Ibram X. Kendi

[0] Welcome, welcome, welcome to armchair expert, experts on expert.

[1] I'm Monica Monsoon.

[2] And I'm Dax Shepard.

[3] I would have thought you would have went with Dan.

[4] No, you're Dax Shepherd.

[5] Okay.

[6] The one and only.

[7] It's getting increasingly confusing.

[8] I see a lot of people Instagramming like, is his name Dan?

[9] It's my fault.

[10] Very mysterious.

[11] Mixed messages.

[12] Very mysterious.

[13] Well, that has nothing to do with our wonderful guest today.

[14] Ebram X. Kendi is an author and a leading scholar.

[15] of race and discriminatory policy in America.

[16] Dr. Kendi teaches history and international relations at American University in Washington, D .C. although he has a new post at Boston University, where we caught up with him.

[17] He is the founding director of the anti -racist research and policy center at American University.

[18] He has several books that are all fantastic.

[19] One of them right now is incredibly popular.

[20] We recommend it to everyone.

[21] It's called How to Be an Anti -Racist.

[22] He also wrote the book stamped racism, anti -racism, and you and the black campus movement, black students and the racial reconstitution of higher education.

[23] A beautiful man, appreciate his time.

[24] Please enjoy Ibram X. Kendi.

[25] Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair expert early and add free right now.

[26] Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts.

[27] Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts.

[28] First and foremost, where'd you move to?

[29] You said you just moved.

[30] To Boston.

[31] I just took a new position at Boston University.

[32] I'm going to be building a new BU Center for Anti -Racist Research.

[33] Now that I asked that, I did read that, and I'm disappointed in myself.

[34] I didn't do the math on that.

[35] But, yeah, so congratulations on that.

[36] Do you like change?

[37] You grew up in Queens, right?

[38] You had a very kind of specific lifestyle and community there, and then you guys moved to Virginia.

[39] And so I'm curious if you like change in general.

[40] I think, I mean, I think change is necessary to growth.

[41] And I think fortunately for me, I've had to endure a lot of change.

[42] So I even went to many different schools and lived in many different cities.

[43] So I feel like change has been constant.

[44] But I feel like it's been helpful because, you know, being able to build the best form of ourselves, you know, as we change society, it's just as important.

[45] And we can't be really afraid of it.

[46] If that makes sense.

[47] Yeah, I totally agree.

[48] A big proponent of change.

[49] At the same time, I can recognize, like, pre -Corona, when everyone found out, oh, my God, we're going to have to sit inside and do nothing.

[50] The fear of doing that, for me, was an 11.

[51] And then it happened, right?

[52] And I was like, this is totally tolerable.

[53] And in my specific case, it's more comfortable than other people's experience.

[54] But with that said, then all of a sudden it started to be like, okay, we're going to, we're going to rejoin society, and then that came with its own fear of change.

[55] I'm like, this is bonkers.

[56] Just three months ago, I was afraid to do this, and now I'm afraid to return.

[57] And it just kind of illustrated for me, my knee jerk to change is probably generally going to be like, oh, I don't want to.

[58] Yeah, and I think it's, I think in many ways, this has been a lesson for humanity because so many people have been forced to, or at least hopefully decided to change.

[59] And maybe I wonder, you know, of the demands for change on the streets, you know, I wonder if in many ways the pretty radical changes that were forced upon us as a result of COVID, in a way, opened the door for people to get more used to change.

[60] I wonder if there's some sort of relationship between the two.

[61] Well, I definitely think when this whole period is viewed through the lens of history and time, you know, I don't know, in 70 years, all those components are going to look very convenient.

[62] You know, I think it's going to, like the COVID context and that there are probably so many people that would have been too tunnel visioned in their own world and their own work scheduled to have participated in the numbers that we're seeing across the country.

[63] I think there'll be a pretty obvious link viewed 50 years from now.

[64] And I'm sure some of those folks, if they were working now, you know, they wouldn't be able to be demonstrating.

[65] And so, yeah, there's a lot there.

[66] And now, you're a historical.

[67] And now you're a historical.

[68] So can you do a compare and contrast?

[69] Have we ever had demonstrations across the country on this scale for race equality?

[70] So I think what's distinct about what's been happening these last two weeks is first and foremost, where it's happening.

[71] So it's literally, you know, you're having demonstrations not only in Washington, D .C., but Rockville, Maryland.

[72] You know, you're having demonstrations in big cities in rural America, suburban America, urban America.

[73] And I think that that's what's distinct.

[74] I think in the 60s, you had pretty sizable demonstrations, but it was typically concentrated in particular places.

[75] This has swept the nation.

[76] You know, I think many people have spoken about how diverse the crowds have been.

[77] There were diverse crowds among demonstrators in the 60s.

[78] and so I know for historians that's that's not as big of a deal but I just think the scale and how widespread it is and then the sustained number of demonstrations day after day and then for them to be growing as opposed to declining you know I think is distinct I can't remember through my reading of history another time like this yeah and to be honest so I read the New York times every morning when I wake up and certainly not cover to cover I don't want to be bragging here.

[79] I read a lot of, they're paraphrasing.

[80] I read a bunch of.

[81] But at any rate, you know, for two and a half months, there wasn't a single story that wasn't Corona or COVID -related, even if you're reading like a food cooking recipe thing in the Times, it had something to do with Corona.

[82] And then like a light switch, oh, that just completely all went away.

[83] And now nearly every article is about the protest, is about racial inequality.

[84] And I didn't think anything could get us off the corona news cycle.

[85] I didn't think, you know, an approaching asteroid would be enough to get us to stop talking about corona.

[86] So I think that says a lot in and of itself that we switched so quickly, you know, all the news attention to this.

[87] And do you think that's out of the goodness of everyone's heart or the deeper fear of property damage?

[88] If I'm a cynic, I think maybe it's that.

[89] And if I'm optimistic, maybe it's not.

[90] Yeah, I mean, I think that those who are opposing the demonstrations are looking at the demonstrations as a form of Armageddon in the sense that these are the people who are trying to either literally or figuratively destroy the country, if in their mind the country is property and police.

[91] And so therefore, they welcome the New York Times and others covering this signature moment in which our civilization apparently is being destroyed.

[92] And then those who are in the protests, or I should say demonstrations, and those who are supporting them, you know, from their homes, immuno -compromised or whatever, are saying simultaneously that, yes, you know, this is an Armageddon moment, but not to destroy, but to build, to build a society of equity and justice, to build a society where police violence is not rampant.

[93] And so I think for those opposing it and supporting it, they both see it as this fundamental time where fundamental change could happen.

[94] And so I think that's even deeper than COVID in many ways because it's really about the life of this nation.

[95] I just had a question because I know definitions are important and you've made that clear that that's a big first step is like defining all these things.

[96] So you just made a distinction.

[97] a distinction.

[98] Thank you between protests and demonstrations.

[99] Is there a reason for that?

[100] Yes.

[101] And how to be an anti -racist, I try very deliberately to distinguish between a protest and a demonstration.

[102] So I define a demonstration as literally like we've been seeing in most cases in which people are coming together and marching or rallying and calling and demonstrating and speaking about the problem of racism.

[103] or the problem of police brutality.

[104] And they're doing it loudly and persistently, you know, and they're speaking directly to power or speaking directly to those forces that they weren't changed or they're speaking really to each other.

[105] But, you know, a demonstration, I think, is distinct from a protest.

[106] A protest is typically a very well -organized campaign that puts pressure, direct pressure on power.

[107] And so to give an example, so let's say we all have the idea of people who are striking and then they have picket lines outside.

[108] That's both simultaneously of protest and in demonstration.

[109] From not working is putting direct pressure on power to change because, you know, power is losing money, you know, because the people are not working.

[110] And then they're also picketing outside to demonstrate to the larger public the problem, but that doesn't necessarily put direct pressure on power in the way they're striking does.

[111] Right.

[112] I see.

[113] Okay.

[114] Yeah, that's a good distinction.

[115] That's a great point to bring up early, Monica, that, you know, verbiage is so crucial right now that we're all working with the same definition.

[116] So I guess maybe let's just walk quickly through the history of the definition racism.

[117] So when I grew up, I guess the version that I poured concrete around that seems to be the one I can't shake is basically a group of people feels superior to another group of people.

[118] And there's an implied genetic inferiority in that second group or that race.

[119] I was an anthropology major, whichever makes fun of me for, I say that every five seconds.

[120] But race wasn't a word we were allowed to use in that.

[121] It's just a very terrible scientific proposition if you're trying to learn about any population.

[122] But how is that definition now inadequate or how does it need to be reshaped?

[123] and what's the definition we should all be working off of going forward?

[124] Oh, sure.

[125] So that definition really comes from the person who popularized the term racism itself.

[126] And she actually was an anthropologist, Ruth Benedict, who wrote a book, Race, Science, and Society.

[127] And she defined racism as the unproven biological superiority of one group, over another.

[128] But what was happening with Ruth Benedict and some of her colleagues who were challenging eugenesis at the time, eugenicists who were saying that, you know, black people or Irish people or Italian people or Latinx people, all these non -Anglo -Saxon rights were genetically inferior, they were also making a case or believing that there were cultural distinctions and cultural hierarchies.

[129] So in other words, they were rejecting notions of biological hierarchy, but accepting that certain racial groups, their cultures were inferior, that there wasn't such thing as civilized people.

[130] And then there are also beliefs that certain racial groups were behaviorally inferior.

[131] Can I ask you really quick?

[132] How would behavioral differences differ from cultural differences?

[133] Yeah.

[134] Sure.

[135] I mean, that's a great question.

[136] So groups sort of practice culture.

[137] and humans practice behavior.

[138] And so what I mean by humans practice behavior, humans love.

[139] But depending on your culture, you're going to love differently.

[140] And so love looks differently, you know, based on different cultures, but it's still love.

[141] And so what happens is that if every one of us sort of says that I'm going to assess love from my cultural standards, and if another culture isn't loving the way that I am or my group, group is, then they're inferior, then automatically every group is going to seem inferior to your own.

[142] And I think it's critical for us to think about behavior in the same way we think about biology.

[143] We're pretty much all the same biologically and behaviorally.

[144] But there are cultural differences, but we should be willing and able to recognize that difference and basically level that difference.

[145] And so that's not what Ruth Benedict and some of her colleagues were doing.

[146] They were not leveling cultural difference.

[147] And it wasn't until really the 60s that you had like the black power movement and the brown power movement.

[148] You had black people saying things like black is beautiful and, you know, white America, you know, stop trying to get us to assimilate into your culture.

[149] Our culture is just as valuable as yours, that people started rejecting those anthropologists who were saying, you know, what, the only form of racism is when we speak about genetic hierarchy.

[150] Right.

[151] Well, I can own my own guilt in this arena, so I don't think I've ever thought, oh, biologically, some population is inferior.

[152] So I have gone like, oh, that culture values machismo more than this culture.

[153] You know, there's, there are these different metrics to measure different cultures, one being your fear of authority.

[154] That's on an index that IBM compiled, right, and it can kind of explain pilot behavior in a cockpit.

[155] Oh, that's fascinating.

[156] Some cultures seem to be more machismo -driven, and I generally be like, I hate that.

[157] You know, I'll say, oh, I don't like that part of that culture.

[158] So I've done it.

[159] I'll just say that.

[160] Yeah, I mean, it's hard not to, especially if you're born and raised in the United States where we're not necessarily taught to level cultural difference.

[161] We're taught to, first of all, that there's a standard culture, there's a standard human culture, and that human culture typically is white.

[162] and there's a specific way in which that culture is considered civilized man, because it's usually man, and we should all be basically striving to be that way.

[163] Yeah.

[164] And that typically, obviously, degrades the cultures of many different people.

[165] And I guess for me, I try not to compare.

[166] So, for instance, I was raised in African -American culture, and that's the culture that I'm most familiar with.

[167] And so it's that I try to recognize is I don't really understand enough about other cultures to be able to truly and accurately compare and contrast.

[168] So I would really have to, you know, do a very intensive study.

[169] And then even, you know, I can sort of understand history.

[170] But culture is so difficult to truly understand if you're not immersed in it.

[171] It's almost like coming to understand a language.

[172] It's very, very hard to.

[173] sort of do, especially if you haven't learned it, you know, from the time which you were a child.

[174] Yeah.

[175] I'm going to have to take some positions here to make this interesting.

[176] But one thing I do, and it'll probably come up, but I will say while we're on the anthropology tip, that we have to, I think it's relevant to start by acknowledging that we have a lot of bad hardware.

[177] We've evolved to really identify in -group, out -group very quickly, and that as part of our survival for some 100 ,000 years, being able to identify your in -group and your out -group could have been life or death.

[178] We have a lot of hardware that makes it very easy for us to identify us versus them.

[179] And I think that that's something that has to be challenged endlessly.

[180] And I think to ignore it would be to have a naive sense of what this solution is going to entail.

[181] Do you disagree with that or do you think that has some merit?

[182] sure whether that's a form of our genetic makeup due to evolution.

[183] But, you know, I would certainly agree that it's a form of our makeup due to, at the least, our socialization.

[184] Like, so to give an example, I'll have a new book coming out, anti -racist baby.

[185] You know, when I first started writing on, I, you know, did a lot of research just to make sure that this was something that was needed.

[186] And so I'm, you know, basically going back to a lot of that research.

[187] And studies show that when babies are born, so at, you know, first week, they tend to not recognize race.

[188] And so, in other words, what they find is by three months, I think it's either three or six months, I think it's three months old.

[189] Babies tend to look longer at the race of people who match their caretakers, but they find that at zero months, that doesn't happen.

[190] So, you know, So it would seem to me that at least if this was racialized, that babies would be doing that from birth.

[191] So it may be in other ways, but what we're finding is that this is something that's taught.

[192] And by two years, that's when babies tend to discern people's behavior based on their race.

[193] But they're not doing that at six months or one year.

[194] So they're certainly being socialized to basically see race and to have racist ideas.

[195] Did you watch the most recent Chappelle special?

[196] He talks about watching white people go through the opioid epidemic.

[197] And he's like, I finally get it.

[198] Now I know how you felt about the crack epidemic.

[199] And I was like, you know, I don't think Chappelle hates white people.

[200] He doesn't desire to see them struggle from an opioid epidemic.

[201] But he's calling out a truth, which is there's some limit, which is, oh, that's not my group.

[202] I'm not even really going to think about it.

[203] You have to actively kind of challenge yourself to not do that.

[204] I think another layer of that for many black people is, I think, of course, Dave is old enough to remember the response to the crack epidemic.

[205] And so I think there's a level of resentment there.

[206] Sure.

[207] You know, we're black, and you went through the crap epidemic, and you saw the state respond with police in jails and derision, and now you're seeing as the state should be, for the most part, responding with public health resources, recognizing this.

[208] as a disease and not a criminal act and trying to provide services for people, you know, I think black folk are like, why couldn't this happen, you know, we received this?

[209] And I think so there's a certain level of resentment there.

[210] That's a great point.

[211] So when the crack epidemic started and yeah, I was very cognizant during that period and my uncle went down because of it.

[212] And yeah, the response was let's delineate the difference between powdered coke that you snort and rock coke.

[213] criminalize it differently, that was the response.

[214] It wasn't, oh, this must be a health issue.

[215] And now very much, we recognize it's a health issue.

[216] And people seem pretty open to the notion that it was a health issue or increasingly so.

[217] And that was never presented in defense of people using crack.

[218] So it is a similar resentment right now with COVID -19.

[219] Because for most of March and early April, when there was not widely known that black and brown people were disproportionately being infected and dying, this was seen as a major emergency in that we needed to radically social distance and we needed to keep states closed.

[220] But then by mid -April, we began to see these racial disparities in state after state, then suddenly there was talk of, okay, we can now reopen the states.

[221] Yeah.

[222] And so when there was no race attack, to the victim, you know, it was something that was a crisis.

[223] But then when certain faces became attached, suddenly it's, let's open back up.

[224] So people are, you know, privately, you know, really resenting.

[225] Yeah, I bet.

[226] Now, I want to point out that I feel like you're uniquely qualified to be educating us on this topic because by your own admission, I watch your UC Berkeley speech, which was fantastic.

[227] I recommend everyone watch it.

[228] You own the fact.

[229] You were on the debate team in Virginia, and you actually took the position of how do I explain this disproportionate incarceration?

[230] And by your own admission, you were a part of the very status quo of like, let's blame the victims.

[231] Because I think it's, again, really relevant that you have viewed this topic through the glasses that I think a lot of people are stuck wearing right now.

[232] Yeah, like I, you know, how to be an anti -racist begins with this.

[233] I gave as a senior in high school, I was a finalist for this Martin Luther King oratorical contest in Prince William County, Virginia, which is outside of D .C. And I actually have a tape of that speech.

[234] And, you know, watching it now, I'm just completely ashamed of the things that I said.

[235] And, you know, just as a point of context, you know, I came of age in the 1990s.

[236] This was the year 2000.

[237] And if there was ever a decade in American history, which black youth in particular, were considered the problem, were considered a menace to society.

[238] You know, it was the 1990s.

[239] And so there was all these ideas about black youth being violent, black youth, not valuing education, black youth, you know, having too many babies.

[240] And many of those ideas were constantly sort of taught to me. And I ended up internalizing those ideas.

[241] And I ended up reproducing them in this speech.

[242] And so it was really a speech in which I thought was so radical.

[243] I thought I was sort of honoring Dr. King when indeed it was just a speech of racist ideas in which I was constantly talking about all the things wrong with black youth.

[244] Black youth don't value education.

[245] Black youth want to climb the high tree of pregnancy and black people don't have intestinal fortitude and all of these racist ideas about all the things wrong with black people.

[246] And so I began the book.

[247] So I'm talking about that and admitting that and partly.

[248] because I recognize that to be anti -racist, we must admit those moments in our life in which we expressed racist ideas in which we supported racist policies.

[249] We cannot be like the president when we say that majority black Baltimore is a rat and roated infested mess that no human being would want to live.

[250] And then when he's challenged for that racist statement, he says, I'm the least racist person anywhere in the world.

[251] We can't be like that.

[252] We have to be willing to admit the mistakes that we've made.

[253] I was just excited we finally figured out who the most anti -racist person was because it kept me up at night.

[254] And I was like, okay, I can stop thinking about it.

[255] We found them.

[256] Now, why do you think the 90s that the young black male was target number one?

[257] Do you think it's simply because Ice Cube was far more popular than Curtis Mayfield?

[258] Because I'm being serious because I don't think the stories change.

[259] Like, telling the story of your surrounding and song is not.

[260] not new, is it just was the mass popularity of white kids consuming that media that had everyone freaked out?

[261] Or is that too simple or just one piece of it?

[262] So I think it was a combination of the late 1980s as a result of really crack market competition and growing amounts of unemployment, particularly among young black people.

[263] Those helped contribute to a growing amount of violent crime.

[264] And so instead of people sort of tracking this growing amount of unemployment among young black youth and violent crime, instead they said, no, it's something about their culture.

[265] It's something about the hip -hop they're listening to.

[266] It's something about their way of life.

[267] Or they're just beasts by nature.

[268] They're super predators.

[269] And so therefore, we need a crime bill to constrain these people with more prisons, with three strikes and you're out rules, with more cops.

[270] And I think that then combined with black and brown children was still getting lower scores on standardized tests.

[271] And you had people saying, you know, it's because they don't value education.

[272] You also had the civil rights generation who had grown into their 50s and to a certain extent 60s and were basically telling young black youth like me, you are not honoring Kingstream.

[273] And so there was a lot of things going on.

[274] I want to parallel one thing, and I've done this myself, which is because ultimately I like to believe in myself, I'm interested in preventing the causality of anything we don't like.

[275] So Germany, I'll say, well, look, how did a guy like Hitler come to power?

[276] Was everyone in Germany evil?

[277] If you reject the notion that all 35 million of those people or however many were evil, you have to explain it.

[278] So the explanation is Treaty of Versailles has these war reparations that are so encumbersome, too much to pay back.

[279] The inflation goes up by $60 ,000 a month.

[280] And that's what you get.

[281] So like I'm trying to say if this context can produce this outcome.

[282] But I start with the notion of, I find it hard to believe everyone in Germany was evil.

[283] So what's an explanation that can get me to them following Hitler?

[284] But if the crime rate goes up in black communities, the last thing I do is say, well, I know they're great people.

[285] So why on earth could the crime rate be going up at the rate it is?

[286] There has to be an explanation.

[287] I think that's the little bit of benefit of the doubt that historically black communities never gotten.

[288] No, because there's this long, I mean, the most dangerous racist ideas, the idea of the dangerous black neighborhood with dangerous people that need to be policed with lethal force.

[289] And then that leads to somebody like George Floyd being killed or Brianna Taylor.

[290] And it also causes us to not recognize a very simple truth that many Americans believe that certain neighborhoods have higher levels of violent crime because the people are black.

[291] So in other words, it's something about the black people that is behind this violent crime.

[292] But those very same Americans know that that neighborhood down the way, way with higher income black people have less violent crime.

[293] So how is that so if the blackness of the people is behind the violent crime?

[294] Wouldn't the higher income neighborhood have the same levels of violent crime?

[295] No, what that means is that it's actually the long -term poverty, the higher levels of unemployment.

[296] We should be viewing these as dangerous, unemployed neighborhoods, which then completely changes the calculus of the problem and solutions.

[297] Yeah, I feel like I'm regularly, and it's very easy for me to step in it when I do this.

[298] But even Monica and I have had many debates from, like, all you're looking at is socioeconomic issues.

[299] I mean, that's not true.

[300] That's too simple because there's also just a straight visual racism happening.

[301] But so many of these things are really socioeconomic issues.

[302] And if you compare white people of similar socioeconomic situation, you also see.

[303] the much higher crime rates than the affluent areas of white culture.

[304] So, you know, so much of this stuff is really predictable just on the socioeconomic aspect of it.

[305] It is.

[306] And I think it's critical for us to distinguish what is socioeconomic and what is not.

[307] But I think in terms of socioeconomic, like even when it comes to crime, when people think of violent crime, they think of murder, they think of armed robbery.

[308] They don't think of drunk driving.

[309] To give an example, it's a violent crime.

[310] Yeah.

[311] And drunk driving actually does tend to happen more in a fluent white suburbs.

[312] It's not considered, you know, to be a violent crime because of the way in which, you know, people sort of regard it.

[313] And then even when it comes to robbery, you know, people are more scared of some kid, you know, robbing them for their wallet on the street than somebody who is a person.

[314] in their suburban, affluent neighborhood, robbing them of their whole life savers, as we see, you know, every night on American greed.

[315] Oh, I love that show.

[316] Favorite show.

[317] Yeah.

[318] Part of this is, in many ways, people believe that they live in these safe neighborhoods because they have very narrow conceptions of crime and violence.

[319] But then, you know, just to mention about socioeconomics, I do think when it comes to this issue, if people focused more on socioeconomics, you know, it would make it that much better.

[320] I think when it comes to issues like health, I think it's a little bit different.

[321] To get an example, probably one of the most incredible racial health disparities is that black mothers are three to four times more likely to die during pregnancy than white mothers.

[322] And affluent black mothers are more likely to die during pregnancy than poor white mothers.

[323] And so it even cuts across class.

[324] Yeah, that's an important statistic.

[325] Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

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[341] It's called Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries.

[342] Each terrifying true story will be sure to keep you up at night.

[343] Follow Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts.

[344] Prime members can listen early and ad -free on Amazon Music.

[345] And there's all this data out now, right, about why the opioid crisis didn't hit the black community in such a strong way.

[346] One of the factors being that white doctors don't believe black people are in pain.

[347] Yeah, yeah.

[348] So they actually weren't prescribed the medicine at nearly the right white people were, which would, you know, lower the introduction rate and then the ultimate addiction rate.

[349] And I think it's important to point that out because one of the things that happens with racism is it's critically important, I think, for white people to recognize that as a result of racist policies, you know, white people, even white poor people who are more likely to live in mixed income neighborhoods than black poor people have particular privileges and advantages.

[350] And so thereby benefit more than people of color from racism.

[351] But at the same time, white people get hurt by racism too.

[352] And so you just described an example in which because of people's racist ideas that white people feel pain and black people do not, you have doctors prescribing white people pain meds that they were not prescribing and then sort of fueling this epidemic in their communities.

[353] It's almost similar to also in health, you know, you have doctors who believe that sickle cell anemia is a black disease.

[354] So only black people get sickle cell anemia.

[355] even though it's really a malarial disease, it shows it up among people who have, you know, concentrations of malaria.

[356] So that's not just sub -taharan Africa.

[357] You know, that's parts of Southern Europe.

[358] Like Portugal, that's parts of South America.

[359] If a Portuguese -American is showing with symptoms of sickle cell anemia, a racist doctor is going to be like, well, that's not so because they're not black.

[360] And so that person gets misdiagnosed and gets harm.

[361] Huh.

[362] Interesting.

[363] Relevant to point out because you just said it's inextricably linked to malaria.

[364] So sickle cell is advantageous.

[365] It's a co -dominant gene, right?

[366] So you can have some of your blood cells sickled, some not sickled, and the sickled cells do carry oxygen better when you have malaria, right?

[367] That's my understanding of how it's an evolutionary advantage.

[368] Precisely.

[369] So it defends against malaria, which is why it shows up in higher concentrations among people's in regions where malaria is more.

[370] prevalent.

[371] Okay, so now let's get into your book right now, which is, congratulations to you.

[372] Sorry, the impetus, but people are reading it in huge numbers right now, which I think is fantastic.

[373] It's sitting right here.

[374] Yeah, it's sitting right here.

[375] How to be an anti -racist on our desk.

[376] Now, explain to us the difference between being racist, not racist, and anti -racist.

[377] So being a racist is someone who is expressing a racist idea or supporting a racist policy, while an anti -racist is someone who is expressing an anti -racist idea or supporting her an anti -racist policy.

[378] And so in order to really understand both, we have to understand a racist idea and an anti -racist idea.

[379] And so a racist idea is any idea that suggests a racial group is superior or inferior to another in any way.

[380] or that this is what's better or wrong or right about a particular racial group.

[381] These are racist ideas.

[382] And anti -racist ideas suggest that there's nothing wrong or right, superior or inferior, about any racial group, that the racial groups are equals, as we talked about earlier, that the racists are the same biologically and behaviorally and then different ethnically and culturally.

[383] But we're going to level those sort of ethnic and cultural differences.

[384] And then in terms of policy, so, you know, I said racist is someone who is also supporting racist policy.

[385] These are policies that lead to racial inequity or injustice.

[386] And while anti -racist policies lead to equity and justice, so to give an example, a poll tax, led to black people being disproportionately disenfranchised in the South, which was essentially a racist policy.

[387] in the same way now, voter ID laws are disproportionately disenfranchising black and brown people.

[388] So they are racist policies.

[389] By contrast, when the Voting Rights Act in 1965 was passed and it required states to prove that a new voting law was not going to disenfranchise a particular racial group, that was an example of anti -racist policy.

[390] People started registering, people started voting in greater numbers.

[391] color.

[392] So all of those people who were expressing racist ideas, whether you're talking about slaveholders, or even you're talking about police officers today who are saying that black people are super predators, they typically were also saying they're not racist.

[393] And eugenicists consider themselves to be not racist in our terms.

[394] Even many members of the Ku Klux Klan were saying they're not racist.

[395] Amy Cooper, right after she was basically told to leash her dog in Central Park.

[396] And instead of just leashing her dog, she then threatened a black male and then called the police to claim that her life was being threatened.

[397] And then when she was challenged for weaponizing her whiteness, she was like, no, no, I'm not racist.

[398] And so when I see the history of the use of the term not racist, I typically see people who are challenged for doing something that's racist saying they're not racist.

[399] That's the only really utility that I've ever seen for the use of that term.

[400] I don't know of any other meaning.

[401] But there's a very clear meaning of, okay, does that idea connote racial hierarchy?

[402] Okay, it's racist.

[403] Does that idea connote racial equality?

[404] It's anti -racist.

[405] Is that policy leading to equity?

[406] Okay, it's anti -racist.

[407] Is that policy leading to inequity?

[408] It's racist.

[409] You know, I'm seeing a really great parallel between addicts.

[410] So I'm a recovering addict.

[411] And so often people, it takes years for them to admit their addiction because they have someone in their life who's worse, to be honest.

[412] And it's like, well, I'm not an addict.

[413] Mike's an addict.

[414] He doesn't show up for work.

[415] I've never been late to work.

[416] Okay.

[417] Well, if that's your definition of being an act sure you're not you know are you miserable and discontent do you have wreckage of another variety yes but as long as mike's in the picture so i do think a lot of people are like no a racist is david duke or a racist is some other person they know in their life who's like you know just more blatant i have an overall issue with the term racist simply because if i'm labeled in our society as a racist i'm likely get fired you know i just dude my brother works with got fired for racist tweets as he should have, but knowing that the potential stakes are loss of employment ostracizing you from your community, I think it really de -incentivized people to acknowledge the racism.

[418] So I'm a racist.

[419] There's no question.

[420] If it's a spectrum, right, and tens of David Duke, and maybe he's not even a 10.

[421] And zero is someone that was born not in this country, I guess, grew up in Mars.

[422] You know, I don't know when I am a two or a three.

[423] I'm certainly racist.

[424] I can't not be.

[425] I've inherited all kinds of thought structure in architecture that, like, I'm not even aware of half the time.

[426] I feel like there's no safety net for people to start acknowledging like, oh, no, I'm on this spectrum.

[427] Where am I at on the spectrum?

[428] What are my goals?

[429] Where am I trying to get to on this spectrum?

[430] Because it feels like there's no room for that.

[431] Well, and also you say so well in your book, you say being a racist isn't a pejorative.

[432] It's a descriptor.

[433] So if we change the frame of it, of like, this is describing something as opposed to I'm bad because I'm a racist.

[434] Because, yeah, people don't think they're bad.

[435] So that's a big hurdle.

[436] No, I agree.

[437] And I think that what I'm trying to do with my work is simultaneously get people to have a very clear definition of what a racist is.

[438] But then also shout from the rafters that those people, who are striving to be anti -racist are the people who are admitting their racism.

[439] What that means is like what people should be looking for and valuing is the person who is no longer in denial about their addiction.

[440] And, you know, I have used quite a bit the analogy of addiction, you know, in talking about, you know, when you're really truly striving to be anti -racist, it's almost like you're trying to overcome.

[441] an addiction.

[442] Like, you're always taking it a day at a time.

[443] You've never become an anti -racist.

[444] You know that every moment, every day, you have to think about your actions.

[445] You have to think about what you're doing.

[446] And you know, if you don't, you'll relapse.

[447] And so it's a constant sort of struggle because of the way we've been brought up.

[448] And I think people recognize that.

[449] And they're like, no, that's just too much work.

[450] So I just would rather just call myself not racist.

[451] And so I'm like, no, there's no such thing as not racist.

[452] So if you don't want to do the work, just like a person who is addicted to a substance and they don't want to do the work of overcoming it, then you're still now addicted to that substance.

[453] You know, if you are abusing a substance, you're risking your life, you're risking your job, you're risking your relationships.

[454] It's the same thing when you are refusing to not start on.

[455] this journey of being anti -racist.

[456] Okay, now here's where I'll get dicey.

[457] Is it naive to ask people in the out -group, per se, to prioritize an issue that is from an out -group above the things that are in -group.

[458] So I'll just give it a hypothetical.

[459] Now, I'm pro -choice, but I recognize there's a lot of people that are pro -life.

[460] I also recognize the people that are pro -life literally believe they're saving a life.

[461] I believe they believe they're saving a life.

[462] And I can respect that and understand it.

[463] So I think a lot of the traditional conservative right -wing supporters may say, yes, I think that guy's racist, but I personally am elevating, killing babies above racism.

[464] So for me, I'm a one -issue voter, and I've got to protect babies from being killed.

[465] And I'm sorry that racism's taking a second position to that, but it's going to.

[466] I don't agree with it, but I can empathize with it.

[467] You'd say you're a gay man and you recognize how pervasive homophobia is in this country.

[468] And your focus is on challenging and abrooting homophobia from this country.

[469] And you're like, wow, I mean, so now you're also talking to me about trying to fight racism?

[470] No, I'm focused on homophobia.

[471] I got my hands full with this homophobia thing.

[472] Exactly.

[473] So what I would suggest is it's critically important for people to realize how all of these oppressions intersect and feed on each other.

[474] To give an example, homophobia, the first major, and I write about this in my book, Stamped from the beginning, the first major writer who talked about the sexuality of gay people in England.

[475] and he actually sought to advocate against those who, or I should say law at the time in the late 19th century, which basically being gay was a crime, he also racialized sort of homophobia in that what was happening in the 19th century is people were seeking to really sort of understand sexuality, human sexuality, through the black body, through sort of examining the black body, dissecting the black body, and it became the same thing with queer people, in which it was imagined that queerness was a biological entity that can be demonstrated.

[476] So to give an example, it was imagined at the time that gay women or lesbians had larger clitorises than heterosexual women, because that demonstrated their hypersexuality.

[477] And it was imagined that homosexuals were more hypersexual than heterosexual.

[478] So people would then measure people's genital area to determine how sexual they were and thereby how homosexual they were.

[479] It was also imagined at the time that black women, that black people were more hypersexual than white people.

[480] So then it was imagined that black women who were less, Lesbians had larger clitorises than white women who were lesbians and white and black heterosexuals.

[481] This is the beginning of people understanding and really making the case for the inferiority of queer people.

[482] And they were not separating it from race because in many ways they were informed by race science that was determining people's behavior based on their genetics.

[483] And so it's critical for people to understand that.

[484] what I've been saying to people who have tunnel vision about a particular issue, chances are in this country and in others, racism has played some sort of significant factor in it.

[485] Well, we interviewed Heather McKee, and she was talking about the 2008 financial meltdown and how all of those predatory subprime mortgages were basically research and developed on communities of color.

[486] Yeah, it's not always obvious how a white person might suffer under these racist policies.

[487] It's not always so clear.

[488] It isn't.

[489] You know, probably one of the most striking examples of the suffering among white people as a result of racism is probably the whole gun debate.

[490] Primarily white men and white male politicians have advocated primarily in red states to remove sort of gun safety laws and they've succeeded on the basis that these white men needed to defend their families from so -called Latinx invaders, black criminals, and Muslim terrorists.

[491] And so I need to arm myself, you know, and arm my community so I can protect my family against these people.

[492] And and so they were trafficking constantly in those ideas, those racist ideas.

[493] So then these states remove those gun safety protocols, and white men began sort of accumulating weapons.

[494] And then what we began to see statistically is a rise in white male suicides by handgun.

[495] And so you see the states who kept these gun safety laws in place versus the states that removed them, you see this spike in white male, not anyone else, but primarily white male, to the level of black male homicides.

[496] That's how much it's happening right now, very quietly.

[497] I say quietly because it's not a national story like all the people being killed in Chicago.

[498] And it's primarily being brought on by people's own racism.

[499] And also, those very politicians are simultaneously harming them economically and then turning around and saying, well, you know who's hurting you?

[500] Immigrants, those black people.

[501] And so therefore, you need no. more guns to kill yourself.

[502] Obviously, they're not saying the last part.

[503] Well, I know it's so interesting.

[504] The gun debates I've had with folks, and let me just own, I own a gun.

[505] So it's not like I'm anti -gun in the most broad sense.

[506] But it is so convenient, they don't want to include suicides into the number of gun fatalities.

[507] It's so bizarre.

[508] Like, how on earth is that not a gun fatality?

[509] What's the logic behind it?

[510] There's really none, other than it's just inconvenient for them to acknowledge how many people who set out to defend their family and property ended up taking out the patriarch.

[511] It's pretty crazy.

[512] It is.

[513] And not only has the NRA succeeded in that, but the NRA has succeeded in preventing the funding of research in suicides by handgun and the causes of that.

[514] Because, again, if you're the NRA, if you're the NRA, if you're a lot, leadership in NRA and white men all across this country begin to realize that there's an epidemic of white male suicides and it's coming as the result of this massive accumulation of guns and then you start to look around who's been pushing for us to accumulate guns who's been telling us we need guns who's been advocating and funding those politicians who are doing this it's the NRA so then all of those guns pointed at those so -called about DNX immigrants, black criminals and Muslim terrorists, and even themselves, will be facing NRA.

[515] And then, you know, how could they even live another day?

[516] What you pointed out, which is great, is that an anti -racist is not looking at what's going on with people.

[517] It's about looking at what's going wrong with policies.

[518] So could you give us, like, a top three policies that we need to be examining, be aware of and be actively against when voting?

[519] Oh, in voting, I think voter ID laws.

[520] Well, let me just say, the number one is we should have automatic registration in which everyone is just automatically registered to vote.

[521] I agree.

[522] You get your birth certificate, you get a voter ID for a life card.

[523] Precisely.

[524] So the whole concept of registration allows certain people, and it's historically been people of color and women and poor working people to be disenfranchised.

[525] So, you know, we need to completely eliminate the whole sort of function of registration.

[526] And then the second thing I would say is we can bank online.

[527] We can have conversations like this online.

[528] We can do everything online.

[529] And it's somehow safe.

[530] But it's we can't figure out a way to vote online.

[531] And the reason why this is critical is because Because even with the Democratic primary in which there was a lot of criticism coming down on younger voters who were supporting Bernie Sanders and even Elizabeth Warren and others not turning out to vote in as higher numbers as, for instance, older voters.

[532] And instead of people thinking about, okay, how can we change the way in which people vote that would then allow for more young people to vote?

[533] instead let's demonize those young people.

[534] And so to me, you know, something like online voting could, to me, bring in a lot of young people into the voting system.

[535] And then finally, I think it's most important for us to figure out a way to ensure that money is completely removed from politics.

[536] And so therefore, a politician is not thinking, first and foremost, how, Now do I raise money because if I raise money, I can raise votes.

[537] Have you seen their schedule?

[538] Like when their schedules broken down, I feel bad.

[539] I truly feel terrible for these, all of these, the senators, the congressmen, the everyone.

[540] The bulk of their daily activity is raising money.

[541] By the way, even if you fucking hate their guts, which you're entitled to hate many of their guts, no one wants to raise money.

[542] Asking for money is not fun for anybody.

[543] they'd rather be doing policy work than that.

[544] Exactly.

[545] And so how do we do that?

[546] We completely eliminate money from politics.

[547] And so that they can then spend all of their time on us.

[548] Yeah.

[549] And I'm thinking about what's best for their constituents, as opposed to thinking about what's best for their donors.

[550] Because, again, it's critical for us to recognize that votes get you elected, but for the most part, money gets you votes.

[551] They're going to go after funding.

[552] And so we have to eliminate that.

[553] and then that will then allow for a much better slate of candidates who are much more focused on doing what's best for the majority of their constituents.

[554] I'm curious about something real quick because we're talking about policy.

[555] So right now there's a big push in certain areas of defending the police.

[556] And the police obviously is a big talking point.

[557] And a lot of people will say most police.

[558] officers are good and there's just some bad apples.

[559] And I just wanted your perspective on that because I originally came into this argument thinking, yeah, this is an internal police problem.

[560] The good apples have to call out the bad apples and that's the fix and that's how this changes.

[561] But the more I learned, the good apples can actually not call out the bad apples because it's impossible to fire the bad apples.

[562] So if a good one says like, hey dude, don't do that.

[563] That cop is putting his own life at risk, his own career.

[564] And that's a lot of us to ask this individual person to do.

[565] We have to already has a job where they're interfacing with the mentally ill, the homeless.

[566] Yeah.

[567] All the jobs they're not equipped to do.

[568] All the problems were not handling.

[569] Yeah.

[570] And so I think what people aren't, they're not digging a little deeper and saying it's the system that prevents these quote, bad apples from getting removed from the orchard.

[571] What are your thoughts on that?

[572] So I think there's two things to talk about.

[573] There's the policies and then there's the people.

[574] It's the officers themselves.

[575] And this idea that there's only a few bad apples.

[576] Well, we actually have survey data on American police officers.

[577] So in 2017, nearly 8 ,000 sworn officers were surveyed.

[578] And 92 % of the white officers in this survey agreed with the post -racial idea that our country has made the changes needed to give Black's equal rights.

[579] Let me explain what that means.

[580] That means that 92 % of white officers in a survey of 8 ,000 officers basically believe there's equality.

[581] And if there's racial inequity, it's not because of racism.

[582] it's because there's something wrong with people of color.

[583] And only 6 % of white officers agreed with the idea that our country needs to continue making changes to get Black's equal rights with whites.

[584] And that's compared to 69 % of Black officers.

[585] Wow.

[586] Just so we can sort of see, that means that a large chunk of Black officers the majority believe that.

[587] that this nation somehow is post -racial.

[588] 69 % of black officers said they agree or disagree with the...

[589] So, 69 % of black officers agreed with the idea that our country needs to continue making changes to get blacks.

[590] Oh, I had that backwards.

[591] Yeah, so 69 % of black officers said that.

[592] And to give another example of a survey, white officers, only 20 ,000, 7 % of them said that the deaths of blacks during encounters with police in recent years are signs of a broader problem.

[593] So you basically have only a quarter of white officers believing that there's actually a serious, searing problem of police killing black people.

[594] And then only 6 % of white officers actually believe that racism exists.

[595] Yeah.

[596] And so what is it about American policing?

[597] Because that percentage is much higher than the regular white public.

[598] So for white people in general, it's closer to maybe 55 % or 60 % in most surveys of white people will, at the most, say that basically the nation is post -racial.

[599] And so 55 % versus 92%.

[600] What's happening in American policing that so many believe that we're in a post -racial society?

[601] What is it about the culture of American policing?

[602] And when you believe that, at the same time, 40 % of the incarcerated people in this country are black people.

[603] And that means you believe that black people are more dangerous, are more violent, or more criminal -like, are committing more crimes.

[604] And that's why they're disproportionately arrested.

[605] That's why they're disproportionately incarcerated.

[606] And so it makes sense to me how in a police officer would fear for their lives in black communities in ways that they know.

[607] But then I think in terms of the structural issues.

[608] I mean, think about it.

[609] Like if you're a police officer and all you have to do after the fact is say you fear for your life and then you'll get off.

[610] Yeah.

[611] That's what folks are going to do.

[612] If you're a police officer and you get written up for doing something wrong, all you do is contact your union and they'll hit up an arbitrator.

[613] And then you can get that punishment overturn.

[614] Isn't that what you're going to do?

[615] And so I think what we're talking about here is power of policing and police officers through their unions.

[616] And I don't know of any other profession in which you literally can regularly harm people and kill people and still go back to work.

[617] the next day, like nothing happened.

[618] I don't know of another profession like that than American policing.

[619] And that's a serious problem.

[620] You could probably get away with it in the UFC, but yeah, your point stands.

[621] Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[622] Now, I have a provocative thought on all this, and I just don't hear it get brought up.

[623] I guess it's in keeping with the white fragility book, but But when you mention the LGBTQ response from the hetero community and driven obviously largely by men in power, it makes so much sense to me because there's this huge male insecurity that fuels so much downriver policy that no one, I think no one really wants to address, which is the male fear of kind of impotence, that they need to control women's bodies out of this fear, that they criminalize things that would appear to threaten their frail ego when it comes to this.

[624] So I will just say that your average white young male, his exposure to the black world is through sports.

[625] And you're looking at, you know, Shaquille O 'Neal, you're looking at all these people.

[626] And then in pornography.

[627] So then white kids are watching pornography.

[628] So there's this dual thing happening where they feel physically inferior.

[629] and they have this huge sexual insecurity that they can't please a woman and that those two fears are very active, whether it's on the front of their brain or in the back of their brain, I don't think anyone's really acknowledging that.

[630] Is that too out there of a thought?

[631] No, I think this is another example of how a racist idea about another group can come back to harm your own sense of self.

[632] And so if you're a white male and you believe the racist idea that black men are hypersexual and that they have larger penises than white men, beastly sort of super studs.

[633] I can tell you even someone that white guy that would describe himself is not racist would also believe that black men have bigger penises.

[634] So if you believe that idea, then you're a white male.

[635] And you're going to be like, okay, these other people, are better in bed than me. Yeah.

[636] Or I'm bad in bed.

[637] Yeah.

[638] You know, I'm not going to be able to satisfy women.

[639] Forget the fact that women don't care about penis size.

[640] It's only us men.

[641] But that's just, I got to say that out loud.

[642] It's only us dudes who are comparing penises.

[643] And, you know, so again, it comes back to sort of haunt you.

[644] It's the same thing with white women who believe this sexist idea that are true women.

[645] is asexual.

[646] You know, a nice, respectable woman cannot be sexual.

[647] Yeah.

[648] And those women who are not nice and who are not really women, those women of color, they are sexual, they're hypersexual.

[649] So then you're going to have this sense of insecurity.

[650] Am I able to please this man?

[651] Yeah.

[652] And so I think sexually it creates all sorts of problems.

[653] But again, the origins of it are these racist ideas.

[654] kids.

[655] Yeah.

[656] And I think that's how people can then free themselves of their own insecurities and even of their relationships with people in their own lives.

[657] Well, and it's interesting because if you look at like the extreme popularity of hip hop among young white kids, I get the appeal, man, I was a young white kid and I listened to Ice Cube.

[658] I'm like, this dude isn't afraid of shit.

[659] Like there is this hypermasculinity being presented in the art that is very appealing to someone who feels powerless and young and not developed and all these things.

[660] So it's like you're going from the music you're listening to is enhancing this notion of hypermasculinity.

[661] And then you're tuning into your sports show.

[662] And then that's kind of reaffirming this flawed perspective.

[663] And then you're watching some porn at night.

[664] And the whole thing seems like a cycle that is worth examining.

[665] And I guess the solution seems obvious that we need all the representations of all the many different variety within the black.

[666] community and not just reducing it to the things that are selling tickets.

[667] Yeah.

[668] And historically, the black body has been commodified, you know, in this country in ways in which the intellect, for instance, of black people, you know, have not.

[669] You know, I talk often about it's actually much more complex than us just purely saying that racist have historically viewed white people as superior.

[670] than black people.

[671] What's actually more complex is they viewed white people as intellectually superior and physically inferior.

[672] They made this idea that what makes the human superior to the animal is the human's intellect.

[673] Further you are from being animal -like, the more human you are.

[674] And then the closer you are to being animal -like, the more black you are.

[675] Right.

[676] So then, you know, black people are closer to animals and then it's then humans perceive animals as these voracious sexual and physical sort of beings that that of course humans are not and dangerous animals are dangerous need to be subdued need to be yeah oh man it's fucking deep yeah put your ass to sleep you're lucky ibram you're so fantastic i really appreciate you're so fantastic i really shit you taking so much time to talk to us?

[677] Is there something that I didn't bring up that needs bringing up?

[678] I'm pretty trapped in my white male bubble.

[679] So I could be missing some shit.

[680] I think we covered everything.

[681] We solved it?

[682] We solved it.

[683] Congratulations.

[684] Well, I really hope we get to talk to you in person.

[685] Maybe when you're promoting your new book, you'll come see you some person.

[686] That would be wonderful.

[687] Well, I have a question about the baby book.

[688] So what age, that's for babies?

[689] We're thinking more like zero to fine.

[690] But we, you'll see like the book is, there's certain language in it that obviously is directed towards smallest of babies.

[691] And then there's other language that's not.

[692] Because in many ways, just like we teach babies to be nice, even before they even understand what that means.

[693] Right.

[694] So two should we teach them, you know, about equity and justice.

[695] So, you know, some people are reading into people six or seven.

[696] years old.

[697] Yeah.

[698] Oh, these these kids, too, they say some shit that boy, if it were in print, they'd be canceled.

[699] Like, both my children have grown up around Monica.

[700] We're in New York City and we're like, we're in a cab and we're looking out the window and there's these two horses trotting down the street, pulling a carriage.

[701] And my, like, four -year -old goes, oh my God, that horse looks just like Monica.

[702] And I'm like, what on earth is she talking about?

[703] And I noticed one of the horses is white and one of the horses is brown.

[704] And I'm like, ay, yeah, yeah.

[705] Okay.

[706] So I see what you're saying the color.

[707] But man, they just say whatever the fucking observation.

[708] Yeah, and that's someone who's who appreciates.

[709] That's a kid who appreciates different skin colors.

[710] But what I do think is in that sort of same vein, I think a lot of parents think or have thought up until now that the right message to send their children is don't focus on color and be color.

[711] or blind.

[712] Yeah, pretend you don't see it.

[713] Pretend you don't see it, which is also, I think also a racist idea in some ways.

[714] Because colorless really means white.

[715] Like, you're just seeing everyone as white.

[716] Yeah, like, I don't see you as brown.

[717] I see you like me is what that means.

[718] And so, yeah, but I think that tune is changing a little bit.

[719] Definitely, definitely.

[720] Yeah, and, you know, our kids aren't not colorblind.

[721] No. No, no, they can see if someone's got more melonson right away.

[722] Again, man, you're so awesome And I really appreciate you taking the time And please, we're always at your disposal If there's something you think that needs to get out A platform at your disposal Thank you so much We're able to sit down and talk That's too Great, great Thank you Well, we'll do it again soon All right, definitely All right, y 'all Thank you, everyone And now my favorite part of the show The Fact Check with my soulmate Monica Padman So this was a first Welcome to the Fact Check This was a first time ever Real Time Fact Check it was during the interview yes because we're in a tight turnaround but i didn't want to not fact check for like this third week in a row or something right so i wrote down facts as they were happening so i definitely missed some you miss some because i was paying attention hard well yeah you were engrossed in the conversation you probably kept forgetting you were supposed to be checking in for facts yeah that happened a few times but i did do it and it was kind of cool you kind of liked it yeah i kind of felt like i was really a student in class uh -huh because i had I was taking notes, essentially.

[723] Yeah, did it bring you back to your college days?

[724] Yeah, you know, I loved college.

[725] And also, Ebram is a professor.

[726] He is.

[727] And I love professors.

[728] You sure do.

[729] Yeah.

[730] What did you jot down during that session?

[731] So, I jotted.

[732] Well.

[733] I'm so sorry.

[734] Before you get into that, there was one earmark, remember, which was you brought it up, and we didn't really explore it.

[735] Uh -huh, and you wanted to explore it.

[736] I wanted to explore it.

[737] Yeah, let's.

[738] And that was this term defund the police.

[739] Yeah.

[740] Yeah.

[741] And I think for most people, I would see that word and go, wait, so less police.

[742] Is that what you're saying?

[743] It sounds scary.

[744] Yeah, it sounds like you're going to put less resources into fighting crime is what it sounds like on the surface.

[745] But if you explore what it means, it's basically reallocating some of the budget to preventative measures so that they're dealing with less crime.

[746] And then, two, getting some specialists on the ground that can deal.

[747] with the mental health issues that the police are dealing with daily, hourly, and the substance abuse issues and the homelessness crisis.

[748] So people who are more apt to handle those specific issues, right now the cops are handling all these issues that they are not equipped to handle.

[749] Yeah, none of us are.

[750] Well, some people are.

[751] And those are the ones that need to be given money to.

[752] So once again, I think it's terrible branding on the left.

[753] I'm very critical of the branding on the left.

[754] But this one, I think it could have been definitely worded differently, that they want some preventative allocations made from the budget.

[755] That's what it is.

[756] That seems more appealing to me. It's very upstream thinking, and I hope it happens because it seems like that is what is needed.

[757] And, yeah, when you first hear that, it seems like, oh, God, like, even my, I had the same reaction when I saw it, somebody sent me a text, basically asking me to post it on my social about defunding the police.

[758] And I was like, I'm not posting that.

[759] I don't know what that is.

[760] I don't think I want that.

[761] Yeah.

[762] And then once I started doing a deeper dive, I was like, oh, no, I totally do.

[763] I think that's really smart.

[764] And I also recognize that part of the reason my response is, oh, no, is I feel protected by the police.

[765] Sure.

[766] That's part of my privilege.

[767] It's like, I don't feel harassed by them.

[768] No. So I'm like, why would we do that?

[769] But that's all part of this whole issue.

[770] So, yeah, reallocation.

[771] Yeah, I like that better.

[772] Well, recalibration.

[773] Yeah, funneling.

[774] Yeah.

[775] They need to appoint us, I don't know.

[776] Liaisons, ambassadors.

[777] I want to be employed in some capacity to help the wording and branding.

[778] Oh.

[779] The rights great at it.

[780] Like, they, death panel.

[781] Like, they really, death tax for a state tax.

[782] They know how to talk to their people.

[783] Yeah, they know how to get their people excited about the, their agenda.

[784] But I would say, to be fair, you're not looking at it from a left perspective when you say that.

[785] You're looking at it from a right perspective.

[786] Well, I like to think I'm looking at is, how do we get the most amount of people supporting this idea?

[787] But that's not what the rights doing.

[788] So I'm saying you can say that about the left, but you can't give the right credit because they're not doing that.

[789] They're not saying, how do we get the most people on board?

[790] They're saying, how do we get our people on board?

[791] Well, I think, though, what I mean by their successful is that They actually, because their wording is so clever that they get people that actually maybe wouldn't even agree with that, but they phrase it in a way that they even get people that wouldn't, if they got into the substance of it, wouldn't agree with it, like death tax.

[792] If you label it death tax, everyone's like, yeah, I'm not in favor of a death tax.

[793] You can't tax someone for dying, you know.

[794] Right.

[795] And it elicits a quick emotional response.

[796] Well, by the way, this is my theory.

[797] Today in the New York Times, there was these poll figures.

[798] about if you ask people, do they want sensitivity training, 86 % yes, for police.

[799] Do they want people dedicated to dealing with the mental health issues?

[800] It's like 87 %, right?

[801] And then you get down to people who support defund the police is like 13%.

[802] So what you know is that they support all the things that defund the police entails, but that the nomenclature is so shitty that they don't support it.

[803] So that's a very bad job.

[804] if all the tenets of the movement are agreed upon, and yet no one agrees with the movement, I think that's bad branding.

[805] Yeah, yeah, that's true.

[806] I mean, I will say that that's sort of similar to gun control.

[807] 80 -something percent of Americans believe we should close loopholes and background check, all those things.

[808] Yet, none of those things happen.

[809] So.

[810] Well, but I'm saying, you know, it's upon us to try to figure out how.

[811] Yeah.

[812] You can't just accept that that's...

[813] No, no. People think they're opposed to something, but in fact, they're in favor of it.

[814] That's a big thing to rectify.

[815] Right.

[816] So you can be in charge of that, I guess.

[817] Okay, self -appointed.

[818] It's so funny.

[819] Ever since we had Dan Heathon, who wrote Upstream, I really just see it everywhere.

[820] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[821] It's...

[822] In general conversations in America are just very reactionary.

[823] They're like the last stop of the whole problem.

[824] and no one's tracing it further up a river to try to...

[825] Yeah.

[826] Everyone wants to treat the symptom and not the disease.

[827] I know.

[828] Okay, so he said in his book, and then I've heard him say it other places, but he didn't say it here.

[829] But I thought was really pointing.

[830] He said denial is the heartbeat of racism.

[831] Uh -huh.

[832] And talked about that, but he didn't use that phrase.

[833] and I just, it sticks out to me as being really true.

[834] Yeah, I think, I mean, I really think the addiction model is so weirdly related.

[835] Yeah, he talks about that in his book, too.

[836] I, I start it for you.

[837] Oh, you did.

[838] Yeah, suffering from the, and I have friends that it's like every time I point something out, it's, well, there's another person who's worse.

[839] And it's like, okay.

[840] Yeah.

[841] Great.

[842] Yeah.

[843] The example I always gave when I was newly sober, was, I watched a documentary, the guy was melting crack and then shooting that interveniously.

[844] There's some guy that's just smoking crack that's like, well, I don't melt it and shoot it interveniously.

[845] It's like, okay.

[846] Yeah.

[847] It's not relative.

[848] No, it's, no. And another thing that we didn't bring up, he did an interview with Brune.

[849] We love Brne Brown.

[850] We love her.

[851] He gives a really good analogy about shame and being outside in the rain.

[852] And I would advise everyone to go listen to that on Brunay's interview because it is a really eye -opening analogy as to what is going on and why you shouldn't feel shame about it.

[853] And his book, I'm not, I'm, I only just started it.

[854] But he talks so much about racism is not who you are.

[855] It's what you're doing.

[856] I was listening to somebody and they said, none of the marches from the beginning of the civil rights movement, none of the marches were, we want you to love us as much as you love white people.

[857] No one wants your love or your, they want the policies in the system to not inordinately punish them.

[858] Yeah.

[859] And cause them to suffer.

[860] I don't give a fuck really what you think in your bedroom by yourself, but I care very much about the policies and infrastructure to make it impossible for me to compete.

[861] Yeah, and I think he's saying, because people don't want to be a racist.

[862] Yeah, no one wants that, but he's saying, you're not, you're not a racist.

[863] The things you are doing are racist and you can do things that are anti -racist.

[864] You're not one or the other.

[865] At any given moment, you could be a racist in the morning and anti -racist at night.

[866] Yeah.

[867] It's all just actions and thinking.

[868] Well, another great analogy I'd make is like, no one would describe themselves as, a liar.

[869] I'm a liar.

[870] Yeah.

[871] And yet all of us lie, but we're not willing to make the leap to say I'm a liar, even though it might be factually true if you tell lies you're a liar.

[872] Right.

[873] But no one identifies with being a liar.

[874] But also if you don't want to be a liar, before you tell the lie, you think that I'm about to do this.

[875] Mm -hmm.

[876] There's a good outweigh.

[877] Is this like, exactly.

[878] Is this something I wanted to or there's something I don't want to do?

[879] So, yeah, Kristen was telling me she had read something or saw something, a good analogy of racism.

[880] It's dust in the air.

[881] When you shine a light on it, you see it.

[882] Right.

[883] But it's always all around you.

[884] Yeah, yeah.

[885] Yeah.

[886] Okay.

[887] So we talked about tribal in group, outgroup, and just kind of in a very basic way in sociology and social psychology.

[888] An in group is a social group to which a person psychologically identifies as being a member.

[889] By contrast, an outgroup is a social group with which an individual does not identify.

[890] So in this definition, it's psychological, not biological.

[891] So we make our own in groups all the time, you know.

[892] Oh yeah, and you could have 500 going throughout the day.

[893] You could be a police officer at your in group.

[894] You could be male.

[895] Yeah.

[896] You could be female.

[897] You could be a son.

[898] You could be father in group.

[899] Totally.

[900] So I guess because these are constructs that we can construct an in -group that is inclusive to all people.

[901] Yes.

[902] Yeah.

[903] But I do think a truth that really no one wants to bring up.

[904] I mean, they do like implicit bias, inherited biases, all these concepts.

[905] Certainly if someone looks like you or doesn't look like you, it only aids in how easy it is to make an in -group -out group.

[906] So there is always going to be...

[907] I disagree.

[908] Because I decided early on my in -group wasn't going to be people who looked like me, and it's not.

[909] I mean, that's unfortunate.

[910] Oh, I definitely think you can transcend it.

[911] Yeah.

[912] I'm just saying it's a very...

[913] You can't look at a guy and say he's a firefighter or a father or a son or anything.

[914] There's nothing just if you look at the human being, there's not a ton of in -group -out -group assumptions you can make about them.

[915] Unfortunately, one of the easiest ones to do is, oh, that person's white, I'm not white, or they're black.

[916] I'm not black.

[917] So it just sucks that this thing that has very little relevance in your genetic code is being used as the primary in -group, out -group selector.

[918] That's unfortunate.

[919] Yeah.

[920] And I think people deserve some slack in understanding it.

[921] And I think people should be expected and required to transcend it.

[922] But I don't think you can transcend it before you acknowledge it.

[923] Right.

[924] And he said he couldn't remember if it was three months or six months that babies look longer.

[925] at people who match their caretakers.

[926] And it's three months.

[927] It says, while newborn infants demonstrated no spontaneous preference for faces from either their own or other ethnic groups, three -month -old infants demonstrated a significant preference for faces from their own ethnic group.

[928] These results suggest that preferential selectivity based on ethnic differences is not present in the first days of life, but is learned within the first three months.

[929] The finding implies that adults' perceptions of ethnic differences are learned and derived from differences in exposure to own versus other race faces during early development.

[930] What's the solution just like as much diversity as you can have around your three -month -old?

[931] I think so.

[932] And I also think, I mean, you know, what he said, like, he wrote this book for babies.

[933] Like, start early before you think.

[934] I'm so glad you didn't tell him, babies can't read because that would have been such a bomb.

[935] Yeah.

[936] He doesn't know that.

[937] Yeah.

[938] He's written a book for babies.

[939] He'll find out later.

[940] That just exposing literal images to babies before, because everyone just assumes they aren't taking in any information and they are.

[941] Okay.

[942] So I think by now it's becoming more and more apparent that black people have been affected at a much greater rate of COVID than white people.

[943] That's like now a thing everyone's talking about, but took a long time to get there.

[944] And it says the latest overall COVID -19 mortality rate for black Americans is 2 .4 times as high as the rate for whites and 2 .2 times as high as the rate for Asians and Latinos.

[945] Asians too, huh?

[946] Is there any explanation?

[947] What do you mean?

[948] Or what do I mean what I mean?

[949] Asians are rarely in the same group as Latinos and blacks for any metrics.

[950] No, no, no, no. 2 .4 times as high as the rate for whites and 2 .2 times as high as the rate for Asians and Latinos.

[951] They're still outnumbering everyone.

[952] That makes more sense.

[953] Oh, okay.

[954] And then the white male gun deaths that we were talking about.

[955] I thought that was interesting because you brought up like no one mentions those numbers.

[956] Yeah, they don't want to count them as gun fatalities.

[957] Yeah.

[958] Just so, yeah.

[959] It's a very weird delineation.

[960] And here it says of the 35 ,637 firearm deaths that occurred from January to November 2019, 21 ,912, or 61 .5 % were suicides.

[961] Oh, my God.

[962] And that's overwhelmingly white male, yeah?

[963] Yeah.

[964] White males are 2 .5 times more likely than black men to die of suicide.

[965] That is the only statistic probably.

[966] Or they're two -knit times more likely.

[967] And it's 61 .5 % of gun deaths.

[968] Hmm.

[969] So.

[970] Yeah.

[971] It's kind of crazy.

[972] Crazy.

[973] Well, I'm really glad we got to talk to him.

[974] He is a busy bee.

[975] He's currently today, which will be two days ago when this drops, taking over Selena Gomez's Instagram.

[976] She is really using her Instagram.

[977] Currently, she's doing a lot of.

[978] people taking over her Instagram because she has a hundred and sixty million followers or something she has like one of the highest yeah oh wow you're almost yeah you're coming up pretty close no I think she either has the biggest or like top five well the biggest in the world is Fernando the soccer player really yeah and he has 250 million let's see I know I'm curious about the whole list I bet those oh Oh, Cristiano Ronaldo.

[979] Rinaldo.

[980] Yes.

[981] I don't follow him.

[982] Sorry, Ronaldo.

[983] Oh, yeah.

[984] 223.

[985] And then Ariana Grande is next with 189.

[986] Damn.

[987] But Selena.

[988] 160, you says?

[989] 163.

[990] Something like, let me look.

[991] 171 .5.

[992] Oh, my goodness.

[993] You know what the parallel is?

[994] Young.

[995] But also, it's great.

[996] She's using, well, no, the rock has 176.

[997] Ooh.

[998] Ooh, get it, Rock.

[999] I follow him.

[1000] But I love that she's doing that.

[1001] She has a huge platform, and she's using it in, I think, a great way.

[1002] Good for her.

[1003] That's all.

[1004] That's all?

[1005] Yeah.

[1006] All right.

[1007] I love you.

[1008] Love you.

[1009] Follow armchair expert on the Wondry app, Amazon music, or wherever you get your podcast.

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