Firing Line: John McWhorter

On this episode of Firing Line, John McWhorter, professor and best selling author, talked about critical race theory and how it should be addressed. 

McWhorter first addressed the definition of critical race theory. Forty years ago, people in academia wanted to reconsider what the sense of justice was in America. They drew a conclusion that there were some people who were permanently in power and others who were permanently not in power. 

“That ought to color our sense of what we think of as morality, what we think of as important,” he said. This was an honest attempt to increase equality, as people were frustrated that things were not changing faster than they hoped for. 

However, McWhorter believed that a lot of issues regarding race needed to be looked at in a different way. For example, with structural racism, a lot of African American men were in prison. Those out of prison were struggling to find jobs.

He said that teaching white people not to be racist or trying to revert racism in judges would not work. Instead, it was vital to look at the problem. In this example: it was the war on drugs. A lot of African American men looked to sell drugs to put some money in their pockets.

“I firmly believe that if that black market did not exist, then the very same black men would be more likely to stay in school, they would be more likely to get legal jobs,” he said. Thus, eliminating the war on drugs would make many millions of African American people happier and more successful. This was a much better solution than telling white people not to hate African American people, according to McWhorter.