Conservative economist Glenn Loury, whose disdain for Critical Race Theory (CRT) leader Ibram X. Kendi is swiftly becoming legendary, went on a tirade on his podcast that left his guest Columbia University professor of linguistics John McWhorter, laughing and unable to speak.
Loury has been outspoken in his condemnation of black leaders who he feels are charlatans, including Rev. Al Sharpton.
Speaking on his podcast of Kendi, he stated, “I’ve lectured at the London School of Economics; I’ve lectured at the Delhi school of Economics; I’ve lectured in Korea and Ghana and South Africa. If I say it it’ll sound self-aggrandizing but I’m a lot more than a black conservative writing at Substack and disagreeing with … some of these dudes. I mean way, way, way more.”
Then he launched into his tirade that left McWhorter laughing helplessly: “And so that’s why, and I know you share this with me, I take umbrage at the lionization of lightweight, empty-suited, empty-headed motherf***ers like Ibram X. Kendi, who couldn’t carry my book bag. Who hasn’t read a f***ing thing. If you ask him what Nietzche said he would have no idea.”
“I’m sorry; I’m sorry; he’s an unserious, superficial, empty-suited lightweight,” he continued. “He’s not our equal. Not even close.”
“Empty suits get paraded around as if they are — it’s called paper- mâché. It’s the emperor who has no clothes,” he added.
Loury has slammed Kendi in the past, saying, “Where is the erudition? Where is the subtle interpretation of a canonical text? Where is the sustained argument? Where’s the insight? Where’s the mastery?”
Loury also chimed in on the affirmative action cases weighing before the Supreme Court:
This affirmative action case — this is going to come to a head now … there’s a decision that’s going to be handed down at the end of the term in May or June of next year. This is fundamental. You can remember how the Bakke case and all of that and the challenges to affirmative action came up to the Supreme Court in the early 00’s; it’s like we’re gonna finally work this out. The Court is very conservative and they’re going to do something very significant in terms of the jurisprudential foundation of racial discrimination by public agents.
In September 2021, Loury ripped Sharpton, saying:
If Al Sharpton were running around talking about charter schools; if he were running around urging African-Americans to adopt kids who don’t have any parents; if he were insisting that it’s possible for black kids compete effectively if they get the kind of instruction and support that they need to acquire the intellectual skills that allow them to compete in an exam school situation or anything like that; if he was going to find ex-offenders who were prepared to reject the gang life and affirm decent ways of living and foster relationships of guidance with young men who were not yet on the right path and so forth and so on; if he was working with the cops and not against the cops to try to keep the peace in some of these neighborhoods, I’d have more respect for him.
He continued, “But it’s a very high-level shtick. He’s refined it to perfection, and he’s out Jesse Jacksoning Jesse Jackson in the twenty-first century while the clock keeps ticking on poor black people, and the demagoguery that spews out of him is almost completely unrelated to the actual material needs of this population.”