‘Name Something Positive You Like About Being White’: Marc Lamont Hill Debates Opponent of Critical Race Theory

Marc Lamont Hill had an extensive debate with an opponent of “critical race theory” being taught in schools on his show Black News Tonight.

Christopher Rufo, a conservative activist and contributing editor to City Journal, joined Hill to discuss his opposition to the intellectual movement urging Americans to recognize that racism is systemically entrenched in American society and shaped the course of the nation’s history. The two held a wide-ranging conversation on how critical race theory is applied into practice, how the movement attaches race to various elements of society, and whether it is actually effectual in counteracting racism as a social construct.

Hill challenged Rufo throughout the conversation on whether it is easier for white people to live in American society than it is for people of color. Rufo acknowledged America’s history with racism was “an incontrovertible fact” as he answered the question, though he and Hill went back and forth on whether critical race theory addresses those issues as a matter of race, rather than class.

Hill kept on confronting Rufo about the societal advantages of being white, and toward the end of the conversation, he asked “What do you like about being white?”

Rufo rejected the “amorphous term” being used in the question, but Hill persisted in remarking that “you surely recognize that the world sees you as White…Name something positive you like about being White.”

Rufo answered by denouncing the idea that certain values like “timeliness” can be identified as a “white dominant”

“These are very strange things to be ascribed to a racial identity,” Rufo said. “My view is that these actually should be ascribed to every individual human being.”

“That doesn’t answer the question though,” Hill interjected, asking again, “Name something that you believe is positive about being white.”

“I don’t buy into the framework that the world can be reduced into these metaphysical categories of whiteness and blackness,” Rufo replied. “I think that’s wrong.”

Watch above (start at 18:00), via Black News Tonight.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!