Glenn Loury invites guests from the worlds of academia, journalism and public affairs to share insights on economic, political and social issues.
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Glenn and John take questions from Substack subscribers in this Q&A episode.
1:02 Pat Rimell presents a list of propositions about general poverty in urban communities
17:54 Samuel D. James asks if John has any writing advice
23:35 Tom Wojciaczyk wants to know if what the difference is between an accent and pronunciation
30:50 Michael asks why we’re not more worried about Trump taking us back to the nuclear brinksmanship of the Cold War
39:03 Karen Dawn Norris offers two defenses of reparations
43:34 Young Törless asks, since we use the term “blackness” so often, if we could come up with a definition of it that would satisfy such disparate figures as Al Sharpton, Charles Barkley, Condoleezza Rice, Raven-Symone, and Iman
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Video Links
1:10 Which race-conscious programs stay and which go?
11:05 Ground News ad
12:42 Glenn: I’m afraid some African Americans might get left behind
19:25 More programs won’t address the problems of “the underclass”
27:49 John: Maybe this is the best it can be
31:22 The great benefits of HBCUs
35:35 ACTA ad
37:48 Ibram X. Kendi decamps for Howard
44:49 Studying the African diaspora
51:35 The passing of Belle da Costa Greene
1:02:29 Is colorism within the black community still an issue?
Recorded February 2, 2025
Links and Readings
Robin DiAngelo’s book, White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism
Ibram X. Kendi’s book, How to Be an Antiracist
John’s NYT column, “Black and White Weren’t Always as Black-and-White as They Seem”
Hilton Als’s New Yorker piece, “The Hidden Story of J.P. Morgan’s Library”
Stephen and Abigail Thernstrom’s America in Black and White: One Nation Indivisible
Karen and Barbara Fields’s book, Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life
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Video Links
1:04 Rajiv’s role in getting Glenn’s forthcoming book published
7:39 Self-censorship and racial passing
9:29 Rajiv’s work on parental investment and educational attainment
17:01 Rajiv: Prediction markets outperformed forecasting models in 2024
23:36 Are Trump’s tariff threats having their intended effects on foreign markets?
31:53 Why Paul Krugman won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2008
35:07 Rajiv recommends some public-facing economists
39:26 Secular backsliding in India
43:51 Trump’s revocation of LBJ’s 1965 anti-discrimination executive order
Recorded January 25, 2025
Links and Readings
Rajiv’s Substack, Imperfect Information
Rajiv post Substack post, “Self-Censorship, Passing, and Natural Cover”
James Weldon Johnson’s novel, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man
Glenn and Rajiv’s 2014 conversation about self-censorship
Glenn and Rajiv’s previous conversation
Rajiv and Dyotona Dasgupta’s working paper, “Educational Standards and Parental Investment”
Rajiv’s post, “The Tariff Threat”
Paul Krugman’s post, “The Dollar and the Trade Deficit”
John Cochrane’s review of Late Admissions
Tyler Cowen’s Marginal Revolution
Gyan Mukherjee’s 1943 film, Kismet
Rajiv and Brendan O’Flaherty’s book, Shadows of Doubt: Stereotypes, Crime, and the Pursuit of Justice
In this post-show bonus episode, Glenn, Mark, and Nikita discuss Trump's tariff threats, madman theory, competing racial myths, and colorblindness vs. indifference.
Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com
Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com
Video Links
1:08 Intros
4:24 Matthew: The IDF recklessly disregarded civilian life in its October 2023 bombing campaign
9:01 Eli: Israel made efforts to warn civilians ahead of bombings
15:31 Ground News ad
17:35 Are Gazan civilian deaths part of Hamas’s strategy or merely an effect of its strategy?
23:39 Counting casualties in the fog of war
30:04 If Hamas is still partially intact, can a ceasefire hold?
33:28 ACTA ad
38:53 Why Matthew thinks Israel was intentionally killing civilians early in the war
48:41 Is Matthew holding Israel to a different standard than he would hold the US?
52:39 Alternative strategies for prosecuting the war
56:16 Do civilian warnings negate the question of murderous intent?
1:01:46 Eli: I don’t think Jewish critics of the war are speaking for the larger diaspora
1:10:05 Is further normalization between Israel and the rest of Middle East coming despite the war?
1:15:10 Matthew: Israel clandestinely continued its initial starvation strategy in Gaza for monthsRecorded January 17, 2025
Links and Readings
Trailer for Eli’s forthcoming Free Press podcast, Breaking History
Matthew’s YouTube show, History Speaks
Airwars’ Gaza Patterns of Harm report
Yuval Abraham’s +972 piece, “‘Lavender’: The AI Machine Directing Israel’s Bombing Spree in Gaza”
Bethan McKernan and Harry Davies’s Guardian piece, “‘The Machine Did It Coldly’: Israel Used AI to Identify 37,000 Hamas Targets”
Glenn’s conversation with Omer Bartov
Motty Perry and Ariel Rubinstein’s Haaretz piece, “It’s Impossible Not to Know What’s Going on in Gaza”
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In this post-show bonus episode, I talk with Mark, Nikita, and LaJuan about Trump's inauguration, this week's debate between Eli Lake and Matthew Cockerill, and whether we need Medicare for All.
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Video Links
0:55 Peter’s new book, Back from the Brink: Inside the NYPD and New York City’s Extraordinary 1990s Crime Drop
5:27 Why policing went off the rails over the last decade
11:03 Peter: I’m done with police abolitionists
19:22 Why don’t we hear about unarmed black men getting shot anymore?
22:00 Remembering the lessons of ‘90s New York
28:07 Dealing with the racial disparity problem
35:46 Is there a suicide problem among cops?
39:31 The Ferguson Effect
43:12 The utility of pretextual stops
48:29 The pride felt by the 1990s NYPD
50:30 What cops think of Darren Wilson and Derek Chauvin
Recorded January 10, 2025
Links and Readings
Peter’s forthcoming book, Back from the Brink: Inside the NYPD and New York City’s Extraordinary 1990s Crime Drop
Peter’s book, In Defense of Flogging
Peter’s book, Cop in the Hood: My Year Policing Baltimore’s Eastern District
Tracy Mears on police legitimacy and the future of policing
Heather Mac Donald’s book, The War on Cops: How the New Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe
In this post-show bonus episode with Nikita, Mark, and LaJuan, we talk about what's required of a black intellectual, shifting alliances and ideological orientations, and the utility of the police.
Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com
I'm reposting an episode of the Invisible Men podcast, hosted by Ian Rowe and Nique Fajors. They had me on to talk about Late Admissions, the bias and development narratives, and a lot more. Ian and Nique have a stellar lineup of guests who are having the important conversations about race in America, so check them out at invisible.men. You can find video of this episode there or at my newsletter, https://glennloury.substack.com.
Order Glenn's memoir, "Late Admissions: Confessions of a Black Conservative" here or wherever you get your books: https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393881349
Subscribe to The Glenn Show on Youtube: @GlennLouryShow
Subscribe to The Glenn Show Clips Channel on Youtube: @GlennLouryclips
Support The Glenn Show at https://glennlourysubstack.com
Video Links
0:00 Intro
1:10 John feels Glenn’s pain
2:36 Glenn: “I’m tired of being the black guy who has to call b******t on the race narrative”
9:21 The monotonous groove of the race discourse
12:35 John: “This is the most seismic sociopolitical shift of my lifetime”
19:17 Ground News ad
21:10 The H-1B conflict on the right
26:24 The hard truths of global competition
30:09 Luigi Mangione, folk hero?
36:09 ACTA ad
38:22 Glenn and John’s 2025 status
44:52 Living on the edge of a weekly deadline
46:45 Why did Al Jolson wear blackface?
Recorded January 5, 2025
Links and Readings
Charles Sheeler’s painting, “River Rouge Plant”
Coleman Hughes’s book, The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America
JD Vance’s book, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
Matt Taibbi on coverage of Luigi Mangione’s personal style
Glenn’s forthcoming book, Self-Censorship
Richard Bernstein’s book, Only in America: Al Jolson and The Jazz Singer
Trailer for Al Jolson’s film, Mammy
It may be cold outside, but the first Q&A of 2025 is a hot one. John and Glenn talk negotiating the modern mediasphere, the German language, education after affirmative action, code switching, social media and AI, and maintaining a friendship in spite of political differences.