Re: Why the Left Needed to Believe in Jason Arday

On Tue, 18 Aug 2026 17:14:00 -0700, Dude <[email protected]> wrote:

>On 8/18/2026 12:23 PM, Noah Sombrero wrote:
>> On Tue, 18 Aug 2026 11:50:53 -0400, Wilson <[email protected]>
>> wrote:
>> 
>>>
>>> Jason Arday was either the most interesting man in the world, or he was
>>> a liar. It turned out to be the latter.
>> 
>> Why the right needs to continue whipping this man even though he is
>> quite demonstrably dead.
>> You just came here and whipped on Jason Arday, again - even though he is 
>quite demonstrably dead!
>
>For God's sake, you're talking about a guy that got diagnosed autistic 
>at age 3!
>
>And was non-verbal until 11, and had partial deafness in one ear and so 
>was taught to sign but couldn't read until 18, but still left school 
>with two upper level degrees and was a pro snooker player at age 10, one 
>year before he could even speak!
>
>And, you believed him.

He remains dead.  It would be respectful if you would stop digging him
up and hitting him with hammers.

> > >> All this has revealed many unflattering things about academia: DEI
>>> invites fraud by lowering standards, the bigotry of low expectations is
>>> alive and well, and a disturbing number of “experts” — not just Arday
>>> but all the Cambridge professors and BBC journalists who co-signed him —
>>> are compromised by ideology, cowardice, or both.
>>>
>>> But the Arday scandal has also revealed something else: White liberals
>>> in the English-speaking world want to believe in the archetype of the
>>> up-from-nothing black intellectual who, despite huge disadvantages, goes
>>> on to achieve greatness. In fact, they want to believe in this sort of
>>> story so badly that they are willing to turn off every ounce of
>>> skepticism that they would normally bring to bear on fantastical claims.
>>>
>>> The irony, however, is that we already have many examples of
>>> up-from-nothing black intellectuals who go on to greatness. It’s just
>>> that they usually turn out to be conservatives — or if not
>>> conservatives, then at least out-of-step with the left-wing religion of
>>> racial justice.
>>>
>>> Consider Thomas Sowell. Sowell was born in the Jim Crow South and grew
>>> up in a house without hot water or electricity. His father died before
>>> he was born, and his mother died soon after. As a teenager, he did a
>>> brief stint in a homeless shelter, sleeping with a knife under his
>>> pillow. Years later, he somehow managed to make it to Harvard
>>> University—before affirmative action existed to cast a doubt over such
>>> achievements—and he began what would become one of the great
>>> intellectual careers in modern American history.
>>>
>>> Or think of Roland Fryer. Fryer was abandoned at birth by his mother.
>>> His father, meanwhile, was an abusive, gambling alcoholic who ended up
>>> in prison for rape. He also spent quite a bit of time with his
>>> great-aunt and cousins, who ran a major crack cocaine operation. Perhaps
>>> unsurprisingly, by his teenage years, Fryer was involved in petty crime.
>>> Yet he managed to get into college on an athletic scholarship and then
>>> caught the economics bug. He would go on to become an award-winning
>>> economics professor at Harvard.
>>>
>>> Or consider Glenn Loury. Loury grew up in a redlined, working-class
>>> neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago in the 1950s. During his
>>> teens, he fathered two children, and supported them by working in a
>>> printing plant—all while taking classes at a community college.
>>> Eventually, he worked his way up to MIT, where he earned a PhD. And
>>> despite his later crack cocaine addiction, Loury went on to an
>>> illustrious career as an economist and political commentator.
>>>
>>> In an alternate reality, Sowell, Fryer, and Loury would be heroes of the
>>> left, just like Jason Arday was until his downfall. After all, it is the
>>> left and not the right that frequently talks about “centering black
>>> voices.” But there’s one problem. Though progressives would never say
>>> this out loud, people like Sowell, Fryer, and Loury don’t serve the
>>> purpose for which black intellectuals are intended, which is not to
>>> advance research or fight for the interests of black people but rather
>>> to scratch a very specific psychological itch in the white liberal psyche.
>>>
>>> In the progressive mind, white people are forever the problem and need
>>> to be told that purging the racism within their hearts is the key to
>>> black advancement. Black intellectuals who ritualistically affirm this
>>> belief — people like Ta-Nehisi Coates, Ibram X. Kendi, and Nikole
>>> Hannah-Jones — are useful. They are serving their intended purpose.
>>> Black intellectuals who don’t do this are not just useless; they are an
>>> active threat to the white guilt complex.
>>>
>>> Sowell, for example, has spent his career arguing, quite persuasively,
>>> that discrimination is not the only possible cause of racial disparities
>>> and that culture matters a great deal, too. Fryer has argued, again
>>> persuasively, that American police departments are no likelier to use
>>> deadly force on black suspects than on suspects who aren’t black; that
>>> Justice Department pattern-or-practice investigations into police
>>> agencies (often favored by Democratic administrations) cause an increase
>>> in violent crime, which hurts the black community most; and that the
>>> “acting white” penalty imposed by the black community on its own members
>>> is a real thing. Loury, for his part, has a long-running podcast with
>>> John McWhorter (a self-described “cranky liberal Democrat”) that has
>>> featured some of the best criticisms of woke racial politics out there.
>>>
>>> So with all of the genuinely inspiring black intellectuals rendered
>>> useless by their stubborn independence of mind, who is left to scratch
>>> this guilty itch in the liberal psyche? Well, it would seem that the
>>> second string has had to suffice. And that’s where the Jason Ardays of
>>> the world come in. It should go without saying that Arday’s death is a
>>> terrible tragedy that no one should celebrate. At the same time, it is
>>> true to say that this tragedy was enabled by the psychological need
>>> among liberal elites for a black avatar of their guilt.
>>>
>>> Arday’s death should be a call for liberals and progressives to look
>>> inward — not to expunge the supposed demon of white supremacy, but to
>>> look at the nature of white guilt itself. Ultimately, white guilt is a
>>> virus that leads its victims to prioritize their own need for catharsis
>>> over the public’s need for truth. The moment that elites in the West
>>> have this much-needed epiphany en masse will be the moment that we
>>> ensure the tragic case of Jason Arday never repeats itself.
>>>
>>> Coleman Hughes
-- 
Noah Sombrero mustachioed villain
Don't get political with me young man
or I'll tie you to a railroad track and
<<<talk>>> to <<<YOOooooo>>>
Who dares to talk to El Sombrero?
dares: Ned
does not dare: Julian  shrinks in horror and warns others away