Jared Taylor is a notorious racist and extremist, recognized as a white nationalist by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Only an extremely naive person could read any of his articles, which are generally pleasantly written and express less obvious hate than an extremely patronizing condescension. For example, did you know that he actually likes black people? Sure does. He says so.
Like some other writers for this website, I have a reputation for writing rude things about blacks. I have written rude things about whites, Hispanics, Asians, and Muslims, but being rude about blacks is one of our era’s unforgivable sins. Of course, what I write about blacks is true, but as Mark Twain pointed out, nothing astonishes people more than to tell them the truth. Deep down, everyone knows the truth about blacks, but a vital requirement for respectability is to pretend you don’t.
The fact is, there are things to like about blacks—and I like them. They mostly have to do with lack of inhibition, a kind of cheerful spontaneity you don’t often find in whites. I have a half-Asian friend—a connoisseur of stereotypes—who thinks blacks and whites differ in that respect even more than they do in average IQ. As he puts it, whites act like Asians who have had a few drinks and blacks act like whites who have had a few drinks.
That’s enough. You can read the rest of his article, where he mentions how they complimented his hat and speak an interesting dialect and are so trusting and child-like if you want, but you’ll recognize the game — he thinks that diminishing people into shallow stereotypes is flattering them.
I trust that readers here are not idiots and wouldn’t for an instant regard Jared Taylor’s condescension as anything but demeaning. Which means, obviously, that Amy Wax is not a reader here. Amy Wax is a professor at UPenn who has been regularly making racist comments to her students, insulting the Asian and Black students at her university, who have been lobbying for years to see her fired. She is such a dumb bigot that she invited Jared Taylor to speak to her classes…for some unfathomable purpose. Was she looking for training in treating her minority students more repulsively?
She has already applied that talent for condescension to Asian students, in addition to black students.
I confess I find Asian support for these [liberal] policies mystifying, as I fail to see how they are in Asians’ interest. We can speculate (and, yes, generalize) about Asians’ desire to please the elite, single-minded focus on self-advancement, conformity and obsequiousness, lack of deep post-Enlightenment conviction, timidity toward centralized authority (however unreasoned), indifference to liberty, lack of thoughtful and audacious individualism, and excessive tolerance for bossy, mindless social engineering, etc.
Just like Jared Taylor, she’s a master at deploying stereotypes like backhanded compliments.
She hasn’t been fired yet, but she has been slapped down a bit.
Wax — who has called into question the academic ability of Black students, invited white nationalist Jared Taylor to her classroom, and said the country would be better off with fewer Asians and less Asian immigration — will be suspended for one year at half pay with benefits intact. She also will face a public reprimand issued by university leadership, the loss of her named chair and summer pay, and a requirement to note in her public appearances that she is not speaking for or as a member of the Penn Carey Law school or Penn.
But she will not be fired or lose her tenure.
It’s good to have tenure, isn’t it? You can even survive a blistering attack like this one, from the administration.
Wax’s conduct, according to [former U President] Magill’s letter, “included a history of sweeping, blithe, and derogatory generalizations about groups by race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and immigration status.” She also, according to the letter, breached “the requirement that student grades be kept private by publicly speaking about the grades of law students by race and continuing to do so even after cautioned by the dean that it was a violation of University policy.”
Wax also, both in and out of the classroom, repeatedly and in public made “discriminatory and disparaging statements targeted at specific racial, ethnic, and other groups with which many students identify,” the letter said.
For that, her punishment is half-pay for a year and a loss of summer salary — I bet her half-pay is more than my full pay, and I don’t get summer salary, either, and unlike Awful Amy, I can’t make it up through my connections to the Hoover Institute, or by hitting the lucrative right-wing lecture circuit.
Just wait, she’s going to be declared a martyr by the “free speech” poltroons. Not bad for someone unable to recognize how vile Jared Taylor is.
raven says
Amy Wax who I never heard of is just a generic mindless hater.
Where is the data on this point? There isn’t any.
The available data says the exact opposite.
She is also a hypocrite.
The people she associates with don’t like people like her either.
She is Jewish.
She is also a childless cat lady. I don’t know if she has any cats but she is apparently childless. (I hope she doesn’t have any cats. I wouldn’t trust her with a cat much less with humans.)
According to JD Vance, that makes her a second class citizen who has no stake in our society and the future of our society.
raven says
Amy Wax can’t prove any of her hate filled claims.
She is peforming phatic communication instead of semantic communication.
Her claim that same sex couples can’t raise children successfully is false. There is data on this point and it is the opposite of what she claims.
You can add “incompetent” to her list of personal defects.
chrislawson says
Quoting Twain to defend racism towards Blacks is a new low.
Pierce R. Butler says
I did a little search for “nothing astonishes people more than to tell them the truth”.
DuckDuckGo found a whole 5 hits for that phrase. Four came from Taylor’s “American Renaissance” site; the fifth from our esteemed host’s post right here.
To paraphrase chrislawson @ # 3, Misquoting Twain to defend racism towards blacks is a new low.
Raging Bee says
I have a reputation for writing rude things about blacks. I have written rude things about whites, Hispanics, Asians, and Muslims, but being rude about blacks is one of our era’s unforgivable sins.
There may be some truth in this — or at least unintentional honesty — insofar as he’s just a hateful prick to everyone in general, and then uses that as his excuse to pretend he’s totally not at all racist and it’s so horribly unfair to say he is.
dangerousbeans says
Damn, I want her job. I’ll happily spend the next year not working for only half pay
bravus says
@#5 “There may be some truth in this — or at least unintentional honesty — insofar as he’s just a hateful prick to everyone in general, and then uses that as his excuse to pretend he’s totally not at all racist and it’s so horribly unfair to say he is.”
At least when Dennis Leary sang “I’m an Asshole” he made it funny…
Jaws says
The other thing about tenure: The law school is not obligated to have her teaching any classes, even if she’s tenured. All it need do is further restrict colloquia, seminars (distinct from “seminar-style classes”), and other similar speaking opportunities to faculty currently teaching, and then not offer her any classes…
“Tenure” means “can’t be fired absent really egregious bad behavior bordering on criminal misconduct.” It doesn’t mean “permanent platform to disseminate hate among students with the seeming endorsement of the university.”
imback says
Twain did write something about truth and astonishment, but it doesn’t make Taylor’s case at all because it was about astonishment in the next world that he hadn’t used up his allotment of truth-telling in this world:
chrislawson says
Pierce@4–
Thanks for checking the authenticity. I should know by now that people without respect for honest communication have no qualms about using fake quotes.
StevoR says
@6. dangerousbeans : “Damn, I want her job. I’ll happily spend the next year not working for only half pay”
I’ll happily spend the next year not working for only her (Amy Wax’ es) half pay.
(Mine isn’t enough – struggle on full pay here and am a casual worker so yeah.)
The things some people get paid for versus others, well, where do I even start, sigh.
StevoR says
@10. chrislawson : Absolutely – or misapplying and cherry-picking real ones ignoring their context and other meanings. A very
Christianreligious thing to do withBible– verses of supposedly holy texts esp.StevoR says
@7. bravus : Yep. How funny people find it they can judge for themselves here – Uncensored version so SWEARING WARNING.
StevoR says
BTW. That first link in the OP to the SPLC is well worth checking out as disproof of the seemingly mild and complimentary character of Jared Taylor’s actually extremely toxic and ugly racism from whence :
The ‘In His Own Words’ section in particular, well, speaks for itself..
Ted Lawry says
There is an article on the web “Penn Suspends Law Professor Amy Wax Over Claims of Racist, Offensive Comments” It dutifully says the suspension raises question about academic freedom. No it doesn’t, spouting your opinions to your classes is not reseach, it does not relate to academic freedom to investigate issues. Freedom of speach is of limited relevance since a class is a captive audience, students attend to learn the law, not what someone, with no expertise on racial intelligence, wants to say. If Wax thinks she has a valid argument that some human races are smarter on average, let her publish it, She would also need to explain why she knows more than the many others who have ventured into that swamp.
It is both ridiculous and infuriating that those making racist comments claim to be the unsentimal, rigorous, thinkers, when the opposite is true.
NitricAcid says
Wait…you don’t get paid over the summer?
zoniedude says
One minor quibble: the person who said Blacks lack inhibition touched on something that has a basis in fact. A well documented symptom of lead poisoning is physical damage to the brain region governing inhibition. Also well documented is the severe exposure to lead poisoning among the Black population due to deteriorating lead based paint in low-income housing. The unfortunate consequence of ignoring these two realities is an indifference to efforts to remove sources of lead poisoning in low income neighborhoods.
Raging Bee says
I have not professionally dealt in truth. Many when they come to die have spent all the truth that was in them, and enter the next world as paupers. I have saved up enough to make an astonishment there.
Wait, was Mark Twain saying there’s no truth in the afterlife and he had to bring his surplus from this world?
And how do you “save up” truth? By keeping what you know secret and never telling anyone anything? Spy-bosses from all countries would be the richest people in the afterlife!
Raging Bee says
One minor quibble: the person who said Blacks lack inhibition touched on something that has a basis in fact…
Yeah, but was that racist git talking to Blacks who had suffered from lead poisoning? If not, then this “basis in fact” is totally irrelevant to his claim.