplify everything. Yeah, it's so tricky in finding out, well, what is the real truth, because sometimes I see people in the anti racism camp and I hate the I hate these different don't ever label me, by the way, John, Please don't

ever don't ever put me in a camp. But but people, you know that they've now put you like people they've put you, they put like Coleman Hughes, they put Glenn that you're all the anti you're the the anti woke camp, now,

you know. But I do see some motivated reasoning or or bias even in that camp, right, And I don't know if it's intentional bias, but but I'm not sure that you know a lot of them are aren't scientists, you know, I've looked into the scientists I would even I would I would have little quibbles with some of the stuff you're in, like with the Friar for instance,

I'll give you an example. I read that, and actually I think that's been really well debunked, those Friar studies, because you can't condition on encounters in that analysis and get meaningful results given that encounters are known to be biased. And there is some really really valuable literature on research on killing unarmed people and race differences in that. This is why I was thinking maybe it would be worthy for me to actually write a art and totally my

attempt to be unbiased. You know, I have no no card in this race. I don't know what. I'm just a nerd. I'm just a nerd to really get because when you actually look at the you know, the little the things. So I think we have to be careful, you know, even someone like you has to be careful of making sure that you don't underplay things as well. So uh and and I think you know you you

do a pretty good job overall. And I just I do have, you know, just some quibbles and it seems like you're you're you're so open, you're so open to even listening to that, which I really appreciate. The thing is, if you're in my position, inevitably you're going to make some mistakes because life goes by very quickly, and I'm not that kind of scientist, and so I'm going to miss stuff definitely, and I figure to an extent it's inevitable that someone like me is going to slip up.

Sometimes I try my best to assess the evidence as clearly as closely as I can. So, for example, Roland Fryar has his answers to some of these things. I'm not in a position to assess whether or not his answers are complete shutdowns to the criticisms. You actually, well, let's talk. We should talk more, John, we should talk more. So yeah, yeah, these things, but yeah, these things are hard.

And I know what you mean in that it's easy to be on one side and to not want to acknowledge that the other people might have some points here in there, which which is why I say the cops are meaner, that there's no doubt about that. There's a reason why black people kind of cower at the cops. However, to me, it's almost inconveniently solid. You don't need to cower that they're gonna shoot you. That's not what goes on. It's just that they are menacing. But yeah, this stuff,

this stuff is tough and dueling studies. I know because I am an academic and linguistics I know how elusive the truth can be. That's certainly going to be true with every field. And if you're trying to wear a lot of hats, yeah, gonna slip up, but yes, I do try my best. Well, I think that's the point. Is like you admit that you're not perfect and that and I'm just I'm really impressed even just in your

response there. Feel like you're the type of person that if I wolded you up on articles after this call, I was like, Hey, John, I just would love you to read some of these papers and maybe rethink some even like this paragraph you wrote in this newsletter. I would want to know because I am really interested in the truth and the truth is hard. But yeah, for me, it has to be the real facts, including being open to being wrong. And you know, I'm human. I'm not

gonna let myself be wrong too much. But if you don't let yourself be wrong, at all. I'm not sure you're dealing with truth. You don't want to be a partisan, so you have to hit It's a fine line. It's such a fine line, and man, I just wish that it just wasn't so these camps weren't so far apart. So there's such a wide goal right now. I'll give you a for instance. I was talking to someone earlier today who you would probably put in the elect camp and I said, you know, I said, have you, by

a chance come across the rings of John Kwoter? You know, I think he says a lot of sensible things. And this individual said, oh, are you talking about that black conservative? And the thing is, I don't even know what your politics are. I mean, you could be a conservative, but

I never got the sense of you were conservative. And I think, what is There's there's something going on here where people in this elect group, as you would describe a certain a certain style or a certain idea of the methods that they would propose our use, they are they immediately dismiss critiques as conservative. And if you're black, you're a black conservative or even at at worse. I don't know if you've ever been called an uncle Tom

has that been something you've heard? Of course? So how can I like, can I get you and Kendy on this podcast like talking to each other? Like is is it? Do we really live in a world where that that's like impossible? Well, you know it's with your elect friend. The truth is, we all only have so much time. We can't pay attention to everybody, and as intelligent people,

we're going to draw patterns. And so if you're going to decide who you're going to read and listen to, if you know that a person is quote unquote a black conservative because of a certain list that he appears on, well maybe you're just going to dismiss him because you've got better things to do. I completely understand that. The only way I can cut through that is to make it known that no, I'm a black liberal who has never voted for a Republican and yet I feel these ways.

But if he never happens to catch that that is the truth about me or she, then I completely understand. But no, there are certain conversations that can't be had. I mean, for example, with Kendy, Kendy shows in things that he says on social media and beyond, Kendy doesn't know what a debate is. Kendy genuinely doesn't know what the nature of academic or intellectual debate is. He thinks that he has found facts. I think he thinks that what a scholar is is somebody who reads secondary sources

and takes in the facts. And honestly, I think that's as far as he goes. I'm sorry to say it, but it's painfully clear that it's true. And so he thinks that a debate, for example, with Coleman Hughes wouldn't be worth it because the two of them would spend time clarifying what their positions were rather than having a debate. Now, in other words, he doesn't know what a debate even is. So what would the point be of getting into a

room with Kendy. A lot of people say on Twitter all the time that Kendy and I need to have a debate, But he doesn't know what it would be to have conflicting ideas. He doesn't understand that anybody could

have a morally legitimate idea other than his. So no with someone like him in particular, and people who think like him, No, But I do think there are other people if you kind of cast it carefully where they would understand that you don't agree with them, but you're not evil, and you could have it happen and it

could be illuminating, but it's tough. Like they were trying to get me do, get me to do one of the Monk debates about a month ago, and they were trying to pair me with somebody and with one person after another. It was clear that the people who were proposed only wanted to have debates with me where the question that we would argue was one that they could easily win, where the job was that they were going

to demonstrate that racism exists. And they seem to assume that I was going to argue that racism doesn't exist. They just couldn't see beyond that. And a lot of these people are very prominent, very intelligent, and very credential. That's all they know. It should be better than that.

But yeah, it can be difficult to get faster. Yeah, And another reason why it could be difficult is you've rightly pointed out I subscribed to your newsletter, and I think you say a lot of really, even though I said I have some quibbles, I mean, you know something else I want to point out, which is something that I want to point out that I think you're quite right about, is a sort of anti science thing that's

cropping up on the left. And one of these examples you point out is the idea that all unequal outcomes must necessarily be due to unequal opportunity or racism. You know, that we can't have multidetermined problems, And that's a very anti science stance, and I don't know what to do with that as a scientist who I believe that And if we're going to make changes in society, it has to be built on a foundation of reality of truth

as much as possible. That's always been the spirit I've had when I've wanted to make change, is well, let's see what actually needs to be changed, first of all. But if we can't even have that discussion, like if we can't even talk about the truth part of it, then how in the world are we going to make progress. Linear reasoning is white, is what a lot of these people say, and many of them are white. That's the problem. Linear reasoning is white, then there's just no discussion to

be had. Yeah, why is that linear reasoning as opposed to multi varied interactive, simultaneous system thinking like why can't we do that? That's what I'm into. Well, you know, never mind that that's the holistic thing that I think we're supposed to think black people have. But if you put it that way, it's white because the words are too latinate, it's complicated and it takes effort to master, and so no, black people just want to dance. So yeah,

that's shows that where we're getting. Yeah, I mean, but that's so patronizing to black people, isn't it? Like I have, I feel like I hold people on higher esteeme than that, not this Robin Di Angelo kind of person, and I mean kind of person that there's a demographic tilt. It's

often people like her. And yeah, they think that they're doing black people a favor by I think essentially they think of us as motown singers, and they think that because they like those songs and they like that flavor, and well, there's other things I could say that I won't. I think they think that they're paying black people a

compliment by portraying us as a rank attacks. But I hope a critical mass of black people can understand the insult in that and resist it and I think that a critical mass of white people can see it, but

they're afraid of being called a racist on Twitter. We have got to get people past this fear of being called a racist on Twitter by people like Robin di Angelo, because frankly, the world keeps spinning and justice is going to require that we get used to being called racists on Twitter and white supremacists on Twitter and seeing gifts that roll their eyes. You're going to see Stanley from the office going like this. I don't know how often

I've gotten that one. You're going to see it, and other people are going to see you getting the Stanley rolled eyes. But I think that if we're going to pursue justice, we have to let Stanley roll his eyes. Yeah, let's let's let's let's let's leave on that note and then go into the Q and A. If you're down for a little bit of the Twitter Q and A, I can do it. I can do Q and A for exactly seven minutes. So let's do it. Great, great sou Briy Guy says, what are some good points that

anti racists have made? I really like that question. You're thinking hard about this. The general idea that racism is not just calling people names is very important once you go from there. If you're talking about anti racism in the way that we been acquainted with it over about the past five years, I don't have much more good to say than that. And that's not me being a partisan. It's that that stuff has really gone down a rabbit hole. But to teach people, there's a certain kind of person

who says, I'm not racist. I haven't got a racist bone in my body. And what they mean is they've never called anybody the N word. No, that won't do. You do need to go further than that, that works Beyond that. What we're getting is black people are chimpanzees. And I just know I can't. I don't have anything good to say about the literature that we're talking about these days. I'm looking now at one of those books and it's not Kenny's, and it's not Dangelo's's a couple

of other people's, and I'm thinking I actually read it. No, I didn't find a valuable insight in the whole two hundred and ten pages. And that's not rhetoric. That's unfortunately my actual opinion. I'm sorry about that. It's really unfortunate. You know, because I feel like you would you would if you if you saw something. I mean, it's not like you I have it. You're not like how to

get anyone. I don't get this. I'm really not. I try something, mister C says, how do I convince my wife that wolkeness is a major problem, is infiltrating institutions, and is a general threat to the tenets of a free society? So far, I've convinced her only that I'm a tinfoil hat wearing lunatic. You know. The answer to

that is self promoting. Reading an article that I wrote in The Atlantic about all the missives that I was getting now a year ago from what I call in my email file aggrieved academics, about how this way of thinking is penetrating the entire nation. A lot of people are genuinely under the impression that one thing they read about in the Times is it, and then maybe there's

one other thing because they have other interests. I understand that it's everywhere, and I am in a unique position to know this because Glenn Lowry and I have become unofficial clearing houses of this sort of thing. Read how universal it was a year ago and back then I was referring to what was I think one hundred and ten emails. Now it's well over seven hundred. It's everywhere. Read the Atlantic article called it was called something like

academics are really scared. I forget what they called it, but read that and then say that this is not a real problem. Okay. Erin Anderson says, if you were going to debate any one of the elect who would you prefer, and why Kendy? It would There'd be no point DiAngelo. It wouldn't make sense because I'd look mean because for various reasons. Yeah, you know, Tim Wise is an elect and he and I debated a good twelve years ago, and his side wand the debate, and unfortunately

they should have we did an intelligence squared. But he's really good and I completely disagree with his perspective, and I wouldn't mind debating him. Yeah, that's a good question. I don't contrary to what people seem to think, I don't walk around thinking I want to get out and fight somebody. But yeah, he would be interesting to debate also, And you know what, this will be the last question today. You've been really patient with your and generous with your time.

If I Crumb Daala crumb Cave, that's their name, that's the Twitter handle to ask if I wanted to get more into musicals, what's the best place to start. The way you start is see as I get older that that gets hard. The debt center of American musical theater is Stephen Sondheim. What you start with is not Sweeney Todd, which is weird of him. You start with Company Follies and a little night Music. You start there. Those shows

are now fifty years old. They're not current. But Sondheim was referring to the musical theater of past, and he was also hearkening to what musical theater would be after that. You need a friend like me to give you the twenty five shows you listen to before him, and the twenty five shows you listen to after, And you know, how do you pick? But you've got to listen to Showboat, and you've got to listen to Guys and Dolls, and you've got to listen to Kiss Me, Kate, My Fair Lady,

and Fiddler on the Roof. That's on one side. On the other side, you need to listen to nine. You don't need to listen to Hamilton because as wonderful as it is, you know how wrap sounds not that, but you need nine. You need to engage hair spray. Many people are going to say why that, But I have my reasons. You need to engage. As you move on the other side, the really excellent things. You need to listen to a chorus line. One should hear that, one

should listen to It gets so multifarious. As you come on to this side, you should listen to Legally Blonde. And finally you should listen to Gray Gardens. They miss the miss no actually because only because it's everywhere, Like this person probably saw the movie. This person has heard three or four big songs like if you're gonna educate yourself, if you've never heard lame Is yet, you've got to jump that in there. But I'm assuming that she knows

lams or he knows lams. Well, how okay, I'll clarify. They should listen to Stars from Lays the one song, just one. So that was my dream role. By the way, John, I don't know if you knew this that I was a professional opera singer. Uh before before I became a psychologist. I was My dream was to be Javert on Broadway. I had this dream to actually be a professor at n YU and cognitive science and to be on Broadway.

And the lame is being Javert. And while I didn't, yeh look at that sing I'm I'm a bass baritone, but yeah, me too. But it's stars often that is a that song elates people, and I definitely understand John Migwater. Would you would you accompany me someday to that song? It would be that would be hugely fun. Yeah, because I know what you're saying. That's my Yeah, No, absolutely, I mean that was what I wanted to do for

a long time. Oh. Also, this person needs to listen to Porgy and Best, which is an opera, but still listen to the whole thing from beginning to end, because that's just very important music. It's musical theater plus. But that's what you do after you listen to these other What did I give this person like thirteen shows? So yeah, thirteen and a half. Well great, that's it more than

enough for them to get it, get us start. Hey, John, thanks so much for your time today, and I wish you all the best with your two books this year. We will see thank you Scott, we will keep it going and yeah, you know where to find me. Thanks for listening to this episode of The Psychology Podcast. If you'd like to react in some way to something you heard, I encourage you to join in the discussion at the

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