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Wilfred Reilly: a social scientist in the culture wars — Transcript

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0:00This podcast is brought to you by the
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0:03the generosity of listeners like you.
0:09What is a podcast?
0:16God Daddy, these people talk as much as
0:18you do.
0:25Rezaip Khan's Unsupervised Learning
0:29Thanks for listening to the ungated
0:30version of the Unsupervised Learning
0:32podcast. If you want to read some essays
0:34on some of these topics, please check
0:36out rezaip.substack.com.
0:38Again, that's rezaip.substack.com.
0:41Thank you.
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1:00reduce risk for thousands of single gene
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1:08orchidhealth.com. Hey everybody, this is
1:10Rezaip with the Unsupervised Learning
1:12podcast and I am here uh with my friend
1:15Dr. Woodford Wright Riley who I think
1:17you will probably know uh from his
1:20various podcast experience um
1:21appearances, his essays, his book
1:23reviews, his scholarly publications, his
1:26books. Uh I'll put all the links in the
1:28show notes, but um he's also a professor
1:32uh in Kentucky and um can you give I
1:34mean look, I know academics, you got
1:36like, you know, various affiliations
1:37here and there. I just tell me like what
1:39your top line, like what you usually
1:41tell people, like what do you do,
1:42Woodford? Like who are you with? Who are
1:44your people as Who are your people as I
1:46would say?
1:46Woof woof. Uh I'm an associate professor
1:49of political science at Kentucky State
1:51University. And other than that, I'm a
1:53fellow of the standard journals and so
1:54on, but that that is my uh one-line job
1:56to script.
1:58Okay. And like um you were not always in
2:00academia um and I think uh you're not
2:04like what I My understanding is you're
2:05not one of those like, you know,
2:06undergrad to grad school to
2:08professorship, right? You did some other
2:09things. Can you talk about your
2:10background a little bit? Like, where you
2:12from? Like, um
2:14you know, I
2:15I I follow you on Twitter um social
2:17media X, whatever you want to call it.
2:20Uh and my understanding is you're not
2:21from the hood.
2:23Um
2:24Like, you just made a face. Like, that
2:26that was uh that was a little
2:27So, like, just just give give a general
2:29sense because um you know, uh I I think
2:32a lot of people don't know.
2:33Yeah, so I've actually had a really
2:34interesting life. I mean, the the hood
2:36is a relative term. I mean, I would
2:38think of the hood as an area where no
2:39one works. So, in that sense, I was
2:41probably more from a series of tough
2:43working-class neighborhoods. I mean, I
2:45was born on the south side of Chicago. I
2:47lived in Wicker Park on the north side
2:48when that was uh pre-gentrification.
2:50They didn't have all the $80 backpack
2:52stores yet. So, it was jokingly known as
2:54Needle Park. Um I moved to East Aurora,
2:57which is another large, well-known, kind
2:59of blue-collar neighborhood in in that
3:01area. Chicago is second really only to
3:03New York in metroplex size. I mean, you
3:06know, LA solved this problem just by
3:07combining all the suburbs into one city.
3:09But, I mean, if you go from Chicago out
3:12through all kind of the inner suburbs to
3:14Aurora to Naperville, I mean, all these
3:16are cities of several hundred thousand
3:18people. I mean, the population of
3:19Aurora, I think, is 297,000, something
3:21like that. I have to check it out. But,
3:23um the east side of the city is a
3:25well-known, kind of, like I said,
3:26blue-collar area. It was Aurora overall
3:29was the murder capital of the Midwest
3:31region of the country during the period
3:32of time when I was in high school
3:34because of conflict between black gangs
3:36coming from Chicago after the the jets,
3:38the projects, were torn down and the
3:40local Hispanic and Caucasian gangs, who
3:42ended up winning the conflict, actually.
3:44But, um
3:45yeah, the east side's very heavily
3:47Latino, a fair number of Eastern
3:49European immigrants, fair number African
3:51Americans. So, those were the areas that
3:53I I lived in coming up, and I had a
3:54pretty normal sort of lower working
3:56class childhood. Um my white tees and my
4:00skateboard. I went to East Aurora
4:01Senior, which is technically considered
4:03an inner-city school, so on.
4:05But, um after that, I went through a
4:07bunch of progressions in life. Like, I
4:09had done well in school,
4:11and I'm also black, and I'm from a
4:14lower-income census district, which I
4:16assume helped when I was applying. And
4:18also, my mom, by the way, I don't know
4:20if I mentioned this. The reason that I
4:21lived in all these areas is that my mom,
4:23who's from the Chicago Ward family,
4:25which is a upper-class black family,
4:28uh decided to sort of do good during the
4:301960s.
4:31So, I don't know how much she talked to
4:33the rest of the family when I was a kid
4:34that they're all that always seemed a
4:35little bit strained. And we basically
4:38lived in the areas where she taught.
4:41That's why I was in all these places.
4:43So, mom uh taught me to read at I mean,
4:46age one or two. I mean, there were books
4:48throughout the house and collected
4:50Griffy scrolls and this kind of stuff.
4:51So, I had an enormous starting advantage
4:53in addition to just benefiting from, you
4:56know, my background as someone who was
4:58literate. So, I ended up going to
4:59college. I went to college for quite a
5:01while. I mean, I went to uh Southern
5:03Illinois for undergrad school, kind of
5:05legendary party school down there in the
5:07forest preserves at the bottom of the
5:08state. Uh in Illinois, there's a joking
5:10term BFE, butt [ __ ] Egypt, which
5:12refers to the region of the state that's
5:14Cairo.
5:15Egypt. Yeah, like all that. Like, Cairo,
5:18Memphis. I mean, the that the
5:19pronunciation's a little off, but uh
5:21Carbondale, where the mascot is the
5:23Egyptian dog, the Saluki. All that is in
5:26the deep southern corner of the state.
5:28So, I went to college there,
5:30majored in political science, did
5:31reasonably well, uh graduated, went on
5:34to law school at the University of
5:35Illinois, which was a big culture shock.
5:37I was like, 20 or 21. I mean, it's not
5:39quite Ivy, but it's one of the better
5:40Big Ten law schools. And people were
5:42dead serious. They're like, 30-year-old
5:44prosecutors in my classes and so on. So,
5:46kind of a sharp shift upward, you know,
5:48this is how you wear a suit, young man,
5:49and all that.
5:50And uh graduated and at this point I
5:53expected to go on to kind of a standard
5:55upper middle class life, but that
5:57emphatically didn't happen. Like, I got
5:59an offer from Southern Illinois to come
6:01back and get a PhD over what was going
6:03to be, based on the level of teaching
6:05the program required and so on, uh
6:07minimum 5 years of study
6:10from a program called DFI, Diversifying
6:12the Faculty of Illinois, which wanted
6:14more minorities and as I recall more
6:15male teachers in the state of Illinois,
6:17uh in elite high schools and colleges so
6:19on down the line. So, I went back to
6:21grad school and when I'd been in grad
6:22school for a couple of years my mom got
6:23very sick. So, I went back to Chicago to
6:26help her out and this started like a
6:2810-year odyssey of all these crazy jobs.
6:30Like, I taught in the Chicago City
6:31Colleges, which are generally in in or
6:34close to the hood, so that's like
6:35Malcolm X College, Harry Truman, where I
6:37taught classes for a while.
6:39Uh I was a canvas field manager for the
6:42Human Rights Campaign, the gay and
6:44gender rights group, for
6:46Are you
6:47Are you Are you Are you part of the
6:48Rainbow Nation?
6:49No, no, no, I'm not. I like So, the one
6:52of the things that a lot of people don't
6:53understand, although I think you do,
6:55about the activist left is that they
6:56hire mercenaries heavily.
6:59So, almost all of our canvassers were
7:01like male fighters. I mean, like guys
7:04who'd been athletes in high school or
7:05college, sort of hood dudes. There were
7:07a few passionate feminist women, but
7:08they were just as uh body physically.
7:11But, the the actual job of street
7:13canvassing in a major city is just like
7:14you you're in Chicago or Detroit and you
7:17go to generally poor neighborhoods where
7:19not a lot of people are already signed
7:20up as members of the group. We also went
7:22to the Magnificent Mile, which is just
7:23as intimidating in a different way. And
7:24you sort of post up like, "Hey, got a
7:26minute for gay marriage?"
7:27And I mean, the reactions are exactly
7:29what you'd expect from, you know,
7:30physically hostile encounters to like
7:32people joyously saying yes and giving
7:34you $50 a month, people trying to make
7:37out with you. So, I was one of the
7:39leaders of this group. I managed our
7:41in-city and in-field canvassers. It was
7:43a small group under our director for
7:46quite a while. It was a very fun job.
7:48I mean like we went on a camping
7:49canvass, it was called the Southern
7:50Illinois. I think we took one to the
7:52actual deep south. I didn't go on that
7:54one, but just
7:56very much that's what freedom writer in
7:58my bio half jokingly refers to that I
8:00actually was a local level leader in a
8:03civil rights organization for a couple
8:05of years. And I'm pro-gay rights, but I
8:07wasn't all that passionate about the
8:08topic. It was just a fun competitive
8:10job.
8:11And it's also a paid job, by the way. I
8:13mean as I recall we paid 15%
8:16of everything that you made over a very
8:17low baseline. So we had canvassers, many
8:20of them are poor and you know, hungry in
8:23the literal sense if you're just
8:24starting out. But we had senior
8:26canvassers who were making probably 30
8:2735 bucks an hour because I mean you go
8:29to these these areas and you might sign
8:31up 10 people at $30 a month on a good
8:36day and you're you're not doing that for
8:38charitable reasons. I mean you would get
8:4015% of the 3,000 over you know, $270. So
8:46the the organized left is a much better
8:48at the ground game than the organized
8:50right. That's something I still notice
8:51today.
8:52But so you got to so so you're basically
8:55what you're saying is these people are
8:55hustlers, you know? Yeah, they run
8:58people down, yeah.
8:59No, they're classic city kids, yeah. I
9:01mean like with the the clipboard and
9:02like self-defense stick over the back
9:04and like sunglasses in the summer. And
9:07they give you like a shirt. So people
9:09would put the like these bright golden
9:11and blue
9:12equal sign shirts on. I mean they were
9:15they were a fun group and they were not,
9:16you know, sexually inactive with one
9:18another generally speaking. I mean that
9:20was actually something the leadership
9:21kind of encouraged like, you know,
9:22everything friendly and consensual, but
9:24people would go drink, hook up, party.
9:27So it was very much a college and kind
9:29of young person's job. We had a lot of
9:31people that seemed to almost be doing it
9:33as their alternative to more traditional
9:35community service, the military or
9:38Salvation Army or something like that. I
9:39know for 2 years I'm going to, you know,
9:42stand out here through the weather
9:43changes on the south side of Chicago and
9:45do this for gay rights. And the bill
9:47that we were backing, the ENDA, the
9:49Employment Non-Discrimination Act,
9:51actually have some problems with that
9:52now as the trans movement advanced, but
9:54that and the other thing that we were
9:55backing, which is gay marriage, were
9:56pretty successful.
9:58Like gay marriage, Obergefell passed
10:00while friends of mine were still doing
10:02this and they were like joyous. I mean
10:04there were giant parties throughout
10:05Chicago and New York and so on. Gay
10:07pride came the day after the decision
10:09came down in both cities actually.
10:11So I mean like Roman level bacchanals.
10:13But anyway, I'm not the actually like
10:15the most liberal guy. I favored general
10:17gay and women's rights, but after a
10:19couple years of people, you know, trying
10:21to square off with me for doing that, I
10:22just got a I got a job. But that again
10:25was one of the classic kind of city boy
10:26jobs. Like I worked in a series of
10:28sales, mostly high-end sales. I wasn't
10:30really a trader in the classic stock
10:32trading sense. But bullpens along
10:34LaSalle Street and Michigan Avenue. Like
10:36I worked for Marcus Evans, which is a
10:38legendarily aggressive British company,
10:41and our North American headquarters in
10:42Chicago.
10:43And the the goal of that business is
10:45taking our clients, who are like the
10:47CEOs of little companies,
10:49and hustling until we get them meetings
10:50with the CEOs of big companies. So we
10:53were tracking down like the CEO of
10:55Walmart, America's, and trying to
10:58arrange these meetings for our clients,
10:59who might be, not saying whether they
11:01were or not, but like LifeLock,
11:03companies at that level. Um weapons
11:05makers. I mean just like it a very much
11:07one of the again kind of classic city
11:09jobs. That went on for a couple years.
11:11Paid quite well, so I actually took a
11:12break and finished my PhD at the end of
11:14that period.
11:15And so now you're you're Dr. Riley, and
11:18um and you're you're tenured now, or are
11:20you not tenured yet?
11:21Yeah, I'd probably say less if I wasn't
11:22tenured. I'm I'm through the first level
11:24of academic tenure. Now there are like
11:25five possible if you count emeritus with
11:28a or you know, salaried chair.
11:30Yeah, yeah, But I mean you're you're
11:31you're your department you're Are you a
11:33you're in a you're in a HB uh HBU?
11:36Yeah, HBCU, yeah, historically
11:38Yeah, historically black college, which
11:40has turned out not to matter all that
11:42much. Like, I mean, it's I think it's
11:44cool. I mean, I'm not racist. I'm on the
11:46right now politically, but I mean, like
11:49I'm just saying like the I think they'd
11:52have an issue if the stereotype of
11:54conservatives as bigots were accurate.
11:56And so, like every day I was going
11:59beyond the hardest libertarianism and
12:01like reading, you know, Vdare in the
12:03office or something. But, I mean, like
12:05in in reality, the HBCUs, there are like
12:07160 of them. And they're mostly decently
12:10ranked colleges in the South. I mean,
12:11like Howard, Morehouse, Spelman are all
12:13HBCUs. Fisk is an HBCU. Um Meharry, the
12:17medical college. So,
12:19in there's almost a funny element to
12:21this without going off on a ramble,
12:23because discrimination in hiring and so
12:26on is illegal in any business.
12:28So, we as an HBCU have to deal with the
12:30question of what do you do as an
12:31all-black institution? Like, should we
12:34have affirmative action for whites?
12:36Given that white test scores in
12:37Appalachia are often below those for the
12:40upper middle class black kids we're
12:41bringing in. And the the the meetings
12:43can get hilarious just unintentionally.
12:46You know, like, what should we do for
12:47this population injured by bond
12:49servitude in the past? But, in a on a
12:51day-to-day basis, it it just doesn't
12:52doesn't matter that happens to be part
12:53of the institution. So, we have a statue
12:56of um
12:57the great black educator.
12:59I'm going to say Du Bois, but I know
13:01that's wrong. I'm going to look that up.
13:02But, I mean, we have we have that sort
13:03of thing as opposed to union generals or
13:06something like that on the campus.
13:07Mhm. Mhm. Okay, so you're you're
13:10Kentucky State, and um you know, as you
13:12said, you're on the right. Um
13:14you know, you're a
13:16quote unquote black conservative, maybe?
13:18Like, are you are you identified as that
13:20sometimes?
13:22Yeah, although I don't really think that
13:23that means too much.
13:26Um so, oh, yeah, just the statues that
13:30we have are Whitney Young. We got a big
13:32We have like a
13:32Whitney Young. Yeah, yeah, I know
13:33Whitney Young. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
13:35Yeah, great guy. We've got a 12-foot
13:37brass Whitney Young at the top of one of
13:39those majestic staircases that you see
13:41on any decent-sized campus. And so on.
13:43So, it's just it's him instead of
13:44General Lee or General Sherman. Um you
13:47know, I I like the HBCU background in
13:49practice if you're teaching stats, it
13:51doesn't matter much. It's just half your
13:53students are going to be black. Um
13:56but it the black conservatism thing I
13:58think is fairly interesting because
14:00being a black conservative doesn't
14:01really mean that you're black and you're
14:03a man of the right. Like when I look at
14:05listen to a lot of black conservatives,
14:07like I love John McWhorter, but I mean
14:08he's a New York Times columnist. He's
14:09just a
14:10Yeah, he's a lib. No, John's a lib.
14:11John's a lib now. He's he's he's uh he's
14:14he's he's moved back since his
14:17uh City Journal Manhattan Institute City
14:19Journal. I mean, so look, I've been
14:22listening to these guys.
14:23Yeah, I
14:24I think you know
14:25I told Glenn this story. Uh I actually
14:26emailed John in the year 2000, I think
14:29when he was a Berkeley professor. He
14:30actually responded to me. He doesn't
14:31remember me, but I've been watching um
14:33the Bloggingheads show. Well, now it's
14:35on you know, the Glenn show that's on
14:37Substack since 2008. And back then, as
14:40you probably know,
14:42uh Glenn was the lefty Hillary stan that
14:46was defending the Palestinians.
14:48And John was the neo-conservative who,
14:51if not a Republican, um he was on NPR in
14:54the mid 2000s defending the Iraq War
14:56mostly just because well,
14:58he was a Manhattan Institute. He's kind
15:00of admitted that well, I mean, he felt
15:02like he had to have an opinion. He's
15:03like, well, I mean, all the people he
15:04knew and seemed like, you know, liberal
15:06people also were pro-Iraq War, right?
15:08So, you know, he was there and then over
15:10the years, especially during the Obama
15:11period, they kind of like crossed paths
15:14and now now that now Glenn is the
15:16conservative and he is definitely, like
15:19you, I I say he's he's center right now.
15:22Definitely like soft on Trump and John
15:24is the center left, you know, more
15:27heterodox liberal again. So, you know,
15:29life is long and you know, it's hard to
15:31define these things. I mean, I will say
15:34I don't generally
15:36use the term black conservative because
15:38uh
15:38who the hell cares which your race is?
15:40Like I no one's ever called me a the a
15:43brown conservative by the way. It's not
15:45all non-white people. I like if someone
15:47called me that I'd be like, "What the
15:47hell?"
15:51Why are you referring to me being brown?
15:53Like that's like [ __ ] weird. You know
15:54what I'm saying? So, in general I think
15:57I think it's well taken. Like Shelby
15:58Steele objected to be called a black
15:59conservative cuz he's like, "I'm just a
16:00conservative." Or actually back in the
16:021990s he was a liberal.
16:05But he was called a black conservative
16:06because he was off the reservation on
16:08affirmative action. And then eventually
16:09he just kind of cave and was like,
16:10"Okay, whatever. I'm conservative." You
16:12know?
16:12Yeah, no. I I actually think the phrase
16:14black conservative is useful because it
16:17explains the distinction that's being
16:19described. And to be a black
16:20conservative is simply to be heterodox
16:22on American race issues. Like that's all
16:24it means. So, like John McWhorter
16:26obviously famously wrote Losing the Race
16:29where he described and this to me is my
16:31one response to both racialists and
16:33hereditarians. I mean like many
16:35variables can impact the DV, but like
16:38John goes in this book through what
16:39we've later seen Brookings do in in more
16:42detail. But like the study time data,
16:44how much time as black students in
16:46multiple universities spent pursuing the
16:48work. These were kids in the same
16:49program as the white kids. I mean, so
16:51you can't argue that they're in simpler
16:53classes or something. He said, "Well,
16:55obviously the biggest problem for the
16:57black community today
17:00paraphrasing him a little bit, but it is
17:01these issues like the fact that we study
17:03a third as much as whites or Asians. Or
17:05that there's this sort of tolerance of
17:07crime as a rebellion where we're making
17:09these neo black exploitation movies in
17:11the late '90s. Like clearly objectively
17:14these are bigger issues than racism in
17:18upscale colleges. And that that's
17:20something that's obviously true that I
17:22think in a bar on a golf course or on a
17:24basketball court like 90% of white or
17:26black certainly males would agree with
17:28but that you're not supposed to say. So
17:29that's what makes John like an outlaw
17:31conservative on everything else. I mean
17:33if you ask him about health care policy,
17:35yeah, I would I would assume he'd be a
17:36standard
17:38liberal not even center left like
17:39liberal guy.
17:40Uh and I mean the New York Times
17:42readership loves him. He's just a mildly
17:43he's no more than mildly he's just
17:45heterodox on race. So that's what that
17:46means. Like I'm very heterodox on race
17:48but I also like coming from the business
17:50world and so on I'm I'm pro-gun. Uh I
17:54would stop illegal immigration almost
17:55totally. Wouldn't be very difficult to
17:57do at all. Build some kind of border
17:59fence even and institute e-verify.
18:02You know, I mean just like I I have no
18:03patience for crime whatsoever.
18:06You know, I don't think being poor is an
18:07excuse for crime. You can check the
18:09Asian data in New York City. So I
18:11actually do have a ton of conservative
18:13positions whereas I don't think John for
18:15example would. But we'd both fall in
18:17that heterodox on race category.
18:20Yeah, I'm going to say something really
18:21quickly. Um it's not part of my plan but
18:23um the immigration thing I've been
18:24thinking about it recently. You know, I
18:25come out of um you know, like if you go
18:28to Wikipedia a lot I mean it still lists
18:30me as a paleo conservative. Um so um
18:34I I was pretty skeptical of like the
18:36mass immigration regime. I mean I myself
18:38am an immigrant but you know, I like I
18:40like the point system, you know, and all
18:41that stuff. I do have to say like just
18:43like straight up I got to be honest 2023
18:45the system's really broken. Um I don't
18:48really I don't really hold it against
18:49people for being illegal anymore. The
18:52the the the nightmares that I've When we
18:54came in the 1980s it was a different
18:57system. Like today's system is just so
19:00so broken that um I I just I I can't
19:03hold it against anyone at this point. Um
19:05I've known people who've like tried to
19:07go through the legal system and it is a
19:09nightmare. It is a nightmare, man. Um
19:11but anyway, uh, just
19:13my little
19:14Well, after 20 years, like I have
19:16changed on this partly just because the
19:17system itself is just like not
19:19sustainable. I don't know what's going
19:21to happen because the left, like
19:22basically the Democrats do not, um,
19:25you know, they have some identity
19:26politics issues of like people that they
19:28want, uh, to not, uh, go to the back of
19:31the line. Um, and you know, the
19:33Republicans don't want another 1996 a
19:35asylum to happen. Uh, they would be, you
19:38know, the Republicans even like Trump
19:40and a lot of the restrictionists would
19:41be okay with just being like, "Okay, you
19:43have a STEM PhD, you can come." You
19:45know? Like you got to be a hardcore
19:46racialist, you know? It's, uh, to
19:48really, um, and that's a very small
19:49minority. Um,
19:52Okay, I'm not going to say who.
19:54There are people out there who like, uh,
19:55are mainstream publications. They just
19:57like, "Let's like Let's just be like,
19:58uh, honest." They just don't like Asian
20:00people, you know? But anyway.
20:02Um, but, um, yeah, like, um, I'm going
20:04to ask you I want to ask you though, um,
20:05you know, so you're You've been
20:07speaking, um, about various cultural
20:10political issues. And you wrote the Hate
20:12Crime Hoax, How the Left Is Selling a
20:15Fake Race War, Taboo, 10 Facts You Can't
20:18Talk About. Um,
20:20I think you are, uh, did You know, there
20:23are a couple of other books, Lies My
20:25Liberal Teacher Told Me. Like were you a
20:26contributor to that?
20:28Wrote Lies My Liberal Teacher Told Me, I
20:29actually wrote, um,
20:31Okay.
20:31Yeah, the idea was that it might be a
20:33multi-person project, but no, I just
20:34finished writing that for HarperCollins.
20:36Okay, so you're writing these books, um,
20:39and we live in a current uh, a time of,
20:41uh, you know, like about 10 years ago we
20:43called call out culture, social justice
20:45culture, now it's like the woke culture.
20:47The terms keep changing. Um, but we have
20:50had, uh, you know, a great awakening in
20:53the second half of the teens. And I, you
20:56know, it seems like it kind of peaked
20:582020, 2021, and it's receding. Like
21:01you're in the middle of this. Um, you're
21:04taking the heat and fire and, you know,
21:06you're in the game, you know? Um
21:08And a lot of people are saying that it's
21:09receding, and that we're possibly
21:12entering a new age. Um or, you know, I
21:14mean, these sorts of, you know, we make
21:15like arbitrary cutoffs, but in reality,
21:17there like ebbs and flows. I Can you
21:19talk about what your perception is as
21:21someone who's been there in in the in
21:23the trenches?
21:24You're So, you're talking about is is
21:25woke culture receding, that kind of
21:27thing?
21:28I mean, yeah, I I
21:29Is peak woke a thing? Like, are we past
21:31peak woke or not?
21:32I I don't think so. It depends what you
21:34mean. So, uh Richard Hanania, actually,
21:37is a guy I disagree with on some things,
21:38possibly probably including some of
21:40these race issues, but um who wrote a
21:43pretty good book about this wrote a very
21:44good book about this recently. I mean,
21:46where he talks about the institutional
21:47roots of quote-unquote wokeness.
21:50And he makes a point that you don't
21:52really hear that often from the
21:53mainstream commentary, uh which is that
21:55this isn't just a dispute about vague
21:59intellectual ideas or something like
22:00that. To some extent, it's a dispute
22:03about what to do with systems that
22:05already exist. So, I mean, like, for
22:07example, the roots of wokeness are in
22:09the different expansions of the Civil
22:11Rights Act to a very significant extent.
22:13And I mean, like, I again, I'm pro-Civil
22:15Rights Act. When I said, like, with much
22:17or all of some of this stuff, I disagree
22:19with the hard right when it comes to,
22:21like, race and equality issues. But,
22:23like, the Civil Rights Act itself only
22:25protects a very small number of groups.
22:28I mean, so you're talking about race,
22:29ethnicity, nationality, Irishman, Jew,
22:32so on and so forth. At that time, it was
22:33probably almost as important. Religion,
22:36you know, sex, which was originally
22:37thrown in there as a joke. If you read
22:39American legal history, the idea was,
22:40"Oh, we'll never pass this. We'd have to
22:41give rights to these broads." I mean,
22:43probably in the minds of some of these
22:44senators. But, um
22:46that's about it. I guess color was added
22:49on as an adjunct category. But, since
22:51then, there've been a whole number of
22:53case There've been a pretty large number
22:54of cases. I forget the actual name of
22:56the decision that added both gay people
22:58and anyone who IDs as trans to the Civil
23:01Rights Act a couple years ago.
23:03But in practice, when when people say
23:05things like we need to get rid of
23:07affirmative action or we need to get rid
23:08of proportional representation in
23:10business. Sorry, I've been a little
23:11clumsy about this so far, but the
23:12point's not 100% accurate. When people
23:14say that, they have to understand that
23:17that's a very difficult thing to do.
23:19Legally. I mean, right now, and I I
23:21trained as a lawyer at a good school.
23:22Like right now, sorry, there's some kind
23:24of disaster outside. There
23:26fire trucks screaming by. So hopefully
23:28everyone's okay. But anyway, So
23:31proportional repres- the lack of
23:33proportional representation in business
23:35employment, if you have more than 15
23:36employees, is a de facto basis for a
23:38lawsuit. It's not going to win you the
23:40case, but you can bring a suit on those
23:42grounds. And that is the just
23:45justificatory reason for affirmative
23:47action in practice. If you hire only the
23:50best qualified people as determined by
23:53an IQ test, which is in fact under
23:55Griggs, 1971, now probably illegal,
23:58you're not going to get a proportionate
24:00mix of people who happen to be, probably
24:03in order, native, then black, then
24:05Hispanic, then white, then Asian. So to
24:07do that in any situation, if you're a
24:09fairly elite college, top 500 of them,
24:12or your Fortune 1,000 company, you're
24:15going to have to institute some kind of
24:17program with a name like balanced
24:18workforce and bring people in
24:21unfairly, if we're being blunt. That's
24:24what's going to be needed given the
24:26current score gaps, given the current
24:28graduation gaps, especially for
24:29Hispanics, for you to get anything that
24:31looks like 60%, 10%, or 12%, 15%. So
24:37saying like, well, affirmative action's
24:39done now, it's been struck down at a
24:42couple of elite colleges. I mean, first
24:44of all, that decision, as I understand,
24:46doesn't automatically apply to any other
24:47sector. It doesn't apply to all
24:49business, it doesn't apply to tech
24:50business, it doesn't apply to prep
24:52schools. So all of those would be
24:54individual cases.
24:55And the center-right justices
24:58provide a loophole right in that case,
25:01where they say you can't just use race
25:02as a factor, but you can use experiences
25:06with suffering that could be expected to
25:08affect test scores as a as a factor when
25:10it comes to judging applicants. So, I
25:12mean, my guess would be that until we
25:14see another case 5 years from now,
25:16colleges are just going to focus more
25:18on, you know, the pain of racism
25:21described in the applicants' essays or
25:23something like that. Well, the future
25:24will show whether I'm right or wrong.
25:26But, the point here
25:28when you talk about peak wokeness, to
25:30actually get rid of wokeness, you'd have
25:32to dismantle the structure that makes it
25:34possible. And I've just done, you know,
25:36kind of blah, blah, blah-y, but in a
25:38pretty fair breakdown, an analysis of
25:40the laws there, but also in every
25:42business now. I mean, you have a
25:43department, a very large department of
25:45HR that focuses primarily on this kind
25:47of stuff, as well as sexual harassment,
25:49as Hannah Neale points out. You have in
25:52many cases a department of diversity or
25:54DEI. I couldn't think of an F1000
25:56without one. You've got other things,
25:58like I mentioned balanced workforce,
25:59which is the goals processes in place in
26:01a lot of companies, you know, what is
26:03ESG, SEL. To really get rid of wokeness,
26:06you'd have to get rid of all of that.
26:08So, I think right now, what you've seen
26:10is public opinion turning against these
26:12policies, but that doesn't really matter
26:14much. I mean, like public opinion during
26:17the Iraq War turned against
26:18extraordinary rendition and torture um
26:22on the part of the military. But, as far
26:24as I can understand from the cases,
26:25those things are still fully legal. The
26:27army just doesn't talk about them. So, I
26:29mean, the the question is what will
26:31actually change on the ground? Like, is
26:32Harvard getting rid of its 72 diversity
26:35employees?
26:36No.
26:37Not not right now.
26:39Well, I mean, so you're talking about um
26:41you know, Dick Kania's
26:43book, and you know, his argument is
26:45interesting because conservatives since
26:48um I mean, I guess like I I it was
26:50before Breitbart, but uh before the
26:52original you know, before Breitbart um
26:54um
26:55he said uh you know, politics is
26:57downstream of culture and what Hanania
26:59is actually saying is no, no, no, the
27:00culture has been shaped uh by the
27:03politics. And he's actually um you know,
27:05wrote a book that came out at about the
27:07same time on a similar topic. So, the
27:09origins of woke, right? Civil rights
27:11law, corporate America triumph of
27:12identity politics. And like uh Dick was
27:13on his podcast. I know Dick pretty well.
27:16Um and uh I'm trying to make Dick
27:17happen. But in any case,
27:19um So, so he wrote that book and then
27:21like um Rufo wrote uh a book
27:25uh
27:25about kind of a similar topic, but he
27:28focused on the culture and kind of like
27:30the bottom-up ideology and how that
27:32shaped uh politics.
27:34Um I'm not going to like say which is
27:38more important, but it seems that um
27:42they are working in synergy. So, uh
27:45Rufo's "America's Cultural Revolution
27:46and How the Radical Left Conquered
27:47Everything" does seem like there is
27:49there is a synergy there though, right?
27:50Because uh the legal framework was there
27:54to operate upon
27:56and the NGOs, the
27:59you know, the
28:01aca- the academy,
28:03um you know, the legal profession, they
28:06started pushing these radical views in
28:10the context of this law which provided
28:12them the opportunity.
28:14And so, they're execu- they're they're
28:15interpreting the law. They interpret the
28:16law by their lights, you know? By what
28:19they think is reasonable. What they
28:20think is reasonable is shaped by the
28:22culture coming out of academia. And so,
28:25I think in in some ways,
28:27why not both? They're both right. Um
28:29obviously, if there was no law, if
28:32there's no civil rights law,
28:33uh
28:34it would be I I don't actually know how
28:36they would intimidate corporations into
28:39doing what they're what what they're
28:41doing because I think you're right, the
28:43law provides a really straightforward
28:44framework
28:46uh for corporations. Like, okay, like
28:48you know, you interview X number of
28:50people, you have this number of people
28:51in this sort of,
28:52you know, position, etc., etc. Like, you
28:55know, it's actionable.
28:57On the other hand,
28:59there are there are laws out there that
29:01people
29:02kind of like enforced and ignored,
29:04right? So, you need the will to enforce
29:08that law.
29:09You know, for example, um
29:11there are plagiarism rules at Harvard
29:14that apparently have not been enforced,
29:16you know? But, the rules are there.
29:18Why why aren't they enforced? Well, you
29:19know, I mean
29:21Look, I mean, when was the last time a
29:22Harvard I mean, aside from Ted Kennedy,
29:24when was the last time you heard about a
29:25plagiarism scandal at Harvard? Look,
29:27they got into Harvard.
29:28That's 99% of the game. You got into
29:31Harvard. Now, give them a degree and let
29:32them go to McKinsey. You know? And so, I
29:35mean, there's like a there's like
29:37multiple games here that I think they're
29:38going. But, you know, your point is
29:39taken. Like, we still have the legal
29:40framework. We still have the legal
29:42framework and even if the culture as a
29:44whole opposes something, that doesn't
29:47really matter.
29:48You know, I'm in Texas right now. It's a
29:50pro-life It's it legislation is
29:52pro-life.
29:53But, if there was a if there was a
29:55single-issue referendum, I'm 99% sure
30:00that abortion would be legal again.
30:02Good point.
30:03Yeah, so I mean, just like one quick
30:04comment there. Like, abortion
30:06most successful people make decisions in
30:09an almost entirely amoral fashion. I
30:11mean, this is one of the most replicable
30:13conclusions in psychology. There's
30:15actually a really interesting
30:16conversation about whether morality is
30:18real at all. Like, we all agree that
30:20humans have an empathic sense, but I
30:22mean, that varies from person to person.
30:24And the question of whether there's any
30:25objective observer of this process who
30:28cares, I mean, I frankly tend to say no,
30:31is the deepest question of human
30:33philosophy. But, I mean, even aside from
30:36what should be or what might be, just
30:37like in practice, most people's
30:39decision-making calculus. When you get
30:41beyond very unsuccessful, overly
30:43empathetic people, and beyond like
30:44priests and saints, is basically just
30:47based on the simple analysis of does
30:49this benefit me more than it harms me?
30:51Like there are a whole bunch of things,
30:53like pornography is the other obvious
30:54example, that are easy to attack on some
30:57kind of ethical grounds, like 2% of
30:58these people could be trafficked. And I
31:00mean the general person's response is
31:02well, 98% of them aren't.
31:04And my watching this isn't going to
31:06really impact whether anyone in the
31:07videos from 10 years ago is or is not.
31:10And I sometimes like watching this with
31:11my girl after dates or before them. I
31:14mean or you know, just by myself if that
31:16fails. You know, I mean so the I know
31:19that 80% majority of men I think, 56%
31:21majority of women use pornography, quote
31:24unquote. So every time you actually see
31:26votes on should porn be banned, should
31:28there be radical restrictions on
31:30erotica, you see radical feminists and
31:32evangelicals making like a huge amount
31:34of noise up front. And then you see the
31:36ordinary person who has a couple copies
31:37of Hustler and some downloads in their
31:39computer just saying hell no in the
31:42privacy of the voting booth. And
31:43abortion is
31:44Oh wait wait wait wait wait bro.
31:46Let's keep it here real. No ordinary
31:49person has a couple of copies of Hustler
31:51today.
31:52No no no it's a dated line. But like
31:54look, almost
31:55Okay, cool. I'm not
31:57I got zoomers listening who have no idea
31:59what you just said. But anyway, I think
32:01they get your sentiment.
32:02You know, the website that grew out of
32:04the magazine is one of the biggest
32:05contributors to porn. I mean people know
32:06what [ __ ] porn is. But the basic
32:08point though is that the percentage of
32:11people that watch porn on the internet,
32:12and actually that's not really true by
32:14the way. I mean like there's still a
32:15huge I I think most of this is targeted
32:17at women. Honestly, when you look at
32:19like this whole genre of bodice rippers
32:21with names like he took me number seven
32:23with pictures. But I mean like if you
32:25look at Ella's survey of like human
32:27kinks, almost as many people use like
32:29written and visual erotica as used
32:32internet pornography. And the percentage
32:34of people that used one or the other was
32:35again almost 100. It was over 80% for
32:38men. But my point there wasn't like what
32:40delivery mechanism dudes prefer. It was
32:43if you actually give people a chance to
32:44go into a voting booth and vote to ban
32:47all porn and kick all 2 million current
32:50thots off OnlyFans and just never see
32:53this stuff again, no one is going to
32:56vote yes. So there's a difference
32:57between virtue signaling behavior in
33:00public and actual behavior in private.
33:02And I think I that was just a lead-in to
33:04I think abortion is the ultimate example
33:06of this.
33:07Because almost everyone almost no one
33:10actually believes that like week two
33:12blastocysts are people.
33:14Again, there we've both read and perhaps
33:15helped design some of the studies on
33:17this. I mean it's nobody does.
33:19Almost every woman can conceive of a
33:21situation rape or one-night stand that
33:24went badly wrong which results in a
33:25pregnancy. Two months in you decide what
33:27you're going to do about that. So again,
33:29the arguments like well, isn't there an
33:32ethical risk to ever taking human life
33:34are morally interesting, but almost no
33:36one is swayed by them. And like I don't
33:38I don't want to go on a long speech
33:39again. Like we see this with the
33:40situation in Texas, right? Where there's
33:42the the woman is pregnant. The baby has
33:45some debilitating medical condition. So
33:47it's probably going to die in her body.
33:48Like it's probably in pain right now.
33:50And the question is can she get a D&C to
33:54remove the baby or does she have to give
33:57birth to the baby as part of some
33:58horrible procedure about seven months in
34:01where it's going to be born and then
34:02they're going to kill it. Like they're
34:03going to give it painkillers that stop
34:06the poor little creature from breathing.
34:07And the answer of the right in Texas is
34:11well, no because the baby's technically
34:13alive now, you should never be able to
34:15take a life. And the ordinary person is
34:17looking at that and saying this sounds
34:18completely insane to me.
34:20So yes, I I have no doubt a bit of a
34:22sideline there, but I have no doubt that
34:24if you were to actually put that to a
34:27vote like
34:28three-fourths or more of women would
34:30vote either just for legal abortion or
34:32for major exceptions to any rule that
34:35held most abortion to be illegal.
34:38All right, I'm going to ask a kind of a
34:40weird question here. Um
34:43You're in an HBCU.
34:45Um
34:46What do your colleagues think about
34:48Ibram Kendi? Like what do they say
34:50behind closed doors?
34:51Well, actually he's never really come
34:54up, which I think is in itself telling.
34:56I mean, so most of my colleagues that I
34:58can think of I mean Fred Williams, a
34:59former major with the Kentucky State
35:01Police, Reginald Thomas who teaches
35:04criminal justice, he's a state senator.
35:07Uh Dr. Amadeife, one of my colleagues,
35:08one of the better Africanists in the
35:10game. I mean, they're all just sort of
35:12state U professors. Like I mean, they're
35:13busy with their methods models.
35:15Um I've never once heard one of them
35:17refer to Ibram Kendi other than maybe a
35:19a chuckle over an op-ed or something
35:20like that. And I think that in and of
35:22itself is telling.
35:24I mean, the Ibram Kendi audience isn't
35:27black statisticians.
35:28It's guilty white people. I mean, and
35:31that that was one of the big things
35:33about the whole BLM movement, right?
35:35Like 70% of the rioters that were
35:37arrested even in downtown Minneapolis,
35:39even in the South were white. I mean,
35:41they were kids who'd come there
35:42basically to fight, to overturn a system
35:45they thought was unjust, and they were
35:46doing that by breaking [ __ ] in
35:48middle-class black neighborhoods very,
35:50very often. Like when they burnt down
35:52the Lake Street black and Asian business
35:55district in Minneapolis. So, I mean
35:58I've always thought that Kendi's
36:00audience was kind of white people who
36:02wanted to support a hip,
36:04sympathetic-looking brother that was
36:07explaining that the only problem in
36:08society was their racism.
36:10And I mean, I I think that when you look
36:12at like the black scholars on point, now
36:13there's just as many annoying woke black
36:15people. I mean, per per capita. I mean,
36:17you know, not denying that. But when you
36:19look at like serious black scholars like
36:20Roland Fryer, William Julius Wilson, I
36:22mean
36:23they're not really citing Kendi that
36:24much. They're looking at empirically, is
36:26there actually a difference between
36:27black and white rates of police
36:29shooting? And you know, 90% of the time
36:31there's not.
36:32So, I I hear very little about Ibram
36:33Kendi.
36:34The only thing I've ever heard about
36:36Robin DiAngelo, uh you know, his his
36:38homie Batman and Robin, I'm not going to
36:40name the colleague who said this, but he
36:42was talking about some of the scenes in
36:43her book. Like there's one where she
36:45goes on a date with a black guy, seems
36:46like a perfectly nice guy, and all she
36:48could think of she said was black jokes.
36:50And my colleague
36:55Now, YOU SHE WAS LIKE SHE WAS SITTING
36:56THERE, SHE'S LIKE MILDLY attracted to
36:57him, it was a nice dinner, you know, she
36:59had the salmon, but like she she
37:00couldn't think about how to talk with
37:02this black guy, and I I may be
37:04paraphrasing this a little, maybe
37:05getting some of this wrong, but she says
37:07all she could think of were jokes and
37:08like ethnic debates in her family and so
37:10on, and then she said something like all
37:12white people think this way.
37:14And my colleague was like, this this
37:16broad seems nuts, basically.
37:18You know, and that that was that was it.
37:20The take was like these very guilty
37:22white people trying to comment on black
37:23issues seem to be projecting a lot of
37:25their pathologies outward. And I mean, I
37:28think that's
37:29If I had to do a one-sentence pop
37:31psychoanalysis here, it would kind of be
37:33like Robin DiAngelo probably came from,
37:36given the name and area background, sort
37:38of a working-class, possibly at least
37:39somewhat bigoted white family, has some
37:43suppressed thoughts herself and thinks
37:44that everyone does.
37:46But in fact, the average like white jock
37:47from the suburbs doesn't. And that's why
37:50the reaction to her book has often the
37:52conversations that follow it become so
37:54silly. Or someone will say, "Well, I'm
37:55not a racist in the sense you're
37:56describing." And the diversity trainer
37:58type will then have to say, "Well, one
38:00of the first signs of being a racist is
38:02denying you're a racist." I mean, so I
38:05you don't hear a lot about that that
38:06sort of thing in serious black academia,
38:08in my experience.
38:09Yeah, um
38:11I do have to say, um
38:13there was a uh
38:15SNL parody SNL commercial about um after
38:18Trump won,
38:20Okay.
38:21um it was about Brooklyn, um and if
38:24basically oh, it's Brooklyn's in a
38:26bubble. What if Trump didn't win and all
38:29the cars are hybrid and all this stuff
38:32the coffee shops are all like fresh
38:34ground coffee and then it shows a woman
38:36reading
38:37between the world and me by Ta-Nehisi
38:39Coates.
38:41Everyone just starts cracking up. And um
38:44you know, people were like I mean I
38:46think Ta-Nehisi actually specifically
38:48said that he was like what does that
38:50even mean? Like why are white people
38:52reading my book and you know, and
38:55what was it? Colin Powell was like oh
38:57wait, wait there So who is this he like
38:59asked his assistant who is this
39:00Ta-Nehisi Coates? Is he like the new
39:02black guy that white people are into?
39:04That captured something really really
39:07like deep there, right?
39:09In terms of like I'm sure Ta-Nehisi is
39:11sincere but you know,
39:14he's you know, his his
39:16his intergenerational wealth is driven
39:18by
39:20offals, you know, affluent white liberal
39:22females purchasing his book.
39:25So it's a really strange situation.
39:28Yeah, no, I think that's correct. I mean
39:31one of the findings in when we talked
39:33about Ella Girl's sex survey was that
39:36the people that were most into like
39:38hyper male dominant extreme sex weren't
39:40men, they were all women. They tended to
39:44lean kind of upper middle class and I
39:47guess the idea was a desire for
39:48discipline or strong father figure
39:51someone to correct them or something but
39:52the analysis is actually pretty
39:53interesting. But there's something kind
39:55of similar here and I'm saying that
39:57because it borders on the masochistic.
39:59Like there's a real demand among upper
40:02middle class whites. Like I've always
40:03liked the term awful for like rich white
40:05ladies. Affluent white female liberal
40:07and I just went through. But I mean
40:09there's a huge demand for like black
40:12guys to say that your racism is the
40:15problem with society. It's all your
40:17father's fault. And I think the
40:19motivation there is that then the idea
40:22is that you can go out and fix it. Like
40:24if you modify the racism in your group
40:26of Chardonnay-sipping housewives, that's
40:29going to have a real practical impact on
40:31like the average black dude in Watts.
40:34So I mean I I think that there's an
40:35element of I'm again not a psychologist,
40:37I'm a political scientist, but there's
40:38an obvious element of like centering
40:40yourself and what you can do to this. So
40:43like there are all these books actually
40:45like nice racism. I think that's another
40:47DiAngelo topic. You have Saidiya Hartman
40:50and Regina Jackson that will literally
40:52go to dinner and like lower upper-class
40:54white neighborhoods and scream at these
40:57white women about racism as they are
40:59served food and before they are paid
41:01$10,000. I mean and the the appeal of
41:04that is not necessarily a real desire to
41:07go to the ghetto and help, it's a desire
41:09to feel that you're part of the ruling
41:11class, you're responsible for this
41:12problem and you, you know,
41:14Barnard-educated young woman can solve
41:17you accept the real problem in the black
41:18community is black dudes shooting each
41:19other, I mean that you don't have a role
41:21to play. And it's also tougher to
41:23process probably. You've been told you
41:24can't think that.
41:26Is there a problem with them? Can't be.
41:29So,
41:30you know, you grew up in Chicago,
41:33um and you're talking about the black
41:34community and stuff like that. Um you
41:36mentioned your your mom is from an
41:38upper-class background, so just like the
41:40Talented Tenth, uh Jack and Jill, like
41:42that sort of set.
41:44Is that still around? Oh, yeah. Yeah, my
41:47mom, uh I think my mom, I now looking
41:49back, my mom tried to probably introduce
41:51me to some of that at an early age. I
41:53mean certainly there was reading and
41:55even I mentioned incredibly exotic
41:56things like with watercolor paints and
41:58calligraphy brushes around. She'd
41:59encourage me to do things with them. Um
42:02she wanted me to meet the family early
42:04on. I mildly regret not doing that more.
42:06And yeah, she wanted me to do some of
42:08those kind of activities. Like I recall
42:09she wanted me to go to IMSA, which is
42:11the Illinois Math and Science Academy,
42:13uh just outside of Chicago. It's
42:15actually in suburban Aurora. And the
42:17idea was I'd go to this prep school and
42:19I would also do There were some black
42:20programs she wanted me to do while I was
42:22there that were in that surrounding
42:23area, like in a suburban minority
42:24community.
42:26And I I actually just didn't want to do
42:27that. I wanted to go to the local public
42:29high school, East Aurora, and be an
42:31athlete there and study a lot less,
42:34which is what ended up happening. And it
42:35turns out that's probably an advantage
42:37when it came to me applying to college
42:38because we didn't have that many
42:40applicants to like Illinois or Brown or
42:42whatever from, you know, EA. But
42:45she definitely pushed that stuff. I
42:47didn't really do it. But is it still
42:49there? Oh, yeah. I mean, it's um
42:52Who is it? Uh
42:54Uh Lawrence Otis Graham wrote Our
42:56Yeah, Our Our Our Kind of People from
42:581999.
42:59Yeah, back in the Yeah.
42:59Otis Graham, yeah.
43:00Decades ago.
43:01that book. That's a good book.
43:02A good book. A new edition as I recall
43:04just came out and he talks about all
43:06this stuff. And almost every one of
43:08those organizations that he talks about,
43:09like, you know, the Alphas, the Deltas,
43:11and the AKAs are very prominent on our
43:13campus. I can't think of an HBCU where
43:15that's not true. They They do good work
43:17in the community. Um the Boule, if I'm
43:19pronouncing that correctly, I'm not a
43:20member at least at present. Couldn't say
43:22if I was. But I mean, like, they are I
43:25mean, that that's known as one of the
43:26four or five men's business groups. They
43:27admit a few whites now in most cities.
43:30Yeah, all that stuff still around. Jack
43:31and Jill almost certainly is. When you
43:33create an organization and it has a
43:36pretty good mission, especially if it's
43:37kind of racialist, so it's like, you
43:38know, the Hibernian American Society and
43:40know they're going to be Irishmen in 100
43:41years, you know, it it generally doesn't
43:43go anywhere.
43:44So, yeah, the the black upper middle
43:45class is still very much there
43:48and kind of trying to figure out what to
43:49do, right? Because I mean, you're
43:51starting to see black billionaires
43:52almost proportionately now. Like, we
43:54still haven't caught up on the tests,
43:56but I mean, we we benefit a bit for
43:58affirmative action, control the music
43:59game. So, you're seeing people like
44:00Jay-Z
44:01multiple eight, nine billion. So,
44:03there's a question on one hand of can we
44:05still blame racism for everything when
44:07we see this a massive successful clay it
44:09over here and we know exactly how they
44:11got successful. That's a big debate in
44:13the black upper middle class where you
44:14know where fall at some of my friends,
44:16but the group itself yeah it's it's
44:18growing.
44:19They're more
44:20now than they were 1970.
44:23Yeah, for sure. For sure. Um
44:26So I I guess I I I have two questions
44:27that I'm I'm kind of curious about like
44:29heterogeneity because um I mean I know
44:32this is not true intellectually, but um
44:34you know uh I I don't like know the
44:37community like you know I mean I live in
44:39Austin not many um anyway I don't want
44:42to get into it, but uh mostly like I
44:43hang out with white and Asian people,
44:44okay? A couple of Latinx people.
44:45Whatever.
44:46Um you know, but I don't know I don't
44:49know firsthand
44:51um
44:51I know intellectually. So what is the
44:54attitude and the position to the fact
44:56that like so for example at Harvard
44:58they're not going to do an ethnographic
45:00survey of the black students quite
45:02clearly cuz they don't want to they
45:04don't want people to know that there's
45:06so many African immigrant children and
45:09Caribbean and whatnot. Like is that
45:11spoken of in the [ __ ] you know,
45:13American descendants of slaves? I mean I
45:15know it is like on social media and
45:17stuff, but
45:18does it show up at HBCUs? I mean in
45:21terms of discussions. Like what's going
45:22on here? And then the other question
45:24that I want to ask is uh
45:26you know, America we have a tradition of
45:28hypodescent. Um one drop of black blood
45:31unless you're Latino apparently.
45:34Um
45:34how far is that going to go cuz we're
45:36starting to get into the period where
45:37it's like you know, I know people that
45:39are a fourth and an eighth black and
45:41Yeah.
45:41Yeah, they're I guess like you know,
45:44they have a grandparent who's black, but
45:45like I mean this is just starting to get
45:46ridiculous.
45:47Yeah, well it it was a frankly alt-right
45:49writer uh John Derbyshire. Um I was
45:52actually reading him while critiquing
45:54like the hard right, but this line was
45:55actually pretty funny where he was like
45:56when you think about it in business
45:57there has to be an ideal percentage of
45:59black quote unquote blood. Like
46:00something like a fourth would be perfect
46:03because you just look to, you know, to
46:04women and employers like a handsome like
46:06Lebanese gentleman, but you'd benefit
46:09from all the affirmative action benefits
46:10and at a fourth no one would question
46:12you. And I was kind of like, you know,
46:13okay, honorable opponent.
46:14stop talking stop talking about Thomas
46:16Chatterton Williams. Stop talking about
46:17Thomas Chatterton Williams.
46:18But it's it was just like, okay, I'm
46:20going to disagree with most of what this
46:21guy says in this essay, but that's laugh
46:22out loud funny. And he like explains
46:24like, you know, some programs have a
46:25cutoff of an eighth, so you wouldn't
46:27want to be that, but you wouldn't
46:28necessarily want to be half. It's it's a
46:29it's a solid line. But you actually see
46:32that a fair amount in the black
46:35community. Like you see guys where you
46:36understand like
46:38if this guy and his girlfriend, the
46:40blonde cheerleader, have a kid, there's
46:42a point at which those kids are in
46:43practice just going to be white. They're
46:45just going to be Southern European.
46:47That's neither good nor bad, but just
46:49genetically that's kind of what's going
46:51on. So, I mean
46:54obviously there's a discussion of that.
46:55So, what you said about the um the
46:58distribution of black students at Ivy
47:00League institutions, not just Harvard.
47:02That's a point that actually I think it
47:03was a W. J. Daub, William Julius Wilson,
47:05that made made decades ago. It's more
47:08true now. But he said, I mean, the the
47:10question with affirmative action isn't
47:12just, you know, theoretically would this
47:14be a boost for descendants of slaves,
47:16but does it actually benefit any such
47:18people? And I mean, by his estimate at
47:20that time, I think it was three quarters
47:22of the black students at Harvard were
47:23either biracial, uh African, not not
47:27even specifically Caribbean, or from
47:29just very wealthy families. Like people
47:30who quite likely had been free in the
47:321700s, you know, children of Benjamin
47:34Banneker and that kind of thing. And so,
47:36the question is, what are you doing in
47:38terms of giving these people an
47:40advantage over, you know, their white
47:42buddies from Martha's Vineyard at an
47:44institution like this? You know, even if
47:46we just applied the test scores
47:48correctly, those kids with their 1350s
47:50would just go to, you know, Purdue
47:52Honors College or something. Like there
47:54would be no massive negative impacts.
47:56Why don't we do that? Um
47:58I guess what I'm saying is yes, the
48:00patterns are recognized. No, they
48:02haven't changed. And no, nothing's been
48:04done about them. Another kind of point
48:07in the whole culturalist hereditary
48:09debate on IQ would be we're not talking
48:11about stable groups, right? So I mean
48:13like how would you boost black IQ
48:15scores? I mean there are a bunch of ways
48:16that a lot of Americans might feel are
48:18too eugenic. Um you know, link welfare
48:21payments where you obviously can't
48:22support yourself to use of birth control
48:24while you're on the program. It's
48:26something that's been suggested in major
48:27developing world powers. You know, you
48:29can have your own moral opinion on that
48:30but it would obviously work. Um
48:32subsidize high-performing families. You
48:34could do the same with athletic whites
48:36to have children. Nothing particularly
48:38complex about that but another thing
48:39would just be when you said let in
48:41anyone from the the black and brown
48:43powers who has a master's or above in
48:46STEM. Why not? I have 500,000 Nigerians
48:49a year. They're only what, 38 million
48:50black people? I mean you'd see massive
48:52changes beginning quite rapidly. So
48:55again, we're not supposed to talk about
48:56this kind of human stock breeding cuz
48:58it's evil or whatever. But I mean yes,
49:00like people in the black community
49:02obviously notice. It's just there's not
49:03really
49:04much to be done. There's some hostility
49:06between [ __ ] blacks and uh newly
49:10arriving blacks in part because black
49:12Americans often uh are not viewed very
49:15highly by people from like the Nigerian
49:17ruling class.
49:18And it's it's obviously not a genetic
49:20thing. It's just like obviously most of
49:21your problems here are your fault. And
49:22there's there's almost nothing more
49:23poisonous to tell a modern black
49:25American.
49:26Yeah, yeah. I mean I yeah.
49:28Um I I don't want to get into I I I
49:30yeah. I I I do have some acquaintances
49:33that are
49:34from Nigeria and they have a
49:37uh Jamaican spicy things to say. Let's
49:39just put it that way.
49:41Um which I will not repeat cuz I don't
49:42want to get canceled.
49:43I've heard friends say crazy stuff. And
49:45I don't think we're going to get
49:45canceled. I'm not saying this. But I
49:47mean like people have said things like
49:48you know, you lost the war. We sold you
49:50over here. And since then you have
49:51learned very little. I mean, it's just
49:52sort of it's that take in other
49:54societies like China and Nigeria, India
49:58of course. I mean, there's an idiotic
49:59Western condescension toward India. I
50:01mean, much of India was you know based
50:03around highly stable kingdoms and city
50:05states and people were painting
50:06themselves blue and hunting wild pigs in
50:08most of Europe. But there's an attitude
50:10toward these other societies
50:12that that's largely unjustified and in
50:14practice people from those societies are
50:16often
50:17much more capable of non-softened
50:21analysis than Westerners in my
50:22experience. So yeah, I mean the thing is
50:24that East Asians or West Africans will
50:25say about Americans in general. Like
50:27they think the whites are insane.
50:29If you cut off your
50:30Yeah. Yeah. Well, what was um
50:31I mean like it's all of that is uh
50:33perhaps of value to our national
50:35conversation. It's a counter to the
50:37excessive empathy problem we have.
50:39Uh well, I mean, you know, there is um
50:41that joke that's going around as we're
50:42recording right now that uh Vivek uh
50:45Ramaswamy um
50:47is is the one bringing replacement
50:49theory to America. You know, it takes a
50:51brown man to
50:53Yeah. It takes a brown man to do um the
50:56white nationalist job now.
50:57Right.
50:58Well, that also I mean like one of the
51:00jokes on Twitter and 4chan is just sort
51:02of like well, when you accuse a group of
51:04people of being racist and you actually
51:05pull up like PFPs and so on and you see
51:07it's like you know three whites, two
51:08West African blacks, three Indians, two
51:10Chinese guys. I mean so like who how
51:13diverse are the people screaming you are
51:16bigots as versus the people being
51:18attacked. So like white nationalism in
51:20the sense that Kendi or DeAngelo would
51:22mean is one of the has to be one of the
51:24most diverse we would both be accused of
51:26it quite likely. You know,
51:28in the US
51:29Yeah. Yeah. It's called multi-racial
51:31whiteness.
51:34Yeah, like the the school district that
51:36literally listed it was Japanese and
51:38Nigerian kids as white and like to some
51:40extent you have to look at this and just
51:41laugh. Like those are the other options.
51:45Like when you look at the great human
51:46civilizations like East Asia, India, you
51:49could throw in Ethiopia, West Africa,
51:51what
51:52Peru I mean
51:53the the people that you are now labeling
51:55white, all the Arabs of course, were
51:57literally the other people who built
52:00tall buildings throughout history. It
52:01just doesn't make sense. There are
52:04characteristics of civilization, would
52:06be a simple way to put this, that brings
52:08success in every society. And the the
52:10fact is that a great many Chinese and
52:12Nigerians and Indians have them, and a
52:14fair number of Western white and black
52:16Americans don't. And you're going to see
52:17those characteristics tell out when you
52:20look at the performance of those five
52:21different groups. So uh you don't you
52:22don't need to come up with some idiotic
52:24rationale like, "Oh yeah, that jet black
52:25chief son from Africa, white guy." Uh
52:28you don't you don't need to do that. You
52:28can just you can just explain what's
52:30going on.
52:31So um you know, you're a political
52:33scientist um
52:34and uh you know, you do you know,
52:37methods and whatnot. Um there's like
52:39arguments arguments in this country
52:41about whether America's you know, going
52:44to collapse or whether you know, our
52:45greatest times um are ahead of us and
52:49you know, I I guess like here like as
52:51I'm as I'm recording right now, I'm
52:53probably feeling not necessarily
52:55optimistic about America, but very
52:56bearish about the rest of the world. And
52:58so I actually think we're going to do
53:00okay positionally. Um but um
53:04I think there's going to be some
53:05problems. Uh you know, the number of
53:07young people is going to decrease. When
53:08you have a decreased number of young
53:09people, that just causes downstream
53:10effects. And
53:12um I do think uh
53:14you know, my friend um Antonio uh
53:17uh Garcia Martinez or Martinez I I don't
53:20know these like double-named Latinx
53:22people. But anyway, he uh you know, like
53:24you know, Clubhouse and like TikTok, all
53:26these like age of orality. And I
53:27basically said like, "Okay, this is
53:29moronic. Uh these kids are are they have
53:31no attention span. They're dumb." So I
53:33think there's a lot of negative things
53:34happening, but you know, they're
53:35happening all over the world. And um you
53:38know, we still have Silicon Valley. You
53:40know, we we're we're the the AI
53:42basically the AI revolution is happening
53:44in the Mission District of San
53:46Francisco. That is how concentrated
53:49some of these revolutionary changes are
53:52in this world. Most of them are in the
53:54United States. There's very few unicorns
53:55in Europe, like maybe Spotify, a few
53:57others, right?
53:58That's how I'm feeling. But you're a
54:00political scientist, you know, we're
54:02going to have an election
54:04followed 2024. Right now Trump is
54:06leading in the polls, etc. etc.
54:09Um we still have moderate inflation.
54:12Um you know,
54:13where where are we right now and where
54:15we going Wilford? Like what are you
54:16thinking?
54:17I mean I I think your analysis is
54:19basically correct. So I am a
54:21professional skeptic of doomsday
54:23predictions.
54:24I mean this is actually something that
54:26should be one of my next pretty serious
54:27articles like journal or long-form. But
54:30I mean so like when people talk about
54:31the most extreme climate change
54:33prediction, there are specific mistakes
54:35that are being made like relying on
54:37worst-case scenarios from unreliable
54:39models that we've seen a dozen times
54:42before like the population bomb still
54:44like the second best-selling book in the
54:45social sciences, the world's going to
54:47end by 1980 was just entirely wrong. And
54:50the guy who wrote that book is still
54:51appearing on CNN and MSNBC, Dr. Paul
54:54Ehrlich. But that's just one of many. I
54:55mean like peak oil, you know, one, two,
54:57three, four, five, six, and seven, you
55:00know, the green tech boom that was
55:01supposed to happen 20 years ago, Y2K,
55:04although there at least we just had to
55:05change the codes, but killer bees and
55:07the great northerly migration, the Club
55:09of Rome, every resource was going to
55:11become unobtainable. All of these in the
55:13night like post-1960s, 1970s modern era.
55:16And I I think we're going through this
55:17again. Oh, global cooling, never as big
55:19deal as the right says but like page two
55:21of Newsweek. On and on and on the
55:23western heterosexual AIDS epidemic. So
55:26when people look at models showing
55:28increases in retractable racial tension
55:30or something they say, you know,
55:31America's falling, my least favorite
55:33Twitter line. No, I I don't think that's
55:35correct. I think the worst-case scenario
55:38for the USA would be pretty much what we
55:40saw for Britain.
55:41Where there's growth, but there's growth
55:43at a slow pace relative to rising
55:46powers. There are political and ethnic
55:48tensions and so on down the line. So,
55:50you kind of see a stagnation in quality
55:52of life throughout much of the UK, you
55:54know, high-level ODs and suicides which
55:56you're already seeing here, so on. But I
55:57mean, Britain is still like the
55:58eighth-ranked power in the world,
55:59something like that. So, I think that's
56:01the worst-case scenario, like China,
56:03India, maybe one of the BRICS-type black
56:07African states or Brazil surges up to
56:09our level or a little past, uh but we're
56:11we're still right there. I mean, you
56:13know, I'm from downtown Chicago, our
56:14miles-high buildings aren't going
56:16anywhere. New York's even bigger. You
56:17mentioned SF, they're a contender when
56:19it comes to tech. You know, throughout
56:20the country, you know, there's there's
56:22some dead cities, Detroit and Baltimore
56:23might be falling in that category. But
56:25no, I mean, the the large majority of
56:27the USA are just a continental power.
56:29We're allied with Canada, which is
56:30almost a continental power. Mexico, we
56:32think of as a little brother neighbor,
56:34that's almost 200 million people. Like,
56:35no, the the North Am block is not going
56:38anywhere. We're not going to collapse
56:39into ethnic war. We also have nuclear
56:41weapons and this sort of thing. I mean,
56:43the idea that the USA would be invaded
56:45or that a race war here would be allowed
56:47to get out of hand before, you know, the
56:49army Hellfire missiles started hitting
56:52the two armies and breaking them apart.
56:53I mean, that this is unrealistic
56:54nonsense. So, no, the USA will continue
56:57on for quite a while. Will we see
56:58increased federalism,
57:00uh increased drug issues, that kind of
57:02thing? That's quite possible, but we're
57:03not going to see dissolution of the
57:04country or anything similar.
57:06It's my take.
57:08All right. So, uh I want to close out.
57:10Um
57:11I want to ask you about Kentucky. Uh so,
57:13I've been to Kentucky, just people know,
57:14I have been to Kentucky. I've been to
57:15Paducah.
57:17Um so, um been through Louisville, uh
57:19been in central Kentucky on some rest
57:20stops. Um you're in Kentucky, people
57:23don't know too much about Kentucky.
57:25Uh it actually has like I mean,
57:27Louisville's a great from what I mean, I
57:28have a friend from Louisville, so I'm
57:29not going to say it's bad. I mean, it's
57:31a great city, You know, it's kind of a
57:33different city than the rest of Kentucky
57:35in some ways. Kentucky's, you know, got
57:37like some regionality. So, Paducah is
57:38definitely like the South, I would say.
57:41But, like you know, there's Appalachia
57:42in Eastern Kentucky. Some of the, you
57:44know, poorest, most deprived areas of
57:47the country are actually in Eastern
57:48Kentucky. And then obviously Louisville
57:50is like, you know, right across from
57:51Ohio. So, there's there's that stuff
57:53going on.
57:54Um but, uh
57:56you know, it it it feels very flyover-y
57:58to me. I know people in Indiana look
58:01down on Kentucky.
58:02Um and Kentucky is kind of a byword for
58:06being kind of backward
58:08uh in large parts of the country. I
58:09don't know why specifically Kentucky,
58:10but that is just a thing. Uh people
58:12don't talk about West Virginia as much
58:14cuz
58:15I don't know. It's just like West
58:16Virginia doesn't like roll off. So, for
58:18example, I went to University of Oregon
58:20in Eugene, Oregon. And uh its sister
58:23city, its city right across the river,
58:25is Springfield,
58:27um Springfield, Oregon. And actually, um
58:30the writers for The Simpsons uh spent
58:33some time in Portland. And uh
58:34Shelbyville is Eugene, and Springfield
58:38is probably Springfield, Oregon. But, in
58:39any case,
58:41um
58:41so, Springfield um people in Eugene
58:43sometimes call it Springtucky,
58:45you know? And uh
58:48wait, why why Springtucky? Well, you
58:49know, it's like poorer. Uh it used to be
58:51a mill town um because of the uh
58:53unwinding of of the forestry industry.
58:55Well, basically, productivity gains got
58:57high. That's why you don't need as many
58:58people, right? So, it's a little bit
59:00poorer, uh a little bit more run-down.
59:03That's why they call it, you know, uh
59:04Springtucky. But, um
59:06you know, you live in you live in what?
59:07Like Frankfort? Is that where you live?
59:09Yeah. So, I mean, like I I think there's
59:11a lot there. Like, first of all, one of
59:13the things that I've always found weird
59:14as a Chicagoan is kind of the coastal
59:17idea that in the Midwest of the country,
59:20there's not much to be found. Like, I
59:22mean, Chicago I'm not going to get into
59:25one of those endless like New York,
59:26Chicago, LA, DC conversations. But like
59:28Chicago is about 10 times the size of
59:31Boston. Like metro but no, I mean that's
59:34not quite fair. Like five. Like
59:35metroplex, if you're counting an honest
59:37metroplex it'd be about 10 million to 2
59:39million maybe. I mean New York of course
59:41is bigger, but I mean like the the
59:43Bosnywash corridor, if we were seriously
59:45like talking cities would have to go up
59:47against the Great Lakes metroplex like
59:49the curve of the inland seas with like
59:51Toronto, Montreal, Chicago, Detroit,
59:55Cleveland, all the Ohio cities. So I
59:57mean like I've the area where I'm from
59:59like in center city of Chicago is
1:00:01actually the most urban area I've lived.
1:00:03Manhattan is a little more urbanized.
1:00:07But like places like Ciudad de Mexico or
1:00:09like downtown Detroit or San Francisco
1:00:11seemed a little bit more rustic frankly.
1:00:14So I've never gotten that and I I think
1:00:15that that attitude that you get toward
1:00:17like Chicago or Montreal or certainly
1:00:19like Cleveland extends even more
1:00:21dramatically if you go like 5 miles
1:00:22inland from the Great Lakes.
1:00:24So I mean in reality where I live in
1:00:26Kentucky is actually
1:00:28like surprisingly mundane. So the
1:00:31population of Kentucky is all
1:00:33concentrated
1:00:34in like a one triangular area which is
1:00:37like Louisville over here, Frankfort
1:00:39which is a capital city in the middle
1:00:40maybe 100,000 people during the day it's
1:00:43the smallest by far, Lexington which is
1:00:44like 400,000 over here, Cincinnati which
1:00:46is like 3 million up here, and I guess
1:00:48Louisville like a million 2 million. But
1:00:50I mean so most of the area between those
1:00:53four cities all of which are like 40
1:00:54minutes apart is again just
1:00:56well-maintained farms and tall
1:00:58buildings. So there's really nothing
1:01:01all that interesting which is actually
1:01:02something that I mean it's a great I
1:01:03mean it's a great social area the
1:01:04Derby's in Louisville. But I mean like
1:01:06when people have come down they're like
1:01:07where are all these nightclubs? I
1:01:08thought there'd be like guys sitting on
1:01:09porches playing gut fiddles and banjos
1:01:12and so on. So no, not really. The the
1:01:15association with Kentucky that I think
1:01:17produces that is with the Appalachian
1:01:19Highlands to the east. So yeah, like
1:01:21five of the 10 poorest counties in the
1:01:23USA are in Appalachian, Kentucky. And
1:01:27this again, like one of the things that
1:01:29I focus on
1:01:29It's the It's that's the legacy of white
1:01:31supremacy. That's what Dr. Ibram X.
1:01:33Kendi would tell you.
1:01:34Well, the interesting thing about that
1:01:35is that like a lot of these guys there's
1:01:37a term I once heard from a boss who'd
1:01:39been a Marine and the term was
1:01:41thin-telligent, which was his word for
1:01:43people that are like kind of
1:01:44smart-seeming, like they know how to
1:01:46wear a tie, but they've really only
1:01:48they've read through like nine
1:01:49historical facts and don't know anything
1:01:51else. So, that's how slavery strikes me
1:01:53with a lot of the black left. Like
1:01:55you've got to understand we were once
1:01:56enslaved and the idea is that that's the
1:01:58ender of conversations about reparations
1:02:00and so on. And if you bring up, well,
1:02:01the Native Americans were defeated in a
1:02:03series of wars that lasted 400 years,
1:02:05they're like, well, all the poor whites
1:02:06also came here as Well, if you prefer
1:02:07they came here as bond servants, but you
1:02:09know, bond servitude wasn't illegal
1:02:11until a couple years after the Civil
1:02:12War. When you make these points it's
1:02:14just sort of like, well, why didn't I
1:02:15know that? Uh Eastern Kentucky actually
1:02:18is the legacy of that, like what's
1:02:19talked about in the white cargo, where
1:02:21Britain for a long time just dumped its
1:02:23poor people and its criminals and so on
1:02:26in like the less populated colonies and
1:02:29territories.
1:02:30Um
1:02:31So, yeah, I mean, you can trace like the
1:02:33descendants of the freed indentured
1:02:35servants and so on in Kentucky, Ohio, so
1:02:38on to this day. But for whatever reason,
1:02:41uh yeah, Eastern Kentucky, I think if
1:02:42you start with Harlan and go down, has
1:02:44five of the 10 poorest counties in the
1:02:47country. And again, in terms of like
1:02:49real history, I don't think any of the
1:02:51poorest counties in the country are
1:02:52majority black. Actually, uh East St.
1:02:54Louis might get in like 10 or 11.
1:02:56They're all poor white areas or Native
1:02:58Indian reservations. Murder's a little
1:03:00bit lower, but like suicide, opiates,
1:03:02all this stuff is through the roof. It's
1:03:04just nobody really gives a [ __ ] because
1:03:06nobody There are no news networks there.
1:03:10You know, like news comes out of Harlan,
1:03:11like there was a giant biker brawl or
1:03:13they busted an opiate ring or something
1:03:15like that. When it goes to the Kentucky
1:03:17papers in Louisville and Lexington and
1:03:18then what, 4 days later circulates the
1:03:20AP wire. So there's not the constant
1:03:23barrage that you get with, you know,
1:03:24black crime in the cities or something
1:03:26like that or the mob back in the day.
1:03:27But it's it's very much there.
1:03:29So I I guess like, you know, um some
1:03:32academics complain that they have to
1:03:33live in the middle of nowhere, but you
1:03:35don't sound like you got that problem in
1:03:36Frank Franklin uh
1:03:38you like it there or Frank for that
1:03:40area, you like it there.
1:03:41Yeah, I like it well enough. I mean like
1:03:42in fact I like Frankfort a lot. But
1:03:44again,
1:03:45the idea everything is relative and
1:03:48contextual. So
1:03:50if I drive 40 minutes east, I'm in
1:03:53downtown Louisville. I mean, so I
1:03:55actually don't feel and I might have a
1:03:57bit of privilege here. Like there are
1:03:59people that teach at like Utah State
1:04:01that I would assume are really in the
1:04:04boondocks to some extent. Like you're in
1:04:06a ski town, you're several hours from
1:04:09Salt Lake City and there are no other
1:04:10cities nearby.
1:04:11And I can understand that attitude in
1:04:13that case.
1:04:14But the large majority of academics,
1:04:16unless they come from downtown New York
1:04:18City or Chicago and unless they're in
1:04:19that situation, I think they're just
1:04:20kind of griping.
1:04:22You know, I mean I don't think too many
1:04:23people actually have a problem living,
1:04:24you know, where the University of
1:04:25Illinois is or Penn State is or
1:04:28University of Michigan is so on down the
1:04:29line.
1:04:30I I think you make a good point that
1:04:31you're like not that far of a drive
1:04:32away. So like I mean why you could you
1:04:34know, it's just like you're living in
1:04:35the suburbs, right?
1:04:36Yeah, pretty much. I mean like
1:04:38Yeah.
1:04:39That is exactly correct, actually. So
1:04:42Yeah, I mean they're all they're all
1:04:43pretty connected. I mean I guess
1:04:45technically Frankfort and Louisville
1:04:46have like little suburbs, but in
1:04:49practice most people feel the ability to
1:04:52go to any of the other cities whenever
1:04:53they want to. So yeah, I'm I'm I'm
1:04:55content. I enjoy K-State. I don't really
1:04:57see myself as
1:04:59Well, I don't know. I mean like I've
1:05:00gotten other academic offers and so far
1:05:03have always said no to a move on. I mean
1:05:05if there was an offer in downtown DC or
1:05:08something like that. I mean if a think
1:05:09tank spot opens up, who knows? But right
1:05:12now, yeah, I'm very very content.
1:05:14Well, okay, so last question. Last
1:05:16question, as they say.
1:05:18Uh Chinese food
1:05:19uh
1:05:20where you live? Like what's it like? Is
1:05:22it any good?
1:05:23Um you know, this is this is the measure
1:05:24of civilization in in Rezib Khan world,
1:05:27so.
1:05:27This actually this is one of the few
1:05:30downsides of like the central Midwest.
1:05:32Actually, in Louisville and Lexington,
1:05:33there are like just below Zagat like
1:05:35well-known Chinese restaurants. In
1:05:37Frankfort, not really. Because the there
1:05:39are very few Asian people.
1:05:41I mean, this is something like when you
1:05:43talked about the different racial
1:05:44demographics of different cities. Like
1:05:46in Austin, there aren't that many
1:05:47blacks.
1:05:49So, I mean, I would imagine that has
1:05:50impact on everything from the musical
1:05:52and art scene to local athletics. Like
1:05:55it's the same thing in Kentucky. I mean,
1:05:56we're about what, 85% white, 12% black,
1:06:013% native. I mean, there's not that much
1:06:03room left for people from Thailand or
1:06:06Vietnam, China as well. So, I mean, like
1:06:09again, in the major cities in the area,
1:06:11certainly like Cincinnati. If you drive
1:06:13up north towards Chicago, you'll find,
1:06:14you know, excellent Chinese food. But,
1:06:16there's there's very little in
1:06:17Frankfort. I think we have two Chinese
1:06:18restaurants.
1:06:20Wow.
1:06:20I'm going to Wait, wait, wait. I I got
1:06:22to say something cuz like I know people
1:06:23are going to be like looking me up and
1:06:24stuff like that. I'm going to give the
1:06:26statistics so the people know what where
1:06:28I'm coming from and that I am not like a
1:06:31uh
1:06:31uh white nationalist or something, okay?
1:06:34Uh
1:06:35Austin's 48% non-Hispanic white, 33%
1:06:39Latinx, 8% Asian, 8% black or
1:06:42African-American, and 9% mixed, okay?
1:06:45And uh just my socio-demographic circle
1:06:48tends to be mostly
1:06:50uh
1:06:52You know, with a lot of the Latino
1:06:53people here, I'm just I'm going to be
1:06:54honest, like they're part Latino or so.
1:06:56I don't I don't I don't know until like
1:06:58it's like, oh, they're like
1:07:00You know, okay, I mean, I I told this
1:07:02story I think one another One of my One
1:07:04of my closer friends here is a He has a
1:07:06Latino I'm going to use Gomez because
1:07:08it's common. He's a Latino, he has a
1:07:10Spanish last name, he's a fourth
1:07:12Mexican.
1:07:13Uh he is uh
1:07:15I mean he's like
1:07:16not as built as uh the guy who played um
1:07:21the two twins in the social um you know
1:07:24um Armie Hammer. He's not as built as
1:07:26him. He looks kind of like Armie Hammer.
1:07:28So this is these are the kind of Latinos
1:07:30that I encounter here. But um yeah um
1:07:32just like you know
1:07:34the the demographics here are like a
1:07:36little different. Um I definitely notice
1:07:38when I go to like northern like Midwest
1:07:39cities or northeastern cities, it feels
1:07:41like a black and white America much
1:07:43more, especially the ones that have not
1:07:44developed too much. Like let's say
1:07:45Syracuse.
1:07:47I'm thinking of Syracuse, you know? Um
1:07:49it's a it's a whole different America in
1:07:50a way.
1:07:51An older America in a way. An America
1:07:53that like kind of um you know it's like
1:07:55rate it's like you know Reagan's or
1:07:57maybe Carter's America. Whereas like
1:07:59when I live in you know Austin, Calif-
1:08:01you know to some extent California,
1:08:02Florida, you know you go to Miami
1:08:05bro, it's just like
1:08:07you know
1:08:08you better be speaking Spanish cuz uh
1:08:11they're like what's wrong with you if
1:08:12you don't. Like that's my experience.
1:08:14You get there and they're just like no
1:08:15service, you know?
1:08:17Do you speak Spanish?
1:08:18I don't. So I'm like really screwed in
1:08:20Miami. Like literally like I've been to
1:08:22Miami multiple times and it's it's it's
1:08:24an inconvenience.
1:08:26Yeah, I speak it uh fairly well. I mean
1:08:29but yeah, so I there definitely are
1:08:31different demographic patterns in the
1:08:32USA. I actually think that's pretty
1:08:35wholesome and I also think I mean we
1:08:36need to regulate mass migration across
1:08:38the border, but I also don't think
1:08:40that's all that unusual in big
1:08:41countries. Again, if you look at Brazil,
1:08:43India, you know the EU taken as a whole,
1:08:46the Roman Empire. The idea that
1:08:48diversity is something novel that just
1:08:51got introduced to the West is actually
1:08:53really stupid. I mean that that's one of
1:08:55the kind of like distant right arguments
1:08:57that just doesn't make any sense at all.
1:08:59Like I mean what? 25% of the population
1:09:02of the current United States used to be
1:09:03unsettled Native American tribesmen that
1:09:05were at war with the settlers. I mean,
1:09:07you know, the reason that the population
1:09:09of Mexico, we conquered the northern
1:09:10third of Mexico, which at that time was
1:09:12quote unquote the sector with all the
1:09:14paved roads. The reason those people
1:09:16didn't count as Hispanic in our
1:09:17population censuses is that and there
1:09:20were something like 20 million people
1:09:21there, we didn't count Hispanic as a
1:09:23category until 1973.
1:09:25And since that point, we've never had
1:09:26less than 5% Hispanics. And at first,
1:09:28that began as unmixed Hispanic. So, I
1:09:31mean, just like the the idea that
1:09:32different parts of the country look
1:09:33different, I kind of like.
1:09:35Like I like going to Miami and seeing
1:09:37Cuban women from Florida International
1:09:39partying and, you know, going to, you
1:09:41know,
1:09:41I'm sure I'm sure you do. I'm sure you
1:09:43do, Dr. Riley.
1:09:44Yeah, that's the most appealing to me.
1:09:45But I mean, like but you know, going to
1:09:47the Detroit suburbs and seeing rich
1:09:48black guys mowing their lawn and going
1:09:50to North Dakota and seeing like
1:09:51Caucasian cowboys. There that's part of
1:09:54being a a gigantic nation. So,
1:09:59yeah, I mean, in Kentucky, we don't have
1:10:00a lot of Asian people. It it it's it all
1:10:03depends if you get regionally. There's a
1:10:04large There's a surprisingly large
1:10:06arriving Mexican-American population
1:10:08actually in the the larger cities. Which
1:10:11I started seeing just a couple years
1:10:12ago, like guys doing construction or
1:10:14like taco trucks on the streets and so
1:10:15on. So, that'll probably within a decade
1:10:18or two be 5, 10, 15% of the population.
1:10:21But no, Chinese food is one of the one
1:10:22of the area's weaknesses.
1:10:24Because you know,
1:10:24Well, you know,
1:10:27Well, I mean, um,
1:10:28you know, uh, it was great talking to
1:10:30you. Um, all your stuff I'll I'll put
1:10:32the links in the show notes. Um,
1:10:34obviously, uh, you are a, you know, I
1:10:36think like the word raconteur. I think
1:10:38that that that applies to you. You know,
1:10:39you can pull out the thesaurus a little
1:10:40bit.
1:10:42There's uh, there's always something to
1:10:44talk about. Let's do this some other
1:10:45time. Um, you know, I've I've guessed on
1:10:47your podcast before. You know, happy to
1:10:49do it again. Um, but I I hope people
1:10:51enjoyed the conversation and hey
1:10:53everyone out there. Um, we're both
1:10:55brownish people. Uh, please don't cancel
1:10:57us. White women.
1:11:00Fair enough.
1:11:01I like thanks, man.
1:11:02Good talking to you.
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