When Brilliance Defies Categorization
It would be awful hard to read anything not explicitly on the topic of his own race and conclude Clifton Duncan is a Black man. In the tradition of Black intellectuals from Thomas Sowell to Alan Keyes, the substance of his philosophy is a colorblind and uncompromising understanding of reality. Not ideology, much less woke, racialist ideology. Reality. Beautiful, ugly, and everything in between.
It’s a breath of fresh air to witness a brilliant mind coming out of the entertainment business that doesn’t accept woke ideology and doesn’t hesitate to make their opinions public. On his Twitter feed, Duncan, a classically trained actor with an impressive Broadway resume, has compiled an extensive collection of observations – all of them merciless, all of them true.
For example, Duncan exposes the hypocrisy of Democrats protecting the failing governor Cuomo, tweeting “These individuals, again, are more interested in smearing their political adversaries than ridding their state of a lying, corrupt, lecherous governor.” In other tweets, he writes “A lot of minorities won’t take the shot; but it’s politically incorrect to acknowledge it openly,” and “Between race-based identity politics and vaccines, it took less than a century for the Democrats to yet again become the party of segregation.”
When it comes to the extremely woke New York City theater scene, Duncan doesn’t hold back: “Additionally the theatre industry is also contorting itself to address its pervasive White Supremacy problem–which, strangely, has never prevented me from working–by instilling diversity quotas and leaning into “Antiracist” ideology,” and “Here is a post from gifted actress Laura Benanti, which encapsulates much of the current thinking that pervades our industry: we must make theatre spaces “safe” for anyone who is not a straight white male.”
What brought Clifton Duncan to our attention, however, was his opinion on California’s decision to gut mathematics programs for gifted children. He writes: “This ‘equity’ would have penalized Black kids like me, who took Algebra in 8th grade, and AP Calculus my senior year of high school. Also what a weird way to #StopAsianHate.”
Stop right there. This is where Clifton Duncan can make a difference. Right now. What’s happening across California is also happening in New York City. High achievers, whether they’re Black, Asian, or whatever, need to step up and demand that classes are restored for those students who are willing and able to excel in difficult subjects.
People like Clifton Duncan, who are talented and principled, and fighting to defend reality, deserve recognition and support. Why aren’t these voices being amplified by big tech? Why aren’t Clifton Duncan’s tweets ending up in Twitter’s “Politics – Trending” column, so his brave and spot-on observations might help shape the mood and the mentality of the next generation?
Clifton Duncan is a man of extraordinary talent whose thoughts and ideas transcend his group identity. That someone like this should be categorized in any way is one of the biggest crimes of the woke movement. These are individuals whose incandescent spirits obliterate the dark negativity of leftist group think. They are the heroes of our time.
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