Stoic Racelessness

A personal perspective.

Morning tea finds me reading an abridged version of the latest missive from McWhorter and Loury speaking on the personal emotional reactions to the various discussions on race. As we editors at the Journal of Free Black Thought have just published Sheena Mason, this particular thread is on my mind. But this past Thanksgiving week I have not been as productive a writer as I would have liked, so I decided to cut a video instead. I’m still working hard on my piece about Stoic citizenship, and I believe that this personal revelation will be helpful as I deadpan my way through a certain number of emotionally charged observations. I was raised during the series of crises that were the 60s and came to adulthood during the Cold War. It didn’t make me gangsta, but it made me something. Here’s a peek.

On the matter of Eclexia, I think that I was remembering KROQ, which was the legendary new wave rock station of the 80s. While I was not recalling specific bands, Madam Wong’s West and The Palomino were real clubs, and you would have gone nuts to get to even a fraction of those gigs. And yet these are very much the distractions one needs pay attention to in order to remain current on the scene. So it is with the subjects of race and their theories and subsequent ‘authentic’ identities and positions. It will make you dizzy and sick. Better to stay at home and brew more tea.

As for the ever buoyant McWhorter, I retweeted Douglas Murray’s kind words for his appearance on The View. I’m impressed that he can remain so unflappably positive in the way he gets around to saying the Progressive’s favorite phrase about race: “We still have a long way to go.” My way of saying it is more like: If you want to get rid of every molecule of racism, you’re going to be vacuuming the carpets for a very very long time. At some point the electricity bill, not to mention the damage to your hearing, will become burdensome. Of course not to the True & Proper Progressive Anti-Racist. What McWhorter cannot say that I’m bold and foolish enough to say is how six pounds of racism can be chewed up and spit out before breakfast if you bother to take care of your teeth. Yet he implicates just that in his talk on The View. Man, I am so looking forward to getting that dude drunk.

Speaking of which before I sign off, I am in these days often wistful in my missing of the late Christopher Hitchens, who along with Martin Amis were two of my most influential intellectual role models. Although I didn’t meet them personally, I did have them field a question at Royce Hall, Jeezus 17 years ago… One of these days I’m going to get a chance to ramble with a glass of whiskey, like Hitch and Ron White. Stay Tuned.

Sorry. One more thing. Do check out Peter Jackson’s documentary on The Beatles. It’s stellar. This is our culture.