Andre Archie, a Colorado State University professor of ancient Greek philosophy, argues in The Virtue of Colorblindness that modern anti-racism—rooted in 1990s multiculturalism and amplified by George Floyd’s death—has inverted morality, labeling colorblindness racist while demonizing white Americans as oppressors. Raised in a working-class family valuing meritocracy, Archie ties civic republicanism to America’s founding principles, rejecting systemic racism claims by citing thriving immigrant groups like Nigerians and attributing Black disparities to cultural factors (e.g., 70% single-parent households). He dismisses genetic arguments like Charles Murray’s, urging faith communities and schools to resist racialist policies before societal incentives shift, despite colleague pushback. [Automatically generated summary]
Hey everyone, it's Andrew Clavin with this week's interview with Andre Archie.
He's an associate professor of ancient Greek philosophy at Colorado State University, but we're not going to be talking to him too much about Greek philosophy.
We're talking to him about his new book, The Virtue of Colorblindness.
This is really an interesting subject to me because until recently, the goal of a colorblind society was a goal shared, at least in lip service, by just about everyone who called himself an American slowly at first, and then very suddenly all that changed.
And now anyone who isn't willing to condemn himself for his whiteness and hire someone else for his blackness is deemed a bigot, which is to say that racism has become anti-racism and non-racism has become racism.
So Andre Archie seems to me to be taking an axe to that point of view, which I think is none too soon in his new book, The Virtue of Colorblindness.
Andre, thank you so much for coming on.
Andrew, thanks for having me.
I'm excited to speak about such an important topic.
It is a really important topic.
Can you, before we get into it, can you tell me a little bit about your background, where you came from, where your ideas were shaped, and how you became a classic scholar?
Yeah, so I teach at Colorado State University.
I was raised in Colorado, followed my sister who wanted to be a vet, followed her to Colorado State University.
They have one of the better vet schools.
I was introduced to some fantastic professors at Colorado State University.
I mentioned this in the book, in the chapter Potatoes.
It was Bill Hervey.
He was a Cornell Straussian.
I took his political theory course as an undergraduate did quite well.
There was another individual by the name of Ken Hamblin.
He was a local radio talk show host, very influential on me in high school, early college.
So I would say those two individuals, Bill Hervey at Colorado State University and then Ken Hamblin, really kind of motivated me to appreciate American founding principles and of course the Greeks.
And then from there, I went to Decayne University in Pittsburgh, got my master's PhD, and I specialized in ancient Greek political theory and philosophy.
But your background was working class, basically, is that right?
My background was working class.
It was sort of episodic.
You know, my parents split up when I was young.
There were times we were doing quite well.
There were other times we weren't.
So it was sort of an episodic situation economically.
But we were always raised, my siblings and myself, to be colorblind.
And it was very important for my mom, for my grandfather, for my sisters.
It was important for all of us to work hard and to play by the rules.
And the idea was, we'll be successful.
We'll flourish.
We won't be incredibly wealthy, perhaps, maybe for lucky, maybe, but we'll at least be flourishing, happy individuals and citizens.
And so that's the sort of mindset that informed the book, the argument that I'm making, and especially the perspective of being colorblind.
That was sort of drilled into us, into me as a child.
And I think that's the only way to go as Americans, because any other way is antithetical to our founding principles.
And so I'm trying to call us back as a country to those founding principles as a way forward out of the racial discussion that's taking place today.
You know, when you describe your life, both now and in the book, it sounds like a very typical American life, modern American life.
And yet, obviously, not everyone becomes a scholar, not everybody studies the Greeks.
Is there a connection between that, that kind of philosophy, and your interest in this subject, or is the interest purely personal and you're just going down a different track now?
Yeah, that's a really good question.
Let's see, how can I answer that?
Of course, I think there's a connection.
I think the Greeks, for me in particular, especially Plato and Aristotle, they have a certain conception regarding human nature.
And I think that given that conception, that we're capable of being rational citizens, we're rational animals, Aristotle says.
But citizenship plays a role in there because it's moral agency that informs the idea of civic republicanism that we're so used to and that is a part of our founding.
So I make a connection between the Greeks' moral character and the founding principles that ultimately stem from the Greeks and the Romans, that Western philosophical tradition.
So if any of that makes sense, I mean, I was trying to tie some loose threads together.
I've always thought along these lines that what the Greeks are discussing in terms of the polis, moral character, they have a lot to contribute in terms of how we discuss race in America as it relates to civic responsibility and some of our American founding principles.
So one last question before we get to the meat of this, because I was just really interested in your story and the direction of your thought.
This book is essentially written to conservatives, who I think, at least the conservatives who I consider conservatives, my cohort of conservatives, already agree with you.
I mean, we think that this is a disaster.
I think that this is a disaster, the current idea that in order to be anti-racist, you have to be racist.
The first time I walked into a college and saw segregated cafeterias, I mean, being my age, having seen segregated cafeterias the first time, I didn't like it then and I don't like it now.
But why are you specifically addressing conservatives when they're kind of already on your side?
Yeah, yeah.
Someone else asked me that.
Well, I think the idea of being colorblind is now a conservative issue.
I mean, when you think about it, I came of age in the 80s.
I was raised in an environment in which to be colorblind was taken for granted.
And at that time, I think it was perhaps the liberals, or maybe it was down the line, straight down the line, both liberals and conservatives took it quite seriously.
Somewhere along the way, I would say in the early 90s with the emergence of multiculturalism, that politics of recognition, we started veering towards the idea to be colorblind is to be racist.
And I found that.
I find that to be appalling.
And so I think conservatives in particular, because of temperament, because of beliefs, there are certain institutional values that they take seriously, that I take seriously.
And so here I'm talking about the family in particular, and I have a chapter on the family.
So I would say I address conservatives in particular because the institutions that will save us tend to be championed by conservatives for the most part today.
And so when I wrote the book, it was important to me that I specify which group in particular might get more out of what I'm saying versus another group.
And so for me, I think conservatives, but ultimately, my argument is addressed to both conservatives and liberal, those who might not even consider themselves to be that political.
But I do think sort of the traditional values, the traditional beliefs that have informed the conservative tradition, those traditions are in a position to help us through this morass of race.
And so again, that's why I think it's important that conservatives be a part of that conversation.
So you call the book the virtue of colorblindness.
How do you explain the virtue of colorblindness to somebody who doesn't believe in it?
So how I explain it is when we think about the ascriptive quality of race, it's merely external.
Now, it doesn't mean that we're blind to people's ethnic backgrounds or we don't see their race.
That's absurd.
But we don't attach moral merit to that descriptive quality.
We don't attach moral merit to race, either the possession or the dispossession, right?
So if you're white, if you're black, we're not going to attach moral merit to it.
But what we've done today is we say people of color, African Americans in particular, are victims, whereas white people are victimizers.
And so we do just the opposite of what our tradition has told us we should do, or at least what we fought to do as a country.
So what we're doing is we're putting people into groups.
We're deeming them to be bad and other groups to be good.
And if you believe that, and if you believe America is systemically racist, then it's okay to discriminate against other people for the sake of correcting for this or for that.
And I think it's all done today, for the most part, in the name of Black Americans.
And so it's almost as if we're being used as pawns.
And even by those who are in the Black community, they recognize what they're doing.
And so I think my book is a call to arms to say, hey, we need to be aware of the fact that there are some ulterior motives going on from those who are advocating these racial ideologies.
Deeming Groups Good or Bad00:02:27
But there's a way around that.
If we reacquaint ourselves with a tradition in which our country was founded in, right?
Abraham Lincoln speaks about a new birth of freedom.
We're going to ground the American collective identity in this idea of constitutionalism, equal before the law, property rights, and not just those constitutional issues, but, you know, the collective identity as Americans, this new birth of freedom, puts us on a path to rediscover what animates us as Americans.
And so we've gotten away from that completely.
What predominates in the public square today is a narrative about race that's antithetical to those traditions, to those principles.
And so morality, virtue, all of that has to play a part in rediscovering what we have in common as Americans.
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The Complex Web of Racism00:15:57
You know, you talk about the alternative, the ulterior motives of people who push another point of view.
I mean, I have to tell you, someone like from my age group looking at this, it's kind of appalling.
I mean, we all remember Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech.
And the guy was obviously a brilliant orator, but the idea there was so basic that there was no getting away from it.
You really had to put forward a genuinely ugly idea just to oppose it because it was so inherent in everything that Americans believed.
So how did we get from there to this idea that that was a mistake, that that essentially was the opposite of what we should be doing?
Yeah, I really do think that with the death of George Floyd, many of these ideas that were already out there, I mean, they were in the classroom, really jumped from the classroom, if you will, into mainstream public discourse in a way that we hadn't seen in our past, unless you go way back and there, we can legitimately speak about systemic racism.
But having progressed so much until the recent events, Ferguson, I think Floyd in particular, those ideas have re-emerged in a way that is quite detrimental.
So I think that the trend from the 80s to the 90s, as I mentioned, multiculturalism, those ideas were there.
In fact, when you go back and you look at some of the discussions in the black community in the early 19th century, those same discussions were there, whether or not America was racist, systemically racist, and some of that was very much legitimate.
But the idea back then was: should blacks immigrate, right?
So you had a lot of Frederick Douglass's contemporaries like Cromwell, Blyden, black individuals, black public intellectuals who wanted to immigrate.
And Douglas said, no, no, there are principles that wed us to America, and we are dedicated to those principles, and we're going to fight for those principles.
So, in other words, if you fast forward, DEI, anti-racism, I think that's always been in sort of the bloodstream, if you will, of America.
And so, these individuals that I focus on, people like Coates, Ibram X. Kindy, D'Angelo, they recognize that America, we have this soft underbelly, and that's that racial history.
And they're sort of picking at it.
And there's a lot of Americans vulnerable to that soft underbelly.
And I think that you have people in the legacy media, you have different interests, as I mentioned, ulterior motives of some groups who want to pick at that scab and they recognize that they can get power and legitimacy through that.
And I think, again, with the death of George Floyd, all of those ideologies rushed to the fore, became predominant in the public square.
And that's what we're dealing with today.
So I think it was sort of a gradual change.
And then we had these galvanizing incidents.
And what we're seeing is the destruction of it.
I mean, it's been awful how it's taken over the primary, the secondary, the post-secondary, even in corporate America.
The fact that we're going to have a black national anthem at the Super Bowl.
I mean, I understand, you know, when I would be invited to church with family members, when I would visit Missouri, we would sing Lift Every Voice.
We would sing it.
It was in a communal setting.
It was inspirational.
But we have one American national anthem.
And so why are we privileging this other anthem, which really emerged at the beginning of the civil rights movement, as if black Americans haven't made any progress whatsoever.
So there's no need to have this black national anthem sung during the National Football League.
Yes, it can be sung in communal events at church.
It's just divisive.
But it's all a product.
It's part and parcel of DEI, anti-racism, this whole sort of movement that we're dealing with.
And that's what I try to address in the book.
It's incredibly off-putting.
I mean, I'm a football fan and I find that aspect of the kind of NFL's attempt to get every nickel they can out of every person they can.
I find it very off-putting because when my neighbor comes to me as an American, as a fellow American, no matter what color he is, and says, you know, your principles as an American are being violated in the way I'm being treated, he's appealing to something that brings us together.
And I have to then confront that and ask myself, is that true?
Is this guy not getting what I'm getting out of the things that I believe in?
But once you say, well, we're an actual different entity, you know, then my feeling is, well, everybody's got problems.
You know, I can't solve the problems of Saudi Arabia.
You know, that's a whole different thing.
It's a real turnoff.
On the other hand, just to play the devil's advocate for a minute, you mentioned this idea of systemic racism, which is the idea that the racism is so networked into the system that even if you are not a racist yourself, you are participating in racism.
Now, I don't have sympathy with the idea of systemic racism today, but that idea that something can be systemic does seem to me to have some kind of weight.
Because when I look at, for instance, the legacy media, the legacy media seems to be systemically corrupt.
And there are many good reporters out there who are corrupted simply by being in the legacy media.
Are white people, especially old white people like me, are we just so complacent that we just don't see the systemic racism?
Or in fact, it just seems to me that that has been virtually destroyed.
Am I wrong?
Am I missing something?
No, I think you're right.
I mean, when you look at other groups, I mean, we're talking about high-profile minority groups, right?
Because they want to argue because America is systemically racist.
People of color suffer, right?
But when you look at Nigerians, right, they're pretty dark, right?
Nigerians.
When you look at West Indians, Nigerians in particular are interesting.
I mean, the amount of money that they make is right up there below Asian Americans.
They excel in America.
Now, the opponents argue, well, they come to America with a certain middle class culture.
Okay, okay.
But we're still talking about the fact that we have these visible minorities, these black Americans of Nigerian descent who are doing quite well in terms of family formation.
You know, you go down the line.
And so the idea that America is systemically racist against Black Americans just doesn't make any sense.
It's culture.
It's culture.
When you look at the black family, the fact that 70% of black children are born to single parent, a single parent, of course you're going to have disparities.
Of course.
You look at the work of Thomas Sewell, I mean, it's been documented quite extensively.
You know, the black family was intact for a long time.
You look at prior to the 60s.
And so the idea that America is systemically racist just doesn't hold empirically.
I mean, again, we can look at other groups.
And so, but you know what, though?
The fact that we're arguing this, the fact that the whole issue of DEI has been nationalized, I think it's a good thing because now we're starting to see exactly what we're dealing with.
The fact that the supposed black national anthem will be sung during the Super Bowl, I think that really will allow Americans to reflect on what we're being taught in terms of this idea of systemic racism.
And I think they're going to see it doesn't hold up.
It just doesn't hold up empirically.
You know, just not to pick on the NFL, but the other day, the new head coach of the Patriots, Jared Mayo, who's black, was asked about seeing being colorblind.
And he said, if you don't see race, you can't see racism, which is kind of a bumper sticker slogan of the DEI crowd.
And it's one of those, like most bumper sticker slogans, it kind of sounds good until you think about it.
How does that miss the mark?
If I don't see race, I can't see racism.
Yeah, my nephew sent me this.
I hadn't seen it originally, but he said, well, what do you think of this?
Because he knew I wrote the book.
I sent him a copy of the book.
So if I remember correctly, he said, I think it was Gerard.
He said, if you don't see race, you don't see racism.
And so the implication there is that those who are pushing colorblindness are naive.
They don't see race.
It's not in a literal sense that you're colorblind.
I mean, of course you see race.
Of course you see people's ethnicity.
But again, the issue is what do you do with it?
Do you judge a person based upon their race, their ethnicity?
No, you don't.
You give them time to show who they are, their character.
And then at that point, you can determine whether or not you want to deal with this individual or these individuals.
So the idea that if you don't see color, you don't see racism.
Well, if you see color too much, you're going to see racism everywhere.
And that's exactly what we get from those like Coates and Kindy.
But there's a whole mentality out there who, in fact, they do see race everywhere.
They see racism everywhere.
And that mentality, that mentality needs to be defeated.
And one thing that I do think becomes so significant in terms of that idea of systemic racism is the fact that families in particular, young black children are being taught this.
That's a type of child abuse.
And what makes it even more frustrating is the fact that, you know, when you have 70% of young black children being born into single parent families, it makes them vulnerable to these racial ideologies.
It makes them very much vulnerable to the very ideas that are opposed to what it is to be an American.
And so I think that the family plays a tremendous role in terms of making the young susceptible to affinity groups because there's a lack.
There's a sense of lost identity.
And often, at least in the black community, it's a lack of a father.
So I think there's a lot of loose threads that are connected to this whole idea that America is systemically racist.
And I think the family plays a big part in that belief.
You know, there's a writer named Charles Murray.
You've probably heard of him.
Yeah.
And he's certainly not a hateful person, but he does believe in kind of this genetic determinism.
believes that we should be colorblind, but he says we're just going to have to get used to the fact that there are going to be more white executives and scientists and more black bank tellers.
Now genetic determinism doesn't really play for me.
It doesn't really work.
But what do you say to people who are concerned that that's the result of colorblindness, that colorblindness just ends up with the world being fair and unfair and nobody caring?
Yeah, yeah, I'm familiar with Charles Murray.
I've never been convinced by his argument.
I think he's a bright guy, right the bell curve.
I think it's culture.
I think when you look at other minority groups who are of color, I think it becomes clear that there are different cultural practices.
So the whole genetic determinism really doesn't, it doesn't make much sense to me.
When I was very young, I read, I mentioned Thomas Sewell, some others who sort of waded into that debate.
And I've always found the cultural argument much more appealing.
I mean, obviously, I'm African-American.
I see the differences in terms of culture and how education is viewed, how the economic system is viewed, how saving money is viewed.
I see the differences there, which to me account for a lot of the differences in group accomplishments.
Now, housing, I mean, there are certain vestiges from the past that we need to be realistic about.
But I think there's been efforts, and I think those efforts are ongoing.
And I think at this point, for the most part, I think Black Americans, people of color, well, Black Americans in particular, it's going to be through their own effort that a lot of these divides will need to be healed from the inside.
And then that'll externalize and you'll see it on the outside.
But I do think it's cultural.
I don't take the genetic determinism argument seriously.
I agree.
I think Seoul is actually kind of taking it to pieces.
But, you know, you mentioned the Christianity of men like Martin Luther King and Frederick Douglass.
And I've always thought, like, I know why I believe racism is wrong.
It's because I'm a Christian.
And basically, I think I really do believe, I mean, that we're made in the image of God.
And that's kind of the end of the argument.
I don't even understand why people who are atheists think racism is wrong.
Like, I don't understand what their problem is with it.
How much do you feel religion plays a role in having this colorblind outlook?
I think religion can play a role.
Communities of faith in the past, and again, to take it back to the family, I think the family is so significant in terms of these racial issues, but not everyone can have an intact family.
And so in the past, these intermediate institutions like synagogue, like the church, have filled that gap.
And they help to form the young.
They help to instill certain values, certain American values.
And I think today we have this mentality, this non-judgmentalism that have contributed, frankly, to many of these ideologies, these racial ideologies that we're dealing with in the public square.
So I don't think the community of faith are doing as much as they can do.
Again, because I don't think they want to shame or be judgmental.
But I think some of that's necessary, especially in terms of some of our practices in terms of what you hear in school, what you hear in the primary level, what you hear in the secondary level.
I think a lot of parents recognize that what their children are being taught is just wrong and antithetical to what it means to be American, but they don't speak up.
And I think to be wetted in one's faith, I think it gives you the courage to speak up.
It gives you the courage to point out things that others don't want to point out.
And I think there's been a dereliction of duty in terms of the community of faith, not across the board, but I do think they can play more of a role in terms of getting us back on track.
You know, when you look at this situation, some of the things you talk about are very intransigent.
Fatherlessness, you know, the collapse of the family, collapses of churches and all this.
Where do we begin?
You know, even now that it's even infiltrated corporate America, which just basically kowtows whatever they think is going to hurt their business or help their business.
Incentives for Inclusion00:03:11
Where do we begin to make this argument and how can we be effective in fighting this trend?
Yeah, I mean, I wish I had the answer.
I mean, I could only sort of speculate, which I do in the book, as to how we can sort of get back to that right, that righteous path, if you will.
I think in corporate America, I mean, I think that's subject to the whims of the market.
I think wokeism doesn't contribute to the bottom line.
I don't think it's going to last long in corporate America, these DEI policies, et cetera.
So I think that's simply episodic.
I think where it's most important, or at least most, it's been most detrimental, these racialist ideologies, is in the schools.
And I think that the best way forward there, and this is quite simple, is for people to speak up.
I think there's a lot of people who agree with us.
I have colleagues who say they agree with me, but of course they pull me aside and they say, I agree with you.
They don't want to speak up.
It could be for professional reasons.
It could be for other reasons.
They don't want to be ostracized or considered to be racist.
And even colleagues of color agree, but they don't want to be ostracized.
So it's quite simple, but I think that in our schools, in our churches, in our synagogues, we have to speak up because I think it's intuitive that we should judge people according to their character, not their color.
And so I think if we speak up, the societal incentives will change such that other people will be encouraged to speak up.
So that's why in the beginning of the book, I say, well, perhaps it's natural to marginalize, to be subject to our base instincts.
And this is why it becomes important that institutions have the right sorts of incentives to keep us on track as Americans, as people.
And I think you need the right incentives.
And so speaking up, I think, will get us back to that, hopefully.
As a professor, do you come under fire for these ideas for a book like this?
Well, we'll find out.
It was published on the 2nd of January.
I mean, so far, I mean, it's fine.
I mean, my department, there truly is intellectual diversity.
But I think hopefully going forward, things will be fine.
But I don't think I'm saying anything controversial in the book.
I think it's quite intuitive and common sense.
It's very interesting to me that classics departments are kind of the last holdout against wokeism.
I think that's a good reason for it.
And you're a good example of it.
The book is called The Virtue of Colorblindness by Andre Archie.
Andre, thank you so much for coming on.
Really interesting talking to you.
And I hope the book does well, The Virtue of Colorblindness.
Andrew, thank you.
It's been fun.
Thanks a lot.
It's a pleasure.
Interesting guy and always makes me hopeful to see, especially a younger guy, coming in and saying what has to be said, what I think everyone knows in his heart, the virtue of colorblindness by Andre Arche.
There's also, of course, the virtue of watching and listening to the Andrew Clavin show, which will be on Friday.
I hope you will be there because I will be there and I'll be lonely without you.