#182, Unlearning Race with Thomas Chatterton Williams

I went into this one with some trepidation, and some hope.

I thought that Sam had dug his heels into the race quagmire with a bit of unfortunate zeal, turning a willfully blind eye toward the problems with the Charles Murray research, and further demonstrating at least tone deafness, if not an outright blind spot, in his sparring with Ezra Klein. So this would either be a chance to walk back some of that obstreperousness, or to dig in even further.

It's been a several weeks since I listened to this episode, and a whole elephant-load of shit has since hit the fan (COVID19), but I think he did an admirable job of walking things back, and I remember a couple of things that I really liked about this episode:

"The goal has to be to get to a post-racial society."

"I've never understood having shame for these histories and deeds that have been done to and by people you're supposedly related to."

"One of the things in Between the World And Me that really bothered me was the way that he seemed to give short shrift to the idea that blacks can ever have any form of agency over their own lives."

This conversation also pushed the needle for me just a little bit toward being in favor of reparations. It sounds like intelligent people would be able to come to some meaningful gesture that at least acknowledges the legacy of shame and objectification that this country has never admitted to.