By Mathew Goldstein
Coleman Hughes has a BA in Philosophy at Columbia University. His new book, “The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America”, is an exemplar of rational, evidence grounded advocacy, persuasively arguing against the popular “anti-racism” of DiAngelo, Kendi, Crenshaw, Coates, Hannah-Jones, etc. Hughes shows that their political philosophy and strategy is built on neoracist and counterfactual foundations. His argument here is particularly strong. He further argues that their political advocacy is all around counter-productive, it is bad for society and people of all races. This book is worth reading, it is thoughtful, concise, and well argued.
He “very much” supports “affirmative action in the original sense of the term: aggressively recruiting minority candidates from less-privileged backgrounds and then judging them by race-neutral standards.” He argues that ”achieving equity simply by fiat—that is, by lowering standards of entry for underrepresented groups—does nothing to equip people with the knowledge, skills, and habits required to succeed. Equity by fiat is merely the illusion of equity.” Instead, we “need to recommit ourselves to the principle of race-neutral merit and work toward a society in which more and more disadvantaged people are able to clear meritocratic benchmarks as a result of actually possessing the skills required to compete in the economy.”
