Transcripts For CSPAN2 Heather 20240705

Beauty and threatens lives. I was right candace and the editor of city journal. It is my honor to introduce the books author heather mcdonald. [applause] heather is the Manhattan Institute Thomas Debbie smith fellow. She is a contributing editor of city journal whos written for the magazine almost since its inception in her byline appears rightly in the wall street journal and many other leading publications. She is also the author of the t bestsellers were on cops and the diversity delusion. Just for kicks i asked the chap gpt who most influential city writers are in heathers name headed the list. I like that. I like ai. Over the years heathers scrupulous groundbreaking work has shed light on important trends in American Life new book brings back relentless reporting to perhaps the most dangerous one yet which is the equity craze that threatening our scientific, cultural and public institutionsum. She details the rise of impact ideology and potential to doet enormous harm to our society. The book also represents a powerful defense for our inheritance. Will discuss all that and more tonight. In the wake of George Floyd Death in may 2020 activistsra heighten their cries for socalled Racial Equity and a proportional representation of race in institutions andza organizationsre. The press published countless stories about minorities underrepresentation in various fields andnd corporations begano fall over themselves proclaiming their guilt and perpetual racial and inhi equity. Driving the shift was the concept of disparate impact which is really at the center of your book. What is the core idea of desperate impact and can you trace briefly its origin and how it has metastasized in this period . Thank you brian. I hate to use the phrase but a turn or. Im going to discuss things very uncomfortable to talk about. I am talking about group averages and avid skills, average behavioral. Im not making any judgments about any individual within any particular racial group. There are thousands of individuals on this racial Group Without racial group that outperform everyone else. We cannot make any assumptions about individuals based on their membership in groups. But, the discourse that is tearing down our civilization that is tearing down standards is it self in grotesque generalities and it has to be answered with certain observations about group performance. So just please steel yourself for some truths that are taboo across her population. Any standard in terms of Academic Skills that had a negative impact in certain minority groups. Above all on blanks is by definition racist. Very High Standard of business necessity. For several decades open challenge after challenge to at least entrance exams or firefighter exams. They fail at higher rates than whites the assumption always is the exam is racist the standard is racist. Throughout the test and lower standards until we get a standard that will not have a negative impact. What is never allowed to be looked at and examined as what are the underlying average rates of Academic Skills . The standard is not itself racist. But now we are going around declaring any standards that has that impactac on blacks for sait racist and we are throwing them out. This began initially in the context of employment h hiring. It was a way of expanding the civil rights laws beyond the requirement you need to intentionally discriminate. In employer need to intentionally say i do not want to hire qualified blacks. That is per se illegal. It was hard and hard to find employers who were intentionally discriminate against competitive qualified minorities. You be completely colorblind as employer few years employment that disqualifies blacks disproportionately gotta get rid of it. And now that idea has left way beyond the judicial opinions the codes is simply the lens through which we judge our mainstream institutions. X this ideology carping the sciences. This is the opening session of the book is very alarming. During the gram grants and scholarship to scientific appointments. Even help medicines being practiced. This no longer the leading criteria many of these situations. Theat deemphasis and merit in science. Our support both lives at risk with the insistence of pushing people head into medicine who are not competitively qualified or paying Scientific Research at risk here is an example of how the analysisll works. Id seen as applying to the medical schools take the Medical College admission test. Those havent impact on black students. Black scores are the rock bottom. The various medical schools nor deciding that her black students that waive completely as a developing trend. Projected there are two separate standards for admission. Blacks are made with mcat scores to be automatically disqualifying or presented by a white or asian student. Lexi miceli below average mcat gpa has a nine times greater chance of a medical school and a whitee student or asian student these are scores of the disqualifying otherwise. The medical School Licensing exam is got a pass rather than being graded. Is again the licensing exam is an impact on black medical students is due to screen students with some of the most competitive residencies during medical schools. The schools have decided rather get rid of grades and the actual medical licensing body would rather get rid of grades and destroy our ability to rank student and then get a completely color bright neutral test has no racial bias it is subjected his computer graded that has a impact on black preferences never end the pressure is enormous on schools to promote to hire doctors based on race. To promote doctors based on race to put them in charge of medical research. Pressures coming from National Funding agencies the National Institutes of health, National Science foundation are now making embrace a a more important qualification for alreceiving medical grants that actual scientific qualification. If you want to get a grant for your Alzheimers Research lab og your neurology a greater Neurology Lab you have to show how your work affects and improves diversity and how your own lab is working to change the demographics of its research court. Quickly i do not care who discovers the neurological pathways that are responsible for alzheimers. At that lab is all chinese, if it is allfemale, if it is all black, if it is all white. I do notng care. The most qualified scientists. Uniquely in the United States we made the decision that diversity is more important thanac meritocracy. Meanwhile china does not Pay Attention to identity politics. His racing. Ahead trying to throw everything its got its most talented mathematically inclined and scientifically inclined students without saying we have to pull down their capacity to make sure all groups and up at the same rate at the end of the line. X that is science. The next major part off the book is on something close to your heart which is culture. You just grab the distortion by activists who see it now primarily as camouflage for eight regime of Racial Discrimination and domination. I think what is most striking and reading your book, this part of the book is the complicity of leading artistic institutions in this ongoing attack on our western cultural inheritance. This to you would say has been accelerated george floyd killing. Maybe you could document a little bit what could happen in thee book . It is stunning to me. If you are running an upper company or an orchestra the head of the head of the Art Institute of chicago we should be on your knees in gratitude every day at your privileged existence to curate artistic tradition that are among the most sublime in world history. It escapes the petty narrow pathetically ignorant self. And expand into forms of consciousness nurse so much greater than any of us could ever hope to experience. Whether it is one of the great tragic trilogies that send chills down your spine. Perception of vengeance and the transcendence of reaching a rule of law and hoping for justice. Whether its renaissance poetry, the languor and arrows of late bronze piano music. Chopin nocturnes. Or they tragic catharsis that we get from the state metrics passion. These are works that none of us equally deserve. The music organizations, the literature departments, the art museums really do not deserve them. They are going around telling the public and what is most criminal is telling young people on theet pathetic grounds that they came out europe. Which is by definition inevitably by caucasian people. That is the tradition get over it is the past we cannot change it. Europe was not 13 black. Probably still is t not. To expect the canon of classical composers should beat 13 black and if it is not it is for saint racist is preposterous. There are fantastic black composers but they arose much later in our tradition. One of the leading classical critics in the country running for the new yorker apologizing for himself being white and curating a tradition as hes pus it blindingly white. He apologizes for white audiences pretty apologizes for white donors the other most important Classical Music critic in the country Anthony Thomas and the New York Times as called for making our kestrel auditions color conscious. Stilt musicians can be hired on the basis of race. Lee they often suffer several levels behind a screen of the audition or do not know the identity of the performers. And as with all things and are impact obsessed world today we have now decided mechanisms that are inherentlyrb colorblind and racist. It applies to red light cameras. A red light camera does not know who is driving the car. But if red light cameras show us that in certain neighborhoods black running red lights or speaking at higher rates the camera is racist i will be thrown out for that is going on across the country. You have museums directing wall labels teach their viewers to see the great masterpieces of the dutch golden age. Took about lemons and silver that is shining in the light. To see those still lifes as colonialists. Because at the same time as they were being painted pollen and the netherlands had colonial territory. You have this massive that is being promulgated is only obligation infe life. His to share this beauty. And to tell young people come to the museum. Listen to this music. I futile at that hearing these works will have lived a poor life that you could otherwise have left. Everything now is being filtered with a c completely specious lis of racial inequity. He began to talk about the question of law and order. Gets into Public Policy question for you describe and you have described in written about this in the past disconnect a resident of minority neighborhoods have had in the past said they want and lawenforcement. Rhetoric of legislator and activist. If you count blacks and other minorities have a passed. The proactive policing. Making stringent members and their communities. That would be what was discussed. One that disconnect continues to hold in the post george floyd area. T more broadly what that would have on Public Safety picnics Impact Analysis on Public Safety has been disastrous. Na absolutely disastrous. The narrative is that colorblind constitutional Law Enforcement that has an impact on black criminals is per se racist. You have the redoubled falsehood that black parents arere right o fear their children will be e killed by a cop or a white person everything they step outside. Joe biden ran on this during the president ial campaign. He said the day before he was inaugurated preset in his inaugural speech he says it constantly. It is a constant theme that is a falsehood. Blacks have a practically higher rate of death by gun b homicide. Blacks between the ages of 10 and 24 dive gun homicide 25 times the rate of whites between the age of 10 and 24. That is civil Rights Problem you would think that civil rights activists would care about. They will not talk about it because if they were to talk about it honestly and look at the actual data. What we know from the victims of witnesses to shootings of nonfatal students in the witnesses to failed shootings is that black death by gun homicidl rate is caused almost exclusively by black criminals. You could take out all Police Shootings of black men today but you could take out white shootings of black today would have virtually no effect on the facts by gun homicide rate. And yet we are blaming the cops figured limit criminal Law Enforcement. Everything you see you may have been puzzling over at the post george floydyd era, why these prosecutors not rustic commuting to trespass turnstile jumping, resisting arrest which is the most appalling thing not to proxy is basically saying to cops open season on you guys and as prosecutors we do not care. Are they not prosecuting gun possession and prostitution, disorderly conduct, loitering . It is all driven by desperate impact. So it would know to understand the world today at the chicago and albert braggs in new york, george in the worst prosecutor in the whole country has decided too but entire categories of crime offlimits to his District Attorney is because they havent impact not because enforcement is racist because the black crime rate and some attire. I haveo spent a lot of time in high crime neighborhoods talking to the residence they are pretty go to Police Community meetings and i talked to the good lawabiding people who deserve the same freedom from fear is resident of park avenue. We want more police. I smoked marijuana and my probably why cant you do something about it . There smoking weed at the club i see outside t the window but why cant you arrest those people . Why are you allowed kids to hang out by the hundreds on the corner fighting . What happened to truancy laws . People in proactive enforcement that are living with the affected d policing in the desperate impacts crusade. They never get hurt. Its a very bizarre thing. Your civil rights activists and going to do a experiment. Imagine before we have the actual reality you can imagine civil rights activist taken the side of black victims rather than black criminals. One might have even expected that. Because of black victims whose lives are beingr destroyed. All of your civil rights activists have taken the side of black criminals. They would rather not put more criminals in prison there preying on elderly black ladies who are terrified to go into the building lobby to pick up their mail when kids are there trespassing smoking weed and selling drugs. They would rather allow those good lawabiding people took to figure things out for themselves. Then make arrest and increase any Racial Disparities that we have in prison. That is a very perverse decision. Looks at this point who care about black lives are the police and white conservatives prebuilt people are talking about crime before the 2022 election work in second conservative news outlets. During racist dog whistles. If i conservative stop pain crime no one would Pay Attention. In the black victims ever care about those killed by a cop and thats a veryy small 2021 is an arm black killed by Police Officers fatally shot by Police Officers pretty i Police Officers 400 times more likely to be killed by a black mail black to beos killed by police officer. Those are the data not allowed in the public discourse. Parks racial preferences in hiring academic admissions of the theme of your book clearly diminish opportunities to boost the prospects into black and some extent hispanic applicants are often disadvantaged whites and asians have higher scores are often better credentials who are vying for the same positions. Desperate impact of parents dismiss this racial rebalancing act as necessary to advance the life chances of underprivileged minorities. But you would have to say this is wildly unfelt to the newly disadvantaged and a sure way to perpetuate it increase racialen tensions. Probably one question what is a reaction going to be the perpetuation of the policy have an impact on the intended beneficiary present a positive . Getting radicalized on t this. The standardsg for getting in Selective School gets higher and higher the numbers are allowed be set aside spots the schools the sats are racist. But not band sats completely there calculating asian you have to be and is no longer you probably should add the bassoon. You should also are going be really good at baseball. At the High School Level with her exam schools they are trying to create environments for people most academically motivated schools in new york city that have a colorblind subjective computer grid exam to get in. I think its 70 asian. Theres decades of pressure to say get rid of the exam start admitting bite rays printhead has not yet. There has been tweaking. Others have gotten rid of their exams local high school in San Francisco was also predominantly asian we went to a lottery system instead of the exam. Not surprisingly the first year after the lottery was instituted ds and fs 103 to percent. Virginia has gotten rid of its neutral colorblind completely objective admissions test went to engineer proportionality. Thee argument has been a favorie one for conservatives for years. This is reverse discrimination press not fair to people who have done nothing. Nations are not responsible for slavery. Frankly none of us today are either unless you do believe in the inheritance of acquired characteristics and we somehowow now are bearing the genes and responsibility of slaveholders. Let me also put in an aside here, racial history is appalling. It is sickening. We were a white supremacist country were an apartheid country. Whites treated blacks with excruciating cruelty, contempt gratuitous nastiness were not that country today. We are not. Its not a single mainstream institution today it is not twisting itself t into knots to hire and promote as many blacks applicants as possible. I would like to know any black student applying to a college today it was going to put down his race as white because he thanks is going to help them get in. [laughter] to the contrary if you are white, heterosexual mail with putting his race down as black hed be better off doing so. The argument has traditionally been couched against racial preferences its unfair to whites and asians. The case between the Supreme Court challenging harvard preferences and university of north dakota preferences will probably use the same old tired equal protection of scrutiny. Has m somebody in it i want to throw up or i hope this is very unlikely. That they actually overturned racial preferences on a pragmatic ground which is something known as mitch nash. Let me take it out of the race context and put it into the sex context. Mit admitted me with the six hundreds on my ses im not going to tie what they actually were. Not sure i remember but i sort of do. At 600 on an 800point scale and all of my peers were not the socalled beneficiary of preferences had 800 on their map sats i am going to flunk my freshman calculus class. Im going to struggle if i even stick with a stem field. And of course mit diversity bureaucracy will tell me are the victim of misogyny. You are anti female environments. The reality is no i am an environment in which i am not competitively qualified. There is no shame going to a secondtier school. Boston College Boston university provide perfectly good serviceable educations. If i had been admitted instead of propelled above my capacity at that time to a school for which i was competitively qualified and i shared myy peers qualifications i would do well. The same happens with blacks. They are not helped by putting almost unique burden of having to compete in environments in which they are not competitively qualified. The results speak for themselves. Law school employed vast racial preferences heres what happens at the end of the first year of law school. Firstyear law grades are all colorblind. They are anonymous. Teachers do not know who is writing the blue books. 51 of black law students at the end of their first year in law school and at the bottom 10 of their class. Two thirds of tube black law students in the first Year Law School and at the 20 of their class. The gap neverlo closed. This is not something that is a good way of reducing racial stereotyping but is also not a good way to increase the number e of black lawyers because the number of blacks who fail the bar at six times in row and never pass it is six times higher than whites as black students have been put at the disadvantage of being and law schools where they are not competitively qualified. The course of blacks should become lawyers andco go to law school. They should go under the same conditions as everybody else and not have this burden of the preferenceak catapults that maks it harder to compete. So i hope someone has put in amicus brief to the Supreme Court and Clarence Thomas or john roberts will say this is the thing i want the public to understand about the preference regime we have been living with 1978 that is not just destroyed standards but has been an actual disability for the people who purport to benefit from it. Ask those who speak honestly and stand up to this regime, they risk losing their livelihood and social status at least in some cases. Your book includes interviews of several employees of cultural institutions. They opposed racialfe preferenc. They see what you have described going on but are unwilling to express their sentiment publicly and you can understand that because of the fear of consequences. Until i wandered as opposition within the institutions to defend merit is someone who does this becomes a martyr . Is that their only choice . Ord are there other ways to figt back against this . Practice of finishing this book i asked an oncologist is directed by the National Cancer institute that give something out called the outstanding investigators award. These are awards the federal government gives to the most cuttingedge cancer researchers that if the pipe risk science. In other words it has a high risk of total failure may be based on the theory that so offthewall its not ever going to predict any results. If it does predict results, wow this have the possibility to be paradigm shattering. These investigator awards are very good tip. They exempt oncall Group Researchers they basically take 60 was off from teaching to pets focused exclusively on this fight. And i talked to at an oncologist to lives to serve. That is all he wanted his lack he notified by the head of the deputy direct the National Cancer institute out the setting of muscular war not been going so well recently they were not diverse enough. Please broaden the criteria for nominations and send us candidates so that we can award more diverse awards. Not a word about meritocracy. This is not about the scientific qualifications to even sending us inr adequate. We went up higher tiered scientist not the game is about. It was about lower your standards so we can show diverse faces only have our class of ysawardees. I said when are you guys going to stand up against this . This is sickening. He said we need our jobs we want our jobs. If we up we will be crushed. Those who have done so are complete pariahs. The whole system is going to take 50 years is going to have to collapse completely and be built from the ground up. And i feel for him i would say people in my position who are not in canceling institutions and thank you to the Manhattan Institute for not canceling me yet. [laughter] we will see when the twitter starts coming in but those of us who are more insulated have been obligation to give the facts that explain desperate impact. I am not going to be cowed into silence it is too late. It is too late it is all coming down. People like us have to speak up. I will give you an honest description here of what writers and speakers are under. You are supposed to always have a positive solution even though im a pessimist i do not feel very optimistic. But audience want to to blue theres hope theres something we can all rally behind encouraging my canon what can i do with the solution . Frankly it looks to me and very tough nut to crack. I came up with an idea of an institution that will be apart from any particular institution at somebodys medical school. Somebodys tech startup that would be ready to snap into action whenever there there is an amazing way l surprisingly courageous scientists like norman wang university of pittsburgh ran a lab who had all sorts of students he was advising. Top and his field but he read an article in the scientific journal think racial preferences in medicine are notre working o. We have triedg them. Theyre not working out we are lowering our standards we are not helping advance medicine we are not helping the students. He was completely canceled is taken off his post he of his research capacity. He is not allowed to have any contact with students. This is what happens. People are destroyed by telling the truth. I thought maybe if we could have an organization that had at their fingertips that on the Academic Skills gap. Put them out there but put them out there on the crime gap so the plates are being vilified we have now a total recruiting crisis. There is hardly a Big City Police department that is anywhere close to the number of officers it needs in order to fight crime. Even if the prosecutors are willing to actually bring a case against a shoplifter or a thief. But they do not have the officers to make those arrests because there has been such a post george floyd flights from the profession if we could have an organization to get the data to support this that is one hope. Otherwise all i can say it curates, refused to apologize. Refuse to back down. Because at this point, i believe is a good argument to be made for racial etiquette. As i say these are uncomfortable things to talk about. But the time for racial etiquette is over. Because as long as racism remains the only allowable explanation for Racial Disparities and at medical school alzheimers lab on the Classical Music orchestra, in a bank in your corporation. Its all coming down. We have to fight back with the actual explanation was her tragic disparities we can all agree we need to be fixed of Different Solutions for fixing them. The need to be solved of the core spots at the earliest stages of childhood to socialize children to get rid of the anti acting white ethic. Penalizes neglect soon for doing their homework but were taken of ttextbooks i believe they can meet standards who want to learn. They are criticized by their peers for acting white, that is something thats very hard to overcome bird that has to change. But 22 years down the line saying the solution for this oath to get rid of standards of medical competence orin engineeringch, or chemistry have double standards for admissions that is not how we solve it. We have to start explaining why our institutions are not present racially proportion the only way they will be as with the more honest discourse it is paternalistic. It is condescending to lower standards rather than saying we know that everybody can meet the standards. Parks thank you. I think we would like to open it up to the floor. Please wait for the microphone we had about 50 minutes for questions. We will start up front with the judgment at the end whos just right for the microphone. Ask professor rector as you know mike does trumps name have to show up there . Rex trumps name have to show up . [laughter] sorry about that. I think we thought about that. I want to Say Something i am indian and my country was ruled for 200 years by the white management processes. 1947 we got our independence. As a people and as a nation we refuse to look back but decided to forge ahead. Day three of my countrymen went to the same university that i went to clean up the largest Largest Companies in the world microsoft, google, and ibm. Thean other two indians became governors of Southern States in this country. Another indian is now Prime Minister of britain. My advice to Harvard University in the New York Times stopped the narrative about race. It doesnt help the people youre trying too help. Get the message from the indians who have made it on merits not on race. [applause] set a heart problem with the White Privilege when agents are whipping everybodys bucks. But of course we know the rhetorical twists and turns about that they are white adjacent. No they are not, they are not. It is academic effort it is family culture. You cannot learn if you are not in school. The black truancy rate is very high. Nobody can exit this point learning to read the student has to do it themselves. Racialized and this does not help to come from within. Effort is made we are an open society. We are waiting with welcome open arms. Alright with the move to the back of the room. I will go to the left away in the back there. I can just see your hand. I have enjoyed your talk i generally agree with your thesis. But it sounded like you are assuming there is necessarily a problem with our institutions not being racially proportionate. That is not at all obvious to me it seemsms inevitable there will be Racial Disparities even significant ones and some institutions and not inth otherc that could simply be a reflection of different cultural norms and preferences of different ethnic and cultural groups in our society. It is true. I guess im having to focus on the charge that Racial Disparities and institutions is per se a sign of racism somewhere. It is very hard the systemic racism is logistic. Its a vaporous things we have to believeto is out there and nobody can really point to where it is exactly. But i guess rather w than saying we will have disparities, get over it i feel like my engagement at this point is to explain those disparities. And then its a slightly different argument of one sensor making the same argument which in light of the Academic Skills gap in the behavior gaps in crime of course were going to have lack of racial proportionality. So the assumption there would be equal outcomes is only valid cultures at the same or different. I can tell you asian culture, the Tiger Mountain culture puts Everything Else to shame. If you juxtapose that to the intercity culture the behavioral disparities are so great it astounds me that apparently my good friends on the left actually believe the best explanation for the lack of disparity is racism and not what is empirically provable about how the cultures differ. The woman yes, you. Yes. Just go to the mic please. Thank you. I agree and everybody agrees the election of the wealthy as and mayors affect minority commutes grid than White Communities in major cities. How do you explain johnson winning in chicago both candidates were democrats bird one was law and order. I did explain that . Asked in fact he got the biggest vote in the highest crime precincts. I am really presuming here. I do this with great trepidation. At some point it is not for me too pronounce black voting isbehavior. But it would seem there is a conflict. I have made it a mission to give voice to the people at the New York Times refuses to listen to that really are desperate for more police protection. Ask again is presumptuous of me too hypothesize i will offer a hypothesis. There is a conflict within black suit is a a tradition and as you said there both democrats. But there is something perhaps seductive about the racism narrative. That a lot of voters are not willing to give upp yet. And Brandon Johnson was peddling the arguments at the police are racist m. Its maybe attractive that more services are the solution. Im skeptical of that. People. At appeals to i would say the conservative safe harbor arguments which i may be guilty of perpetuating sometimes myself which is to historically say well, the polls do show the polls routinely show if you ask the blacks do you want our broken windows quality life enforcement they will say yes at higher rates than whites. Yet they will also vote for the anti cop candidate. [inaudible] that is true too. These are all very difficult things. It is hard for white people to talk about it. There great black leaders out there. And i hope they get more fo nd get more followers. It is seductive it is a narcotic. It has been working. That is got to stop now. And franklin going to racialized us and excuse me for violating racial etiquette. These are extremely raw matters. I am fed up. I have seen too much happening to the things i love. We cannot allow ourselves to be browbeaten by the hustle any longer. Weve got to believe in equal opportunity. In standards we cannot continue maligning. This gentleman here . The microphone please. [inaudible] thank for great talk. Before i ask my question, i am a retired associate professor of medicine and oncology. Whatde you spoke about to hit m. During the culvert epidemic the initial data was it is occurring more and African Americans than in caucasians. Anyone who is effort on clinical researchp went on automatically look at subgroup analysis but you compare affluent whites to affluent blacks. And poor whites to poor blacks. You would have quickly picked up it is due to affluence. Poor people are huddled together in their apartments. We probably would have saved a lot of lives in the subgroup analysis which for some reason was not done. I wrote a letter to the wall street journal in the published other letters of my did not publish it they did not keep it. This silliness i think drink of it. My question to you is and what do we do aboutut it . These people like professor wang from pittsburgh. This should be a front to get good lawyers for them to sue the institutions. Once these people get hurt then they may have to find they may back off. They may start listening. Until they get hurt theyre not going to listen to anyone. That is probably the cheapest way of doing it. Getting them good legalal representation find out why they were fired. Can you answert . That . Is anyone done that or thinking of it . Are some losses going. Timothy jackson at the university of north texas has been run off the job he had a music journal of ecology builtt around an austrian music theoristas. Thats very influential in the United States. There is a black music oncologist at Hunter College here in new york city. That has the mostt absolutely insane theory that because shanker talks about hierarchies about value. Its in making hierarchical announces of music. This is about race. The Classical Music is racist or anything that has any kind of hierarchy if its like fields of fedex Occult Forces that isis racist. But it is beloved in the colicky profession. Alex loved him from the new yorker. So jackson publisher symposia as them that had critical actually people being cautiously critical of bizarre theory of hierarchies and musical analysis being racist. They canceled his program. The cancel has journal print that took him. He isnt suing. There are suits going on this guy in florida that is suing. That is a very good idea. I would complicate your observation about covid. I would say one of the worst consequences of the racial hysteria in medicine is to say that Racial Disparities in health are themselves the respect of racism. And again you are not allowed to talk about behavior. You may have noticed its not allowed any longer to say obesityt, is bad for ones healh but we also speak that positive and t celebrate obesity like ths is really good. That has a racial angle. The Scientific American has published all these medical journals devoting entire issues inthe idea of racism medicine. They published a t study sayingo talk about we should try and lower the black obesity rates. That is racist. The only allowable as doctors or ruthless. What you are not allowed to talk about his exercise, better medication compliance. Maybe people need help. If you are in a poor help. You can talk to innercity doctors that work in Big University medical centers. They will tell you about differences in people showing up for postnatal, prenato visits and care. There are race differences there. But you are not allowed to talk about that its only doctor racism. And that means we are not going to be saving black lives because we are not allowed to talk about the behavioral component of a herace disparities. I would say covid, the obesity is probably the greater reason for the black white disparity you saw in covid mortality rates. I will ask the final question here since we are out of time. This is a personal one. In this book and write your career its early journal and l3 written about some upsetting trends in American Life. You mentioned that you are a pessimist. I wonder what motivates you to keep going . Sorrow and rage. [laughter] [applause] my heart is broken on a daily basis to see the things i love torn down with such ignorance. Its not just the things i love its a thing so many people. And i cannot take it any longer. I am furious at the ignorance that is allowed to dominate our culture and our civilization. Im in the most privileged person in the world have a liberal arts education. The humanities field to read English Literature before anybody thought to instruct me too move i should feel oppressed by it reading dead white males. And never occurred to me or my peers to reject reading jon milton or alexander or edmund spencer. They were white males. All i knew was that i could not understand milton and paradise lost. That is what feld mcknight is dead white maleness. I had to work very hard at that. But i am glad that i did miltons vision of paradise is one of the most sensually charged of linguistic, beauty and accomplishment of other richness that is described. In very purpleish i got to read those books. And it breaks my heart that generations that have come after you have been given excuses for their own ignorance. And all they care about is pursuing these fictions of their own victimhood. In their alleged fragility. Its nauseating. I cannot standta it. We all have to stop being browbeaten into silence whether its the fiction of fragility and safety, the fiction of racial oppression. We have to start fighting back and fight for civilization. Arcs on that note i want to thank you heather. [applause] did you know you can watch book tv online anyti bookkeeping. Org. Use a search box to find your favorite non fiction authors. , but when i come to the podium, i really enjoy a great round of applause. Lets try it again. You know, were not although you all are here in the room. There are a number of people who are