The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - Anti Racism with Tim Wise

Episode Date: June 24, 2022

Tim Wise is among the most prominent anti-racist writers and educators in the United States. He is the author of nine books, including his latest, Dispatches from the Race War.

🎵 This is Live from the Table, recorded at the world-famous Comedy Cellar. Coming at you on SiriusXM 99, Rod Dogg, and on the Laugh Button Podcast Network. Dan Natterman here, coming to you via Zoom from Tel Aviv, Israel, where I'm here doing some shows. But I don't miss podcasts, if humanly possible. So here I am on Zoom. It's 12.45 a.m. as we record here in Tel Aviv. I am within the studio in New York,

where it is only 5.36, whatever, anyway. I'm falling asleep here. Noam Dorman and Periel Ashenbrand. Shalom, shalom. Noam Dorman is the owner of the world-famous comedy seller Periel Ashenbrand is a mother. She is a comic. She is a writer. She is a producer, though Noam questions

that designation, but we'll go with it. It's a little dark where I am actually now that I'm seeing my... Okay, Dad, it's okay. Anyhow, yes, I'm coming to you. It's 1240. It's 1236 rather a.m. here. So and I'm still like all kind of jet laggy and whatever. But but here I am. How how are things back in New York? Are you holding down the fourth? Can the place survive without me is the question. It's just not the same without you, Dan.

It's just not. I mean, he came in here on such a tear. He didn't even say hello. Was complaining. Why are we doing this on Wednesdays again? Just trying to make me go out the window because he was sitting in traffic and then

was you see above the air conditioner? You can't actually see out the window and then was huffing and puffing that you were like 30 seconds late. I was having an issue with Google because when I logged on to Google. You didn't look at him. I mean, it's like you can, can you see the street? Can you get anything? See the street. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter. Dan, why are you in Israel? I mean, are you a Jew thing or is this a. I'm in Israel to do shows for Jews, which is most of the people that live here. Those Jews that speak English as a first language, generally speaking, are the ones that come to our shows. Who's our show? Avi Lieberman is the host. Is Avi there? Yeah.

Well, he's not with me right now, but he's here. He's in his hotel room. Avi Lieberman, is he under the table? Avi Lieberman had a, is he under the table? Avi Lieberman had a terrible accident. Is he okay? He is, yeah, you can't tell. He does have some hearing loss, unfortunately, in one of his ears. Had it been a Walmart truck, he would be a very wealthy man.

All right. So we have this, don't tune out, everybody, because we have an anti-racist spokesman is coming on the show today, correct? Yes. Tim Wise. Perrielle, did you double check to make sure he will be coming? I certainly did. And he will be coming now. Now, now what's your what's your interest in the anti-racism? Well, my interest in it is that is that I think that you and him might have some sparks flying. Well, it's obviously a relevant issue. I'm not quite clear what anti-racism – I mean, we're all pretty much against racism.

I'm not sure about Perrielle, but the two of us are. What do you mean pretty much against? Anti-racism is sort of another thing. I'm not exactly sure what it is. So I think we're going to try to get to the bottom of what exactly anti-racism is. Tim Wise, who is going to be our guest. It's essentially, I believe it means if you're not living every day

affirmatively fighting racism and checking your privilege, then you are a racist. I don't think that's I'm not trying to be flippant. I think I think that's actually what it means. But we'll find out from the horse's mouth when he when he comes on. But, yeah, it's it's it's a big it asks a lot of every human to fight the evil of racism. And Tim is a big believer in systemic, the existence of systemic racism.

And he is a he is a big advocate of diversity. So these are things I think that you listen, I'm an advocate of diversity. Look at this show. You're an advocate of diversity when it happens naturally. You've described it as a happy side effect, or I don't know how you phrase it. A happy byproduct. Listen, I believe I have the most diverse life of any white person I know. I have more diversity in my life than anybody I know. Wouldn't you agree, Dan?

Well, I don't know who you know, but you have a fair amount of diversity insofar as your wife is not white. Your friends also come from various backgrounds. My friends, my band, my family, my, my wedding was like, um, I, I dare say it might've been 50% nonwhite. Um, so, you know, like I, I, let's see what I, I, maybe you're an anti-racist. No, I don't, but we'll see what it means. But I, so like, I'm always, I'm always, uh always upset when I get lectured to. But let's see. Let's see what he says. Let's see what I invited this guy on because I was anticipating some degree of friction, which can make for a good podcast. I hope you keep it civil because I'm sure there will be disagreements. I guess what I'm saying is that if everybody were living,

that's my lawyer, I'm going to have to take it later. If everybody were like me, which sounds egotistical, then my method of living my life would be very effective at achieving all the things which the anti-racists want to achieve and i and i'm able to do it without well whatever it sounds you know that there's more to it than that so i was going to drop that line of thought because obviously like disparities aspects of society that that wouldn't be addressed by that so okay by the way i i've been away i haven't been away long but i've been away far and somehow it feels like i've been away long because i'm so far away but the reality is i

was just at the comedy cellar a few days ago but any interesting things drop-ins uh famous people um things that i've missed in my literally only three days out of town. No, but Glenn, speaking of anti-racism, Glenn Lowry and John McWhorter are doing an event today at the Comedy Cellar. Starting now, I'm going to miss part of it. So that's, it's kind of interesting that while we're talking to Tim Wise on the Comedy Cellar podcast,

Glenn Lowry is on the stage at the Comedy Cellar doing a show. So it's a nice spectrum. Maybe just say who Glenn Lowry is because I suspect your average raw dogger. Lowry is a professor of economics at Brown University, but he's also, Tim Wise here,

he's also a kind of known for being a conservative when it comes to race issues. He's also a kind of known for being a conservative when it comes to race issues. He's Black. And John McWhorter is, I'd say, he wouldn't consider himself conservative, but he's cast that way. He's to the left of Glenn Lowry, that's for sure.

Would you like me to do the intro, Dan, or do you want to do it? No, I want you to do the intro, and the intro is my thing. Yeah, go ahead and admit him. Hello, Tim Wise. Hi, Tim. Can you hear us? I can. Can you hear me? We got you perfect. The audio is perfect. Thank you for coming.

Let me do a brief introduction. Tim Wise is an American activist and writer on the topic of race and a consultant who provides anti-racism lectures to institutions. Welcome, Tim. I believe you're coming to us from Tennessee. Is that correct? I am from Nashville. Yes.

Let me just briefly introduce you to the panel here. I'm Dan Natterman. I'm a comic. I don't know how many laughs we'll have tonight, but we'll see. Noam Dorman is the owner of the Comedy Cellar. Noam, where are you? There you are.

And Periel Ashenbrand is our producer, but there's been some controversy as to whether she truly produces anything. Mostly she books the show and provides some on-air commentary. She did a good job with the email, so I'll give her that much.

She got that part. Our guest lover, as a general matter, all our guest lover. I will say, I want to warn you up front, Noam, and you might disagree, but hopefully you'll come away with a mutual respect for each other. Noam will probably invite you to come to the Comedy Cellar when you're in town.

Whether that'll ever happen, I don't know. That's great. But let's begin the show. Noam, do you want to dive right in? Go ahead, Dan. We were wondering, well, we were wondering. Let's start with definitions you qualify yourself as anti-racist of course we're all against racism here well here on the podcast

and i think most people are at least they'll say that what is it between just being um against racism and an anti-racist yeah well. Well, you know, it's tough. I mean, I think that everyone says, or most people, you know, say that they're against racism. You know, Donald Trump famously says he's the least racist person in the world, which, of course, is a little not accurate. But, you know, every white person says they have black friends and we're usually lying. We can't name them when you ask us their names. Typically, we don't have them in our speed dial. But I think that the difference between saying that you're or even being against it, like at some abstract level and really being anti-racist is whether or not you actively challenge not only individual races that you might encounter, it could be family, friends, colleagues, classmates, or whatever, but that you actively challenge systems of inequality and racial injustice that exist in the society. And, you know, it's the difference between, for instance, I mean, I'm from the South, I live in Nashville, there were a lot of people

during segregation, my grandmother would have been one of them who, you know, would never have thrown things at the sit-in protesters or called them the N-word. You know, that would have been tacky to her. That would have been awful. That would have been horrific. And she wasn't racist like that. But she also complained about the sit-ins because as my mother explained it to me, she said, I really wanted to go shopping downtown this week and now I can't because the Negroes are protesting or whatever. And so is she against racism? I guess like at the level of hatred and bigotry, but was she challenging the systems of racism? And the answer is no. So I think lots of white folks in the South during the period of enslavement didn't own people, but they didn't challenge the ones who did. And I think, you know, lots of white folks in the South during the period of enslavement didn't own people, but they didn't challenge the ones who did.

And I think that's the difference. So go ahead, Daniel. Go ahead. More. No, no. You were about to say. So just let's take it. So just as a matter, you know, this is the heart of the matter, but on the issue of having friends of the other race. Yeah. What does it mean if a black person doesn't have white friends? Is that also criticizable? Um, well, I think the difference is, and it's interesting, you know, the data on that says that about half of black folks say that they don't have any white friends. Now,

I don't know how many might have Latino friends or whatever, but about half say they don't have any white friends. I think the question isn't really about are people not having friends because they're overtly racist. I think most white folks or black folks or Latino folks or Asian folks or whoever who don't have friends that are of a different race. It's not because they're bigots. I think it's actually probably because we've been spatially isolated from one another in a lot of ways. And so sometimes the opportunities to even make those kind of friendships aren't there. So in other words, that individual lack of connection, I don't want to ascribe that to being bigots. I'm not saying that. I think it's mostly because of

the history of institutional racism and the separation that that has brought about, which makes it where right now, like 80% of white people live in neighborhoods with virtually no black people around. And the only thing that I think is something that we can say that's different about a white person not being around black people versus a black person not being around white people is that when you ask white folks what our preference is for our neighborhood in terms of what we consider a good mix, we know from the research that when a neighborhood gets to about 8% black, that's when white folks start leaving. And it's not because property values went down. It's not because crime went up. It's because that apparently is the point where we get a little freaked out. Black folks, on the other hand, say they actually

prefer neighborhoods that are like, you know, 40, 60, 50, 50, 30, 70, well racially mixed. Now, it's hard to get those because if black folks want to live in that kind of neighborhood and white folks freak out when it's 8%, you're going to have a difficult time meeting everybody's needs. So I think there is certainly a greater level of bias that is evident in those white spaces. But I'm not saying that if you don't have Black friends, it's because you're a bigot. It's probably because, unfortunately, the history of the country hasn't really put you in a position to get to know people. I was very lucky growing up in Nashville because I was growing up and going to, you know, 40% black schools, playing on black ball teams. I went to preschool at a historically black college. That was like my first early childhood ed experience. So I was the white

kid who actually did have black friends. Like that was all I had for a number of years. There was like one white guy, he was okay. But like for the most part, I hung out with black kids. And that's a rare situation. Most white Americans don't have that. I think we'd be better off if we did. But we don't have it. Yeah, I mean, that has been my what you described is not really my experience, but but not the neighborhood is notwithstanding. And I would say that there seemed to be a lot of animosity about white people moving into Harlem in New York that long before. Because they're trying to make the drummers stop drumming in the park. I mean, there are some things that when you move in, you know. That was never the reason I heard. What I heard was that,

and I never faulted it, is that they wanted to keep it a culturally black neighborhood. I didn't take it as a bigotry. I understand that sentiment fully. But I just remember very much when I was in college, I went to Tufts and there was two black people on the floor. And I remember trying to get the black people to join the rest of us who were all friends on the floor when we would be doing something after you know on the weekend or having something and they weren't interested um and and and i've seen that play out time and time again that it's actually um the the quite often the black people who feel less inclined or less comfortable or for whatever reason right again i don't criticize this but i don't find anything there's nothing objectionable about it

objectionable about it uh to my in my reaction or my mind it just doesn't what you're describing just doesn't line up with my life experience that's all well since we're talking about life experiences as if that was you you know, quantitative data. Well, after 60 years of experience, it's not nothing. But 60 years of anecdotes are still 60 years of anecdotes. I've got 53 years of anecdotes, so they're almost the same. My point being, the data says white folks leave neighborhoods at 8%. That's not my perception.

That's not my belief. That's not my experience. That's what the research actually says. And black folks don't. So, so there's a difference. Well, yeah, but you're just, there's a different, and since you brought up the personal experience, so look, I went to Tulane, a school that's somewhat similar to Tufts and there were black kids on my floor. They didn't want to hang out with us either. One of the reasons was we were sitting around smoking weed out of three foot bongs and they wanted to stay the hell away from us so they wouldn't get arrested. So they had a really decent reason to not want to hang out with us. And I think there are some fundamental differences when black folks feel disconnected from white people, not really sure how white folks view them, wanting, especially at a school that's overwhelmingly white, at a

school like Tufts, at a school like Tulane, at a school where they are clearly outnumbered, yeah, they're going to stick together. It's like I was one of seven Jewish kids in public school in Nashville. We sort of hung out because we were afraid the other folks were going to come and try to make us pray. It didn't mean I didn't like Gentiles. I just sort of knew I needed to keep with my tribe a little bit and the black folks who were also often excluded racism everywhere who's the maddest people white people not y'all y'all all right pay money to see me we cool the feud is over now you watch the tv watch like 60 minutes you see white people pissed off man mad the white man thinks he's losing the country. You watch the news like, we're losing everything.

We're fucking losing affirmative action and illegal aliens and we're fucking losing the country. Losing, shut the fuck up. White people ain't losing shit. If y'all losing, who's winning? It ain't us. It ain't us. Have you driven around this motherfucker? It ain't us. Shit.

Shit, there ain't a white man in this room that would change places with me. None of you. None of you would change places with me. And I'm rich. That's how good it is to be white. There's a white one-leg busboy in here right now that won't change places with my black ass. He's going, nah man, I don't wanna switch. I wanna ride this white thing out.

See where it takes me. That's right. So when you white, the sky's the limit. When you black, the limit's the limit. When you black, the limit's the sky. But I would ask you a favor, if you would, when the show ends, can you send me links to that data? Sure. They're footnoted in my books. I'll find the stuff and send it to you. If you can, because, you know, I understand the dangers of anecdotal information, but sometimes there is something to what you experience in your life,

especially because you experience it with many other people simultaneously. In any case, this is one of my questions about anti-racism. What is the vision that you have for America in, let's say, 2040 in terms of would the law still separate? Will we still have different laws prioritizing different races? Will cultural appropriation be a permanent thing that we're against? Will counting up percentages represented in various places and comparing it to the population at large, will this be something we'll always do? Or is there a vision of America where race becomes irrelevant?

Well, I think that would be great to have that America in the sense that it wouldn't matter substantively and materially. But I think we don't artificially get there. So for instance, there have been a lot of folks over the years who have said, well, you know, if we just stop checking the boxes on the census form or just stop counting by race, then it would go away. But there isn't a single social problem in the history of social problems that goes away because we either stop talking about it or paying attention to it. It's like we were talking about world hunger. Nobody would say, well, if we just stop talking about it, you know, food would miraculously appear on the plates of starving children. We have to actually talk about the things that are out there. So if in fact,

there is substantial racial disparity in every single area of American life, and there is, and it is indisputably the case that that stems both from past injustice and ongoing discrimination, then I need to know, and we all need to know sort of what is the extent of that? Is it getting better? Let me stop you there. Is this include, so what about cultural appropriation? Then I want to go back to the disparity. Do you, do you have a problem with cultural appropriation? Cause that's not a disparity issue. I think there's a difference between appropriation and appreciation. And for me, look, first of all, American, if a, if culture. If a black person can play Mozart, is there any reason in the world that a white person can't play and do anything he wants of any other culture? I don't I don't think. Well, first off, I think. Fair play. Right. Absolutely.

I think there's any reason that every person, every human shouldn't be able to enjoy anything that he sees or hears from wherever it origin. Of course not. And I don't think I don't think any of the critics of cultural appropriation. I mean, real. I mean, I'm not talking about some fool on Twitter that tweets something silly or on Reddit. But I mean, anyone who's actually been a high level critic of cultural appropriation never would argue that white folks can't, for instance, appreciate hip hop or appreciate. Do it. Participate. Actually, to actually do hip hop or appreciate, do it, participate to actually to actually do it. Now, whether you do it well or not is a different issue. But we've seen restaurants get in trouble for serving another culture's food. We've seen people get in trouble for wearing another culture's clothing. I think I think so. The clothing, let me give you

an exact the clothing thing, right? It's one thing if you're going to appreciate someone else's style, fashion, clothing, culture, art, music, entertainment. But I think the problem that people have oftentimes and that I can understand and appreciate, even though I don't make this a huge issue personally for myself, is that too oftentimes that appreciation isn't really appreciation. It's like when the white guys on the quad playing hacky sack at Tulane were wearing locks, like, or what some call dreadlocks, but there's a long reason why that's not really the better term to use. When they were doing that, like, do they actually understand the significance culturally and religiously for Rasta folks of that

particular hairstyle? And if they don't, I sort of think it makes some assholes not that they shouldn't have the right to do it. But that's really meaningful. It's like if you're going to put on an indigenous headdress and go to a Halloween party, and you don't understand the significance of that headdress, it sort of makes you a dick. Like I'm not saying you can't do it. But that's really important. You wouldn't put on a yarmulke and side curls and go to a party and mock Jews and expect not to be criticized so why do we why do we do that with indigenous people black people asian folks etc that's all i mean i don't i don't totally disagree with you but you slipped in the word mock which is not the

scenario that you described you weren't the the guys playing hacky sack were not mocking black people no they weren't they were they were naive But and I would probably add that plenty of black people who wear dreadlocks have no idea of the significance. There are certainly some who don't. Also, I wouldn't say some. I'd say overwhelmingly they don't like people. Everyday black people are not up on the beliefs of the Rastafarians. But they know they know the history of black hair, though, and they know the history of locks, which are actually deeper than just Rasta's. I was just using that as an example because the guys on the quad were all listening to Bob Marley. It's not only Rasta's that were locks. OK, but in general, I'm trying to pin you down.

So because I don't I don't think cultural I mean, I'm very against this concept of cultural appropriation. I do agree with Tim that if there's any element of mock, if there were to be an element of mockery, obviously that's something. But that's not the issue we're talking about. Cultural appropriation is not mockery. Also, we need to be sensitive. If, for example, the white hacky sackers were in all good faith wearing dreadlocks because they appreciated it. But you're inverting the scenario.

That's why you're inverting. I'm posing another scenario. Of course, everybody's against mocking. That's an easy issue. But also, might you understand the situation where a Black person said, I realize you mean nothing by this. You know, I'd like you to know what this means.

Right. I think, look, I think most people who engage in what we're discussing don't have bad intentions. I really, and I think as a result, when someone does something that could be seen potentially as insensitive, that is a time for education, not cancellation, not blasting or like calling them out and making a big issue of it. Because I do think a lot of times people do stuff without recognizing that it could be offensive to someone. I think that, however, there's a very fine line and give you an example.

I mentioned the Indian headdress stuff. I know that there are people who will wear indigenous quote unquote clothing and headdress, and they will say that they are doing it. They have no, it's not mocking. They're not trying to make fun. And yet we know how easily that became, you know, chief Wahoo that, that became, I understand. And I don't disagree with you, but, but I really don't. But what I, what I would object to is that you're taking the very, very extreme cases where somebody is actually stepping on something. It's actually holy to another people, not knowing they're doing it. And if you'll say, hey, you know, I wish you wouldn't do that because these are sacred things to us.

That's not in the scenario of this kind of steady drip of cultural appropriation issues. Well, that's what I think of as you're asking me my opinion. But those are the kinds of appropriations that I am most concerned with. So, OK, so that's, that's okay. I mean, it's just not a huge issue for me, but I think, but I think it's something that people who feel that their culture is being, one other thing that is important to me, there are a lot of critics of so-called cultural appropriation who point out that when white folks decide certain hairstyles, certain body types are cool and fashionable,

and they make a lot of money off of that and create entire industries out of that, even though black folks were ridiculed for the same thing, whether that's going back to Bo Derek and her hair in the 70s, that was something black women had been doing and never thought it was beautiful, never called beautiful for it. And all of a sudden it was great because Bo Derek was doing it. I think the criticism is that white folks take things that Black folks do and get criticized for, whether it's body type, whether it's hair, whether it's clothing or style, and then do it, remix it, reupholster the whole thing, and then get paid off of it. That's a commercial or material issue of unfairness, which gets us

back to the issue of disparity, which in my mind is a much bigger issue. A lot of this other stuff is sort of fluff to me. I don't want to get bogged down, so I'm going to move on. I would just say that one of the things I worry about is, and this is not just in race, actually. Actually, I just read an article about it in terms of land use, is becoming a prisoner of the past. So absolutely, all these things happened in the past and black people ridiculed, blah, blah, blah. And I don't say blah, blah, blah to dismiss it. I just mean like that and so forth.

But at the point where the culture changes and now thinks, you know what? we actually think this stuff is beautiful now. I would think in a healthy society, we say, oh, terrific. I'm happy that you think this stuff is beautiful. We want to share it. Now, let me get to the disparity thing. So one of the things that comes to mind, I have a few things I want to ask you. One of the things that really stuck out not long ago, there was a editorial, I think it was in New York Times, calling for the end of blind auditions in symphony orchestras. Because it used to be that, you know, people would audition for the symphony orchestra and women would not get hired.

So they went towards what seemed like a very sensible alternative, which was that the person auditioning would hide behind a curtain. The people listening would have no idea who was playing, and then they would rate their playing and decide whether they want to be in the orchestra. So it happens that Black people are not getting hired for the orchestra through blind auditions. So now there's a movement to end blind auditions. And this seems to be taking this idea to an absurd point. Do you agree that that's absurd? Or do you think there should be no blind audition? I mean, you can't, unless you can give me some scenario

where this is actually not. I think for something like symphony orchestras, the weight of the evidence, and I haven't looked at it, but I would think that blind auditions are still a better way to do that kind of selection. Because to be honest, the idea that we would not make them blind and that somehow that would improve the prospects for musicians of color, I'm not sure that that would be true, because then there could be other kinds of implicit biases that might creep in if you knew that the musician was black or brown. So I'm not sure that that would be true because then there could be other kinds of implicit biases that might creep in if you knew that the musician was black or brown.

So I'm not really sure how that would help. Again, I haven't looked at it, so I don't really have a strong opinion about it. But I do know that the record, the history, like what you're talking about, is that definitely there were major gender inequities. I know that. Well, let me ask you, you say it would help. And I would put on the table here, it could only hurt because if it's blind auditions, then we can be 100% sure that we're getting the best people. And if that doesn't break down in terms of a percentage base of the population, just like the NBA doesn't break down into the population, then what's the difference? We're not worried about a couple of things before we get into the inevitable NBA analogies. I think that that I agree. I just told you, I agree that blind auditions are the better way to go there, because I don't I'm not sure that whatever the theory is that someone has that having them not blind would somehow help opportunities for musicians of color. I'm not even sure that that would be true, even on that criteria,

even if that's the criteria. Let's say it would be true. Let's say it would be true. I'm pretty sure it would. What if a symphony orchestra said, we want to get rid of our blind auditions and we want to make sure we have 20% black musicians. Well, that's not going to happen. That's never going to happen.

As a hypothetical, would you say that's a good thing? Or would you say, no, that's actually, that's actually discriminating against people who are better musicians? I would say, well, I would say there's multiple issues that one has to look at when a question like that comes to me. Number one, I think it would be absurd. No symphony is going to do that. No business does that. It's illegal to actually say this percentage of anything has to be this. So that's a scenario without any ground. What? Businesses do this all the time, have targets for a certain number of people. Targets, but you said a particular percentage. I'm saying that's not a real thing, not in symphonies and virtually in no institutions do we actually say we want to have this percentage

of anything. Affirmative action. That's not what affirmative action does. Affirmative action, first of all, doesn't apply to symphonies. It applies only to companies that have a certain percentage of contracts with the government and or other government institutions. Mr. Wise, please. I understand, but you say nobody does that. Of course people do that. I'm just asking you. But they don't. But I'm trying to hone in on what your belief system is. I'm asking you. I'm sorry, Dan. You keep getting, you're like going in and out, Dan. Well, I'm coming from a...

What I would say is, what I would say is that... I'm just trying to get to the core of your belief, which is I'm asking you if you had to choose between two scenarios, blind auditions,

or if a symphony orchestra said, no, we want to get... Let me put my cards on the table. If a symphony orchestra said, no, we're going to get rid of blind auditions and we're going to try to get to 20% black or Jewish or any kind of representation in the orchestra. I say, no, that's actually discrimination because we know that there's no discrimination in a blind audition. So whatever you're seeing, that's just the way the world is.

And I mean, I think you can make that argument for something like the symphony. I will, I will, for the sake of this discussion, because I don't think this is the most productive use of our time, you know, to actually talk about this scenario. But I will grant you that when it comes to something like that, that a blind audition is the proper way to go. But I do not want to give the impression that we can then analogize from that, that that's how it should be for all jobs, because most jobs are not like a symphony audition in the sense that subjectivity does most certainly come into play. Subjectivity comes into play when you're applying for just about any position in this country. It's going to depend on who you're connected to, who wrote you a letter of recommendation. There was a study several years ago that found almost half of the new jobs since the 2009 recession are being

filled by letters of recommendation written by existing employees on behalf of friends and people they know who they're trying to help get a job. And the people who disproportionately are left out of that are black and brown. They're women of all colors. They're working class, including working class. I agree with you a hundred percent. Right. So, so, but there is an analogy, there is an analogy between blind auditions and standardized tests. No, not really because no, there's not because the difference is standardized tests. We know from the people who actually write the test and have done the studies have found that the correlation between a standardized test score and your first year of college grades, which is all it was ever intended to predict, it doesn't predict graduation rates, it doesn't predict success in life, it

doesn't predict future income, it predicts one year or really only one semester of grades, the correlation is 0.32. Now that may sound significant to people, but it's not because that means if you take the SAT and I take the SAT, the correlation that what you get and what I get, only 0.32 for you and 0.32 for me will be predicted by that test. That means the difference between you and me is 10.24 because you have to square the correlation. I know this is like really bad math, but my point is only 10% of the difference. I thought correlations went from 0 to 1. What? I thought correlations went from 0 to one with 0.5.

They do, but if your correlation is 0.32 and my correlation is 0.32, if you want to know what the difference between our first year grades will be, you have to square the correlation. 0.32 times 0.32 is 10.24, meaning 10% of the difference between you and me was predicted by the SAT.

That's not a good basis for choosing a freshman class, especially when you know that those tests are correlated with what they're correlated with income. They're correlated with zip code. They're correlated with whether your parents went to college, not your actual ability. Okay. Okay. Okay. So let me, so let me tell you a personal experience I had, and this, you can, this is true at Penn law school. Yeah. There's a writing competition to get on law review and the writing uh the professors who that grade the papers don't know who the student is

there's no name on the papers right and once the papers are graded they're sent to the registrar's office this is a Penn Law School now this Law School now. These are high-powered people. Sent to the registrar's office, and then the registrar added points to people of color and maybe women, I don't know, but definitely people of color. That's, I think, 100% analogous to the blind audition. Well, except that I don't know that it is because I'm not sure that writing and legal writing in particular can, I mean, I'm a writer. I don't know that it is because I'm not sure that writing and legal writing in particular can. I mean, I'm a writer. I don't think that writing is objective in the same way. It's a it's a writing. It's your auditioning, as it were, for a for. I know. I understand that. And the law review is also based on your grades when you're in law school.

It's also got to do with that. My point is, this is not great. Half the law review is chosen just on a writing competition. I understand. Submit your writing. Just like you play your piece. And the professors don't know who wrote it. I understand. And afterwards they say, you know what?

We're going to add points to everybody's of a different color. And I say, I have trouble with that. Well, I don't know the pen policy. I would love to look at the policy. I will pay you a thousand dollars if I would love to look at the policy. I will pay you a thousand dollars if I'm not giving you exactly as it is. Well, I'll be glad to look at it if you want to send me that. Accept it as a hypothetical. Accept it as a hypothetical. Do you have a problem with it?

Well, but you said it was more than just a hypothetical. You said it was a real thing. But if you don't know that it's true, then just take it on faith and say, well, if it's true, I'm for it. Or if it's true, I'm against it. You know, I think the problem with that, even as a hypothetical, is the assumption is that there is no value in diversity in something like the law review. If, in fact, somebody reviews it, some teacher reviews it and thinks, well, this person's writing is X degrees, not as good as this person's writing. So if the law review ends up being all white people, that's okay. I'm not sure that that is okay. And let me explain why. I think the problem is when now if the, if the, if the differences in magnitude were massive, that's one thing, but they wouldn't be because you wouldn't be at Penn law school in the first place. If you weren't a pretty damn good student,

you're not going to get in there. If you can't write, you're not going to get into that school in the first place if your grades and your LSAT aren't good. So we're talking about- You just finished telling me about letters of recommendation, who you know, all the way you're able to get around. Right. But what I'm saying is if you're at Penn Law School, white, black, or otherwise, the odds are that you were a pretty damn good student or you wouldn't be there. It's called range restriction, the restriction of people that are the actual pool of people that are even applying at a school like that, let alone getting in, are all going to be really good. They're all going to be better than I would have been and probably better than any of us. And so as a result, like we're probably not

going to most people listening to this, we're never even going to get in there. I got in there. What? I got in there. Which is great. Well, that's great. But most people don't. It's a hard school to get into, as you well know. It's a very good law school. And so you find the conversation to the intrinsic value of a diverse law review. Right. This is my point. When you don't have when you don't have diversity in these spaces that we have identified as the spaces of the best of the best. If you don't have any real diversity in those spaces, even though there are people who are clearly good. Now, whether you think there are people that are slightly better or not is a subjective discussion, but if you've got people who are good and talented

and capable students and none of them are being reflected or very few are being reflected, here's the social harm of that. That reinforces the idea that even though these students got into UPenn Law School, they must not really be that smart. And then you end up with a professor like Amy Wax at the University of Pennsylvania Law School who continues to say to this day in conference after conference that these people are essentially culturally inferior and defective. And she uses examples supposedly from her class to justify that belief. So the value of breaking down this sort of white hegemonic dominance in these spaces is it allows us to challenge the idea that only white people belong in those spaces. And if we don't have people in those spaces that visually, symbolically challenge that by their presence, I think we reinforce the notion that Black folks just must not be as smart, which is an inherently racist belief, that Latinos must be less smart, which

is an inherently racist belief, or that they just don't work as hard. It might reinforce that notion. That's terrible. On the other hand, if I wrote the best paper, I'm not entitled to be judged without regard to my color? You are, but the problem is determining what is the objective way in which we can say you wrote the best paper. Everything is subjective. Whether or not I know the color of the person writing it, this is not a question of like, can I hit a particular note on a flute? That's something that I can literally measure. And that's either you either can do that or you can't do that. That's why blind auditions are very subjective.

It's about emotion. It's about interpretation. Everybody who auditions for a symphony orchestra is at least as range restricted. Oh, I agree. I agree with you. But I'm saying there is. If not more. If not more.

Right. It is somewhat subjective when you're looking at the way that somebody plays that there's no affirmative action in an orchestra, even for the audition at Penn. There's quite a bit of, you know, of affirmative action that goes on in the admissions process to begin with. Of course there is. But we also know from the research. We also know from we also know from the research that the Law School Admissions Council is the folks that write the LSAT. The work that they did on this 10, 15, 20 years ago, Linda Whiteman was a director of the LSAC. She did the research that found that there was no substantial difference in the actual abilities of students who were going to law schools with lower LSATs and lower GPAs, as long as it was within a particular range. And that range was like a nine point spread, a nine to 10 point spread, which is roughly, which is actually

about the size, if not a little larger than the typical spread between white and black students at most of these elite law schools within that range is considered random by the people that wrote the test. It is considered random. If it's considered random, then what is, why, why is one group doing differently than the other? I'm saying it's random in the sense that it doesn't actually reflect ability once people are in law school. When you actually look at people, I mean, certain people are doing better

because the research on standardized tests has long told us that the correlation, the highest correlation between standardized test performance and for an individual's test performance is the zip code they came from. So it reflects those- I'm being devil's advocate on some stuff, actually. And that's why I tell you just,

and tell the listeners, when I went to Penn, I was very, very liberal. And I was very, almost like, you know, of course, I was for affirmative action. Everybody, every Jewish liberal kid was for affirmative action. And that was the beginning of a change for me when I, when I saw that, like, we were literally, you know, 24 months away from going before judges. And I felt like, well, you know, by the time you get to your third year in law school, I guess the second year law school, you should at some point, you should say, No, I want to be treated like everybody else. Like, I'm about to go into the real world in front of juries and judges and all like that. They're going to presumably they're not going to they're not going to give me extra point.

When when you see me, can we just what's that? We just can find the discussion. I want to know if you feel there's any intrinsic value to a diverse law school or a diverse, say, board of directors or a diverse group? I'm torn about that issue because, yes, of course, especially in legal matters, especially in issues which pertain to race, it's ridiculous to think that life experience doesn't matter. Why not in all matters, though? No, it doesn't matter. I mean, chess, it matters.

In other words, if there's an issue before the court about a close call about a police procedure, let's say, to come from a community where you know what the police are capable of, as opposed to a community where you're utterly naive about what the police are capable of, is profound and is going to improve your judgment on these matters. So I cannot dismiss diversity as being valuable at that. Right. Question is, does this diversity exception become a, a, an opening, which, which, you know, an elephant pokes his trunk through and then becomes really a, a way to, to, to then rubber stamp any kind of movement towards diversity where it's really not about that anymore? It's really just results oriented. So that's a good and fair. That's a fair question.

That's a very fair question. Here's my answer to it. The reality is if our efforts at greater diversity and representation are not in fact bringing about changes and results, then they're probably not very serious efforts. Because the only way that one could say that, well, you know, we're just not getting these results, even though we're making the effort, is if we're not willing to acknowledge that that's because the effort has been pretty weak, then it must be because at some level, we just think these people, whoever these people are, might be black folks, might be women as women, might be poor people as poor people, whatever it is, that they're just not as good. And I fundamentally reject the, I start with the proposition that if in fact opportunity were truly equal in this country, both historically and contemporaneously, we wouldn't

have perfect parity because just like if I flip a coin, it's not going to be 50-50 on 100 flips, but it would be a hell of a lot closer than it is now. We would have something more akin to representation that was similar to the population. And the only way that wouldn't be true, the only way that I'm wrong when I say that is if Black people and other folks of color who are disproportionately on the bottom of the social hierarchies are truly inferior. I reject that as a matter of not only ideology, but a matter of fact. So let me just tell you, let me just go on record. I 100% agree with you. And this is actually a subject I can get pretty riled up about. I can tell you as an employer and as a person, and I mean, it's anecdotal, of course, but it's obvious to me that the disparities we see are not based on inferiority. And that's a it's an like I feel that I feel that strongly in my bones.

Right. And let me tell you. So let me tell you. My last thing, and then I'll let Dan'll let Dan if he doesn't get cut off but what I what I do think my whole, my whole take on this reduces to the following. versus their white peers and their ability to read, write, and do mathematics proficiently in the sixth grade, let's say. Yeah. The disparities are so heartbreakingly enormous that I don't even want to read the statistics out loud because it sounds as if I'm,

it just sounds too ugly to read them. But you can Google them. Suffice it to say, it is a national shame that is unimaginable. And, but having said that, if you were to tell me you had 30 white kids who were doing terribly in the sixth grade and 30 white kids were doing really, really well. And then asked me to predict, what would you expect to see in terms of their representation in the Ivy leagues in 15 years? I'd say, well, of course, the 30 kids that are doing great or great. And,

and you're lucky if even one of these kids, if you can't read and write well in sixth grade, your whole future is fucked. Excuse my language. And I feel like all the efforts that we do with good intentions to try to equalize adults

is futile and that all the neglect that we don't immediately, that we don't essentially focus like a laser beam and put, I would say 100% of our effort to equalize educational achievement in grammar school and early high school. I feel like if we were to do that, if young black children could read and write on par with their peers, everything else would take care of itself.

You wouldn't need to have different scores. You wouldn't need to have this stuff. You wouldn't need to have this stuff. They would be on the track to do just like everybody else. Now, what is going on in those kids? This is a combination of our historical atrocities that we've committed. It's also bad incentives. It's also, I believe, part of the damage that I believe the anti-racist movement does. For instance, I think it's terrible, terrible to get rid of standardized tests

for children in New York City schools, because that is all the teachers need to never be called to task again. Rather than fix the problem by removing these black kids, we're going to fix the problem by stopping to measure it. So let me tell you where i agree with you and then i'll tell you where i disagree with you i certainly agree with you that the bulk of the work can't wait until someone's 40 and applying for a job or 20 and applying for a job right clearly or 18 in my opinion or 18 or whatever right clearly clearly clearly um Where I disagree is this, I don't think it is an either or proposition. And I certainly don't think that the people on my side of this have ever suggested that it was, but I certainly wouldn't. It would be, you know,

like saying during the segregation of buses in this country, well, you know, the answer is not to desegregate the buses, let's just build more buses so everybody gets a good seat. Like we could do both. We could have more buses and we could integrate the ones that we have for those who were already on them. So I think what we want to do is two things. Number one, and you know, that would be a whole different show, like figuring out how do we fix K-12 Ed, but I certainly agree with you. There's a ton of stuff that has to be done there. Let me hold that though. Let me zoom in. He said something interesting, but let me just zoom in on that and tell me if you've thought this through or if you agree with what I'm about to say.

Okay. If you agree with my premise that, again, same color, that if you have two cohorts, one that you would see significant disparities among these white people when they're adults? You will. How can you acknowledge that on the one hand, but then on the other hand,

not acknowledge that some of the disparities we're seeing among the races are actually not racially based. They're actually the result of the same disparities we'd expect if these were purely white people. And how because the difference all I said, all I said previously, if you recall, is that the disparities we see are a product of in of unequal opportunity, both historic and contemporary. So I'm agreeing with you that that is why we're going to see disparities, because we've seen them sort of cascading from an earlier point. My argument. I'm not trying to make it clear for the, for the listeners. So when you say unequal opportunities, you mean the, the lack of opportunities that even the parents might've had.

I'm talking historically, right? The inertia I'm applying has been unfair to these children. You don't mean actually unequal opportunity at the job, let's say they're applying for. And I'm just saying, look, I'm saying we have a here. This is not that complicated. I'm probably making it more than it needs to be. OK, what I'm saying is we have a history of unequal opportunity specifically directed at black and brown peoples, especially black folks in this country. And that has affected generation after generation in terms of where folks live, in terms of their assets and wealth, in terms of the jobs that they have, in terms of the schools that their kids go to, in terms of the curriculum that they therefore receive. So all of that stuff cascades. I'm essentially applying Newton's first law of motion to economics and history and sociology, right? The idea that an object in motion tends to remain in motion. History does that too. So the disparities that we see in

those classrooms, for instance, as you and I both agree, we have that on the table, right? That obviously it's not inferiority. Obviously it's not that these kids aren't just as capable, but for whatever reason, they are not doing as well. And I'm saying the reason for that is both a history of unequal access, which has put them behind in the race, so to speak, five laps back in an eight-lap race, and also ongoing inequalities of resources. We know, for instance, that schools that serve disproportionately low-income Black and brown kids spend less per pupil on average nationwide than the schools that serve more affluent and

wider communities. We know that the resources offered both in terms of AP and honors and enrichment classes are different. There are like 168 high schools, I think, in the state of California. Last time I looked, they don't have any honors. I think AP is too late for what I'm talking about. Well, I'm just saying, but I'm talking even honors like enrichment programs in the earlier grades. They just don't have them. So what I'm saying is there's a combination of both history and ongoing unequal access that helps explain that. Now, obviously, as long as that's happening, we're not going to expect a perfectly rough percentage of Black people in all of these things when they're 30, because we screwed them when they were nine. Like, obviously, we agree on that. Right. We would want to make sure that we were doing something in

those earlier grades to then create a different cascade effect. One generation and two generations. Obviously, we're not. You and I agree on that 100 percent. We don't do anything. We don't do anything. Well, I think the difference between what you two are saying is that Noam is saying, let the law firm hire the best people regardless of race. Let the law school admit the best people regardless of race. And let's focus on the early childhood education. And I'm sure and I agree with the need to focus on early childhood ed. The problem is, if we were to say that we're not going to do any efforts for diversity in the business world or in law schools or undergrad or whatever, because, you know, we got to focus on this other thing. Like I said, I don't think it's an either or. You have a lot of incredibly capable people who are applying for jobs right now who are being overlooked because they are not in those networks. connections or contacts. Something like affirmative action is really the only thing that has historically in the last 30 or 40 or really almost 50 years now actually expected certain institutions to do

more outreach and recruitment to actually broaden the pool of people that they look at. So I don't want to get rid of that. It's not a perfect tool, but I wouldn't want to get rid of it. Let me just say this because I want to go back to the New York City school. I want to say something that we got to wrap up, but go ahead. Say good. I was just going to say, and if we're talking about the test for like the specialized schools, if we're talking about like the test for Stuyvesant and Brooklyn Tech and specialized schools, those are just the best high schools. Well, OK, but what I'm saying is these are the test in schools is what I mean. So the problem with those tests and why I think people have been critical of them

because by them is because the admission of the people who write them, those tests are not in any way, shape, or form devised based on stuff that has been previously covered in school. It is not actually a test of prior knowledge that has been administered in school. It's not testing what you've been taught. It's testing things that you were either likely to know because of your background or not, or that you went to some quiz cram, like index card, like flashcard prep class and took. If it's a test that actually tests the knowledge that you were taught, we can make an argument that that's valid. That's what we take every day in school.

We sit in a classroom and we take a test at the end of the semester that's actually so so yeah so so if what you're saying is true i've never heard that i live in new york i've read everything about this but but if if what you're saying is that they're testing them on things that you know essentially on the quality of their homes rather than the quality of so then i of course i would agree with you i would only say that um i i don't think that's the case i think the the um the testing is just another in a series of data points that resembles the the disparity in reading ability writing ability mathematics ability that are measured in in other standardized tests that those test results are pretty predictable on the trajectory but let me just

let me just say uh i just want to hope I remember things. So on the issue of inferiority, I just wanted to make this point that even if you were to be open to the data of the Charles Murray's of the world, which says that Ashkenazi Jews are smarter and all that stuff, Right. That data would not predict the disparities we're seeing. And that's that's a key point. And that's also why that line of thought is so harmful, because let's say it is true that there's a five point difference in IQs between Jews and white people or any or any two groups. Right. Any two gene pools.

It doesn't even have to be race. I mean, IQ is more and more shown to correlate according to gene pools, identical twins and all that. So all this is possible. Nothing, to my knowledge, nothing that has ever been found would even begin to explain the kind of differences that we're seeing.

So you could almost hold, you could almost say, yeah, I do think there's a difference in IQs and still say, but this has nothing to do with that. There's no argument that I'm aware of. What you can certainly say is this, is that even if someone is desperate to, for some reason, agree with Charles Murray about anything, the reality is that even

if a person, and taking it out of the race situation altogether, even if an individual happens to have some really super high genius IQ because of some biological or genetic predisposition in their family, not linking it to race or ethnicity, you're just saying as an individual with this super genius family, it's not like they earned their IQ, right? It's not like they did anything to deserve that. That would be like saying, well, I have a blood type and therefore I should be treated differently than someone who doesn't, or I'm lactose intolerant. Like that would be a trait over which you had no control. And so the big issue, the big problem with those people who look at things like IQ and intelligence in this vacuum, which oftentimes

does tend in a really racist and classist direction with things like the bell curve, is that they're ignoring that that says nothing about a person's character, disposition, or drive. And my argument would be that when we look at things like affirmative action, look, if there are groups of people in this country who had a three or five lap head start in an eight lap race, they ought to hit the tape first, right? When you have a three to five lap head start in an eight lap race, you hit the tape first. That doesn't mean you're the fastest runner. I would prefer that we have a society where we say, listen, if you were three laps back and at the end of the race, you're only two laps back, by definition, you're the faster runner. You're the one that I want on my track team. So if we're looking at standardized tests, the analogy would be, if it's a question of like- But now you're not making a racial argument. I mean, a lot of people- But I'm saying any, I would apply it to class too. A lot of people have argued against race-based affirmative action and said it should be experientially based affirmative action if you come from a disadvantaged home.

I think it could be both of these because what we know is that there are specific disadvantages that are about race, even for black and brown folks who are not poor. And there are disadvantages for poor people, including poor people who are white. Again, it's not either or. I think it would be great. What's the disadvantage of race for people who are not poor? Well, there's a whole body of research on schools, for instance, that finds that Black students, Black kids who are in upper income families with $75,000 or more in household income are still like three to five times more likely to attend a high poverty school than white kids with that kind of income. In fact, they're more likely to live in low income and moderate income

neighborhoods than white kids who are poor. Let me finish, white kids who are actually poor are less likely to live in a poor neighborhood than black kids who are middle to upper middle class. So there are some fundamental differences that are not just about economics. There's also this whole body of research on standardized tests, which finds that black kids from families that are, I mean, these are, you know, two parent homes, reasonably high incomes, occupational status, who take standardized tests, 75,000 or more in income, do worse on standardized tests than poor white kids. Now, there are only two possible explanations for that. If you're Black and you're more affluent and you're still doing worse on the SAT than a poor

white kid, either you have to endorse that racist nonsense that Charles Murray puts out, which we both rejected already, or you have to say, God, there must be something going on, even for the middle to upper middle class black kid in their life that is driving down their test scores. And there is, in fact, a theory to explain that and a body of research called stereotype. But there also are different cultural realities here, regardless of what. But see, this is where it gets dangerous, because if we're going to say, well, it's not biology, but it's culture. Then we're still making we're still making judgments about culture. Yeah, but but but this, I think, is irrefutable. achievement in New York City, poor people very often don't speak English.

They score the highest in the city. That's either culture or biology. It's one or the other. It's not advantageous. It's not who they know. As a matter of fact, this whole thing of who you know and recommendations, it sounds good,

but as I'm thinking about it, Jews didn't know anybody when they arrived. Indian people are the richest people now they didn't know anybody when they arrived like like it sounds good but in reality it hasn't helped many nigerians earn more than white people they don't know anybody when they come but what do the what do jews asians and nigerians have well the different culture am i wrong wrong? They have a culture. There's a lot different. It's Nigerians, first of all, and Asians. There's there is a. Well, there's a fundamental difference between immigrant communities, first of all. countries from which all those quote unquote successful Asians come and find tons of poor people who would bomb the SAT tomorrow. And they come from the same culture as the ones who were getting into Stuyvesant and Bronx Science. They come from the same culture as the ones who we like to hold up as the quote unquote model minority. So we have to be very careful when

we make these generalizations about Asian culture, because there are literally billions of poverty right now living in Bangladesh, living in India, living in China. They come from the same kind of cultures, and they have the same kind of background. Every country has a curve, but I'm asking, then how do you- My point being, though, the ones who come as immigrants, voluntary immigrants to a nation, by definition, are a self-selected group of people. That is not the case for people who did not self-select and are a broader cross-section. That's fine.

But however, hold up. But however you, however it originated and whenever they self-selected, what we have now is a culture. When I say culture, I mean, well, I mean, listen, as far as I understand it, there's two options. There is for the Asians, because, because with the black community, you have a third option, which is deprived being deprived, but you have Asian people who are doing very, very, very well. We can see on average, on average. Well, they're the highest earners in the country on average. Well, there's 26 different groups.

They're the highest earners in the country. They're doing better than people with white privilege. Wait, wait. See, but you're saying there are 26 Asian subgroups in this country. Why does the average Asian student do so well in New York City? First of all, there's not an average Asian student. You have 26 different subgroups and nationwide, putting aside the experience in New York,

nationwide, some of those groups are doing very well and have high incomes. Some of them have poverty rates and school failure rates that are similar to Latinos and Blacks. For the first time since you've been on the show, I feel like you're ducking the question. No, I'm not. I'm telling you there's not an average.

There's not a group you want that's doing better on average. And tell me why they are doing better. It's either in my opinion, it's either their superior stock genetically or they have a superior culture. I use the word Lucy to mean the way they're raised, the attention they get, the amount, the emphasis on education. But that wouldn't explain the difference. I'm going to answer your question in a way that I think you won't find satisfying, but will nonetheless be an answer. You can't use that as an explanation for why black kids from successful homes. Remember, I said black kids from families with $75,000 or more in annual income, two parents in the home, college educated parents, books in the home, high occupational status are still doing worse than poor white kids. You can't say that those black families are not striving for excellence. These are kids who are coming from homes that are culturally, if you want to say that Asians have some culture of striving and success, so do those black kids, and yet they're not doing as well. So either that means that there's something genetically wrong with them.

I want to address what you just said. We have to go. But first answer my question, if you will, which is how I mean, you study this stuff at some point. You must have said, well, why are these why in New York City are the Asian kids dominating the standardized tests? You must have asked yourself that question. I think in New York City, for those particular schools that we're talking about, there is a history. It is not some inherent Asian cultural trait. It is the fact that immigrants thriving communities, including some of those that you're talking about, not all the Asian communities, but some in places like New York, know that that is a path in a place like New York to success, to go to Stuyvesant, to go to Bronx Science, to go to Brooklyn Tech.

And there is a high amount of pressure, intense pressure, not necessarily healthy pressure, I should point out, but intense pressure on immigrant communities to achieve by those standards that they believe the culture demands of them. And that's not necessarily healthy. That's not necessarily healthy, but it's not healthy, but I'm still healthy or not. I think it's an immigrant striving culture. It's got nothing to do with Asians as Asians. The self-selection thing sounds, but as I'm thinking about the self-selection thing, I think, well, the Jews, the Jews were very, very high achieving. They were driven out en masse. They weren't, there was no self-selection in Jewss showing up on on people's shores they they right but when we came but when we came and and i and why did we do so well well one of the reasons is that jews a disproportionate number of jewish immigrants and steven steinberg talks about this

in his book the ethnic myth brilliant book talks about how jews who came despite our stories about having 18 cents and a ball of lint in our pocket also came with professional experience that was needed. That is just nonsense. It's not nonsense. I am first generation immigrant. I know exactly the community I came from. What you're saying is nonsense. What you're saying is my great grandfather. My great grandfather came and was able to get jobs in New York City in the early 1900s that had been off limits to black people for 30 years. But the idea that Jews came here already, doctors, this is-

No, no, no, I didn't say doctors. I didn't say anything. I'm telling you that I came from families that were broke, that were going for odd jobs. My father sold brushes door to door. I understand, but they had my great grandfather. My great grandfather came with merchant experience. I'm not saying this is just, this is just nonsense. This is just nonsense. I gave you,

I gave you a reference. So again, I would say there was something, whatever the Jews were, were, uh, didn't have what they, what they, what they didn't have. I would say, which is the argument that you would agree with. They didn't have, they were not taken in slaves, stripped of things and then just set out on their own to, uh, you know, to, to, to, to make their way in the world. The Jews have a culture based in, um, in a certain kind of educational priority,

going back to the studying the Talmud for general learning for men. Right. But I mean, that's also very gender still learning for women, but, but, but you're right now. And that is, if that's not the basis of their rapid ascendance in, in American culture, then it sounds like you're saying it's genetic. It's gotta be something. I'm saying it's material reality. If 40%, according to the research that Steinberg cites,

of Jews came with experience as small merchants or as tailors, haberdashers, furriers. And keep in mind, when Jews came to places like New York, in addition to being able to get jobs that black people couldn't get and had been run out of for 30 years, they were also in industries that were just middle, like working class, upper working class or lower middle class in many of the places they came from, but which happened to be in the United States, industries that were growing three times the average of the economy at that time. There was a huge demand on the part of rich Gentiles for fine clothing, for haberdashery,

for furs, for merchant class to actually buy products from them. So we were very fortunate. We came at a very important time, at a very good time to have come to the United States by and large in terms of what industry experience we had. But you understand that even in the Soviet Union, where Jews faced horrible anti-Semitism. They still rose to the tops of academic ranks. There's been no culture, no, there's no country where the Jews have been regardless of the level of hatred and, and, and ghetto, ghettoization that they faced where they didn't excel at the same things they

still excel at that are academically based. I didn't know that it was controversial to say this was a cultural thing. I think the danger, I think, and I think with all due respect, I understand why you don't want to sign up for that. But I think it sounds absurd at some point. Obviously, there is such a thing as culture in the world. Of course there is. Yeah, and different cultures do emphasize different things. But the question is what

the culture of the United States decides is critical and important and that it rewards is not just something that is some, you know, handed down by God objective thing. What we have decided matters is subjective, just like what other countries decide matters is subjective. And our, you know, if we, if we had a society that was still largely agrarian, the skills that would pay the most and the cultures that would be rewarded the most would be those that knew how to farm. I think I'm, I think I'm, I think I'm actually more sympathetic racially than you are in a certain way. Because like I saw a statistic today from the CDC where black people are being killed with

firearms at 10 times the rate of white people. 10 times. And of course it's mostly by other black people, but that's not my point at all. My point is like, how could we expect people coming

from that life to not be scarred by that? I'd expect them to do as well. Of course. And expect them to do as well as people coming without who don't have that baggage. I'm not. Look, I told you that to me is culture. I expect that people who are coming from marginalized spaces are not going to be doing as well. I never said that they would.

What I'm saying is that the way that we ought to be evaluating people is not simply on who won the race or who got the test score, but on how far did people move from where they were in that opportunity structure to where they are now? Because effort to me means a lot. Again, if I start out five laps behind and I'm only three laps behind at the end, I ran and that opportunity structure to where they are now. Because effort to me means a lot. Again, if I start out five laps behind and I'm only three laps behind at the end, I ran faster. If you start out with a headstart, not just racially, economically, or in any other way,

you're supposed to hit the tape first. You should get the higher test score. My argument is you ought not be rewarded for the headstart over which you had no control. But the obvious answer to the initial thing that you said about why, why are black children coming from professional homes, still scoring badly on tests? The obvious, the obvious one, I shouldn't say obvious one possible answer could simply be that the parents

didn't score that well on the tests either. If that's true, if that's true, then you've just undermined the legitimacy of the test because they're professionally successful. They're making a good living. They're earning good incomes. They're doing all the $75,000. This is not. Well, that's a national average. It would be higher in New York, obviously, like middle class, you know, 70, but 75,000 or higher doing worse than 20,000 or lower. You've got to at least agree that the kid that's growing up in that is coming from a family that is probably more quote unquote culturally success oriented than the one who's coming from if we're going to make these cultural arguments.

Right. And so my point is I still only score as well on these tests as his parents did. But my point being that they're successful. They're doing well in life. These are college-educated parents. They're making decent money. They've got good incomes and occupations. If the tests are really valid at predicting something other than first-year grades, which if that's all it predicts, which is, in fact, what they say it predicts, why in the hell are we using that as a criteria? Why is that a valid choice if, in fact fact you can go on and be perfectly successful?

There's a lot of data. I'll send it. There's a lot of data showing the SATs. I think both of you have made your arguments and I think the listeners can decide for themselves. I don't know if Tim has a few more minutes. Can we talk a little bit about the browning, quote unquote, of America? Because I know Tim has mentioned, pardon? I said I'm forward. I'm doing my part. I think Tim, you're on record as saying that the browning of America is an inherently good thing. Is that fair to say?

I mean, I think it's just a thing. I think people, I don't wanna say quite like that because I just think people move and they move where opportunity is. And I think that to try to restrict that, which is what some would do, is not only, I think, a humanitarian mistake, it's also an economic mistake, because put simply, there aren't enough white people and aren't going to be enough white people in the next 40 or 50 years to keep the economy afloat, because the

median age of white people is 44. And you just don't make that many babies when you're in your mid 40s. So in fact, this idea of the great replacement that the Tucker Carlson's of the world and the Buffalo terrorists are worried about, they have it exactly backwards is in fact, the demography changing. Yes. But if it doesn't change, we're going to be in real trouble. It's not that I want to just like say, oh yeah, it'll be awesome when we have less white people. It's just, we're going to have less white people. And so if you want to have a stable economy, you want to have a society that works for people, including white folks, you're going to have to have someone here. And the reality is that that's probably going to be brown folks. So I think it's a natural process. And if you're

going to allow capital to cross borders and goods to cross borders, you have to let labor cross borders. If you don't do that, you're screwing working people generally, not just brown working people, but white working people as well, by keeping labor in its country of origin, which allows companies to then say, well, I'll just send the whole plant overseas. They're not going to stop moving plants just because we build a wall, for instance. The browning of America is, I'm using the word loosely, the browning of America is terrific as far as I'm concerned. We absolutely need the labor. The problem with the browning of America is not the browning. It's that we are not prepared to treat these people, including Asians here,

as individuals rather than representatives of their race when they get here. I do not see, and I've said this a million times on the show, how we can say to Asian people, come here, come along. We don't care. We want to color America and it's unfair to keep you out. And they say, but once you get here, we don't want too many of you at Harvard. Once you get here, it's very important what color you are. That is untenable to me. It's immoral. I believe that if Harvard turned out to be 90% Asian, we should be very proud of America to see that because that would show that we live up to our ideals.

If we are going to try to limit different colors at how well they can do and represent themselves at the best schools. That is a betrayal of the promise we make to these people when we invite them into our country. When you get here, you should be able to be treated as an individual. Now, it's fine if you want to say, we have a special obligation to Black Americans,

so we're going to put a wall around that 13% or 14% of Americans, and we have special obligations to them to make it up to them. But the other, uh, 80, 87% of Americans, regardless of color, and I include Indians, Spanish, not, not the descendants of slaves. They should be treated as the same period. End of story. I feel very strongly about that. Well, that would be great. It would be great, for instance, if Asian Americans were treated equally in the job market. They're still not. You mentioned how well they're doing in schools, but the reality is Asian American and Pacific Islanders individually now, not household,

because that data is skewed by the fact that Asian households tend to be slightly larger and have more income earners per home than white and black households. On a per capita basis, Asian Americans with college degrees are still 24, 25% more likely to be unemployed than white folks with degrees and earn slightly less. So I would love for Asian Americans to be equitable. They're not either. Yeah, you're doing something that the average Korean I know, which would consider racist, which is to say that Pacific Islanders are the same culture as, you know, Korean and Japanese, because yes, they are the same race. I could just say Asian and the numbers would be the same. I mean, Asian Americans with college degrees are roughly 25%, according to BLS data, labor department data,

about 25% more likely to be out of work in spite of their degree. Latinos with degrees, about 50%. The highest earners in our country are not white anymore. What's that? The highest earning groups in our country are not white anymore. And that is a very inconvenient data point. But it's not. I don't want to make the argument that America is all about whiteness.

No, but it's not. It's not because it's not me. How could it not be? Because the highest earning income groups right now are Hindu folk. That's the highest income group in the United States. Are what? Are Hindu folks. Okay.

Are Hindu. And, and they earn the highest of any, of any group slightly below that, you know, they're brown right what's yeah they are yeah but but again whites but here's here's the problem there is a self-selection of immigrants there are billion there are a billion hindu in india who are starving who are poor desperately poor there's nothing superior about them as hindu folks culturally or biologically or genetically they are. They are a high income group. And by the way, a disproportionate share of Hindu immigrants come here with a college

degree already. So regardless of your Jewish ancestry and mine, that is not the case there. These are not folks who are disproportionately coming. What did you say? I said that's true. I'm aware. It is true. So if you have a group of people who are coming with college degrees, of course, they are going to out earn groups of people that are a cross section, both white folks and black folks who are a broader cross section. By the way, you also have Hindu Americans disproportionately living in metropolitan areas that are that are higher cost of living, which is also true, I should point out, for Asians. Keep in mind, 60% of Asian Americans live in five states in this country, and those five states happen to be in the highest, like, third of all states. So when you adjust- Yeah, but plenty of white people have college degrees and are doctors or lawyers too. Right, but the difference is white folks are literally spread across the country. So therefore, you're going to have a lot of white folks in Des Moines. You're going to have a lot of white folks in Lincoln, Nebraska. And if your Asian folks are

in Honolulu, the West Coast, Jersey, and New York, which are much more expensive, the fact that they earn more doesn't mean that there's not white privilege. Because when you look at a, take one particular spot, take the city of New York, take Manhattan, the poverty rates for Asian folks in Manhattan are still hugely disproportionate compared to white folks. Same in LA, same in San Francisco. So yeah, if I take Asians in New York and I compare them. Now you're making my point. The poverty point for the poverty of Asians is because a lot of them are just arrived. Right. In one generation, they are no longer poor. They. Well, that's not that actually. The New York Times described the stories of Asian

families skimping on food, skimping on food in order to make sure to enrich their children so that they could do better in school. This is a single-minded obsession that's being described

to the extent that it's accurate, which, which needs to be accepted. And I think it's just inconvenient to put all the, to put all the emphasis on the fact that whiteness rules in America and to say, yeah, by the way, whites are not the highest earners. But have you ever thought about what it means that Asian folks, the ones that you're describing, to the extent this is some broadly generalizable sociological phenomena skimping on food, that they should have to do that in a place like this, as opposed to living in the same way that everyone else does? Why should they have to do that? Why should somebody from Nigeria who has a PhD in their country of origin have to come to the United States and be, and be

working, driving a cab, nothing wrong with driving a cab, by the way, but they got a PhD and it's not recognized as valid in the United States because it's an African university. Why should anyone have to live that way? And here's the reason I ask it. It's not merely rhetorical. One of the groups with the highest mental health episode issues and suicide rates among college students and graduate students in this country are Asian Americans. Why? Because these young people, despite their academic success, they may be getting A's and B's, but I can't tell you how many times I've gone to prep schools and to colleges and had people there who do work around these issues talk about the days that Asian kids are missing from school. Read about China and India. It's worse there, the pressure they put on us. But it's not right. But I'm saying it's incredibly unhealthy. So we ought not be valorizing that.

It is unhealthy, but that's another issue altogether. And why should they? You're acknowledging that there is a culture, but in this case, the culture may not be a good one because it's leading to suicides. Well, it's good when it's bad, when it leads to suicide. It's good when it leads to success. Black culture is good when it leads to success and bad when people are getting. I mean, I mean, everything has its its its pluses and minuses. Every culture has the things that I mean, this is a ridiculous conversation. The answer to to why should they is that's just, you know, that life is like that.

Why should people get sick? When you, I mean, one thing is for sure. When the unfortunate people of the world decide where can I go that I think I'll be more fortunate? Overwhelmingly, it's the United States of America. And rather than focus on somehow think that we're letting we're letting a Nigerian down with a Ph.D. because he's driving a cab until he gets his managers to to to do better and say, well, why should he live like that? Why should a PhD in Nigeria be so fucking poor that he has to come to America to drive a cab? Like, I mean, you can, you can play that game in any scenario on planet earth.

The point is that they weren't necessarily poor in Nigeria. They weren't necessarily. Well, because we are still the wealthiest nation on earth. We are still, at least as of now, maybe not by next week. In a country. And you, you decide to leave that country to go drive a cab that That says an awful lot about the country you're coming from, doesn't it? There's still obviously more opportunity here than most places because we have the biggest economy. We are the wealthiest nation on the planet. I would argue there are

other countries. There are plenty of other countries, quite a bit smaller than ours, that have longer life expectancy, they have just as much political freedom, their economies are quite strong. And, you know, if you're not crazy about taking in immigrants, what's that? They're not crazy about accepting immigrants, right? No, they're not. And that's a whole nother problem, right? They're not absolutely. And that's, that's an issue. I mean, I agree that I think people ought to be able, I would love to be people to be able to move and live wherever they want. Now, I realize we can't all live in St. Kitts, even though we might like to, because it's very tiny. But I agree that generally speaking, there are countries that are very

restrictive on immigration far more than we are. And I wouldn't want us to emulate that. I'm just saying that if those countries were more open to immigration, I'm quite confident that a lot of those folks who are coming here would be going there because they are just as good economically, culturally and politically. And in terms of health care access and university and educational opportunity as the United States is. I guess what I'm saying is the following. I think the story of immigrants and immigrant success in the United States that continues to this day is something that we should be extremely, extremely proud of as a nation to this day. Agreed. The mRNA vaccine is a story of immigrants.

I mean, one thing after that, I know so many immigrants. There's a guy who used to work the door out here, came from the occupied Palestine, came from Israel, he's Arabic, with nothing, nothing. here as a, as a waiter. And now he owns ATMs all over the country. He was day he negotiates for Dave Chappelle.

I mean, just in, in, in, in, in no time, he's a Brown person, you know, tremendous opportunity in this country. And somehow I think that people have trouble with nuance and that the people like you who see America very much as a story of white supremacy have trouble granting us the things that we should be proud of when it comes to acceptance and giving opportunities to brown people and Asians. I agree with everything that you just said. Well, I wouldn't say giving opportunities to, because to me that sounds very paternalistic, but I know you didn't mean it that way. What I'm saying is I think that we have created,

and when I say we, I mean all of the people who have made up what this country is, which includes all of those brown people without whom we'd be a very different country. It includes Jews without whom we'd be a very different country. It includes the Irish without whom we'd be a very different country, right? All of these different groups have made us what we are. And so we have created a society that is increasingly accepting. There is no doubt about that. exclusion laws, far more accepting than the immigration restrictions of 1880 and 1924, far more accepting than the pre-civil rights era. So you will get no, I would be disrespecting

the memories of those who died to make that true, to not acknowledge that. So we have 100% agreement there. The question is whether we are going to say that we want to judge the goodness of our society based on our progress from where we were or whether we want to judge it against the ideal that we set out in even as we acknowledge progress toward that promise, you still have to say, you know what, this is still a problem that we have to get a hold of, and that we have to discuss honestly, as opposed to what some are trying to do, which is to shut down this conversation in schools altogether, so that we can't even have conversations like the one that we've had, which in spite of, you know, our back and forth has been, I think, a really good, productive, valuable conversation. And I appreciate the opportunity to engage in it. This is the kind of conversation that people have when they do care about that promise that we made. And all I'm suggesting is, I think that it is dangerous for people to say, as so many do, and I'm not saying you're saying this, that, you know,

people should be grateful for what they've been given. Anything that people of color have been given in this country, people of color and their white allies have fought and died for. And if we're not careful, there are those who would most assuredly take us back to days that were before that. And they make that very clear, not only in their political rhetoric, but in their political decisions. So if we're going to keep moving forward, let's do it with an eye toward acknowledging

everything that you just said, and at the same time, acknowledging that the promise that we made has never really been fulfilled. We have never achieved our country, as James Baldwin said. And that's something that we all ought to be working towards, even if we disagree about how to do it. But we got to keep that in the front mirror, not just looking in the rear view. And that's what concerns me when we talk about, you know, the progress narrative. We have to go. I'm going to read your book. We should, if I read your book, you'd come on again.

I think, hopefully you had a pleasant experience. It was great. No, I really appreciate it. This has been fantastic. My prediction, as so often the case has come true, I predicted disagreements, slightly raised voices, but at the end of the day uh i think a mutual respect both of you uh want the same thing and and as do i as as to perriel yeah but but we there's

some difference of opinion as to how to get there i think um thank you tim wise for joining us uh you're in aspen i don't suppose you've ever been to Zany's, the comedy club. I have been to Zany's many times, many times. Okay. You're probably a fan of Nate Bargatze's or at least you may know who he is. I know. I do not know Nate personally, but I know his work. Yes, absolutely.

I don't, I don't, um, yeah, I'm not going to get into whether you like his stuff. You probably do, but I don't want to make it awkward. I do. I think he's a funny guy. I think you're a funny guy as well. So I'm going to read your book and I'm going to, then I have you on again. I'm going to, I'm going to, I'll hopefully call you to task on some of the things in your book,

but I, what I will do is I'll send you the things from your book that I wanted to talk about prior to having you on. So rather than try to ambush you with something, I'll tell you, look at this. Either way is totally cool. I'll be happy to send you a copy. I'll be happy to send you a copy of a book. Depending on which one you want, I may have extras.

Just let me know. And I'll try to get the, I'll get the footnoted thing about the neighborhood stuff. I'm not in the market. I don't like to take things for free. However, I will make an exception and take a free book if you sign it for me. I do like having inscriptions on books. I've never had a whole bunch of going back to 2004 white like me,

affirmative action, speaking trees and fluid. This guy's got some bibliography. Let me the one I'll send you. I'll send you the most recent one, which is an essay collection that was put out in 2020. And yeah, and I'll inscribe it and you can mark it up and have me back on and we can have, you know, we can go at it again. I'd be more than happy to do it. It's been very productive. And let me just say, Dan mentioned the raised voices. I can assure you, even though we both are very, you know, passionate people, I'm sure

that that was also in part the technology, you know, we talk over each other because we're not in the same room. We talk over each other because the tech encourages that. I hope you didn't think I was being aggressive or too much. I didn't, I didn't detect any bad. I mean, I've had bad vibes on shows before. I didn't detect any bad vibes here at all. Not even once. Wonderful. I hope you didn't. No, I didn't either, but I just never know how it comes. You know, you just never know on this technology. Can I ask a question, Dan? Do I have authority to change the subject? Okay. I just, so you are in Holy land. Okay.

It'll be brief. You said you're Jewish and you grew up in Tennessee. Yeah. How come you don't have a Southern accent at all? Well, I do when I'm talking to other people with one. It's a very strange thing. Like my wife has a very heavy one. When I talk to her, it comes out. When I'm talking to people locally, it comes out. Because I travel a lot, my accent tends to modulate. So if I go to Minnesota for a week, I'll sound like I'm

from there, you know, but it just all depends on who I'm conversing with. It's a weird chameleon like quality that is strange. I don't know why. And also I want, Timothy Wise is not quite a Jewish name. Dan, did you know that Mr. Wise was going to be a member of the tribe? I think his mother is not Jewish. Right. That is correct. My dad is Jewish. My mom is not. She won the battle of the names. So I got a New Testament name.

I got a Christian scripture name. And my family name was not Wise either. Obviously, there are Jews with that name, but that was not ours. Okay. Something very different. Thank you, Tim and uh hopefully we'll have you back uh podcast to comedysally.com for comments questions suggestions constructive criticism thank you we'll see you next time on live thank you