The Glenn Show

0:00 Inside the mind of a crack columnist

4:19 The blowback from Norman Finkelstein’s TGS appearance

15:27 Is it enough to be a “happy warrior” for your cause?

28:45 How did MLK become MLK?

37:37 What’s in a name when that name is “Woodrow Wilson”?

49:10 Glenn: “Clarence Thomas’s name should be on public school buildings”

Recorded May 30, 2023

Links and Readings

John’s NYT archive

Norman Finkelstein on TGS

Norman Finkelstein’s book, I’ll Burn That Bridge When I Come to It: Heretical Thoughts on Identity Politics, Cancel Culture, and Academic Freedom

Jonathan Eig’s new biography of Martin Luther King, King: A Life

Jonathan Eig’s biography of Muhammad Ali, Ali: A Life

Charles Johnson’s novel, Middle Passage

Charles Johnson’s novel, Dreamer

Reza Aslan’s new book, An American Martyr in Persia: The Epic Life and Tragic Death of Howard Baskerville

PBS’s Frontline documentary, Clarence and Ginni

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0:00 Charles’s argument for emphasizing education over systemic racism

5:21 Donique: Teaching African American history doesn’t require critical race theory

15:36 Charles: We are the 97%!

18:48 How Donique balances oppression and triumph in black history

24:02 What does Florida’s Stop WOKE Act actually say?

33:30 What’s wrong with integrating LGBT history and black history?

44:19 Sexuality’s ever-shifting Overton window

49:40 Why Donique, a public school teacher, advocates for homeschooling

54:30 Expanding the canon of historic black figures

Recorded April 10, 2023

Links and Readings

Charles’s podcast, Cut the Bull

Seeking Educational Excellence

The Woodson Center’s 1776 Unites project

Putting the Pieces Together

Ian Rowe’s book, Agency: The Four Point Plan (F.R.E.E.) for ALL Children to Overcome the Victimhood Narrative and Discover Their Pathway to Power

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0:00 John: “I love linguistics, but it no longer loves me”

9:44 How Glenn and John are getting written out of their fields

19:27 Jordan Neely didn’t deserve to die …

27:28 … but the New York subway is getting scary

37:45 Glenn: Reparations would be “impractical, unfair, and divisive in the extreme”

50:50 A possible left-wing objection to reparations

57:22 Glenn goes ham on reparations

Recorded May 18, 2023

Links and Readings

Steven Pinker’s book, The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language

John’s book, Talking Back, Talking Black: Truths about America’s Lingua Franca

John’s book, Word on the Street: Debunking the Myth of “Pure” Standard English

John’s language podcast, Lexicon Valley

John, Our Magnificent B*****d Tongue: The Untold History of English

John’s NYT piece about Jordan Neely, “A Killing on the F Train”

Ta-Nehisi Coates’s 2014 Atlantic essay, “The Case for Reparations”

Matthew Desmond’s book, Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City

Matthew Desmond’s new book, Poverty, by America

Glenn’s conversation with Norman Finkelstein

August Wilson’s play, Two Trains Running

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0:00 Why YouTube censored a TGS episode

6:25 How can YouTube justify censoring matters of opinion?

15:15 Why there’s no such thing as free speech

26:00 Nikita’s notes on Substack Notes

39:53 Democratizing content moderation

46:11 Creating better, community-centered comments sections

Recorded May 4, 2023

Links and Readings

Nikita’s Substack, Psychopolitica

The censored TGS episode, “I Feel, Therefore I Am”

Glenn’s paper, “Self-Censorship in Public Discourse: A Theory of ‘Political Correctness’ and Related Phenomena”

Matt Taibbi’s Substack, Racket News

Substack Notes

Glenn’s most recent conversation with Amy Wax

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0:00 Has Norman been shut out of mainstream political debates?

7:54 Norman’s conflict with Alan Dershowitz

16:50 Is Israel an apartheid state?

19:25 Identifying with Paul Robeson

33:08 Norman’s new book, I’ll Burn That Bridge When I Get to It!

44:42 Norman: Wokeness is a “triple scam”

53:28 What’s become of Angela Davis?

1:00:05 Cornel West's chosen path

1:09:01 Obama’s self-proclaimed “neat trick”

1:24:38 The political intelligence of Carter, Clinton, and Obama

1:38:10 South Carolina 2020: a case study in identity politics

1:47:24 Would Bernie have won in 2016?

Recorded April 19, 2023

Links and Readings

Norman’s new book, I’ll Burn That Bridge When I Get to It!: Heretical Thoughts on Identity Politics, Cancel Culture, and Academic Freedom

Norman’s book, The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering

Norman’s book, Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History

Norman’s book, Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom

Norman’s book, A Nation on Trial: The Goldhagen Thesis and Historical Truth

Norman’s book, What Ghandi Says: On Nonviolence, Resistance, and Courage

Norman’s book, “This Time We Went Too Far”: Truth and Consequences on the Gaza Invasion

Norman’s book, Knowing Too Much: Why the American Jewish Romance with Israel is Coming to an End

Norman’s book, The Rise and Fall of Palestine: A Personal Account of the Intifada Years

Joan Peters’s book, From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict over Palestine

Alan Dershowitz’s book, The Case for Israel

Alan Dershowitz and Norman’s debate on Democracy Now

Michael Barnett, Nathan Brown, Marc Lynch, and Shibley Telhami’s Foreign Affairs piece, “Israel’s One-State Reality”

Paul Robeson singing “The Four Insurgent Generals”

The Letters of Rosa Luxembourg

Mark Doss performing “Ol’ Man River”

Paul Robeson’s autobiography, Here I Stand

W.E.B. Du Bois’s book, The Philadelphia Negro

W.E.B. DuBois’s book, Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880

Tom Wolfe’s New York Magazine essay, “Radical Chic: That Party at Lenny’s”

Angela Davis’s 2022 appearance at the University of South Carolina

Barack Obama’s memoir, A Promised Land

Bill Clinton’s memoir, My Life

Jimmy Carter’s memoir, Keeping Faith

David Axelrod’s memoir, Believer: My Forty Years in Politics

Frederick Douglass’s third autobiography, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass

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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.

This post is free and available to the public. To receive early access to TGS episodes, an ad-free podcast feed, Q&As, and other exclusive content and benefits, click below.

Featured Content from City Journal

Had he been in treatment, Jordan Neely’s death in a subway car may have been prevented, writes Stephen Eide.

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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0:00 Heather’s new book, When Race Trumps Merit: How the Pursuit of Equity Sacrifices Excellence, Destroys Beauty, and Threatens Lives

8:20 Are racial disparities in medical school the result of racism or skills gaps?

20:03 Do we really know what causes racial disparities?

32:23 Closing racial achievement gaps begins at home

40:39 Will black doctors necessarily provide better care to black patients?

50:26 Canceling Western art

1:00:37 Heather: Colonialism cannot explain the development of art

1:05:21 The stupidity of arguments against “cultural appropriation”

1:18:24 Heather: Lack of policing is a civil rights problem

1:29:43 Is it possible for a cop to get a fair trial?

1:34:40 Race and the future of progressive DAs

Recorded April 16, 2023

Links and Readings

Heather’s new book, When Race Trumps Merit: How the Pursuit of Equity Sacrifices Excellence, Destroys Beauty, and Threatens Lives

Stephen Carter’s book, Reflections of an Affirmative Action Baby

Glenn’s conversation with Charles Murray

Charles Murray’s book, Facing Reality: Two Truths about Race in America

Jennifer Lee and Min Zhou’s book, The Asian American Achievement Paradox

Ronald Ferguson’s learning network, The Basics

Pierre Bourdieu’s book, Distinction

Heather’s City Journal essay, “Stirring Sounds”

Michelle Alexander’s book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

Michael Fortner’s book, Black Silent Majority: The Rockefeller Drug Laws and the Politics of Punishment

Glenn’s conversation with Michael Fortner

James Forman Jr.’s book, Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America

Fred Siegal’s City Journal essay, “The Riot Ideology, Reborn”

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Glenn and John answer questions from the Substack community.

0:00 Mark Goldblatt’s recent book, I Feel, Therefore I Am: The Triumph of Woke Subjectivism

10:55 Wokeism’s roots in postmodern thought

15:05 The “mysticism” of woke thinking

17:44 Learning from Christine Blasey Ford’s accusations

26:29 John breaks his silence on transgender issues

35:13 The political consequences of subjectivism

41:46 Why Mark thinks transgender people are mentally disordered

50:07 What does the T have to do with the LGB?

58:09 Mark: Transgender people deserve respect

1:02:39 Distinguishing between strategy and reality

Links and Readings

Mark’s book, I Feel Therefore I Am: The Triumph of Woke Subjectivism

Matt Yglesias’s Vox essay, “The Great Awokening”

A clip from Glenn’s recent appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher

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