Conversation Series 128 – Mark Tichenor

The next live conversation on race (our hundred-and-twenty-eighfth Conversation Series event) is happening this Tuesday at 7:30pm ET with guest Mark Tichenor! I met Mark in a unique way. Glenn Loury, the famed economist and a consistent writer/speaker on the subject of race through the years, has been a guest I’ve long wanted to have on the program. He is very rarely challenged about his beliefs regarding race, and even when he has indeed been challenged and admitted perhaps some of his thinking is misguided, his thinking is not adjusted. I want to confront him about that and get some answers from him about a number of race related topics as well as his career writing and speaking about race that has made him a substantial amount of money.

In order to capture Glenn’s attention, I have used Twitter to engage him; I created video reviews where I critique his conversations on race that he has with the same handful of people over and over; and I eventually joined his Patreon and Discord channel as well. I did finally start a private chat on Discord with his “business partner” (Glenn’s description in one of discussions) who seems to be the gatekeeper who determines who can and cannot speak with Glenn. I won’t touch the irony of him having a racialized white man dictating who he speaks to or not. Anyways, this man said he would speak to Glenn about having a conversation with me, but then he never got back to me or replied to any of my follow up messages requesting an answer. That was several months ago now. I figured I wouldn’t get any more traction given the way I was ghosted, but I did end up connecting with Tuesday’s guest Mark via that Discord channel!

Mark, a career salesman and telecommunications expert, told me that he is curious about my perspective on race. Despite the hours and hours of video on my YouTube channel that explains in detail what I’m doing and why as well as much of my universe of thought on the subject of race, Mark has not understood me. Naturally, I invited him to speak with me about it directly. While Mark had no intention of ever appearing on the show according to him, our text dialogue and pre-livestream Zoom conference convinced him to give the conversation a try. I’m looking forward to answering his questions, and I’m looking forward to asking a few of my own. Please join us as we explore Mark’s evolution of race consciousness, discuss Glenn Loury, and learn about our respective conception of the racialized world. Bring your questions and comments to the chat, and I’ll see you there!