About this Episode

The Respondent
Episode 58: Coleman Hughes

In this episode, Coleman and I chat about his music, his open letter to Ibram X. Kendi, Critical Race Theory, the Will Smith Oscar incident, and much more! Coleman Hughes is a writer, podcaster and opinion columnist who specializes in issues related to race, public policy and applied ethics. Coleman’s writing has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, National Review, Quillette, The City Journal and The Spectator.

Top Takeaways: -White Americans, broadly liberal, feel some level of guilt about slavery and the quality of life of black people in this country, and they believe the best way to help them is to buy into the concepts of anti-racism and the teachings of people like Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo. -Critical Race Theory (CRT) is too complicated to be taught to children in school. What’s being taught that’s called CRTis a watered down version of it, that boils down to kids being made highly conscious of their racial and identities, injecting meaning into it, and labeling white kids as “guilty oppressors”. -The best way to combat racism is to nurture and protect racial innocence. -When people attack “whiteness” they do it under the guise that they are attacking a “power structure” and not “white people” per se, but if you were to attack “blackness” people in almost all cases would take that as an attack on black people