Bringing An End To Race Politics - Coleman Hughes

1. 0:00 – 4:29

   The State of Race in America

   1. CWChris Williamson0:00

      What do you think about the state of race in America now? What's your meteorological weather report?

   2. CHColeman Hughes0:07

      Yeah, so, you know, the reason I wrote this book, uh, is that this idea of colorblindness, which means you try to treat people without regard to race. I see obviously that you're a quote unquote "white guy." You see that I'm a quote unquote "Black guy," but I'm gonna treat you like Chris Williamson, knowing everything I know about you as an individual, and I ask you to treat me like Coleman Hughes, knowing everything you know about me. And we don't regard, we don't give weight to each other's races when we treat each other. And my book is, is advocating not just for that, but also advocating for getting race out of public policy. In America, we have all kinds of policies that use racial discrimination, uh, explicitly. And people have various reasons for this, to fight racism, to combat the legacy of slavery, and so forth. And in my book, I wanna argue instead for a colorblind philosophy. Let's get race out of public policy. If we want to correct for disadvantages, let's do that on the base of s- basis of socioeconomics and class. And, uh, uh, i- in my view, this is a much healthier path towards the ideal of a colorblind society. It used to be, you know, common sense on the left and in liberal circles that that's what you wanted to do. In, in the mid '60s, you had Martin Luther King writing t- and speaking to, to this effect, but in the past 50 years, and particularly in the past 10 with the explosion of Black Lives Matter, social justice, wokeness, DEI, critical race theory, whatever you wanna call it, this idea of colorblindness has come under attack as naive at best or as white supremacist, uh, uh, uh, at worst. So, so in the book here, I really try to rescue this idea of colorblindness because I think it's the, uh, the wisest way to actually navigate a multiracial, multiethnic society in the long run.

   3. CWChris Williamson2:02

      Explain to me the difference between being colorblind and not seeing race, 'cause that kinda became a meme. "I don't see race-"

   4. CHColeman Hughes2:09

      Right.

   5. CWChris Williamson2:09

      ... became a meme. What, is there a difference?

   6. CHColeman Hughes2:11

      I think there's a huge difference because the truth is, we all see race, right? When someone says, "I don't see race," I understand what they're getting at, but it's actually a lie. It's not true. I could... You know, e- everyone watching this can see that you're white and that, that I'm not, right? So when people say, "I don't see race," they're putting up a very convenient target for the critics of colorblindness to say, "Look, they're just being naive. They're pretending not to see race." Uh, uh, and it allows people to dismiss the deeper philosophy of colorblindness without giving it a fair consideration. So in my book, I, I advocate that people just stop saying that. It, it gives enemies of colorblindness far too easy a target. What you should say instead is, "I try to treat people without regard to race." Now, that doesn't roll off the tongue quite as quickly, but it's, it's, it's much closer to the truth. It's more accurate. And so, um, you know, I think we should all admit that we see ra- race, all admit that we are theoretically capable of being raci- racist. All of us are. So this is not a book that's telling you to be naive or to pretend that racism doesn't exist. It's a book that says we should treat people without regard to race, both in our personal lives and in our public policy.

   7. CWChris Williamson3:28

      You mentioned before about this abandonment of the conversation around class, and this focus on the conversation around race. This is something that I've noticed, especially coming from the UK, which is still a super classist society. I have a party trick that I've done a couple of times over the last year since moving to America. If there's me and another British dude or girl in the room, I'll say, "Don't tell me anything about you. Just, uh, let- let's have a conversation for 60 seconds about something that isn't you and your origins, and I'll try and work out where you're from, what sort of school you went to, what level of education you've got, what your parents did, what, what class you would be considered from." And the ability to do that, I don't know if that's a skillset that the Americans have to be able to just, zzz, x-ray in on someone's class background.

   8. CHColeman Hughes4:14

      Mm-hmm.

   9. CWChris Williamson4:14

      Uh, but just accent and presentation of British people denotes so much about their background.

   10. CHColeman Hughes4:21

       Right, right. Yeah, no, no, that makes sense. I mean, you can sort of do that in America, but not, probably not quite to the same extent.

   11. CWChris Williamson4:28

       Mm-hmm.

2. 4:29 – 7:47

   Is This Not a Class Issue?

   1. CWChris Williamson4:29

      So talk to me about this abandonment, the conversation around class, and this prioritization of race instead because, you know, classic left-leaning policies were about class. They weren't about race.

   2. CHColeman Hughes4:42

      Mm-hmm. Yeah, so during the civil rights movement, um, the, the policy of the civil rights movement... And you can, anyone can read this in Martin Luther King's book, Why We Can't Wait, from the mid '60s. He says, "Here's the plan. We are going to have a anti-poverty program." He called it the Bill of Rights for the disadvantaged. "It's gonna benefit the Black poor, it's gonna benefit the white poor alike on the basis, on the basis of class, though it will benefit Black people disproportionately because Black people are disproportionately poor to begin with. But it won't be a race-based policy, it'll be a class-based policy, and we're gonna get rid of Jim Crow, get rid of all race-based policies, and proceed with a kind of war on poverty and disadvantage that is colorblind in nature." Everyone agreed, uh, I mean, for, for, for a brief moment, the elites at least, the people in power agreed, passed the landmark civil rights legislation of the 1960s, which made it the case that, for instance, my grandfather and grandmother could vote and so on and so forth, uh, sit, uh, wherever they wanted on a bus, go to whatever restaurant they wanted, go to whatever school they wanted. And then in the late '60s, there was a series of destructive riots, over 150 riots in, in American cities.A- around this issue of race and policing, um. And what happened is, everyone who had just agreed to this colorblind principle lost faith in it, because they said, "I- if we just agreed on colorblindness past all this legislation, how come there's all this rioting? Clearly, we, we must need to do more. We must need to do something else." And the only thing that I can compare this to, and you and I li- uh, uh, the lifetime of most of your listeners, if not all of your listeners, is the summer of 2020 when George Floyd, uh, died in Minneapolis, and you had riots all over the country in most American cities. And, and you had politicians and, uh, just everyday people, uh, feeling enormous pressure to put racial identity on the front burner, to do... a- and, and to do all kinds of things. Every elite institution was in some way trying to, uh, promote Black people to high levels of authority, to show how much they cared about Black people, uh, to require Black people to be on the boards of publicly traded companies, to, you know, change the categories that the Grammy Awards operate under. Just e- everything, right? Everyone felt this enormous pressure to, s- quote unquote, "center race." Something very similar happened in the late '60s, and that's where the m- m- impetus for race-based affirmative a- affirmative action came from, and the whole suite of race-based policies that have become normal, uh, i- i- in American society. So, that's really what happened with the pivot away from colorblindness.

3. 7:47 – 12:18

   America’s Reaction to George Floyd

   1. CHColeman Hughes7:47

   2. CWChris Williamson7:47

      It's... Looking back on 2020, it was almost like a collective apology from people that didn't really know what was going on. "We feel like maybe someone's being racist somewhere. Maybe this George Floyd thing is indicative of some huge, big underlying problem. Oh my God, I don't know. That makes me such a piece of shit. I, I, I'm not... I don't have my finger on the pulse empathetically, sympathetically, I, I, I, I, I'm not a good person. Uh, what can we do to not only signal that I'm not one of them, whoever them are, but also to make reparations to fix this problem? I need to, I need to make sure that these poor minorities are okay, and let, let's bring a bunch of impetuses along, a bunch of procedures-

   3. CHColeman Hughes8:34

      Mm-hmm.

   4. CWChris Williamson8:34

      ... a bunch of, a bunch of initiatives that people can do."

   5. CHColeman Hughes8:37

      Yes. So, the, the... One of the reasons people had that sense is because, because the media, the national media in America does not report when there are police incidents with white Americans. It just doesn't become news. And it's partly because of the media. It's partly because there's less of an audience for it. So, for example, there was a guy named Tony Timpa who died in a way extremely similar to George Floyd with an officer's knee on the top of his back for about 13 minutes. And they're cracking jokes as he's losing consciousness, saying, "Wake up for school, Tony." Just really, uh, terrible behavior for a, a group of police officers, and he died. Whole thing was caught on video. You can look it up on, on YouTube. Almost nobody to this day knows or, or, or cares about it because it didn't catch fire because he happened to be white. This was just a, uh, two or... uh, three or four years before, before George Floyd. So, when you have a media ecosystem where those stories are unseen, now when you see it happening to a Black person, everyone assumes that this kind of thing only happens to Black people because they are Black. And then it becomes an example of racism that ties into the whole legacy of slavery, legacy of racial inequality, and really infuriates people. And so people, in 2020, they lost all reason. They didn't ask whether all the policies they were implementing had anything to do with helping Black people, uh, the kinds of Black people that are poor and from poor, uh, backgrounds like George Floyd. Instead, they promoted Black people to the heads of, uh, board, bo- uh, boards of publicly traded companies as if those are the same kinds of Black people that need help like George Floyd. Uh, in ce- essentially, they made the Black elite even better off than it was before, while at the same time, uh, defunding the police for neighborhoods where Black people need them the most, okay? At the time of the summer of 2020, Gallup polled Black Americans with three simple questions. "Do you want more police in your neighborhood, the same police presence in your neighborhood, or less?" 80% answered, "The same," or more. Only 20% wanted less police. And that was the position, a very minority position within the Black community, of the Black Lives Matter movement, the Defund the Police movement, and so forth. Police were defunded in many cities in America and then later refunded, um, i- i- in many cases by popular demand within the Black community in certain places. And the end result was that 2020 represented the single greatest increase in homicide from year to year in America in the past 100 years, okay? That is a, a shocking fact that most people don't know, and it was a direct result of the reaction to George Floyd's death, the depolicing, the, the, uh, mass retirement of the police, the general sentiment of anti-police. And it hurt nobody more than the Black community because those homicides were not equally distributed in nice neighborhoods and less... They were highly concentrated.... precisely in communities that are disproportionately Black and disproportionately poor.

4. 12:18 – 19:57

   The Irony of Defunding the Police

   1. CHColeman Hughes12:18

   2. CWChris Williamson12:18

      I taught Joe Rogan yesterday on his podcast about luxury beliefs from-

   3. CHColeman Hughes12:24

      Hm.

   4. CWChris Williamson12:24

      ... that's been recently repopularized by Rob Henderson, and Defund The Police is patient zero for this. I mentioned that I was walking through Austin and saw a house that has a Defund The Police, uh, placard in the garden-

   5. CHColeman Hughes12:38

      Mm-hmm.

   6. CWChris Williamson12:38

      ... and a private security sticker next to the front door in the window.

   7. CHColeman Hughes12:42

      (laughs) Yeah. Uh, uh, uh, I mean, the, the fact that people like that don't see the irony is really depressing to me. I mean, the- there are literally people that have their own private security detail, okay, who supported Defund The Police. There are people in gated neighborhoods who pay a premium just so that strangers can't come near their house, not even in their house, but near their house, who want to- want to gut police forces in, uh, that are, you know, for- for poor neighborhoods. Th- this is amazing, and that's wha- that's what happened in 2020, and more importantly, that's what can happen, uh, in particular in America on the left when people- when people only obey their empathy towards a video and suspend the rational thought that should come with that. Okay, this video is horrible. Let- let's all agree that. What is actually the best way to move forward? Let's not just rage. Let's actually think, uh, look at evidence, and not be so hasty with supporting policies that might backfire for the very people you're trying to help.

   8. CWChris Williamson13:57

      I think it would have been very difficult during the summer of 2020 to have put out, uh, realistic crime impact statistics, um, what the actual polls are saying from mostly Black neighborhoods. I think anyone that posted that, it would have been very quickly lambasted as some white supremacist's race denial, you don't care, you don't understand, you don't know. I... Uh, that would've been the smart thing to do, but the incentives all aligned to not ha- I mean, who- who was going to be the person that does that? If it was a Black person, they'd be accused of being an Uncle Tom.

   9. CHColeman Hughes14:35

      Right.

   10. CWChris Williamson14:36

       If it was a white person, they'd be accused of being racist.

   11. CHColeman Hughes14:38

       Right.

   12. CWChris Williamson14:39

       Th- there's- there was no vector in which that narrative could have inserted itself, I don't think.

   13. CHColeman Hughes14:46

       Yeah. I mean, Sam Harris tried to. I think he released like a-

   14. CWChris Williamson14:49

       Oh, my God, dude.

   15. CHColeman Hughes14:50

       ... 90-minute- 90-minute audio essay.

   16. CWChris Williamson14:51

       Can we pull back from the brink?

   17. CHColeman Hughes14:52

       Yeah, Pull Back from the Brink, which was very good.

   18. CWChris Williamson14:55

       One of the best. For the people that haven't listened to it, even now, it is- it is one of the best, like, monologues I think that I've ever heard.

   19. CHColeman Hughes15:04

       Yeah.

   20. CWChris Williamson15:04

       That thing is phenomenal.

   21. CHColeman Hughes15:06

       It- it was spot on in my view, uh, and I'm sure he took a lot of flak for it. Uh, as- as my friend Kamil Foster likes to say, people like me and Kamil have the melanin force field, which is-

   22. CWChris Williamson15:20

       (laughs)

   23. CHColeman Hughes15:20

       ... you know, no one is gonna call me a racist. They may, as you say, they may call me an Uncle Tom or a traitor to my community and so forth, to which I would respond, "What- what could be more of a betrayal to your community than not speaking out when you know that policies are being adopted that are going to lead to potentially hundreds or thousands of excess deaths for Black people?" 'Cause that's what happened.

   24. CWChris Williamson15:49

       The internet is obsessed with the prioritization of looking good over doing good.

   25. CHColeman Hughes15:55

       Mm-hmm.

   26. CWChris Williamson15:56

       Completely obsessed with it, because the distance between our opinions and our deeds have never been greater. So, it's very easy to hide behind words that sound caring and- and- and just and forthright and charitable and understanding. And the implications of it, what actually happens, kind of no one really ever fact checks that. It's like, "Oh, well, he was the guy, and, uh, I'm sure he had good intentions. Who could have foreseen that defunding the police would have negatively impacted Black people?" Well, I don't know, if- if you'd used a little bit-

   27. CHColeman Hughes16:29

       Um-

   28. CWChris Williamson16:29

       ... of, uh, uh, a little bit of s- second order thinking.

   29. CHColeman Hughes16:32

       Mm-hmm. A lot of people foresaw it. A lot of people talked about it at the time, me included, uh, but mostly we were ignored because of the- the frenzy around, uh, around the moment. I mean, it's- it's very interesting to live through a moment that I think will be written about, uh, by historians.

   30. CWChris Williamson16:52

       Yeah.
5. 19:57 – 30:18

   Racism, Anti-Racism & Neo-Racism

   1. CHColeman Hughes19:58

   2. CWChris Williamson19:58

      Talk to me about the relationship between racism, anti-racism, and neo-racism.

   3. CHColeman Hughes20:05

      So, over the past 10 years, there's been a, a, a real upswing in what many have called anti-racism. I'm talking in particular, if your listeners may have heard of people like Ibram Kendi, Ta-Nehisi Coates, um, Robin DiAngelo. Uh, these are people that got a big, uh, in the case of Kendi and DiAngelo, got a, a big boost by the atmosphere of 2020, but they've been around in writing for longer than that. And they have a kind of philosophy around anti-racism that comes out of critical race theory. And their philosophy is that, you know, a, a white guy like you should be more or less constantly thinking about how your whiteness has, uh, given you privilege. How your, how, how your whiteness blinds you to the realities that a Black person like me can see. And on DiAngelo's account, you are supposed to be constantly deferent to b- to Black people in conversation. So, she literally says in, in her book, "If you and I are talking about race, you as a white guy, me as a Black guy, you are not supposed to disagree with what I have to say about race." You're not supposed to argue back. You're not supposed to remain silent. You're not supposed to get defensive. So, if you cross everything on the list, off the list, by process of elimination, what's left is to vocally agree with whatever I'm saying. Now, I don't think you and I could have a, a meaningful conversation, meaningful conversation as adults if the rules are, you have to agree with everything I say and simply defer to my superior epistemic authority. That can't be, that can't be wha- that can't paint the path towards a healthy, multi-racial society where we try our best to get along despite our differences. It has to be a two-way street. It has to be that you can learn things from me and I can learn things from you based on our individual experiences. You may know stuff I don't know. I may, I may know stuff you don't know. And ultimately, there is an objective reality out there independent of our perspectives. Like, I ... There are facts in the world that don't depend on your skin color or my skin color. And so, uh, th- that's been the style of anti-racism that's been promoted. Now, I, I view that as, in fact, racist. It's, it's in fact racist to suggest that different races of people should live by different sets of books.

   4. CWChris Williamson22:48

      Hmm.

   5. CHColeman Hughes22:48

      Uh, and, and so I, uh, I call it, instead of anti-racism, I call it, I call it neo-racism. And I substitute my own form of anti-racism which is, your race does not matter. Your race says nothing about who you are. It doesn't say whether you're smart or dumb, it doesn't say whether you're kind or, or mean. Uh, it, it doesn't speak to any of your deeper values. And we have to be, uh, enshrining that and teaching people to think that way if we are, if we're gonna, you know, have success in the long run.

   6. CWChris Williamson23:24

      Why did that particular narrative spread so effectively?

   7. CHColeman Hughes23:29

      Hmm.

   8. CWChris Williamson23:29

      What, what made it, uh, so memetically contagious?

   9. CHColeman Hughes23:33

      Yeah, that's a great question. So, I have a whole chapter about this in my book. The interesting part is, if you go back only to 2012 or 2013, just, uh, uh, 11 years ago, the majority of Americans, Black, white and Hispanic, all believed that race relations were good, right? That, that, that may shock people, but very recently, uh, the majority of m- of Americans of all colors thought that we were in a good, or somewhat good place. Then in 2013, if you look at the polls, suddenly it just takes a nosedive. And it had been steady or, or getting better for, for many decades. So, something happened in 2013 that has yet to reverse and that has literally cut in half the number of Amer- Americans that think we're in a good place with respect to race.Hypothesis one, racism suddenly increased and everyone noticed it. Well, we have ways of measuring that and- and- and it's just not the case. There's no evidence that racism suddenly increased in 2013 however way you look at it. My hypothesis, and the only one that actually makes sense, is that 2013 is around the year that a critical mass of people had two pieces of technology, camera-enabled smartphones and social media. If you go back to the pre-2013 world, if something happened between, uh, a cop, a- a- a... Say a white cop was trying to arrest a Black suspect and it went sideways, the only way you'd know about that is if your local newspaper covered it. It might make your local, uh, paper the next day. Perhaps it would make the six o'clock news if you were watching it. There is unlikely to be a video of it. And when you saw it, it would be surrounded with journalistic context. The journalist would have asked the police f- f- for their point of view, would have asked the family for their point of view, and would be packaging it to you in, with some kind of journalistic, uh, ethos. In the post-2013 world, what happens is, in that same situation, police trying to arrest a suspect, someone has probably pulled out their smartphone within two minutes, begun filming an- a- a video which is now out of context of how the interaction started, and they've uploaded it to Facebook and Twitter and Instagram, and it gets millions of views as raw footage before anyone puts any journalistic or fact-checking context around what it is and what it means and why it happened. That's a fundamental change in the way that information spreads, and so I make an analogy in the book. Imagine if the, uh, if- if- if the speed limit on the highway in America were sudden- suddenly went from, you know, 80 miles an hour to 200 miles an hour. Not all cars would be able to take advantage of that change. So like a Chevy Spark has a top speed of what, maybe 90 miles per hour? But a- a McLaren that can go up to 250 is- is- it's gonna be suddenly a lot different to be a McLaren driver. This is anal- analogous to what happened when we got smartphones and social media. The speed limit on the information highway doubled, tripled, quadrupled, or more, and certain kinds of information on that new highway were able to take advantage of that speed limit change and others were not. The kinds of things that spread insanely in the age of social media algorithms, it turns out, in America and the West at large, are videos that tap directly into, uh, the- the us versus them, historical guilt, white guilt, uh, Black outrage. This is, uh, somehow at the core of the American and Western European psyche in a way that leads videos that- that evoke that, that push that button, to just spread like wildfire. And they spread much faster than the fact-checking and the journalistic context can spread because those things appeal more to reason than emotion. So there are so many of these incidents that, uh, people just experience the initial outrage of seeing and learning about what happened and they don't experience, uh, the fact-checking. And that- that's in a nutshell what happened. It created the false perception that racism was on the rise when in fact racism was in decline.

   10. CWChris Williamson28:42

       This is reflected in a ton of surveys and polling data as well.

   11. CHColeman Hughes28:47

       Yes.

   12. CWChris Williamson28:47

       Do you think the... What is the number of Black people per year that are killed by police? What is the number of Black people that are shot by other Black people or shot by white people? Or how many people would have a problem with their son or daughter marrying a person of the opposite race?

   13. CHColeman Hughes29:02

       Yep. Absolutely. So y- you point out a really important one because there are a lot of people that would like to say, "Okay, Coleman, I understand what you're saying, but isn't it just that social media and smartphones exposed us to all the racism that was out there, that we just-"

   14. CWChris Williamson29:19

       Finally a window into what was going on all along.

   15. CHColeman Hughes29:21

       Yes. Finally, we just see it, and that's what people are reacting to. Well, if that were true, then you would expect people who are online to have an accurate perception of how much racism and how much police violence is out there. That's an easily testable proposition and it has been tested. And I cite one study in my book which, in 2019, asked v- Americans of different political pursu- persuasions, uh, but in particular very liberal Americans, who are the most on social media and therefore on this theory should be the most educated, how many unarmed Black Americans are killed by the cops every year. And the answer on average was about 1,000. The true number that year was 12. So that should put to rest the notion that social media is making us all smarter and more informed on the- on these kinds of issues. It's not. It's doing the opposite.

6. 30:18 – 33:27

   Why Else Have Races Become More Divided?

   1. CHColeman Hughes30:18

   2. CWChris Williamson30:18

      Is social media and videos of Black people being mistreated enough to galvanize and sustain...... the change in perception of race relations. Like that, I can totally see why that would be the inflection point, 2012-

   3. CHColeman Hughes30:36

      Mm-hmm.

   4. CWChris Williamson30:36

      ... 2013. But there's been an awful long time of this compounding. You would have expected that someone would have been able to come in with counterexamples that everyone's sights on the scope would have sort of been adjusted by, "Oh, well, here's some actual data about what's going on." Is that it? Is that... In a nutshell, that's all? What- what else has caused this to perpetuate?

   5. CHColeman Hughes30:57

      Yeah. Well, it- it's a good question because I do think that that is the main cause and- and the trigger. Um, but there are some background facts that I think are also important that allow American society to be more vulnerable to division today than it would have been in the past. One is, uh, the Cold War ended. Uh, we no longer have had a really scary external enemy that unites the country. Maybe... I mean, Putin was close, but it's not... We're kind of divided on Putin now. I mean, Tucker Carlson clearly likes him. Um, we're not really united against China because China is not as obviously our main geopolitical rival as the Soviet Union was. Um, and so, you know, uh, I- I forget who- who- who it was. It might have been actually Kissinger that said this, uh, someone e- or someone else, that war unites countries and peace divides them. So the- the United States is, as a side effect of being a country that's perpetually at peace, even when we're at war and faraway places, our homeland is never threatened, almost ever. Uh, that allows us to focus more on divisions. Uh, and then secondly, I think the- the- the war on terror losing its psychological hold on people also, once again, allows us to turn inward more and focus on our own divisions. This is a pretty big effect because, you know, look at a society like Israel. Israel was in one of its deepest divisions that it's ever been in its country's history prior to October 7th over judicial reform. It was completely split. It was a- it was- it was a society almost traumatized by its splitness. Uh, you had people predicting civil war even over this stuff. The second it gets attacked, it's like all of that doesn't matter. No one even talks about it, right? The whole country unites around the war that they have to fight. So America, as a side effect of being so generally at peace, uh, is quite inward-looking and inward-obsessed.

7. 33:27 – 45:38

   Are People Treating Each Other Worse?

   1. CWChris Williamson33:27

      How has this changed or impacted the way that people behave interpersonally?

   2. CHColeman Hughes33:35

      I think before 2013, and certainly in my childhood, I grew up in a multiracial, multiethnic town. I had friends of every race, and I did not think of them as belonging to a race. I thought of them as their individual names, uh, and their individual characters. Um, I made, uh, innocent racial jokes with all of my friends, and i- it was something held very loosely, not very deeply, as it should be. Uh, in the- in the new age of race obsession, I think there's- there are many situations that have introduced paranoia and tension into the relationship of people with different races. I mean, just the fact that, say, I'm meeting a white person for the first time, they don't know anything about me, they just see that I'm Black. Because of everything they see on social media and the- the cancellations of people for saying the wrong thing and the ubiquity of concern about racism, they may think to themselves, "You know what? I- I'm not even gonna risk saying what I- uh, saying what I think about, uh, you know, this- this new policy we have, like, uh, around this Black guy. Why would I- wh- why would I even risk it? He's probably..." Little do they know that I might agree with them (laughs) and that might be the opening to a really interesting conversation, but...

   3. CWChris Williamson35:02

      Or even disagree with them, but be very interested in having a conversation and-

   4. CHColeman Hughes35:06

      That's right.

   5. CWChris Williamson35:06

      ... not offended.

   6. CHColeman Hughes35:07

      That's right. That's right. And so I think the self-censorship and- and- and, uh, you know, all of it is... I mean, I- I can't tell you how many employers I've talked to or have reached out to me that said, "Yeah, I- I mean, I don't even know if I want to hire a Black employee because if something- if something happens in this day and age, or if- if I fire them for a genuine cause, which has to happen all the time, uh, the possibility that they claim I'm a racist and spread it all over social media could be ruinous for me." Right? This is- this i- these are the things no one talks about that actually do change, uh, change the on- on-the-ground reality for race relations in- in ways that are, uh, really, really negative, I think.

   7. CWChris Williamson36:02

      There was a study that I looked at about how MeToo hurt women's careers.

   8. CHColeman Hughes36:08

      Mm-hmm.

   9. CWChris Williamson36:08

      Women's productivity fell post MeToo largely due to fewer collaborations with men. A study of research collaborations involving junior female academic economists showed that they started fewer new research projects...... after Me Too. "The decline is driven largely by fewer collaborations with new male co-authors at the same institution. The jo- the drop in collaborations is concentrated in universities where they- the perceived risk of sexual harassment accusations for men is high, that is, when both sexual harassment policies are more ambiguous, exposing men to a larger variety of claims, and the number of public sexual harassment incidents is also high. The results suggest that Me Too is associated with increased cost of collaboration that disadvantaged the career opportunities of women. Me Too was important to raise awareness, but the intent was not to impose costs on women's careers."

   10. CHColeman Hughes36:58

       Yeah. It's very interesting, uh, I remember that result. Uh, it- it just shows you how, you know, i- in every cultural phenomenon changes incentives in a way that has downstream consequences. Now, that doesn't mean it's bad. You know, m- perhaps that was a necessary cost. I don't know. You know, I- I'm also, uh, I'm curious if- if the Me Too movement had a similar effect on- on, like, dating, uh, and approaches by men in general.

   11. CWChris Williamson37:28

       It has, yeah.

   12. CHColeman Hughes37:28

       Right? Yeah.

   13. CWChris Williamson37:29

       Men- men report approach anxiety increasing because of fear of being Me Too'ed.

   14. CHColeman Hughes37:34

       Right. And, um, uh, and I wonder if women, uh, I wonder, I'm curious if women report wanting more approaches than they're- they're getting-

   15. CWChris Williamson37:42

       That's also true.

   16. CHColeman Hughes37:42

       ... than they were getting in the past.

   17. CWChris Williamson37:43

       That's- that's- that's also true, but here's the other thing, uh, almost like a kind of bizarre, psychological Stockholm syndrome, uh, that women are also more afraid of being approached. They want to be approached, but their sensitivity, their trepidation about being approached has also increased, because what are you seeing? You're seeing ... We're mimetic creatures. We look to others and the behavior and the patterns that they show as an indication of how we should behave.

   18. CHColeman Hughes38:12

       Mm-hmm.

   19. CWChris Williamson38:13

       And if what you're seeing is that, uh, this guy, uh, isn't to be trusted and, uh, doesn't ... A tweet that went viral a couple of weeks ago about how, um, a guy paying you a compliment is a red flag, because he's love bombing.

   20. CHColeman Hughes38:28

       (laughs)

   21. CWChris Williamson38:28

       So, you know, th- there's basically this, um, uh, repurposing of any kind of male behavior or any kind of white behavior-

   22. CHColeman Hughes38:38

       Mm-hmm.

   23. CWChris Williamson38:38

       ... any male behavior toward a woman or any white behavior toward a Black person-

   24. CHColeman Hughes38:42

       Mm-hmm.

   25. CWChris Williamson38:42

       ... can be interpreted in a- a way that fits a narrative of perpetrator and victim.

   26. CHColeman Hughes38:51

       Mm-hmm. Right. It's kind of similar in a way to, uh, you know, I- I remember in early 2020, I think, uh, this is after Ahmaud Arbery was killed in an attempted citizen's arrest gone wrong while he was out on a jog. And this was a, this was a tragic incident, and it was a example of just why you should never try to do a citizen's arrest unless for some reason you absolutely have to. Um, but, uh, you know, you know, you saw articles saying, you know, the dangers of- of- of- of jogging while Black, right? You had, you had, you literally had a New York Times op, uh, op-ed which was, you know, a- a guy saying that he fears for his life every time he leaves his house to take a jog, right? Pro- probably a guy that's, you know, like from the suburbs and no one's died, no one's been killed taking a jog in that town probably for 100 years, right? (laughs) Like, um, and- and the odds of getting killed by a cop on a jog are probably lower than the odds of getting struck by lightning, okay? Let's be perfectly clear about that. So, but what happens when you have New York Times articles saying that when you have, uh, you know, just a- a whole narrative that plays up the risks of, as a Black person, getting shot by the police, even though they're infinitesimal? What happens is you get everyday, normal Black people, if they get pulled over for speeding or whatever, actually now fearing for their lives, right? And bringing all of that fear with them to their interaction with the cops. You have just, uh, uh, and I- I'm sure cops have seen this, you just have people freaking out when there's almost no chance that something's gonna go left in this interaction, because you've done nothing wrong, they've got both hands on the steering wheel, but they're freaking out because they've seen this narrative.

   27. CWChris Williamson40:59

       That's right. Yeah.

   28. CHColeman Hughes41:00

       Yeah.

   29. CWChris Williamson41:00

       Did you see the Dartmouth scar experiment?

   30. CHColeman Hughes41:03

       Mm-mm.
8. 45:38 – 52:47

   The Ineffectiveness of Affirmative Action

   1. CWChris Williamson45:38

      affirmative action. You mentioned this earlier on.

   2. CHColeman Hughes45:41

      Mm-hmm.

   3. CWChris Williamson45:41

      Is that useful? What about all of the corporate diversity and inclusion efforts beyond the ones that try to get more Black people on boards? Were there not, you know, drives to get people into, uh, high paying jobs or, or, or to fast track them into-

   4. CHColeman Hughes45:58

      Mm-hmm.

   5. CWChris Williamson45:58

      ... higher education institutions? What's your postmortem on that?

   6. CHColeman Hughes46:03

      Yeah. So there's kind of an older, healthier v- version of DEI that I would support which is, let's say you're a boss and you've got 10 people reporting to you, uh, let's say you're a white man. And, uh, you might, like, fall into the habit of golfing with the other white men every other weekend, and never really think to invite, you know, the, the Hispanic guy or the Black woman or, or, or whatever, not out of conscious prejudice but just because what if they don't golf, um, and y- and you don't, so you don't think to ask them. And so you can fall into a pattern of like with like-

   7. CWChris Williamson46:52

      Golfers and non-golfers. Oh.

   8. CHColeman Hughes46:53

      Yeah, yeah, uh, of just, yeah, you can have some kind of magnetism with the people that are more similar to you without actually trying to exclude anybody. So a kind of innocent and useful version of DEI is just to have, like, corporate best practices with respect to including people, like make sure you go to lunch with everyone one-on-one once a month, right? Have that be a policy.

   9. CWChris Williamson47:23

      Golf neutral best practices.

   10. CHColeman Hughes47:25

       Exactly, yeah. So, okay, so if that's what you mean by DEI, then I think I'm all for it. Unfortunately, what most organizations mean by DEI is we have to have a certain number or a certain percentage or at l- uh, uh, uh, a certain vague range of percentages of nonwhite people and women or else we're a racist and sexist institution. Now, that makes me completely uncomfortable because I know that it, it is a sacred value to people. I know there's, I mean, there's people that would, would listen to this and just turn it off halfway through the sentence to even challenge that that is, uh, an important value. But I don't know about you, Chris, when I wanna hire someone to work on my podcast, I don't give two flying fucks what they look like.... I want to hire the most competent person that is in my price range.

   11. CWChris Williamson48:32

       Same thing goes for when you produce your music, which everyone should go and check out, by the way, Cold X Man on YouTube.

   12. CHColeman Hughes48:39

       Yeah.

   13. CWChris Williamson48:39

       Uh, phenomenal. Dude, I- I sent you videos of me listening to it in the car. But if it's the- the guy that's mastering your tracks or making your beats-

   14. CHColeman Hughes48:47

       Yeah.

   15. CWChris Williamson48:47

       ... or helping you mix everything down or helping you film the music video... What was it, Ukraine? Did you go to Ukraine?

   16. CHColeman Hughes48:52

       Y- yeah, I did go to Ukraine, yeah.

   17. CWChris Williamson48:54

       Before... This was prior, I think.

   18. CHColeman Hughes48:56

       Yeah. I- I have a habit of visiting countries right before they break out into war. I think it might-

   19. CWChris Williamson49:00

       Have you considered that you might be associated somehow?

   20. CHColeman Hughes49:02

       (laughs) Yeah.

   21. CWChris Williamson49:03

       That you could be the genesis?

   22. CHColeman Hughes49:05

       Yeah.

   23. CWChris Williamson49:05

       Did you film a music video in Israel on October 6th?

   24. CHColeman Hughes49:07

       No, but I- I- I went there, um, uh, like 10 months before the war.

   25. CWChris Williamson49:12

       Blame it on you.

   26. CHColeman Hughes49:13

       Yeah.

   27. CWChris Williamson49:14

       Goddammit.

   28. CHColeman Hughes49:14

       So, um, uh, w- well... Yeah. So- so DEI. Right. So I think if- if I reserve that right for myself, how can I deny it to- to a corporation? I- I- I- I don't understand. I think that people, uh, pay lots of lip service to the idea of diversity because, uh, for, like, a- a cosmopolitan, globalized person, which I would consider myself too, uh, we- we... A lot of us are xenophiles and we like diversity. Like, you know, it- it's nice to have people of many different cultures inhabiting the same room. It's- it's- it's enriching. Uh, but I think diversity is kind of like love, if you force it, you've kind of missed the point. But if it arises naturally, it's awesome. I mean, l- you know, look at... There are, uh, sub- sub-fields in the arts and music that are highly diverse with no quota or bending of- of the merit principle necessary. Look at the comedy world, look at the music world. These are highly diverse places and no one has to manufacture the diversity. That's great. But in this place where you don't have it, I'm not sure that you ought to manufacture it. Should we be reducing the number of Black people in the NBA because it's- it's so undiverse? Um, I'm not sure. (clears throat) I- I- I mean, it may sound glib, but I give an- examples in the book. D- did anyone think that The Beatles, like, needed a person of color? Does anyone think that Earth, Wind and Fire needed a white person? I don't think so. I mean, the- if things can be... Uh, groups of people can be excellent and also homogenous and who are- who are we from the outside to say that that's a racist circumstance? Now, I will give one exception, which is that if being racially homogenous prevents some institution from doing its job well, then by all means. So for instance, if the NYPD were 100% white guys, I can imagine how that might make it more difficult for the police to protect the community, because the community inevitably might perceive that as just a colonial relationship, as white people policing people of color. So- so that's a situation where they actually c- can't do their job as effectively unless they are racially diverse. So if you're in a situation like that, by all means, uh, pursue diversity. But, uh, most of us are not at firms and companies that are in that situation. Most of us are in situations more like, you know, at least my- my cartoon image of what firefighting is, it's like the fire doesn't care what color you are, right? So get the best people.

   29. CWChris Williamson52:15

       Have any of the race-based policies actually worked? Have any of them actually helped, in your opinion?

   30. CHColeman Hughes52:24

       Uh (laughs) it's very difficult for me to think of any that have- have helped more than they hurt, let's put it that way. I'm not saying none have helped, but it is difficult to think of any that have helped more than they hurt.
9. 52:47 – 56:23

   How People Respond to Coleman’s Work

   1. CHColeman Hughes52:47

   2. CWChris Williamson52:47

      Dude, I'm fascinated by what the... what it's like to be you talking about this stuff.

   3. CHColeman Hughes52:55

      (laughs)

   4. CWChris Williamson52:56

      Uh, you know, you had this- this sort of incident with Ted a little while ago.

   5. CHColeman Hughes53:03

      Mm-hmm.

   6. CWChris Williamson53:03

      Uh, I always think... I have this, um... Do you know what the peak-end rule is in psychology?

   7. CHColeman Hughes53:08

      Mm-mm. Oh, yeah. Yes.

   8. CWChris Williamson53:09

      Um, uh, yes. People tend to remember the most, um, emotionally salent- salient and the final experience of- of- of- of one particular event. Um, I kind of have a- the peak-hate rule, um, which describes, uh, content creators and- and- and individuals in the world, uh, that almost all individuals are known by their most egregious blowup and their most recent blowup.

   9. CHColeman Hughes53:34

      (laughs) That's good.

   10. CWChris Williamson53:34

       And I guess it's unfortunate that yours... Both- for both of... Yours- yours overlap over the top.

   11. CHColeman Hughes53:38

       Yeah.

   12. CWChris Williamson53:38

       Uh, Jordan Peterson, for instance, might be, um, he didn't want to call trans people by their name, 2016, and he lost his license because he's a bigot on the internet-

   13. CHColeman Hughes53:50

       Mm-hmm.

   14. CWChris Williamson53:50

       ... or he has things to say about Sports Illustrated models. You know, like, there's the- the- the peak one and then there's the- the most recent one. Um, I always wonder, uh (laughs) , you know, like how many people are like, "This is the last time that I'll ever step onto the field of play," whether it's, "This is the thing. This is my crowning cancellation or my crowning sort of moment of- of- of- of furor or whatever." Um, but yeah, you had this thing and it happens with Ted and... I- I'm- I'm pretty fascinated by what the response has been to you talking about this. You've just been on Bill Maher, tons and tons of exposure on Sam Harris's show, you've been on Rogan's show. Like it's as- as big as it can get with this.

   15. CHColeman Hughes54:27

       Yeah.

   16. CWChris Williamson54:28

       What...What do people say? What- what- what's the response like to you on the negative side of the fence?

   17. CHColeman Hughes54:36

       Uh, uh, the response to me is still m- mostly positive, and then there's a sort of concentrated stream of extreme negativity. Uh, so ... A- and then a lot of people that ignore me, that- that might, uh, uh, that- that might not ignore me if I were saying something different. But, uh, you- look, over- overwhelmingly, I- I get a lot of support, and I'm enormously grateful for it, and more and more, as I've I think gotten better at writing and speaking, and as ... in particular as- as we've gotten further and further away from the height of 2020 craziness, more and more people have seen in their own lives the cost of obsessing over race, uh, the cost of suspending reason because of a desire to acknowledge racism. More and more people have lived those costs over the past few years, and so more and more people, I think, have become sympathetic to my concerns and to- to my message. Uh, on the other hand, there's, as there always has been, there is an- an extreme concentrated ray of hatred towards me (laughs) by-

   18. CWChris Williamson55:53

       Gamma burst of vitriol.

   19. CHColeman Hughes55:55

       Yeah, and it doesn't give me superpowers, unfortunately. Or maybe it does in- in some way. But-

   20. CWChris Williamson55:59

       Uh, well, you're able- you're able to make wars happen, uh, a couple-

   21. CHColeman Hughes56:02

       Right.

   22. CWChris Williamson56:02

       ... of minutes after you attend different countries.

   23. CHColeman Hughes56:05

       Yeah, it's a weird superpower. I'm not sure I'd be a member of the Justice League with that, but ... (laughs)

   24. CWChris Williamson56:11

       (laughs) War man. It's war man.

   25. CHColeman Hughes56:12

       Yeah, war plus 10-month delay. (laughs)

   26. CWChris Williamson56:14

       Yeah, goddammit.

   27. CHColeman Hughes56:16

       (laughs)

   28. CWChris Williamson56:18

       It's really fascinating, man, to observe that- that thing unfold.

10. 56:23 – 1:02:02

    The Inertia of Changing Perspectives

    1. CWChris Williamson56:23

       I- I- I spoke to this dude a while ago on the show, um, who had researched the history of existential risk, of human understanding of our own capacity to destroy ourselves and of the environment's capacity to destroy us, too.

    2. CHColeman Hughes56:37

       Mm-hmm.

    3. CWChris Williamson56:37

       And he taught me this idea called conceptual inertia, which is beautiful, 'cause it's explained within the- the concept as well, that ideas take time to move. And I kind of ... I think about cultural changes, uh, and- and the, uh, acceptance, uh, and understanding and then propagation of ideas, new ideas, kind of like a huge tanker that's moving across the sea, that it takes a fucking eternity to get it to go left or right or even begin to nudge it a tiny little bit.

    4. CHColeman Hughes57:12

       Mm-hmm.

    5. CWChris Williamson57:12

       There's that, uh, quote about whatever it is, like, uh, um, science- science makes progress one dead generation of scientists at a time.

    6. CHColeman Hughes57:20

       Mm-hmm.

    7. CWChris Williamson57:21

       And this conceptual inertia thing, uh, is a perfect example. Even after it was pretty, uh, widely accepted that the Earth was no longer the center of the solar system or the center of the universe, it took, like, two generations for that to be common parlance amongst people that were talking about it, that even after it was accepted, there was still kind of this reticence or just this delay. There was this inertia-

    8. CHColeman Hughes57:49

       Mm-hmm.

    9. CWChris Williamson57:49

       ... that was carried over from previously. And the problem is, you think, well, ideas, uh, they literally travel at the speed of light. They travel at the speed of understanding. But it turns out the speed of understanding is really slow.

    10. CHColeman Hughes58:00

        Mm-hmm.

    11. CWChris Williamson58:01

        And it's not just the speed of understanding. It's like, "I get this. I reject it." Why- I- there's a critical mass of- of, um, information or justification that I need to be able to believe-

    12. CHColeman Hughes58:12

        Mm-hmm.

    13. CWChris Williamson58:12

        ... that this thing is the case, but then I've got ... It's not just me believing. It's everybody else, because I don't just act in a vacuum, and there's, uh, a tendency for people to skew what they think or believe based on what other people think or believe or what they think other people will think or believe about them thinking or believing that thing.

    14. CHColeman Hughes58:30

        Mm-hmm.

    15. CWChris Williamson58:31

        And then it's still ... you know, it's just this s- so many ... It's a lumbering behemoth-

    16. CHColeman Hughes58:36

        Mm-hmm.

    17. CWChris Williamson58:36

        ... this leviathan that takes forever to- to move around. And it's such a shame, because people who are able to see ... You know, uh, I remember in 2020 hearing about the defund the police things, and I could ... I was listening to people like yourself, like Sam, that were highlighting the potential negative downstream externalities of these kinds of policies being implemented, and yet there's still people now, nearly four years hence, that would say, that would- that would deny that that is, uh, something that's had a negative impact. And you know-

    18. CHColeman Hughes59:14

        Mm-hmm.

    19. CWChris Williamson59:14

        ... you're right. Living through history is a very bizarre scenario, but it's even, it must be even more bizarre if you're Cassandra, and you're able to ... you're Black Cassandra, and you're able to say, "Look, I ... Th- this was something that we- we- we didn't need to wait a decade to be able to work out that this was going to happen. We could have seen it kind of at the time."

    20. CHColeman Hughes59:32

        Mm-hmm.

    21. CWChris Williamson59:32

        And there's this, like I say, this sort of critical mass. It was very- it's a very interesting time.

    22. CHColeman Hughes59:37

        Yeah, absolutely. I mean, uh, with respect to change, you know, changing people's, or, uh, opinions, in some sense, we're both in the business of this, uh, um, you know, eh, just in that we have podcasts and- and so on. But, uh, you're right about your point about inertia. Uh, at the same time, there are situations where I- I think they could ... uh, I think they're called, like, an availability cascade or- or something like this. I- I've heard this guy, Cass Sunstein talk about these situations.

    23. CWChris Williamson1:00:12

        Yes, he wrote a book with, uh, the dude that did Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman.

    24. CHColeman Hughes1:00:17

        Yeah. I'm sure others have talked about this, but there can be situations where everyone is pretending to believe something, but no one really knows ... uh, most people don't know that everyone else is pretending, right? Everyone thinks that they're the only one.

    25. CWChris Williamson1:00:34

        It's the- the- the Abilene paradox is another-

    26. CHColeman Hughes1:00:35

        Yeah.

    27. CWChris Williamson1:00:36

        ... name for this. Yeah.

    28. CHColeman Hughes1:00:37

        Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. That's great. And then ...... if you get an emperor's, emperor has no clothes moment where, where a few people come out and talk about it, there can be a sort of cascade where everyone realizes f- relatively quickly that they're not on board. And, uh-

    29. CWChris Williamson1:00:53

        The s- veils fall from their eyes type thing.

    30. CHColeman Hughes1:00:56

        Absolutely, yeah. And, and with, with certain... With certain beliefs in the, in the belief cluster of woke social justice, it at least seems theoretically possible that, that that can happen. You know, uh, I- I- I would, at least I- I would, I would hope. At the same time, I haven't really seen it happen, so, uh, who knows?
11. 1:02:02 – 1:11:10

    Rising Trends of Revising American History

    1. CWChris Williamson1:02:02

       What about this trend of revising American history?

    2. CHColeman Hughes1:02:07

       Mm-hmm.

    3. CWChris Williamson1:02:07

       How has that played into everything?

    4. CHColeman Hughes1:02:10

       Yeah, so in my book I talk about this. Th- there is a trend, uh, not just in writing about history but also in Hollywood movies about history of playing up the sins of white supremacy and the sins of white people, and downplaying, uh, any responsibility that, that Black people have. So for example, there was a movie called The Woman King which came out last year. I don't know if you saw this. It was Viola Davis, uh... Viola Davis was, uh, one of the kind of chief military officers in an African tribe called the Dahomey which famously had an all-female warrior unit, and that's actually true. They had a, a warrior unit of females. And, uh, in reality, the Dahomey tribe in West Africa, you know, slave trading was essentially their, uh, their a- whole MO. I mean, it was a huge part of their MO was raiding other African tribes, capturing them as slaves, using those slaves themselves, and also selling those slaves to the highest bidder which, in that case, was Europeans who would bring them to the, to what was then called the New World. So the Dahomey tribe, you know, no bueno, as you would say, historically. From a historical perspective, just a lot of slave capturing, a lot of slave trading, okay?

    5. CWChris Williamson1:03:42

       (laughs) Yeah.

    6. CHColeman Hughes1:03:43

       So in the movie about the Dahomey, they portray it as if, uh, the Dahomey generals had this great guilt about slave trading and- and they get rid of the slaves, I- I think by- if I- if memory serves, by the end of the movie. Or- or at the very least, the main character is, like, so conflicted by the fact that they're doing slave trading, uh, and- and- and I think they actually do end it, uh, by the end of the movie. No s-

    7. CWChris Williamson1:04:14

       There's a, there's a redemption arc somehow.

    8. CHColeman Hughes1:04:16

       Yeah, there's a redemption arc that ends with the slavery being, them washing... "No more of this." Uh, this absolutely didn't happen. They were, they were, they were actually one of the most persistent in slave trading unanimously. It was just accepted, right? So I- I- I give that one example because the idea is like, for- for Hollywood, for the culture of Hollywood, it doesn't compute that a group of Black Africans would just be fully committed to slave trading as- as an activity even though that's what the historical record shows. It doesn't compute because slavery is something only white people do, right? Um, I give another example. Uh, the- the movie Hidden Figures which was about astronauts at NASA, it was probably seven years ago or so. Astronauts at NASA, there were a few Black women in the 1950s that were... that worked at NASA and helped them get to the moon. Uh, but they, at the same time, this is during segregation, so they are living during segregation but also working at NASA helping America get to the moon, and it's this kind of hero arc of these, these Black women. And one of the Black women in... who it's actually about, in an interview said, "I didn't feel any segregation at NASA." She said that in real life, but in the movie she is portrayed as feeling an enormous amount of racial segregation at NASA, right? This is, uh, just another example. Whenever Hollywood gets a chance, it's going to tilt history in- in a direction that, uh, plays up the- the evil white person archetype and plays up the suffering, uh, but morally superior Black person archetype.

    9. CWChris Williamson1:06:10

       Why?

    10. CHColeman Hughes1:06:13

        Because that fits their concept of history. The- the way that neo-racists think about history is whiteness is evil, blackness is good. White people are slave owners, Black people were slaves. That's the whole story for them. So they don't know that almost all the slaves that were brought to the New World were not captured by Europeans. They were captured by other Africans. They were slaves in Africa and sold voluntarily by African tribes.... to Europeans. They don't know that slavery, or they're not taught that slavery has existed in almost every society down through history, on every inhabited continent. And it would be easier to come up with a list of societies in the t- past 10,000 years that didn't use slavery than to come up with a list that did, because the list that did would be so long. Uh, and you'd be on every continent. You'd be with the Aztecs. You'd be with the Chinese. You'd be with the Koreans. You'd be with the West Africans. You'd be... God knows you'd be with the Middle East. You'd be with the Slavs of Europe, where the word slave comes from, because they were slaves, and so on and so forth. You'd be with the Russian serfs, and so on and so forth. So from my perspective, history is a story of, of every group and, and everyone having some element of oppressor and oppressed, not a story of the evil European white man versus the long-suffering noble people of color. I mean, this is... There, there's no honest way to look at history and filter it all through that lens.

    11. CWChris Williamson1:08:01

        How is this perspective not only about history, but about what's going on now? How is this bifurcated between the elites and the non-elites? Like j- d- i- is, is that the primary difference between who, who views race in this way?

    12. CHColeman Hughes1:08:19

        Oh, yeah, that's... It's a huge difference, because it's mostly in elite circles that you'll see people, uh, people that are really sympathetic to the white is evil, uh, people of color good kind of frame. Uh, also in the elite is where you'll find people sympathetic to kind of every trendy new way of signaling that you care about racism, and often the elites are clueless as to how much in an elite bubble we are. And I say we because I'm as much an elite as anyone, and the best example of this was with the word Latinx, and this is a... As, as a half Puerto Rican myself, I grew up speaking around a lot of, uh, s- speaking Spanish and around a lot of Spanish speakers. And so when I got to college and people started saying Latinx, I was like, "Mm. No, that's... What?" Because not only do, like, no Hispanic people actually use that word, but it doesn't even phonetically make sense with the Spanish language. Like it, it doesn't obey the typical rules of Spanish structure, which are fairly rigid. Um, so, but people would... You know, pe- people would use this word when I was at Columbia University and, and, and you have major politicians on, in the Democratic Party, uh, like Elizabeth Warren and, and so forth, referring to the Latinx community. Finally, when Pew did a poll and actually asked American Hispanic people if they, uh, like the word Latinx, something like 60% hadn't even heard it.

    13. CWChris Williamson1:10:07

        (laughs) Okay.

    14. CHColeman Hughes1:10:08

        And then another, something like another 36% had heard of it and did not like it, and then the, the percentage of people-

    15. CWChris Williamson1:10:17

        What does that even leave?

    16. CHColeman Hughes1:10:19

        Four.

    17. CWChris Williamson1:10:20

        Right.

    18. CHColeman Hughes1:10:20

        Four, 4% roughly was the number of people who both knew it and liked it. Okay, so that is as good a measure of sort of what the elite is. The elite is, is the people in that 4% that all of them know Latinx, so they assume everyone else knows it, and they all feel comfortable with it, so they assume everyone else feels comfortable with it, and they don't realize the extent to which that sort of 4% is living on a, almost on a different plane of reality than the other 96% of people in the country who either ha- haven't heard of even their lang- the language they're speaking or don't like it.

    19. CWChris Williamson1:11:05

        God, that's funny.

    20. CHColeman Hughes1:11:06

        Yeah.

    21. CWChris Williamson1:11:07

        And tragic as well. What's

12. 1:11:10 – 1:14:49

    How Do We Move Forward?

    1. CWChris Williamson1:11:10

       your solution then? What, what is a way... You, you understand the incentive structure. You understand the media landscape. You understand how people are responding-

    2. CHColeman Hughes1:11:20

       Mm-hmm.

    3. CWChris Williamson1:11:20

       ... to wanting to appear compassionate and, and, and, and tolerant and, uh, upstanding and all the rest of it. How do we move forward?

    4. CHColeman Hughes1:11:29

       Hmm. Well, I think everyone has a responsibility to check in with their own personal lives and see if they're living by the ethos of colorblindness with their friends and their family, step one, and, and something everyone can do. Uh, step two is, is to, um, promote policies and, and, and politicians that, uh, that speak to your values. I think i- in America, we actually have a lot of executive orders and judicial decisions that require employers and, and, and, and, and so forth to discriminate on the basis of race, and these are things that could be overturned, right? The, the next president, uh, could, on day one, undo several executive orders that require affirmative action to be implemented in, in, in the federal government, and so there should be a lot more discussion and pressure, uh, aimed at those kinds of changes. Obviously, the Supreme Court overturning affirmative action last summer, I think, is a step in the right direction. Um-But there's, there's more that can be done on that front too. And as a culture, we just have to insist on the ideal of a colorblind society as the only end goal. Uh, a- and we have to, uh... I hope I can help people become less shy and less fearful in expressing their commitment to live in a world where I'm doing my best not to judge you by the color of your skin, you're doing your best not to judge me by the color of my skin. And we're both doing our best to demand that the state, which has the monopoly on violence and sets public policy, does not discriminate against any of its citizens based on the color of our skin, which is something we cannot control. So, to recom- recommit ourselves to that as a culture, to fearlessly stand for it, uh, th- that's what has to be done if we're going to, uh, make steps towards a colorblind society.

    5. CWChris Williamson1:14:00

       Colman, you're awesome, man. And this must be the second or third time you've been on the show. We did... Didn't we do, um... We did the Super Bowl two years ago in-

    6. CHColeman Hughes1:14:08

       Yeah, yeah, we did. We did. Yeah.

    7. CWChris Williamson1:14:10

       Do you remember?

    8. CHColeman Hughes1:14:11

       Yes, we did.

    9. CWChris Williamson1:14:12

       It was me, you, Douglas Murray, and Jordan Peterson-

    10. CHColeman Hughes1:14:15

        Yep.

    11. CWChris Williamson1:14:15

        ... which is like the oddest-

    12. CHColeman Hughes1:14:17

        Yeah. (laughs)

    13. CWChris Williamson1:14:19

        ... uh, squad to watch a Super Bowl with. It was very fun. Bro, I, I... Your music's fantastic. Your book is fantastic. I'm so happy that, uh... Everyone should go and pick it up now, The End of Race. It's only... I mean, how long-

    14. CHColeman Hughes1:14:29

        End of Race Politics.

    15. CWChris Williamson1:14:30

        There it is. Uh, how, how long is the audiobook?

    16. CHColeman Hughes1:14:35

        Oh, that's a good question. I should know off the top of my head. Uh, I read it myself. It m- it might be six hours or so.

    17. CWChris Williamson1:14:41

        Yeah. But it's a, it's a pretty, like-

    18. CHColeman Hughes1:14:43

        Not too long.

    19. CWChris Williamson1:14:44

        ... easy read. Dude, I, I, I think it's great, and I think that you're a fantastic voice for all of this

13. 1:14:49 – 1:16:03

    Where to Find Coleman

    1. CWChris Williamson1:14:49

       stuff. Tell people where they can check out all of the other cool shit that you do.

    2. CHColeman Hughes1:14:52

       Yeah, so you can check out my writing at my Substack, Colman's Corner. You can also check out my writing at The Free Press, which is a great new publication I would highly recommend, uh, founded by Bari Weiss, um, where I'm a contributor. You can occasionally check me out on CNN, where I do political analysis. And, uh, you can check my, check out my podcast as well, Conversations with Colman. And I wanna just redirect the praise right back at you. Uh, you have one of the best podcasts out there right now. I love, I love what you're doing. It's, it's, uh, it's, it's, it's just fantastic. So, um, kudos to you as well.

    3. CWChris Williamson1:15:31

       Thank you.

    4. CHColeman Hughes1:15:31

       Yeah.

    5. CWChris Williamson1:15:31

       And everyone can go and listen to your music. Dude, honestly-

    6. CHColeman Hughes1:15:34

       Yeah.

    7. CWChris Williamson1:15:34

       ... just go and watch the video. What was the video-

    8. CHColeman Hughes1:15:36

       Colxman.

    9. CWChris Williamson1:15:36

       Yeah, but what was the video of the first song that you released that blew up?

    10. CHColeman Hughes1:15:39

        Blasphemy.

    11. CWChris Williamson1:15:40

        Blasphemy.

    12. CHColeman Hughes1:15:41

        Yep.

    13. CWChris Williamson1:15:42

        Everyone can... Before you go buy the book or while you're going to buy the book, go and listen to Blasphemy by Colxman. It's-

    14. CHColeman Hughes1:15:47

        Yeah.

    15. CWChris Williamson1:15:49

        You're awesome, dude.

    16. CHColeman Hughes1:15:50

        Thanks, man.

    17. CWChris Williamson1:15:50

        Uh, I'm looking forward to catching up with you again the next time you're through Austin.

    18. CHColeman Hughes1:15:53

        Absolutely.

    19. CWChris Williamson1:15:54

        Hell yeah. Thank you very much for tuning in. If you enjoyed that episode, there is something else you will absolutely love right here. Go on, give it a tap.

Episode duration: 1:16:03