Racial grievances are ripping the country apart, and no one seems to have any answers. In Coleman Hughes’s new book, The End of Race Politics, the heterodox intellectual delivers an incisive look into American racialist obsessions. Hughes examines the origins of the country’s racial politics and explains how they have subsumed every component of life, from federal contracts to higher education and even Hollywood movies.
Hughes traces how facially benign efforts to address the damage caused by America’s lamentable racial past eventually transformed into an endless racket of handouts and grifts.
The young intellectual reflects on a “People of Color Conference” he attended while still in high school. In this conference, Hughes was taught to view himself as a permanent victim because of the hue of his skin and that minor conflicts and inconveniences were likely the result of racism. The conference also taught Hughes that his race is central to his identity rather than trivial and unimportant.
As a black man myself, I can recall being encouraged to participate in school-sanctioned events that fostered a sense of racial victimhood. Like Hughes, I felt deep unease with this. As he accurately assessed, these programs generally encourage black participants to engage in a performance of racial fatalism.
Hughes then mounts a furious assault on the so-called anti-racist movement, which he refers to as “neoracism.” Some of the major culprits in the thriving neoracist movement are Hollywood, corporations, and higher education, Hughes laments. He correctly accuses the 1619 Project, a product of the New York Times, of inflaming racial tensions with an inaccurate portrayal of American history. While the 1619 Project is certainly a shoddy retelling of the national story, I’m not sure if it could be characterized as “racist.”
He asserts that discriminatory hiring policies in corporate America directly undermine the accomplishments of minorities and stoke resentment from white people. Undoubtedly, in the eyes of many, diversity policies in corporate America have placed an asterisk next to virtually every black and Latino employee in major corporations and law firms.
Hughes states that segregated dorms, graduations, and clubs ironically subvert the purported mission of racial diversity on college campuses: bringing students from different backgrounds together. A 2016 study by social psychologists Jonathan Haidt and Lee Jussim backs up these arguments, finding that minority students who participated in racial affinity groups in college graduated with high levels of grievance.
What caused the spike in modern racial discrimination? Hughes argues that the proliferation of social media and smartphones has negatively influenced perceptions of race in the United States. The viral killings of black men such as Michael Brown and George Floyd whipped Americans into a racial frenzy, opening the door for the justification of reverse discrimination in virtually all sectors of life.
Hughes believes the progressive narrative on race is both destructive and distracts from real problems afflicting the black community. Obsession over disparities in areas such as education and crime obscures the true source of black failure: culture.
The prominence of Eastern European chess masters, the large number of Indian American motel owners, and the economic prosperity of Jewish Americans can be attributed to specific cultural practices, Hughes argues. He says the never-ending and fruitless hunt for so-called “systemic racism” has prevented real progress on racial matters from being made.
Here, Hughes is spot-on. In a modern, capitalist economy, cultural practices are what distinguish the most successful groups from the least successful. Skill development and occupational penetration into lucrative professions such as medicine or technology are more likely to yield better outcomes for black Americans than endless racial grievance.
How do we fix America’s broken race relations? Hughes concedes that we will likely never be fully rid of racism. Humans are tribalist creatures, after all. However, he outlines some pragmatic solutions to the problem. Hughes argues that we need to end double standards on racial discourse. Racially offensive rhetoric or slurs should be heavily stigmatized, even if they are deployed against white people.
In addition, Hughes suggests that our government redress inequalities by focusing on class rather than race. Since black Americans are more likely to be of lower socioeconomic status, class-based policies will disproportionately benefit them.
In sum, Hughes presents readers with a compelling case for colorblindness in public policy. The young intellectual argues that lowering the salience of race would make life more tolerable for Americans of all backgrounds. Most people, Hughes suggests, want to be seen as individuals rather than interchangeable members of an identity group.
That said, one of my main criticisms of this book is that none of the arguments will likely land with anyone center-left on racial matters. Too much of this book was curated for the ears of cultural conservatives or anti-“woke” moderates.
No one who agrees with the worldviews of Ibram X. Kendi or Robin DiAngelo is going to be compelled by a book that dismisses the movie Hidden Figures as “neoracism.” Hughes strikes a much more measured tone on race matters during his podcast or television appearances than he does in this book, which is written for people who already agree with the likes of John McWhorter or Chris Rufo.
Furthermore, Hughes seems not to engage much with counterarguments to his position. Though Hughes accurately points out that discrimination exists in favor of black people in hiring, employment, and the media, he doesn’t grapple with evidence suggesting significant anti-black bias in these same areas.
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For instance, a 2016 study from Indiana University found that gifted black students are substantially more likely to be identified if they have a black teacher. So, should school districts actively engage in pro-black discrimination in teacher hiring to improve education and life outcomes for black youth? If school districts trained non-black teachers to identify gifted black pupils better, would this count as divisive DEI programming? Would choosing to ignore racial disparities in education perpetuate a status quo against black students? Is the study flat-out wrong? Hughes’s work would be stronger if he wrestled with the messy nuances of race.
Hughes is clearly a cerebral writer with deep convictions. However, as he matures as a public intellectual, I hope that he will eventually attempt to persuade people who don’t already agree with him.
Corey Walker is a Washington, D.C.-based reporter who focuses on institutional capture, education, and public safety.