The Audacity of Nope

Our “national conversation” about race is a nesting doll of clichés. Each time a racially charged incident makes news in America, we are reminded of the “conversation” we must have, often as an end in itself, to atone for America’s history of racism. Then come the clichés of the experts (demagogues, diversity consultants, and intellectuals) who boil down the trickiest social problem of the era to glib demands. The standard diagnosis—that every racial incident and racial disparities in general are due to America’s white-supremacy problem—is as predictable as it is useless. And the prescription is sheer posturing: Elites genuflect to ideals like diversity and equity while fighting like hell to ensure that marginally more black students go to top colleges. As Coleman Hughes points out in The End of Race Politics, the black Americans who most need meaningful interventions are left to languish where progressive elites dare not turn their attention—the quicksand of disordered neighborhoods.