In Defense of Amy Wax’s Defense of Bourgeois Values
Let&#x27;s not get bogged down by the all cultures are not equal strawman. That is not at all the key point here. Amy Wax&#x2F;OP&#x27;s argument is problematic because it conflates very different things using a subtly disingenuous argument. She starts off by saying something completely uncontroversial: kids from stable marriages do well in school. But she then plays on the audiences implicit biases to imply -- but not explicitly articulate -- a completely unsubstantiated racist claim: inner city blacks are incompatible with an advanced free market economy.<p>This sleight of hand where the speaker&#x2F;writer stops just short of an explicitly racist implication that deliberately confuses causation and correlation in the presence of multiple confounding factors is a standard white supremacist parlor trick. That is why Amy Wax was roundly condemned. And the OP&#x27;s claim that saying anything negative about the (lack of) black marriages is taboo in academia is quite blatantly false. Read for example this gushing review (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;nyti.ms&#x2F;2kbBHRP" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;nyti.ms&#x2F;2kbBHRP</a>) of Ralph Richard Banks&#x27; book on the very same topic by Imani Perry.