Readable version...

Poster:

> 1: By what mechanism do white supremacist elements impose American black culture on the American black community today?

> 2: For example, how is white supremacy responsible for single-parent families in the American black community? Allegedly single-parent rates have skyrocketed since the Civil Rights Movement.

Chomsky:

> Racism is quite extreme today, and by many measures increasing. I don’t know what cocoon you live in.

> Perhaps you are completely unfamiliar with racism and its impact, in particular, the extreme racism experienced constantly by African-Americans. If so, I would suggest that you learn something about the world, and then you will understand the mechanisms very well. If you don’t want to have direct experience – which is not that hard –then at least look at the literature.

> Again, try following your own logic. It’s not genes, so it is circumstances. Do you perceive any circumstances beyond the extreme white racism that it takes real effort to be oblivious to?

Chomsky had stated earlier that there are experts to read who cover such things. The kid kept asking variations of the same question. If I were Chomsky I would have been done after a couple of responses.

The example questions you included are just not even wrong and are themselves loaded with racism. It would take hours or days of remedial education just to get the person asking them up to speed on the history and circumstances around black Americans' experiences to the point where the racism in his questions could be addressed. And that assumes he's honestly curious and not just spouting racism disguised as a question on purpose.

In such a forum there just isn't a point to treat the poster as coming from a place of honest discussion.

There's immense difference between ignorance and intentional ignorance - for intentional ignorance showing a path isn't helpful, since the problem is taking a step on the obvious path.

That's not really accurate. Chomsky's "key statement" at the very beginning of the thread refers to studies that have demonstrated "white supremacy that is more rampant here even than it was in apartheid South Africa." That, despite the experience of racism being a naked fact that anyone with eyes can see should they make a modicum of effort to break out of their "white racist cocoon". But these studies would presumably detail how white supremacy works, for those that need it explained.

He implies that these studies are readily available, alongside "a huge literature of professional criminology," for anyone willing to look. What he's facing here is an interlocutor that isn't interested in doing the research or following logic, just citing right-wing op-eds.

> Chomsky was not prepared to cede any points either.

That was patently clear from the thread. His followers also showed a complete lack of intellectual honesty, by trying to avoid any of the points made in the thread and instead trying to dismiss with paternalistic non-sequiturs such as "Why should Chomsky waste time shoring up your self-imposed ignorance?"

When a cult-like following forms, they do behave like a cult.