Our friend and colleague Stony Brook sociologist Musa al-Gharbi has a new book out. And it’s a tour-de-force. We Have Never Been Woke is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the economic, political and cultural divides between the haves and the have-nots in the United States. We were delighted to host Musa for a book talk on the Carleton campus last month. He spoke with Amna in front a packed house. This is episode 2. Episode 1 is available here.

Show Notes

* On the limitations of diversity training, see this piece from Musa, “Diversity is Important. Diversity-Related Training is Terrible.” Also see this piece we wrote in Inside Higher Ed, “Don’t Mistake Training for Education.” And this short, animated explainer video we made, “Training is Performative. Education is Transformative”

* Georgetown philosopher Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò wrote the book on elite capture; here’s a précis in the Boston Review. And this piece by Táíwò, published in The Philosopher, is also worth reading: “Being-In-The-Room Privilege: Elite Capture and Epistemic Deference”

* Creating a Class: College Admissions and the Education of Elites by Mitchell Stevens is arguably the best book ever written on how the many advantages of the rich and well-off accumulate in the race to get into the most prestigious schools

* On the incentives for students of color to highlight their trauma in college admissions essays, this NYT piece is excellent, “When I Applied to College, I Didn’t Want to ‘Sell My Pain.’” On “racial gamification” in college admissions, see Tyler Austin Harper, “I Teach at an Elite College. Here’s a Look Inside the Racial Gaming of Admissions”

* College essays are more strongly correlated with social class than SAT scores. See this journal article by A.J. Alvero et al.

* On the question of whether college admissions tests drive or reflect social inequalities, see this Banished episode (“Should More Colleges Drop the SAT and ACT?”) and this article in Inside Higher Ed (“Tests are not the source of inequities in American society”)

* On the test-optional debate, see this article from the New York Times, this study from Dartmouth College and these comments from the MIT Dean of Admissions

* Bertrand Cooper, “Who Actually Gets to Create Black Pop Culture?” (Current Affairs, May/June 2021)

* Matt Taibbi discussed the controversy surrounding former Intercept journalist Lee Fang here

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