June 8, 2021 • 27 mins
Welcome to Be Antiracist. To kick off the season, host Ibram X. Kendi got together with Pushkin’s co-founder and Revisionist History host Malcolm Gladwell, for a conversation on racism, bridging divides, and the power of podcasting. Stay tuned after their conversation for an excerpt of an upcoming episode featuring economic and social policy expert Heather C. McGhee. Dr. Kendi and McGhee discuss the “zero sum” world view, and what racism really costs us as a society.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. What's up? I'm even Max Kendy, host of b
Anti Racist, the new podcast from iHeartMedia and Pushkin Industries.
We've got an incredible season coming up. Each week, I'll
be joined by a special guest to discuss how different
(00:36):
policies and platforms can dismantle racism. You hear from folks
in the world of politics, academia, journalism, entertainment, and beyond
on how we can create positive change around issues like
voting rights, immigration, and the criminal justice system. We'll discuss
the strategies and narratives we can all rally around to
(00:56):
build a just and equitable world, and how we can
all play a part in creating one. To help kick
things off, I hopped on a call with Pushkin's co
founder and commander in chief, Malcolm Well. We talked about
our own experiences with racism, how to reach people, and
why the world needs this podcast now more than ever.
(01:19):
Stick around after our conversation for a preview what's coming
up this season? There's the man? Hey, how are you?
I'm good. I'm good. First of all, just welcome to
the family. Bushkin's a family. Yes, I'm excited. Malcolm, You've
(01:42):
put together an incredible group of thinkers. It's still obviously
a challenge for me thinking about how to translate into
this new medium, but you're a pro now and I'm
sure you could probably tell me better than any I
think you're going to enjoy it. It's really fun. You
and I both write books. You write a book and
then like years pass and it appears. In this business,
(02:06):
you do something, it could be out the next day,
it could be at the same day. Just that's so fantastic,
that kind of fast feedback loop, and it's just a
different way to reach people. What was your thinking and
wanting to do a podcast? I think precisely what you
just stated in terms of a different way of reaching people.
And I know that there are certainly are many people
(02:26):
who still pursue books to really get them to think
differently or understand the world. But I see more and
more people turning to podcasts to do the same thing,
and so recognizing that, I decided to jump on the
deep end and see what it's even though Auto Autista, Yeah,
who do you want to reach? That's the question I
(02:48):
think about a lot. My best answer is I want
to reach people who are open minded, open minded about
really understanding how race and racism operate. You present a
persuasive argument, you present evidence. They're willing to reflect on
(03:09):
that information and potentially reflect on their own views. Whether
they exist in this polarized environment in which we're extremely
defensive is not something I know. But that's really the
guidepost for me. Well, I'll tell you this is my
favorite story on this very topic. As in a coffee
shop and fancy neighborhood in Houston. Don't ask me why
(03:32):
I was in a fancy neighboro in Euston. I was.
Woman pulls up in a ranger rover with a full
on Houston society matron, right, Jules the whole nine yards
comes in, sees me, comes over to me and says you, Malcolm, Well,
I say yes, she goes. I listen to everything you
do and read all of your books, and I disagree
(03:53):
with everything you say. And I was like, you know what,
that makes me feel good? Makes it feel really good.
Right to your point about open mindedness. She was open minded.
And my hope Sunday maybe she'll agree with me. You know,
we'll get there. We're not there yet. But the woman
with the jewels and the range rover had the whatever
(04:14):
it is to keep listening to somebody who she disagree with.
Good for her. Yeah, I think we gave up to
easily on the question of bridging divisions in this country.
Sometimes I hear people on both sides and I think
they despair that you can ever have a conversation with
someone on the other side, And I actually think, maybe
(04:35):
you won't win them over, but you can totally have
the conversation and you can plant some little seed and
maybe that sea grows into something someday. And also it
cuts both ways. Like I live Upstate New York, and
whenever I go to the airport, there are these cops
who on their spare time, they drive people to the airport.
I always get driven to the airport. But it's like
(04:57):
there's a police officer and he's super interesting, Like I
don't know a lot of cops personally, he doesn't know
my ideological perspective, I read any of my books. But
he just talks about what it's like to be a cop.
And I learned something from him, and he learned something
from me. It's actually it's insanely useful exercise for all
of it, and and also kind of fun to hear
(05:18):
about the world from his perspective. What always surprises me.
You know, I have a data point of like three
or three cops when they're not in the public eye
and it's a low stakes conversation, you find you agree
with them way more. And I really think there's something
here where the way in which we engage in conversations
with people is dictating their response. That's why even in
(05:42):
the recent piece I did for The Atlantic, I was
trying to separate the conversation about individual officers from the
institution of policing because to the larger point, I think
that we don't really recognize the capacity that people have
(06:03):
to change. I have actually gotten some criticism because I
consistent they offer people that ability to change, And even
talking about being anti racist, I've talked about it as
a journey, and in that journey, people are going to
make mistakes, meaning people are going to say things and
do things that are racist, but we have to recognize
(06:25):
that person who is trying. Part of it for me
is just as a student of history, there's just been
so many improbable people who transform themselves. Even Malcolm X,
the other great Malcolm, where he went from as a
teenager somebody incarcerated to who he became, and even who
(06:47):
he became as this voice of the Nation of Islam,
which had this sort of anti white philosophy, and then
he discarded that philosophy, called it racist, then said to
the world, I'm going to be different, and I'm going
to judge people not based on the color of their skin.
I mean, people can change, but for whatever reason, we
(07:08):
don't take those less from history, whether white or black people,
as guideposts. You know, I got really interested in Roberty Lee,
one of the principal generals in the Confederate Army. But
the last couple of years of his life it starts
to get really interesting. He starts to put his credibility
in the line on behalf of reconstruction. Now you can argue,
(07:31):
does he redeem himself in our eyes completely? I have
no idea. I'm not a historian of property Lee. But
do you put about movement. He's in a different place
at the end of his life than he was when
he signs up with the Confederate Army at the beginning
of the Civil War. And I think you're right. I
think we have to give people room to grow. Otherwise
(07:52):
all of these exercises are pointless. I think it's also
important for us to distinguish individuals in their capacity to change,
from institutions and from structures. Oftentimes, when we believe people
can't change, we also believes can't change, or humanity can't change,
or structures can't change. And people and structures and nations
(08:17):
are malleable. I mean, that's what makes humanity distinct. Yeah,
that we can change, yeah, yeah, and police departments can change. Yes.
I was very interested in your Atlantic piece because I
have returned in my writing to police and law enforcement
stuff again and again. I mean, do you remember the
(08:37):
Amadu Diallo case in New York City, who was an
African immigrant who was shot thirty two times. Did a
chapter on that in my book Blink in two thousand
and four, and that was the thing that kind of
plunged me into this issue, and I've been coming back.
You know, if you write about police shootings in this country,
do you have a lot to write about. But I've
always thought that it's not a problem that will be
(09:00):
with us forever. I've always had some kind of optimism
that we can figure out a way through this. Maybe
I'm naive. I did think the change would come quicker.
I certainly thought you would have seen something more dramatic
after you know, Michael Brown and Ferguson. But I would
have thought after Dialo you would have seen stuff like
and that was in two thousand and two or three.
(09:22):
But just because it takes longer than it should doesn't
mean it's never gonna happen. There seems to be this
common idea that if only people would have been more compliant,
then there would have been a different outcome. They would
not have died. It's easy for us to sort of
(09:44):
blame the person who died. But we have been told
there is a tremendous amount of violent crime in this country,
and the cause of that violent crime, we have been
told directly and indirectly, are those people. And so therefore,
in order to protect the nation from these people, we
(10:07):
need ma massive policing forces because those black people in
their neighborhoods are dangerous, and it creates this sort of
cycle that then leads to American policing costing more than
every other national military in the world except the US
military and the Chinese military. At the same time, there
(10:30):
are nations with less crime and less police. Why can't
we recognize that generally speaking, people commit crimes out of
deprivation and poverty and unemployment. Why can't we realize that
there are these larger structural forces that have led to
this police violence that we're not addressing. That we need
(10:52):
to focus on that discussion about compliance, that idea that
the responsibility for any of these bad outcomes and police
stops falls on the person being stopped, not the person
doing the stopping. I was reminded of my favorite hobby horse,
which is school suspensions. School suspensions are disproportionately passed out
(11:18):
to particularly black boys. So two kids are the same offense,
one white, one black, the black kid is way, way,
way more likely to be suspended for that. Yeah, we
also know that suspensions have huge collateral consequences, that there's
not a stitch of available social science evidence to suggests
that any good comes out of a suspension. To the contrary,
it seems like it's worse. So why do we keep
(11:40):
doing them what We keep doing them for the same
reason that you're talking about that we think if a
child misbehaves, then it's their responsibility to comply with the
rules or we will cast them out of the school.
Right as opposed to saying, actually, the reason we have
teachers and principles is to cope with the variety of behavior.
(12:01):
Why else would we have schools if we didn't think
schools were civilizing agents. It's always baffled me as long
as I've looked at these black white differentials that that's
an easy argument to make when the kid's white, and
a really hard argument to make when the kid's black.
It's the same thing with police stops two sets of rules.
I think so, and part of it is this larger
(12:23):
narrative of racist ideas that fundamentally cause us to not
recognize these larger practices or forces. So not asking would
the teacher have suspended that student if that student would
have been white, Would the teacher have asked that student
(12:45):
what's wrong? You know, as opposed to Okay, that's a
misbehaving student, and therefore I need to respond with force,
i e. Suspension In the case of police interactions. You know,
there have been times in which I'm headed for an
interview or something, or I'm headed for something extremely sort
of timely which I have to be there on time,
(13:06):
and I get pulled over at the police and then
I'm agitated but then I know that if I show
that agitation that it's going to be read in a
particular way by the officer, which is then going to
justify any sort of force or anything that he does
to me, When in reality, if I'm agitated in my
(13:28):
way and I say that, it's just understood. Oh of
course this person's agitated because they were headed for an interview.
There's nothing else. They don't feel personally as if they
were slighted or disrespected, because there's that human connection of
I understand that, and I think we have to figure
(13:48):
out a way to re establish, particularly across racial lines,
that human connection, because that's what we all are. Yeah, yeah,
this is a question I've had in the back around
line for a while. Then you're the perfect person who answered,
which is I feel like people are using the word
racist too liberally and it's undercutting its power and importance.
(14:12):
They're using it to describe things that are dumb or
awkward or unfortunate that aren't actually racist, and so when
we actually do have something that actually does fit to definition,
the word has been cheapened. Like some sports podcaster who
I like, made some stupid joke someone called it racist.
(14:33):
I was like, you know what happened to George Floyd's racism?
Exclusionary zoning is racism. Segregation is racism. That was a
stupid joke. Is it a mistake to use the same
word to describe two things that have dramatically different impacts
on the world? Intensions, origins, history? Do we lose sight
of what we're talking about? Yeah, this is a question
(14:56):
that I've struggled with. Like, so some people say I
think everything is racist. No, I actually don't think everything
is racist. I only think an idea is racist if
someone is connoting that a particular racial group is in
theory or superior. I only think a policy is racist
if it's leading to or growing a racial inequity or injustice.
(15:19):
What I think is important that I think can help
is if we develop, as a human community a shared
and consistent definition of the term racist. So what we
currently have is so many different definitions, many of which
don't align. And that's why even how to be an
(15:41):
anti racist, I wanted to anchor every chapter on definitions
because I just think us having common definitions would allow
us to only use the term when it's applicable. And
I certainly do think the term is used when it's
not applicable, but I also think it's not used when
it is applicable. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense to me.
(16:03):
I like that idea of developing a richer and more
meaningful vocabulary around things that we find offensive for various reasons.
And there's a difference between something that is merely tasteless
and something that is harmful and dangerous and deeply bigoted.
Racism is almost like cancer, and I always go back
(16:25):
to that analogy, particularly as someone who's battled cancer, in
which you know cancer is widespread, there is multiple stages
of cancer, stage one, stage two, stage three, stage four,
and there's this understanding that stage four is lethal. It's dangerous,
it can kill you. Stage one it's more of something.
If you don't get a handle on it quickly, it
(16:47):
can become lethal and dangerous. So even having this understood
gradation that let's say, if we do call that lighter
thing racist, but it's understood that it's not stage four
stage one, it then allows us to speak about and
distinguish both. Yeah. Yeah, well, all of this suggests to me,
(17:08):
even that show you're doing, it's going to be both
fascinating and also really useful in the world that we're
living in right now, and I want to formally once
again welcome you to the Pushkin family. I am delighted
you're doing this, and I'm looking forward to the many
great conversations you'll have on the show. Well, thank you
so much, Malcolm, and of course I've admired your work
(17:29):
and I'm so glad to be a part of the
Pushkin family. Now bring it on, and now here's a
sneak preview of Being Anti Racist. You can find my
new show in the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get
your podcasts. Welcome to Be Anti Racist, an action podcast
(17:56):
where we discuss how to diagnose, dismantle, and abolish racism,
how to save humanity from the divisiveness of racist ideas
and the destructiveness of racist power and policy, How to
free humanity through the unity of anti racist ideas and
the constructiveness of anti racist power and policy. On b
(18:18):
Anti Racist, we discuss how to make the impossible possible,
and how to bring into being what modern humans have
never known, adjust in equitable world. You ready, let's roll.
(18:44):
In the nineteen thirties and forties, the United States went
on a nationwide building boom of public amenities funded by
tax dollars, which in Montgomery, Alabama, included the Oak Park Pool,
except the Oak Park Pool was for whites only. When
a federal court finally deemed this unconstitutional, the reaction of
(19:04):
the town council was swift. They would drain the public
pool rather than let black families swim to Heather McGee
is an expert in economic and social policy and the
author of the best selling book The Some of Us,
What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can prosper Together.
(19:25):
Heather explodes one of the greatest racial myths, that white
people lose as people of color gain. She shows that
as racism wins, we all lose. Heather is one of
America's sharpest thinkers. The former president of the inequality focused
Stink Take Demos and its drafted legislation, testified before Congress,
(19:49):
and contributed regularly to new shows, including NBC's Meet the Press.
She now chairs the board of Color of Change, the
nation's largest online racial justice organization. I sat down with
Heather McGee recently to learn how by investing in each other,
we can all better jobs, better health, better democracy, better schools,
(20:14):
better neighborhoods for our kids, and so much more. Heathers always,
it's truly an honor to speak with you. Your book,
The Some of Us is the type of book that
I learned from that I think many Americans and many
people around the world can learn from. I wrote this
(20:34):
book because I felt like we were missing something in
the great pursuit of a society. It should be to
have progress, to have people have less want and more joy,
people to have more of the fruits of economic progress
and technological progress, and for our problems to be solved
(20:57):
generation after generation, right, And it felt like that progress
slowing down, slash reversing. When some Americans a man gin
the transformation of this country, they imagine that they're going
to lose if we actually create an equitable and just,
anti racist America. And it seems, as you've written, that
(21:21):
that's based on a zero sum myth. So I left
a career in economic policy to go out on this
quixotic journey in some way to find the answer to
the question of why can't we seem to have nice things?
And what are the roots of our dysfunction? Yes, and
it's there that I came upon this paradigm of the
(21:43):
zero sum. It's a term that means there's no such
thing as mutual progress when you have people who are
in a competition with one another. If team A scores
one more point, team B scores one less point, the
points will always add up to zero positive on one side,
negative on the other. Progress for team A has to
(22:06):
come at the expense of team B. There's a limited
or fixed pie. And that idea resonated so deeply with me.
It sort of gave a name and a description to
something I had sensed my whole life, this fear that
when white supremacy falls, that the world will become one
(22:31):
that white people should fear. Therefore, racism is really great
for white people, really terrible for people of color, and
so their self interest is in preserving racism at all costs.
And it's the at all costs piece that really felt
so important for me to lay out, what are the
costs of racism to our entire society, What exactly is
(22:55):
the price white people are willing to pay to keep
the system as it has been? And once I started looking,
the list just kept growing, and that made it clear
to me that we have the self interested elites packaging
marketing selling this zero sum why to most white Americans
(23:18):
and they're doing it for their own profit. But our side,
when we only talk about racism as something that's good
for white people, are kind of like helping out a
little bit. Right. My provocation, the agitation that made me
feel like, Okay, maybe I do have something to add
to this conversation was we haven't told the full story
of what it has cost this entire country. You were
(23:41):
specifically writing about white folks who think that they're going
to lose, But as a man of color reading it,
I also think men of color too have bought into
this myth of the zero sum. And I think that
as they've seen women of color organizing and advocating, in
(24:01):
some cases rising, they too have felt threatened as if
they're losing. Yeah, but back to white folks, this is
what I've been sort of saying, and I want to
know whether I'm just wrong that white Americans typically compare
their lot two people of color, and so, in other words,
if their school has more resources in a way, their
(24:26):
child's school is almost like a first class school. They're like, WHOA,
if we create equity, then I'm gonna be back in coach. Yeah,
I don't want that. I'm gonna lose. My kid's gonna lose.
But it seems to me that white Americans should be
assessing themselves from other white people in the Western world. Yeah,
and when they make that comparison, that's when they can
(24:48):
see actually what they don't have. How they're in coach.
That's right, And in fact, maybe in other societies in
the Western world, everybody's just in first class. There's no
little curtain that the flight attendant moves over right, and
everyone gets food right, everyone has a leg room, you know,
everybody gets to bring a bag. This really comes from
(25:11):
and is a feature of how brutally hierarchical our society is.
In the first chapter of the Some of Us, I
go back in our history to the beginning to find
out where this zero sum worldview and this lie came from,
whose interest it served, and why it sort of reanimated
generation after generation. And as it turns out, it was
(25:32):
created as a way to sort of discipline white Europeans
in the colonial era to be satisfied with their lot
in a society where wealth was still quite concentrated and
where because of chattel slavery in the plantation economy, there
(25:53):
actually wasn't a lot of room a white person who
was not a plantation owner. Their labor wasn't needed in
the southern economy, right, Like, what do we need you for? Right?
This myth of white supremacy was sold to white masses
so that they could have, of course, as WB the
boys said, the psychological wages of whiteness rather than material wages,
(26:16):
and those psychological wages were knowing always that in a
deeply unequal economy they could nonetheless count on being more
than and better than black people. I hope you like
what you heard. The first episode is out now, and
(26:37):
we'll be dropping a new one each Wednesday this season.
You'll hear from people like Jamal Hill, Mariam Kaba, Leam Costro,
Ari Berman, Don Lemon, and more as we consider what
an anti racist future might look like and how we
can achieve one together. You can find be Anti Racist
on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Pushkin. What's up? I'm even Max Kendy, host of b
Anti Racist, the new podcast from iHeartMedia and Pushkin Industries.
We've got an incredible season coming up. Each week, I'll
be joined by a special guest to discuss how different
(00:36):
policies and platforms can dismantle racism. You hear from folks
in the world of politics, academia, journalism, entertainment, and beyond
on how we can create positive change around issues like
voting rights, immigration, and the criminal justice system. We'll discuss
the strategies and narratives we can all rally around to
(00:56):
build a just and equitable world, and how we can
all play a part in creating one. To help kick
things off, I hopped on a call with Pushkin's co
founder and commander in chief, Malcolm Well. We talked about
our own experiences with racism, how to reach people, and
why the world needs this podcast now more than ever.
(01:19):
Stick around after our conversation for a preview what's coming
up this season? There's the man? Hey, how are you?
I'm good. I'm good. First of all, just welcome to
the family. Bushkin's a family. Yes, I'm excited. Malcolm, You've
(01:42):
put together an incredible group of thinkers. It's still obviously
a challenge for me thinking about how to translate into
this new medium, but you're a pro now and I'm
sure you could probably tell me better than any I
think you're going to enjoy it. It's really fun. You
and I both write books. You write a book and
then like years pass and it appears. In this business,
(02:06):
you do something, it could be out the next day,
it could be at the same day. Just that's so fantastic,
that kind of fast feedback loop, and it's just a
different way to reach people. What was your thinking and
wanting to do a podcast? I think precisely what you
just stated in terms of a different way of reaching people.
And I know that there are certainly are many people
(02:26):
who still pursue books to really get them to think
differently or understand the world. But I see more and
more people turning to podcasts to do the same thing,
and so recognizing that, I decided to jump on the
deep end and see what it's even though Auto Autista, Yeah,
who do you want to reach? That's the question I
(02:48):
think about a lot. My best answer is I want
to reach people who are open minded, open minded about
really understanding how race and racism operate. You present a
persuasive argument, you present evidence. They're willing to reflect on
(03:09):
that information and potentially reflect on their own views. Whether
they exist in this polarized environment in which we're extremely
defensive is not something I know. But that's really the
guidepost for me. Well, I'll tell you this is my
favorite story on this very topic. As in a coffee
shop and fancy neighborhood in Houston. Don't ask me why
(03:32):
I was in a fancy neighboro in Euston. I was.
Woman pulls up in a ranger rover with a full
on Houston society matron, right, Jules the whole nine yards
comes in, sees me, comes over to me and says you, Malcolm, Well,
I say yes, she goes. I listen to everything you
do and read all of your books, and I disagree
(03:53):
with everything you say. And I was like, you know what,
that makes me feel good? Makes it feel really good.
Right to your point about open mindedness. She was open minded.
And my hope Sunday maybe she'll agree with me. You know,
we'll get there. We're not there yet. But the woman
with the jewels and the range rover had the whatever
(04:14):
it is to keep listening to somebody who she disagree with.
Good for her. Yeah, I think we gave up to
easily on the question of bridging divisions in this country.
Sometimes I hear people on both sides and I think
they despair that you can ever have a conversation with
someone on the other side, And I actually think, maybe
(04:35):
you won't win them over, but you can totally have
the conversation and you can plant some little seed and
maybe that sea grows into something someday. And also it
cuts both ways. Like I live Upstate New York, and
whenever I go to the airport, there are these cops
who on their spare time, they drive people to the airport.
I always get driven to the airport. But it's like
(04:57):
there's a police officer and he's super interesting, Like I
don't know a lot of cops personally, he doesn't know
my ideological perspective, I read any of my books. But
he just talks about what it's like to be a cop.
And I learned something from him, and he learned something
from me. It's actually it's insanely useful exercise for all
of it, and and also kind of fun to hear
(05:18):
about the world from his perspective. What always surprises me.
You know, I have a data point of like three
or three cops when they're not in the public eye
and it's a low stakes conversation, you find you agree
with them way more. And I really think there's something
here where the way in which we engage in conversations
with people is dictating their response. That's why even in
(05:42):
the recent piece I did for The Atlantic, I was
trying to separate the conversation about individual officers from the
institution of policing because to the larger point, I think
that we don't really recognize the capacity that people have
(06:03):
to change. I have actually gotten some criticism because I
consistent they offer people that ability to change, And even
talking about being anti racist, I've talked about it as
a journey, and in that journey, people are going to
make mistakes, meaning people are going to say things and
do things that are racist, but we have to recognize
(06:25):
that person who is trying. Part of it for me
is just as a student of history, there's just been
so many improbable people who transform themselves. Even Malcolm X,
the other great Malcolm, where he went from as a
teenager somebody incarcerated to who he became, and even who
(06:47):
he became as this voice of the Nation of Islam,
which had this sort of anti white philosophy, and then
he discarded that philosophy, called it racist, then said to
the world, I'm going to be different, and I'm going
to judge people not based on the color of their skin.
I mean, people can change, but for whatever reason, we
(07:08):
don't take those less from history, whether white or black people,
as guideposts. You know, I got really interested in Roberty Lee,
one of the principal generals in the Confederate Army. But
the last couple of years of his life it starts
to get really interesting. He starts to put his credibility
in the line on behalf of reconstruction. Now you can argue,
(07:31):
does he redeem himself in our eyes completely? I have
no idea. I'm not a historian of property Lee. But
do you put about movement. He's in a different place
at the end of his life than he was when
he signs up with the Confederate Army at the beginning
of the Civil War. And I think you're right. I
think we have to give people room to grow. Otherwise
(07:52):
all of these exercises are pointless. I think it's also
important for us to distinguish individuals in their capacity to change,
from institutions and from structures. Oftentimes, when we believe people
can't change, we also believes can't change, or humanity can't change,
or structures can't change. And people and structures and nations
(08:17):
are malleable. I mean, that's what makes humanity distinct. Yeah,
that we can change, yeah, yeah, and police departments can change. Yes.
I was very interested in your Atlantic piece because I
have returned in my writing to police and law enforcement
stuff again and again. I mean, do you remember the
(08:37):
Amadu Diallo case in New York City, who was an
African immigrant who was shot thirty two times. Did a
chapter on that in my book Blink in two thousand
and four, and that was the thing that kind of
plunged me into this issue, and I've been coming back.
You know, if you write about police shootings in this country,
do you have a lot to write about. But I've
always thought that it's not a problem that will be
(09:00):
with us forever. I've always had some kind of optimism
that we can figure out a way through this. Maybe
I'm naive. I did think the change would come quicker.
I certainly thought you would have seen something more dramatic
after you know, Michael Brown and Ferguson. But I would
have thought after Dialo you would have seen stuff like
and that was in two thousand and two or three.
(09:22):
But just because it takes longer than it should doesn't
mean it's never gonna happen. There seems to be this
common idea that if only people would have been more compliant,
then there would have been a different outcome. They would
not have died. It's easy for us to sort of
(09:44):
blame the person who died. But we have been told
there is a tremendous amount of violent crime in this country,
and the cause of that violent crime, we have been
told directly and indirectly, are those people. And so therefore,
in order to protect the nation from these people, we
(10:07):
need ma massive policing forces because those black people in
their neighborhoods are dangerous, and it creates this sort of
cycle that then leads to American policing costing more than
every other national military in the world except the US
military and the Chinese military. At the same time, there
(10:30):
are nations with less crime and less police. Why can't
we recognize that generally speaking, people commit crimes out of
deprivation and poverty and unemployment. Why can't we realize that
there are these larger structural forces that have led to
this police violence that we're not addressing. That we need
(10:52):
to focus on that discussion about compliance, that idea that
the responsibility for any of these bad outcomes and police
stops falls on the person being stopped, not the person
doing the stopping. I was reminded of my favorite hobby horse,
which is school suspensions. School suspensions are disproportionately passed out
(11:18):
to particularly black boys. So two kids are the same offense,
one white, one black, the black kid is way, way,
way more likely to be suspended for that. Yeah, we
also know that suspensions have huge collateral consequences, that there's
not a stitch of available social science evidence to suggests
that any good comes out of a suspension. To the contrary,
it seems like it's worse. So why do we keep
(11:40):
doing them what We keep doing them for the same
reason that you're talking about that we think if a
child misbehaves, then it's their responsibility to comply with the
rules or we will cast them out of the school.
Right as opposed to saying, actually, the reason we have
teachers and principles is to cope with the variety of behavior.
(12:01):
Why else would we have schools if we didn't think
schools were civilizing agents. It's always baffled me as long
as I've looked at these black white differentials that that's
an easy argument to make when the kid's white, and
a really hard argument to make when the kid's black.
It's the same thing with police stops two sets of rules.
I think so, and part of it is this larger
(12:23):
narrative of racist ideas that fundamentally cause us to not
recognize these larger practices or forces. So not asking would
the teacher have suspended that student if that student would
have been white, Would the teacher have asked that student
(12:45):
what's wrong? You know, as opposed to Okay, that's a
misbehaving student, and therefore I need to respond with force,
i e. Suspension In the case of police interactions. You know,
there have been times in which I'm headed for an
interview or something, or I'm headed for something extremely sort
of timely which I have to be there on time,
(13:06):
and I get pulled over at the police and then
I'm agitated but then I know that if I show
that agitation that it's going to be read in a
particular way by the officer, which is then going to
justify any sort of force or anything that he does
to me, When in reality, if I'm agitated in my
(13:28):
way and I say that, it's just understood. Oh of
course this person's agitated because they were headed for an interview.
There's nothing else. They don't feel personally as if they
were slighted or disrespected, because there's that human connection of
I understand that, and I think we have to figure
(13:48):
out a way to re establish, particularly across racial lines,
that human connection, because that's what we all are. Yeah, yeah,
this is a question I've had in the back around
line for a while. Then you're the perfect person who answered,
which is I feel like people are using the word
racist too liberally and it's undercutting its power and importance.
(14:12):
They're using it to describe things that are dumb or
awkward or unfortunate that aren't actually racist, and so when
we actually do have something that actually does fit to definition,
the word has been cheapened. Like some sports podcaster who
I like, made some stupid joke someone called it racist.
(14:33):
I was like, you know what happened to George Floyd's racism?
Exclusionary zoning is racism. Segregation is racism. That was a
stupid joke. Is it a mistake to use the same
word to describe two things that have dramatically different impacts
on the world? Intensions, origins, history? Do we lose sight
of what we're talking about? Yeah, this is a question
(14:56):
that I've struggled with. Like, so some people say I
think everything is racist. No, I actually don't think everything
is racist. I only think an idea is racist if
someone is connoting that a particular racial group is in
theory or superior. I only think a policy is racist
if it's leading to or growing a racial inequity or injustice.
(15:19):
What I think is important that I think can help
is if we develop, as a human community a shared
and consistent definition of the term racist. So what we
currently have is so many different definitions, many of which
don't align. And that's why even how to be an
(15:41):
anti racist, I wanted to anchor every chapter on definitions
because I just think us having common definitions would allow
us to only use the term when it's applicable. And
I certainly do think the term is used when it's
not applicable, but I also think it's not used when
it is applicable. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense to me.
(16:03):
I like that idea of developing a richer and more
meaningful vocabulary around things that we find offensive for various reasons.
And there's a difference between something that is merely tasteless
and something that is harmful and dangerous and deeply bigoted.
Racism is almost like cancer, and I always go back
(16:25):
to that analogy, particularly as someone who's battled cancer, in
which you know cancer is widespread, there is multiple stages
of cancer, stage one, stage two, stage three, stage four,
and there's this understanding that stage four is lethal. It's dangerous,
it can kill you. Stage one it's more of something.
If you don't get a handle on it quickly, it
(16:47):
can become lethal and dangerous. So even having this understood
gradation that let's say, if we do call that lighter
thing racist, but it's understood that it's not stage four
stage one, it then allows us to speak about and
distinguish both. Yeah. Yeah, well, all of this suggests to me,
(17:08):
even that show you're doing, it's going to be both
fascinating and also really useful in the world that we're
living in right now, and I want to formally once
again welcome you to the Pushkin family. I am delighted
you're doing this, and I'm looking forward to the many
great conversations you'll have on the show. Well, thank you
so much, Malcolm, and of course I've admired your work
(17:29):
and I'm so glad to be a part of the
Pushkin family. Now bring it on, and now here's a
sneak preview of Being Anti Racist. You can find my
new show in the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get
your podcasts. Welcome to Be Anti Racist, an action podcast
(17:56):
where we discuss how to diagnose, dismantle, and abolish racism,
how to save humanity from the divisiveness of racist ideas
and the destructiveness of racist power and policy, How to
free humanity through the unity of anti racist ideas and
the constructiveness of anti racist power and policy. On b
(18:18):
Anti Racist, we discuss how to make the impossible possible,
and how to bring into being what modern humans have
never known, adjust in equitable world. You ready, let's roll.
(18:44):
In the nineteen thirties and forties, the United States went
on a nationwide building boom of public amenities funded by
tax dollars, which in Montgomery, Alabama, included the Oak Park Pool,
except the Oak Park Pool was for whites only. When
a federal court finally deemed this unconstitutional, the reaction of
(19:04):
the town council was swift. They would drain the public
pool rather than let black families swim to Heather McGee
is an expert in economic and social policy and the
author of the best selling book The Some of Us,
What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can prosper Together.
(19:25):
Heather explodes one of the greatest racial myths, that white
people lose as people of color gain. She shows that
as racism wins, we all lose. Heather is one of
America's sharpest thinkers. The former president of the inequality focused
Stink Take Demos and its drafted legislation, testified before Congress,
(19:49):
and contributed regularly to new shows, including NBC's Meet the Press.
She now chairs the board of Color of Change, the
nation's largest online racial justice organization. I sat down with
Heather McGee recently to learn how by investing in each other,
we can all better jobs, better health, better democracy, better schools,
(20:14):
better neighborhoods for our kids, and so much more. Heathers always,
it's truly an honor to speak with you. Your book,
The Some of Us is the type of book that
I learned from that I think many Americans and many
people around the world can learn from. I wrote this
(20:34):
book because I felt like we were missing something in
the great pursuit of a society. It should be to
have progress, to have people have less want and more joy,
people to have more of the fruits of economic progress
and technological progress, and for our problems to be solved
(20:57):
generation after generation, right, And it felt like that progress
slowing down, slash reversing. When some Americans a man gin
the transformation of this country, they imagine that they're going
to lose if we actually create an equitable and just,
anti racist America. And it seems, as you've written, that
(21:21):
that's based on a zero sum myth. So I left
a career in economic policy to go out on this
quixotic journey in some way to find the answer to
the question of why can't we seem to have nice things?
And what are the roots of our dysfunction? Yes, and
it's there that I came upon this paradigm of the
(21:43):
zero sum. It's a term that means there's no such
thing as mutual progress when you have people who are
in a competition with one another. If team A scores
one more point, team B scores one less point, the
points will always add up to zero positive on one side,
negative on the other. Progress for team A has to
(22:06):
come at the expense of team B. There's a limited
or fixed pie. And that idea resonated so deeply with me.
It sort of gave a name and a description to
something I had sensed my whole life, this fear that
when white supremacy falls, that the world will become one
(22:31):
that white people should fear. Therefore, racism is really great
for white people, really terrible for people of color, and
so their self interest is in preserving racism at all costs.
And it's the at all costs piece that really felt
so important for me to lay out, what are the
costs of racism to our entire society, What exactly is
(22:55):
the price white people are willing to pay to keep
the system as it has been? And once I started looking,
the list just kept growing, and that made it clear
to me that we have the self interested elites packaging
marketing selling this zero sum why to most white Americans
(23:18):
and they're doing it for their own profit. But our side,
when we only talk about racism as something that's good
for white people, are kind of like helping out a
little bit. Right. My provocation, the agitation that made me
feel like, Okay, maybe I do have something to add
to this conversation was we haven't told the full story
of what it has cost this entire country. You were
(23:41):
specifically writing about white folks who think that they're going
to lose, But as a man of color reading it,
I also think men of color too have bought into
this myth of the zero sum. And I think that
as they've seen women of color organizing and advocating, in
(24:01):
some cases rising, they too have felt threatened as if
they're losing. Yeah, but back to white folks, this is
what I've been sort of saying, and I want to
know whether I'm just wrong that white Americans typically compare
their lot two people of color, and so, in other words,
if their school has more resources in a way, their
(24:26):
child's school is almost like a first class school. They're like, WHOA,
if we create equity, then I'm gonna be back in coach. Yeah,
I don't want that. I'm gonna lose. My kid's gonna lose.
But it seems to me that white Americans should be
assessing themselves from other white people in the Western world. Yeah,
and when they make that comparison, that's when they can
(24:48):
see actually what they don't have. How they're in coach.
That's right, And in fact, maybe in other societies in
the Western world, everybody's just in first class. There's no
little curtain that the flight attendant moves over right, and
everyone gets food right, everyone has a leg room, you know,
everybody gets to bring a bag. This really comes from
(25:11):
and is a feature of how brutally hierarchical our society is.
In the first chapter of the Some of Us, I
go back in our history to the beginning to find
out where this zero sum worldview and this lie came from,
whose interest it served, and why it sort of reanimated
generation after generation. And as it turns out, it was
(25:32):
created as a way to sort of discipline white Europeans
in the colonial era to be satisfied with their lot
in a society where wealth was still quite concentrated and
where because of chattel slavery in the plantation economy, there
(25:53):
actually wasn't a lot of room a white person who
was not a plantation owner. Their labor wasn't needed in
the southern economy, right, Like, what do we need you for? Right?
This myth of white supremacy was sold to white masses
so that they could have, of course, as WB the
boys said, the psychological wages of whiteness rather than material wages,
(26:16):
and those psychological wages were knowing always that in a
deeply unequal economy they could nonetheless count on being more
than and better than black people. I hope you like
what you heard. The first episode is out now, and
(26:37):
we'll be dropping a new one each Wednesday this season.
You'll hear from people like Jamal Hill, Mariam Kaba, Leam Costro,
Ari Berman, Don Lemon, and more as we consider what
an anti racist future might look like and how we
can achieve one together. You can find be Anti Racist
on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
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