TGS Live: Karmelo Anthony and the Content of Our Character

John McWhorter returns as Glenn and John reflect on the nation's 250th birthday and the state of Black America. Both express disappointment — not at racism's persistence, but at cultural attitudes that continue to hold Black Americans back. Using the Karmelo Anthony case as a touchstone, they push back hard against victimhood narratives that treat race as a mitigating factor for individual wrongdoing. But Glenn and John diverge on colorblindness: while John laments the persistence of racial identity, Glenn argues that race as a positive site of collective identification — embodied in institutions like the black church — remains valuable and shouldn't be abandoned in the name of an abstract principle.

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