John McWhorter – What Made Omar?

In this week’s episode, John and I return to a familiar character: Omar. For those of you unfamiliar with “Omar,” he’s our invented surrogate for the kind of young black man whose behavior is wreaking havoc on Chicago and St. Louis. Omar is economically disadvantaged. He was more than likely raised by a single mother. He underperforms academically, and he may have dropped out of high school. He’s involved in illegal activity of one sort or another. If there is some kind of large-scale disorderly event, you’ll likely find Omar there.

After a discussion of Tucker Carlson’s departure from Fox News, John and I spend most of the episode talking about Omar: what made him who he is, why he acts the way he does, and what, if anything, can make him change. John has little sympathy for structural explanations for Omar’s behavior. According to John, culture makes Omar who he is, not the history of American racism, not implicit bias, and not even a supposed lack of legitimate jobs. I play devil’s advocate, raising some objections you might hear from sociologists or historians, but in truth, I find John’s reasoning pretty persuasive. To couch it in my own framework, the bias narrative just doesn’t cut it.

And to those of you wondering if I have anything more to say about YouTube’s removal of my conversation with John and Mark Goldblatt: I sure do. I’ve recorded an episode with my creative director Nikita Petrov in which we discuss censorship, YouTube, and why we’re sticking with Substack. Stay tuned.

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0:00 Glenn mounts a defense of Tucker Carlson

13:44 Glenn: “Race relations will not get better through denial”

24:37 What historical conditions created Omar?

36:24 John: Omar is not the result of white neglect

45:16 John’s critique of structural explanations of Omar

54:14 What will happen to Tucker?

55:40 Why you should become a paying subscriber

Links and Readings

The NYT’s story on Tucker Carlson’s “it’s not how white men fight” text

John’s book, Winning the Race: Beyond the Crisis in Black America

William Julius Wilson’s book, The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, the Underclass, and Public Policy

William Julius Wilson’s book, When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor

William Julius Wilson’s book, The Declining Significance of Race: Blacks and Changing American Institutions

Thomas Sugrue’s book, The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit

Jason DeParle’s book, American Dream: Three Women, Ten Kids, and a Nation’s Drive to End Welfare

Frantz Fanon’s book, The Wretched of the Earth

Frantz Fanon’s book, Black Skin, White Masks

Philip Roth’s novel, American Pastoral

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