Two discussions of race, American history and "identity" politics

These are two recent discussions, actual scholarly discussions, broadly dealing with ideologies of race and identity in the US today. This one features political scientist Adolph Reed and historian Sean Wilentz. Their focus is the social and class character of the civil rights movement and its opponents in American history and how to understand the concept of white supremacy historically: Adolph Reed in conversation with Sean Wilentz 11/17/2021. (Embedding not available.) Also at Princeton Media Central.

The second is this panel featuring Judith Butler (who is a prominent representative of what in contemporary philosophy is actually known as Critical Theory, as opposed to the bizarre fantasy Republican are currently campaigning against), Cornel West, and Glenn Greenwald.

Glenn was only relatively good behavior in this video. Given his tilt toward the rightwing side of his libertarian perspective since 2017 or so, that's a bit surprising. He has been showing up on Tucker Carlson's White Power Hour on FOX News recently to promote a kind of rightwing populism. He does a relatively version of the Trump-as-working-class-hero schtick in this discussion. But the conversation remains substantive throughout and doesn't become a kind of verbal Twitter exchange.

The 2021 Holberg Debate on Identity Politics: J. Butler, C. West, G. Greenwald and S. Critchley. 12/04/2021:

I find both of them helpful in providing important historical and theoretical perspective on the current conversations about race and class. Because over time those conversations change and take on different meanings and nuances. These kinds of discussions are usually not the sort of events that provide snappy quotes to use in brief political debates on cable news shows. But they are important in helping us not to get so caught up in the disputes of the moment that we lose important perspectives on how those disputes fit into a longer picture of 5, 10, 20 years or longer.