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Taboo: 10 Facts You Can't Talk About

Wilfred Reilly

4.05 · Rating details · 129 ratings · 28 reviews

You Can’t Say That!

Do you have a right to be offended by the facts?

Against all the evidence, the mainstream media insist that America has never been more racist and sexist. The police are waging a war on Black people. “White privilege” means minorities never get a fair shake. Although this narrative of oppression is demonstrably fictitious, it is taboo to question it, an ...more

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Hardcover, 256 pages

Published January 28th 2020 by Regnery Publishing

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Apr 11, 2021 mark monday is currently reading it

I thought I'd challenge my progressive sensibilities by reading a book from The Other Side, so to speak. I have a lot of admiration for the current group of Black contrarians who go against the liberal grain. Maybe not so much because I agree with their positions, but because I admire going against the grain in general, especially if you are going against the mainstream with integrity and intelligence. As a person who was woke before that was even a thing (and I for real hate that word), the bes I thought I'd challenge my progressive sensibilities by reading a book from The Other Side, so to speak. I have a lot of admiration for the current group of Black contrarians who go against the liberal grain. Maybe not so much because I agree with their positions, but because I admire going against the grain in general, especially if you are going against the mainstream with integrity and intelligence. As a person who was woke before that was even a thing (and I for real hate that word), the best way I can keep true to my progressive belief system is to challenge it, to have hard questions posed that make me think on the values I hold dear. Well, as long as the challenge is not coming from some dimwit who is all too easily dismissed. Professor Wilfred Reilly, an engaging writer with clear pride in his identity as a Black American and an impressive ease with incorporating data and research, is pretty much the opposite of a dimwit.

PROGRESS NOTES

Chapter 1: The Police Aren't Murdering Black People

Oh man, Reilly from jump decides to go for it. This first chapter is his thesis on why Black Lives Matter is based on proveable lies and how its goal of reducing police actions in communities of color has led to an actual increase in Black deaths. This was a tough chapter, must admit. I do see where he is coming from, in a way. Specifically around the facts that (1) militarized cops kill all colors - the color white most of all, numerically although not relatively speaking, and (2) the lack of any mainstream media attention whatsoever when the color is not black. He backs it up with stats that I am familiar with, and facts about various Black cops who have proven to be just as brutal as White cops. I have felt that discomfort as well around this forcing of the idea of racism onto an issue that is more about over the top police violence in general, unnecessary deaths at the hands of police in general, all stemming from a backwards work culture that replaces being a guardian with being a warrior. I've witnessed this firsthand, multiple times, how little brutal cops care about the color of the person who is flouting their authority and therefore apparently must be brutalized.

But in the end, I strongly support BLM because to bring attention to the deaths of Black Americans at the hands of police is a very resonant way to keep this important conversation regarding police brutality in American culture front & center. I also have a problem with how Reilly basically hand waves aside the issues that come with the pervasive feeling that if you are simply a Black person, you automatically can't trust the police because not only do they not trust you, they will assume that you are a probable threat due to where you live and how you look. I keep going back to the personal fact that I - a mixed-race person who passes as a White (or Latino) person - have literally no fear around cops. I have never been profiled due to amount of melanin. Why should I get to feel this way automatically, while Black parents have to warn their children that they should act in a certain way around police, unless they want to get harmed or killed? Reilly really underrates how this toxicity impacts individuals and entire communities in their relationships with not just the police force, but with anyone who holds authority granted by institutions. There's just something so bougie-clueless about Reilly's dismissal of how people literally live in fear of the cops. There are some solid points made in this chapter but they sit alongside the ignoring of context and the dismissal of the psychosocial issues that flourish due to this toxic cycle. He's got the quantitative down, but he's ignoring the qualitative.

Good use of stats though? :/ ...more

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Apr 30, 2020 Peter Bradley rated it it was amazing

Shelves: nonfiction

Please give my Amazon review a helpful vote - https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-re...

I am a factual-details, empirical-data person. When someone makes a claim, I typically ask "Evidence?" Opinions are fine, but I want to know what the facts behind the opinions are. I don't just read the headlines, I read the article and then I ask questions and fact check the questions. So much of what passes for knowledge is wrong. The gaslighting that exists is designed to prevent us from even thinking of que ...more

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Mar 27, 2020 Timothy rated it it was amazing

Shelves: i-own-this, 2020-reading-challenge, 5-stars

Oh boy. This review is going to be a challenge. As the title says; "10 Facts You Can't Talk About."
Okay, here goes; the author, Wilfred Reilly discusses a lot of the myths about race and racism. ( Jeez, even writing that make me think people might get mad at me). He uses plenty of resources to back up his claims, so it's not just his opinion. He covers other things like immigration, police shootings and IQ test scores. And, as I said after reading and reviewing Reilly's last book 'Hate Crime Hoa ...more

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Jan 27, 2020 Jennifer Snow rated it really liked it

An interesting book full of valuable statistics for anyone trying to make sense of the political pressure narratives that surround us and drive public policy. However, Reilly falls into a bit of his own narrative trap as he forgets sometimes to treat people as individuals instead of statistical categories.

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Mar 04, 2020 Lisa rated it really liked it

I received this book for free from the author via Twitter. I enjoyed it and found it valuable in addressing some of the key talking points that social justice warriors on the left use, while also calling out the unsubstantiated claims of the alt right folks. I found his voice reasonable and balanced. It was a quick and enjoyable read, certainly useful as a reference if you want to debate the various topics (taboos) he covers. I value civilized conversations and debate, so I appreciate this autho ...more

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May 24, 2020 Isaac rated it really liked it

I was sort of hoping Wilfred Reilly would branch out a bit in this book, but he really just broadens the scope of his previous book the Hate Crime Hoax a bit but lingers on the same theme. All 10 facts are about race as he does his best Thomas Sowell impression, generally making good points but doing so in the most pompous ass way possible.

I found some his arguments and the data he brought out to support them struck me as seriously interesting, others seemed a bit weaker and I felt like I could ...more

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Mar 06, 2021 Daniel Kenefick added it

Occasionally I try to read a book that tries to argue rationally against what I believe in. In the best case, this provides a better perspective of the contours of a complex issue. In the worst case, I'm left with a list of flawed or biased studies and statistics that the author has shouted from an unassailable platform. Unfortunately, this book is closer to the second category than the first.

My biggest problem with this book is that it aspires to rationality: it presents itself as an empirical ...more

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Apr 05, 2020 Mark McCormick rated it it was amazing

well reasoned, fair and minimally biased. good read

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Mar 20, 2020 Tom Cross rated it it was amazing

Fact-filled and incredibly persuasive book based on sound logic that refutes popular bias narratives.

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Jul 25, 2020 Ben rated it really liked it

Shelves: culture-society, politics

Over the last couple of years, my go-to book for people looking for a counterweight to popular platitudes has been Thomas Sowell’s Discrimination and Disparities. But Wilfred Reilly’s Taboo is a contender for the best rebuttal to the social justice movement (though, in the end, it may not unseat Sowell’s work).

Taboo is written as a challenge to the identitarianism that has consumed American political discourse over the last several years. Leftist identitarianism – embodied most prominently by th ...more

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Dec 14, 2020 Cav rated it it was amazing

Shelves: americas, culture, genetics, politics, sociology

This was an interesting book that will no doubt garner many polarized reviews.
I have followed author Wilfred Reilly for a few years now, via his many podcast appearances and various media contributions. Reilly is an American political scientist. He is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Kentucky State University. He holds a PhD in Political Science from Southern Illinois University and a law degree from the University of Illinois, according to his Wikipedia page.

Wilfred Reilly :
...more

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Jul 24, 2020 Don Putnam rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2020-books-to-read

A great book with a lot to think about. Over the past two months, since George Floyd's murder and BLM protests have been sweeping across the US of A, I have been given a list of podcasts, books, articles, movies and blog posts to consume - almost as required reading. As I've delved into these lists, I've encountered emotional appeals and stories. Empirical data was light and ambiguous. Reading Taboo, on the other hand, gave a lot of hard data, and conclusions to think about.

Reilly cuts right dow ...more

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Jul 06, 2020 Jeff rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Should be required reading for 2020

Caution. Don't read this book if you are unable to defend your opinions with facts or are afraid that facts and logic may force you to hold opinions that differ from the current mob-think of social justice warriors and your cocktail party friends.
Well written, readable and well researched. ...more

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Jun 04, 2020 Anthony Poselenzny rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

A must read densely filled with facts and studies from all sides of arguments about these topics. Read this book and you will have gained an immense amount of knowledge on these controversial but important topics

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May 05, 2020 Dan Ouka rated it it was amazing

Accessible and fun political musings with data and argument

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Aug 06, 2020 R. Silva rated it did not like it · review of another edition

This book is so poorly written! The author users data very randomly and in a nonsensical manner. The writing is poor and the content is unsupported. I was so looking forward to reading it; I could not finish it.

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Sep 08, 2020 Lana Del rated it liked it

Edit: Worth a read, but in the last chapter Dr. Reilly adds himself to the sad list of political scientists who try to opine on biology and end up with egg on their face. I deducted a star as a result. Old review follows.

Reilly's book is a wonderful, wonderful breath of fresh air. Frankly, I am incredibly grateful this book exists. In a political environment where both identitarian left and identitarian right hyperfocus on a White-vs-Nonwhite conflict where one side is "good" and the other "bad" Edit: Worth a read, but in the last chapter Dr. Reilly adds himself to the sad list of political scientists who try to opine on biology and end up with egg on their face. I deducted a star as a result. Old review follows.

Reilly's book is a wonderful, wonderful breath of fresh air. Frankly, I am incredibly grateful this book exists. In a political environment where both identitarian left and identitarian right hyperfocus on a White-vs-Nonwhite conflict where one side is "good" and the other "bad", Reilly eruditely and seemingly-effortlessly cuts through the myths.

Each chapter focuses on articulating one of the 10 facts Reilly has selected (except for one chapter, which slays two myths in one go.) One of the things which I really appreciated is that Reilly is not just a regurgitator of articles and studies, but an analyzer of them: he asks questions and critically evaluates the work of other scholars. Nor is he someone who tears down other academics: he lets us know when he examines a particularly well-done study, even if he does not agree with the result. Reilly is also a wit in his own right; there were parts of the book where I laughed out loud. There is just a lot of information in here; I know that I will keep this as a reference to check into the future.

[Edited:] Where I think Reilly goes wrong, though, is repeating the Gottingen School's taxonomy of race (Caucasoid, Mongoloid, Negroid) (p.185) in the last chapter. This is, to put it bluntly, pseudoscience. Reilly ascribes biology & anthropology's move away from biological race to political pressure from activists in the 1960s, instead of its true cause, which is the insights of the evolutionary synthesis that, over a period of decades in the 20th century, created the conceptual links between Darwin's theory of evolution and Mendel's theory of genetics. (Rachel Caspari has written on the subject of the move away from race, & does an excellent job explainng how it happened.)

For Reilly to cite authorities on the topic of biological race like the science journalist Nick Wade, who bungled genetics so badly in his book A Troublesome Inheritance that over 100 scientists wrote an open letter criticizing him; or Dinesh D'souza, whose scientific credentials are, um, a BA in English; or the "science blog" World Mysteries, which is chock-a-block full of articles about alien conspiracies; makes him look quite uninformed indeed. Someone of his research ability should easily have been able to access the work of people who made reputations as the best minds studying this stuff (quantitatively!), like Jared Diamond, Steven Gould, Luigi Cavalli-Sforza, or Ashley Montagu. Not...unnamed staff at 23andMe, who he also relies on as authorities. What this means, overall, is that the last chapter, which is Mr. Reilly's effort to debunk the alt-right, falls apart because it's based on "science" as shoddy as that upon which his erstwhile hereditarian opponents rely.

I think the last chapter could have benefited from a read-over by one (or even more than one) biomedical scientists, and if Taboo goes into a second edition, I hope it gets one. Nonetheless, I think that in his own field, Reilly has done a creditable job. ...more

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Sep 05, 2020 Megan added it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2020, nearly-local, nonfiction

This is one of those odd books you can’t really review. The most valuable thing Reilly—let it be noted that I borrowed this book to hear how a local(ish) Black author could disagree with the left narrative—offers here is to remind us that all media is biased, that the Left and the Right are both wrong, that data can be bent to serve a purpose, and that there are often other factors that should be controlled for when reporting social statistics. For example, racial disparity gaps narrow when cont ...more

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Oct 28, 2020 Andres rated it it was amazing

This book is an absolute must in schools across America. I believe it would change the ways people view current political unrest and various movements driven under the guise of racism. Somewhere in the middle of the book, it gets dry for a chapter or two, but then picks up at the same wonderful pace as it starts. Loved it.

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Aug 19, 2020 Daniel rated it really liked it

Wilfred is ruthless and backed up by a ton of stats (though that carries less weight than anecdote nowadays). The least politically correct book I've read this year. ...more

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Aug 14, 2020 Jared Painter rated it it was amazing

Easily inter-mixes statistics and sociological findings with humor and policy proposals.

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Mar 13, 2021 Frank Jude rated it it was amazing

Shelves: critical-thinking, cultural-history, essays, media, politics, skepticism, social-justice, sociology

Political scientist, Wilfred Reilly is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Kentucky State University and holds a PhD in Political Science from Southern Illinois University and a law degree from the University of Illinois. What drew me to want to read this book is the fact that Reilly's research focuses on empirical testing of political claims. As a (scientific) skeptic who prioritizes empirical evidence over ideology -- even ideological values I myself hold -- I wished to see what he Political scientist, Wilfred Reilly is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Kentucky State University and holds a PhD in Political Science from Southern Illinois University and a law degree from the University of Illinois. What drew me to want to read this book is the fact that Reilly's research focuses on empirical testing of political claims. As a (scientific) skeptic who prioritizes empirical evidence over ideology -- even ideological values I myself hold -- I wished to see what he had to say about some issues I've seen being politicized, mostly by the left, that has piqued my skepticism.

Reilly tells us that the facts (the numerical evidence) tell us a radically different story than that we are force-fed by mainstream media which has become a mouth-piece for a certain segment of the left which is illiberal to the point of being religious in its dogma (see The Elect by John McWhorter) and totalitarian in its ideology.

Reilly points out that it has become taboo to question the dogma that tells us America has never been more racist than it is now; that there's been no progress since the Civil Rights Movement of the 50s and 60s. That there is an all-out war being waged by the police against Black people and that minorities cannot be racist.

Here are some of the "forbidden truths" Reilly -- a Black man (and that matters; if he were White, I'm sure he'd face charges of being racist. But being Black, and offering an important voice critical of folks like Kendi, Coates, and DiAngelo, he'll mostly be ignored by those in the current so-called "anti-racism movement"):

1. The Black rate of violent crime is 2.5 times the White rate. When demographic variables are taken into account, there are no racial differences in the rate of police-involved shootings.
2. Interracial crime is actually remarkably rare and not nearly as prevalent as we are made to think. AND, 75 - 80 percent of it occurs against White people, though the media covers only 10% of these Black on White crimes while giving the 20% of White on Black 90% of the exposure.
3. Minorities can be racist, and he gives the example of the Nation of Islam, a group that gets respect from many politicans while teaching that Whites are an inferior race created by a Black scientist.
4. That while many see racism in racial group disparities in IQ and SAT performance, the truth is that such disparities have little to anything to do with race but are the result of cultural variables; that the single most telling factor is whether there is an active father in the picture.
5. He eviscerates the alt-Right in showing convincingly how incoherent their ideology is.

The final pages are devoted to singing the praises of diversity as he did on April 21, 2016, when Reilly participated in a regionally televised debate against alt-right personality Jared Taylor. Reilly argues for the social value of diversity, contending that it makes life "more interesting, civilized, and fun," and using published research to point out that mono-racial societies (e.g. Bosnia, Somalia) are often no more peaceful or less conflicted than multi-racial societies, due to the greater prevalence of tribal in-fighting within them.

Even here he looks to present empirical evidence (from the great availability of the world's cuisines to Nobel Prize winners) showing how cultural, ethnic, and racial diversity provides for a richness we should all learn to prize and celebrate:
1. The USA leads the all-time Olympic medal count by more than 1,000 medals over second place due to the fantastic diversity of our Olympic teams. Second-place is the former Soviet Union, also hugely diverse as is third place Great Britain. Those monoglot, homogenous nations such as South Korea are at the bottom of the list.
2. An interesting fact pointing to the wonderful diversity in art and culture, his research shows that there are more than 100 actively performing Gamelan ensembles in the US (we have one here in Tucson!).
3. Since 2000, 33 of the 85 (39%) American Noble Prize winners have been immigrants.
4. According to the 2016 Silicon Valley Index, roughly 75% of "employed computer and mathematical workers ages 25 to 44" were foreign born Americans.

Reilly ends his discussion of taboos by reminding us that "successful American resistance to failed foreign ideas such as Communism and post-modernism will not be founded in failed foreign ideas such as fascism. Only by turning back to our own best traditions of non-politically correct scientific inquiry... freedom-loving skepticism of government, and absolute equality for all can we push back the tide of nonsense and taboo." ...more

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Mar 02, 2021 TJ Grant rated it it was amazing

This is the best book I've read on race. It's not over long, but professor Reilly packs in all the necessary facts. It's such a relief to watch a scholar masterfully lay out the correct data and reasoning. He says taboos don't exist to protect good ideas, they're created to protect weak ideas from valid challenge. Though it is a risk for us to challenge these ideas, it weakens, sickens and corrupts our culture to be cowards in this way. Prof. Reilly is no coward. I hope this book is widely read ...more

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Jan 09, 2021 Marc rated it liked it

The best thing about this book is it's use of empirical data rather than emotional pandering. The author's points are almost always supported with the idea of looking at the data for all races, not just the one that you want to make the point for. When you look at the data holistically many of the arguments that the politically motivated use fall apart. As a statistician he points out many of the techniques that politically motivated groups use to bolster their cases. For example, using percenta ...more

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Aug 01, 2020 Vincent Lombardo rated it liked it

Shelves: abandoned-never-finished

This is an important book and Reilly has done everyone a service in writing it! He fearlessly debunks many myths, mostly those perpetuated by the far left, but also some perpetuated by the alt-right. He uses data to back up his arguments, not dogma.

But the more that I read this book, the less that I liked it, not because Reilly did not make many terrific arguments -- he did -- but because of his style. Although the book was often breezy and chatty, it was also academic, dense, and repetitive -- ...more

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Feb 24, 2021 Fraze rated it it was amazing

Shelves: blm

10 Facts will calm your body and mind. It is that rarest of birds: a refreshingly unbiased, fact filled read that enlightens and entertains without regard for the feelings of middlewits and snowflakes. Libtards, SJW socialists, alt-Nazi nutters and everybody in between have much to learn from Mr. Reilly.

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Jan 04, 2021 Darren Douglas rated it liked it

Felt the book could have been edited more, less of a slog to read, empirical data or not. Interesting points, yet repetitive. Gets a tad boring after the fifth chapter.

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