He argued that Kendi is not a grifter, but I don't think the essay addressed the question of whether he's a grossly incompetent manager of money and people. McWhorter did talk about this a bit with Glenn Loury, putting all the blame for the failure of the BU center on those who had mistakenly thought Kendi a scholar and an academic. It w…
He argued that Kendi is not a grifter, but I don't think the essay addressed the question of whether he's a grossly incompetent manager of money and people. McWhorter did talk about this a bit with Glenn Loury, putting all the blame for the failure of the BU center on those who had mistakenly thought Kendi a scholar and an academic. It wasn't Kendi's fault, McWhorter says, that he got "swept up" into a position for which he wasn't qualified, for which "all of us" would have taken the money and the fame.
I think he's cutting Kendi way too much slack. Maybe he's going out of his way to defend him because otherwise people will assume, based on their fundamental disagreements, that he's part of the schadenfreude brigade.
I agree; as much as I have always liked John McWhorter, I think he tends to be a bit of a contrarian; even his linguistics takes I sometimes think can get a little out there. I admit I only read/saw the freeloaders' part of the initial Glenn Loury conversation with John about this, but Glenn brought up Kendi not entertaining a Q&A at a BU talk for which he got paid $40K and wasn't even an hour long, and John's response ended with "it's not his fault." I agree Kendi's probably more a true believer than grifter, but avoiding questions strikes me as cognizance that his POV isn't defensible or fit for academic discourse.
He argued that Kendi is not a grifter, but I don't think the essay addressed the question of whether he's a grossly incompetent manager of money and people. McWhorter did talk about this a bit with Glenn Loury, putting all the blame for the failure of the BU center on those who had mistakenly thought Kendi a scholar and an academic. It wasn't Kendi's fault, McWhorter says, that he got "swept up" into a position for which he wasn't qualified, for which "all of us" would have taken the money and the fame.
I think he's cutting Kendi way too much slack. Maybe he's going out of his way to defend him because otherwise people will assume, based on their fundamental disagreements, that he's part of the schadenfreude brigade.
I agree; as much as I have always liked John McWhorter, I think he tends to be a bit of a contrarian; even his linguistics takes I sometimes think can get a little out there. I admit I only read/saw the freeloaders' part of the initial Glenn Loury conversation with John about this, but Glenn brought up Kendi not entertaining a Q&A at a BU talk for which he got paid $40K and wasn't even an hour long, and John's response ended with "it's not his fault." I agree Kendi's probably more a true believer than grifter, but avoiding questions strikes me as cognizance that his POV isn't defensible or fit for academic discourse.