Coleman hughes gay
Coleman Hughes on the Separation of Race and State
"I'm under no illusion that humanity will completely eradicate the racial tribal instinct or racism or bigotry itself. But I feel that colorblindness is the North Star that we should use when making decisions," argues Coleman Hughes, a writer and podcaster who specializes in race, ethics, and public policy.
Hughes' forthcoming book, The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America, calls for returning to the original ideals of the American civil rights movement, arguing that "our departure from the colorblind ideal has ushered in a recent era of dread, paranoia, and resentment." After some staffers and audience members declared his recent TED talk "hurtful," for example, Hughes believes TED deliberately downplayed the online version of the presentation. "TED," Hughes concluded, "like many organizations, is caught between a faction that believes in free speech and viewpoint diversity and a faction that believes if you hurt my feelings with even center-left, center-right, or, God forbid, right-wing views, you need to be censored."
In November, Reason's Nick Gillespie spoke with Hughes about colorblindness, free expr
On February 28, 2019, The Unused York Times published a 6-minute multimedia video, narrated by Times contributing opinion writer Coleman Hughes, titled “The Gay, Black Civil Rights Hero Opposed to Affirmative Action: How would Bayard Rustin be judged today?”
Text accompanying the video states,
Bayard Rustin was a chief organizer of the 1963 March on Washington and reflection reparations, and even separate African-American studies departments, were a terrible idea. Many of his convictions would be antithetical to today’s social justice advocates. In the video above, Coleman Hughes argues that by cherry-picking our heroes, and focusing on small parts of their legacy, we are merely paying lip service to their mission.
While much of what is said in this video is accurate, I take exception to what I think are extreme statements.
Bayard did not challenge affirmative action. He opposed the use of strict racial quotas and affirmative action based solely on race. He supported class-based initiatives and, in fact, was the Chair of a achieving program designed to bring the children of the working impoverished into labor apprenticeship programs. Though most of the participants were from racial
Normally, one might put pressure on an institution that has behaved unfairly - think corporate boycotts, etc. Interestingly, however, TED TALKS is owned by the TED Foundation, a 501(c)3 charitable entity, which makes it tougher to victim unfair behavior because they have no public product or service, and are not subject to the level of scrutiny to which American for-profit businesses are. The Clintons and others figured this out a long time ago. However, their officers, directors and donors are all disclosed in their most recent 990, available here: https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/821934592/202242949349100909/full . Perhaps Glenn, John and Coleman, as well as some of my fellow readers, perceive some of these people (mostly in the NYC area, it seems) and can ask them how they feel about this incident.
Can 'colorblindness' lead to equality in America?
Coleman Hughes traces his ancestry back to enslaved people forced to work at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello estate. His grandfather was born into segregated America.
It's because of that profound family history that Hughes says, opposite to what many believe, racism in America is not the evil it once was.
We were now constantly seeing videos of things going wrong in the world with no journalistic context surrounding them," Hughes says. "And it also directly led to the general perception that racism was on the rise and a huge issue."
And the solution, Hughes says, is to aspire for a color-blind society.
"What I signify by color blindness is that you try your top to treat people without regard to race. Both in your personal being, which is the less controversial half, but also in public policy, which is the more controversial half."
Today, On Point: Can 'colorblindness' lead to equality in America?
Guest
Coleman Hughes, author of "The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America." Host of the podcast Conversations with Coleman. CNN analyst and contributor to The Free Press.
Transcript
Part I
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