June 13, 2025 • 40 mins
Today's special guest is Dr. Marcus Anthony Hunter, Inaugural Chair of the Department of African-American Studies at UCLA and two-term President of the Association of Black Sociologists. Dr. Hunter joins Host Ramses Ja to discuss National Equity Week.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
At the Helm of Social Change and Academic Excellence sits
doctor Marcus Anthony Hunter, the esteem Scott Waw Endowed Chair
in the Social Sciences Division and a Distinguished Professor of
Sociology and African American Studies at UCLA. As the visionary
coiner of the transformative hashtag Black Lives Matter, doctor Hunter's
(00:20):
influence transcends academia, igniting global conversations on racial equity. Fresh
off the heels of the State of the People Power
Tour and during the second annual National Equity Week, we
have today's guest, Doctor Marcus Anthony Hunter. This is the
Black Information Network Daily Podcast and I'm your host, Ramses Job.
(00:43):
All right, doctor Hunter, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
How are you doing today?
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Man, I'm blessed in the city. As Rah Hammer says,
you know, peace acraticue for you.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Thank you for having me on, absolutely so. Uh do
us a favor for folks that don't know about your
work just yet. You know, I've given you a little
bit of an introduction, but you know, talk about who
you are, you know, the work you've done and sort
of what led you to kind of the position you
hold in the conversation.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
We're about tap today.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Yeah, I've been a student my whole life of the
black experience. I grew up in a black and the
black household in Southfield, where you know, if there was
something black excellent happening, we were a fan of it.
So there were two black girls with braids and beads
playing tennis and whipping people. We were tennis fans. Debbie
(01:34):
Thomas was twirling and ice skating. We were ice skating fans.
And so in that kind of incubator of blackness, it
then meant when I went out into the world and
started to pursue my education, I really centered the black experience.
I wanted to be curious about my own people and
about my community, and that led me down a very
(01:55):
interesting adventure which includes like formal school, but also just
taking me to places near and far. So how I
come into the reparative justice reparation space is really through
doctor w EV du Boys. So my first book and
dissertation followed the neighborhood he studied in the Philupia Negro
(02:17):
So that book is eighteen ninety nine. I went and
basically asked what happened after du Boys left, you know,
And I looked at that same neighborhood over the twentieth century,
and I found that a lot happened, including the evention
of public housing. There were black banks, and those black
banks took me down a path of WHOA. I didn't
know there were black banks in nineteen twenty something. And
(02:37):
as I went down that journey, I discovered the Freedman's Bank,
which was established right before Abraham Lincoln was assassinated at
the end of the Civil War, and it had upwards
of a billion dollars of black people's money after being
founded in eighteen sixty five. By eighteen seventy one, over
a billion dollars in today's money. Eighteen seventy four it
abruptly closes and had Frederick Douglass as the manager, who
(03:00):
had also put ten thousand dollars worth of his own
money in there. And that made me think about reparations
really differently, because up until that point I heard the
forty eight years and the mules shout out to Spike
Lee and General Sherman. But when I read about the
Freeman's Bank and I started to study it, which, by
the way, for all of the folks who are listening,
those records are being held by the Mormon Church, the
(03:22):
Church of Latter day Saints holds those records, which I
find fascinating. But I then thought, well, we're always talking
about promises made versus money we actually had, and that
was our first money when you were actually able to
actually really be paid, especially military folks. And once I
got there, I thought, how can I understand this concept?
(03:43):
Where does it need to take me? So I found
myself in Jamaica and Barbados and Ghana, in South Africa
and the United Kingdom and France and South Carolina and
Georgia and Oklahoma to kind of figure out how we
as a people got from one place to the next place.
And then in the midst of that journey, one day
I was sitting home in a two O two number
(04:04):
called me and I looked at that area code and
I'm thinking two O two. That looks like IRS, and
that looks like student loan. I don't want to talk
to any of them, and now today it might look
like ice, you know, so I really don't want to
answer this call. But the spirit said Marcus into the
phone call. I answered the call, and when I say hello,
(04:26):
it is then congresswoman, now first black mayor woman, Mayor
of Oakland, Barbara Lee, on the phone, and she says,
I'm calling to speak to Professor Marcus Hunter. She saw
me on c spam Book TV moderate a panel on slavery,
and she thought it was really good. She wanted me
to know. And then she says she was developing legislation
that would compliment HR forty, which is the Legacy Reparations
(04:48):
Bill in Congress with a bill called Truth, Racial Healing
and Transformation, modeled off of the South Africa Truth and Reconciliation.
And she asked if I was available, and then she
asked if I would help drafted and then she introduced it,
and then she asked me to help her build a coalition,
and then the whole story unfolds from there.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Okay, all right, well, thank you for that. One of
the things that I think that it's important to share
with you and with our listeners is that I learned
how dynamic and profound a speaker you actually are. This
(05:32):
past weekend in Los Angeles at the State of the
People Power Tour.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
And.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
We were invited there by Joy Joy Reid and doctor
John's right. And so when we first got in to
the to the building, there was a gymnasium. I'm not
sure how much of this stuff you remember, but when
we first got remember.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
Yes, as you said, the whole phase, everything exactly.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Okay, So we were sitting in the front right and uh,
you know, because we kind of have a little bit
of familiarity with doctor Johnson's been on the show before,
you know, we knew what he was bringing to the table.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
The same with Joy Angela.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
You know, it was you know, a lot of this
was kind of like, Okay, these are people that we've
looked up to, but that day we met a new
hero and met we're meeting right now for the first time.
So meta is a strong word, but we were introduced,
I'll say, to a new hero, and that's you. And
and your position was firmly on, here's reparations. Here's why
(06:35):
we need reparations. Here's how reparations can impact our plight.
You know, this is where reparation fits into the overall
puzzle of black people's story in America. And you know,
with the type of show that we make, we've had
reparations conversations before, and we do understand the you know,
sort of the gravity of reparations just as a as
(06:57):
a subject and the impact that it can have. But
never before had we had the opportunity to bear witness
to someone who was so deep in the weeds on
it and was able to articulate it in such a
way that it was almost a no brainer.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
It's felt like a fight before.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
And this is no disrespect to anyone who's come on before,
because I recognize that it is a fight. But you know,
when you put the data with it, when you put
you know how it makes sense for the country and
for us, it was a no brainer. And you know,
we we you know, you know how it was back
backstage there and when Kamala Harris came and you know,
(07:40):
the Fruit of Islam and everyone holding court and then
we have to film our documentary piece of cameras back there,
so we didn't get a chance to actually talk. So
when I saw you on the schedule and Chris introduced
you know, your name to the to the conversation, you
don't know this, but I hit back absolutely, absolutely, because
that was our plan initially and it just kind of
happened to come together this way. So I know that
(08:03):
I've talked around the state of the People Power Tour
and you know, you're a first guest on from there
in hindsight, and I didn't mean to get in front
of you, but do us a favor for our listeners.
Talk about the State of the People Power Tour, what
it meant, what's happening moving forward with that, and then
we'll shift gears and talk about Equity Week because I
(08:25):
want to get to that as well.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
Yeah. No, First, God, bless you. Thank you so much
for not only what you're doing, but also just for
the amount of loving water you just poured into me.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
I just want to of course I can see.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Thank you so much. The State of the People Power
Tour shout out to ang Angela Ray and all of
the people because effectively the idea is to go through
multiple cities across the United States and tap in with
the community to have both sort of town hall community
(08:59):
style conversation, but also give people what they need on
the ground, what are our people's needs, and bring a
collection of people who are working in all sorts of ways,
but bring people together in the same synergistic space so
that we can see what the state of our condition
is and really centering people in that conversation and in
(09:19):
that experience. And so when we were in Los Angeles,
which was the final stop of the first leg of
the Power of the Power tour for the State of
the People, we were also launching several of the Black Papers,
and so for folks listening in, the Black Papers are
the scholarly policy compliment to the rest of the activations
(09:44):
happening through the State of the People, led by doctor
David Johns. It is a curation of papers that are
intentionally called black papers, because traditionally policy papers are referred
to as white papers, and so the idea was to
center blackness even in the name of those papers. And
they cover a range of topics from housing to reproductive justice,
(10:06):
to education, economics, and on the day that we were
all together, we were launching also the Reparations black Paper.
And one thing that's I think really important about the
Black Papers is, as a doctor John's would say, is
something that your mom and your grandmama, your auntie, your cousin.
You don't need a high school degree, you don't need
(10:26):
a diploma, you don't need a college degree, you don't
need to do homework in order to show up and
experience the black Paper. They're filled with solutions, strategies and
something I also share with the group there is I
like to see everything that black people do as explicit
and subversive. You know, it just goes back to me
to being enslaved. You're explicitly, you know, accomplishing the free
(10:48):
labor that is being asked of you, but you're also
subversively putting braids in people's hair that shows them a
map to how to get out of this. So the
subversive aspect of the State of the People Black Papers
is also that it's a rolodex An index of workers, warriors, fighters,
advocates who you may not otherwise know, but they're all
(11:09):
listed because all of them are collaborative. So I also
see them as a place you can go and say,
you know, I'm really trying to figure out what I
can get resources on around reproductive justice. Here are the names,
you know, at the top of the actual paper and
in the brain Trust listing and in the citations in
a way that it's super accessible. And so what I
(11:30):
think about that whole initiative, and this is something I
also said to Ange personally, is that she could be
doing so many things, you know, and she's from the
center of her heart doing this voluntarily, and then having
a list of people who could be doing other things
show up voluntarily as well. And I think at a
(11:51):
time when you know, thin gases at all time high,
poverty is at all time high, Black maternal mortality is
at an all time high. That to have people come
together and be with people and recognize that as long
as we have us, we got a lot, you know.
And I think that's one of the major takeaways of
(12:12):
the State of the People Power Tour is that you
see us in Atlanta, US in Baltimore, US in LA
as we were, that you start to see us Saint Louis.
There's a lot of US, and I think in a
time when people are trying to figure out what's next,
being able to be rooted and the usness is very powerful.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Yeah, And just to echo that, Q the co host
for this show, who was on the ground with me there,
he was fortunate enough to make it to the Detroit
stop and to LA with me, or I should say
(12:53):
I made it to LA with him and he was
having a conversation backstage with Jammel Hill there. Their friends
are both from Detroit, so I got a chance to
overhear a bit of that. Jamel's been on the show
of course as well, and she's a friend of ours.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
But but.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
You know, listening to them kind of recap the importance
of that. I cannot stress to our listeners enough. You know,
if there's a way to get involved, if there's if
the tour stops anywhere near you, it is energizing in
a time when there's a lot of uncertainty, a lot
of concern about our future as a people. Are our
(13:41):
political plight the plight of our day to day lives.
You know, who is coming to to serve and protect
our community? What are that what are their intentions? Who's
representing us? You know, who are elected elected officials? And
how much of our plight is something that they're cognizant of.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
You know, this is an event.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
That helps ease a lot of the concern because there's strategy.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
It's not easy, but there's strategies.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
There's things that you can implement, there's you know, things
that you can be made aware of. There's initiatives that
you should be made aware of that are concerning, deeply concerning.
But you know, none of this comes without strategy. None
of this comes without black brilliance, None of this comes
without black excellence and to be informed about the goings
on in your community and in the country and.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Specifically with respect to the plat of black people. Is
the best tool that you will.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Have in your arsenal that information and the best way
to receive that information is, as you mentioned, in a
in a in an environment where everyone's there to love
on each other and to pour energy into each other
and to inform each other, and you know, everyone's goals
are aligned. So you know, I implore you listening, just
(15:01):
check it out again a State of the People Power Tour.
That's PPL State of the PPL if you want to
look that up on any social media or online. All right,
so let's move on because what's going on right now
is Equity Week in DC and we should be there
on the ground, but it didn't quite work out for
this time. I think we're going to do something in
(15:23):
Baltimore with Doctor John's, but this week didn't quite work
out for us. But you're there, so talk to us
about Equity Week, what it means, what's going on, and
what people can expect if they're able to attend, either
in person or virtually.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
Absolutely so, we had our inaugural Equity Week last year,
Puity Week was born out of so when mister Floyd
also known as George Floyd, Miss Brehonna Taylor lost their lives,
we were told we were in a racial reckoning. And
I mentioned the honorable barbar Lee earlier. She was a
(15:59):
part of a collaboration of members in Congress that were
introducing legislation like the Truth Racial Healing Transformation Bill HR forty.
Then we had the George Floyd Policing Reform Bill that
then Member now Mayor Karen Bass introduced. We had the
Voting Rights Act that then became the John Lewis Voting
Rights Act, the Third Reconstruction Bill, which is Reverend Barber's
(16:23):
Poor People campaign signature anti poverty legislation. And what was
happening is that there was a lot of energy around
what all of us were doing. And for folks who
don't know, usually when there's a policy, there's a work
group that's behind that policy. Of course, there's a member
that you see, but there's a collection of individuals that
form a coalition that are calling for co sponsorship, that
(16:45):
are meeting with journalists and trying to get that moved
up the hierarchy and the food chain of policy. And
after about two and a half years of advocating for
this with the Biden Harris administration, I started to notice
that none of us were getting anything. You know, so
the John Lewis Voting Rights Act have been moved to
(17:05):
HR one, which means that it's the number one priority
in the House of Representatives. It was not becoming long.
We see HR forty getting to two hundred plus co sponsors,
not getting on the floor for a vote. We had
Truth Rachel Healing and Transformation Major PSA's circulating shout out
to Beyonce, shout out to Quevo, shout out to Keki
(17:26):
Palmer and Alicia Keys. And then we have faith leaders,
Reverend Wallace and so many other people, so joiners. We
had activists shout out to Mark Lamont Hill and Salamisha
Tillet and Shahraza Tillett, do psays that were getting millions
of views, and we still were not getting the legislation
or executive action. And so what I started to notice
(17:49):
is that when we would have our meetings, the administration
would say, well, if we did the Truth Commission, how
would this work with third reconstruction? If we did HR forty,
how would this work with the voting Rights Bill, and
so that's kind of pitting everybody against each other when
in fact, I believe, and I think all of us
who are working in a space believe and know that
(18:10):
black people and the American people have earned a buffet
of options, not just to have to pick from one
or the other thing. And so the thought for me was,
what if we started combining forces. What if we had
the members who represent these bills show up and do
a joint Congressional briefing where here is a slate of
equity and reparative justice legislation, including them Restoring Artistic Protections
(18:34):
Act that then Congressmen Jamal Bowman and current Congressman Hank
Johnson were leading on behalf of the Black Music Action
Coalition shout out the profit and part of what we
did was, rather than us fight individually, what if we
have that slate, and then what if we create an
opportunity to bring people from across the country to DC.
(18:55):
And what is that final week in June before June
teenth before they go into re And so it's a
series of events. One of the main things that's called
out on the Hills, the signature event of the National
Black Justice Collective, where right now as I'm out here.
Thanks to support from UCLA, I was able to bring
thirty students from UCLAD flew in yesterday to come for
(19:20):
Equity Week. I had nineteen last year, and they're up
right now at the Capitol with meetings all day long
where they're going across Democrat and Republican offices to advocate
for these policies that are about reparative justice and equity.
And at the time when we started, equity wasn't then
a bad word. You know, now it's become public enemy
(19:41):
number one, and I think that's an important time to
triple down on the term and the effort. Tomorrow night
on Friday at Howard Theater from nine pm to one am,
we have the Equity Ball, which is a way to
bring in what I affectionately called the Alphabet community, but
the LGBTQIA plus SGL community, because part of my understanding,
(20:03):
and my understanding is a student of history, is that
Bayer Rustin, who is a part of the Alphabet community,
was at the forefront of organizing the March on Washington
for Jobs and Freedom, but is often forgotten it and
not remembered as the anchor that he was. Ella Baker
is often not remembered. Paul Murray not remembered, like there
are a lot of people who don't get remembered. But importantly,
(20:26):
when people see the March on Washington, they're allowed to
look at all of those people and think, everybody there straight,
They're all straight people. We're not there, but we are.
And so the idea behind the ball was to have
a ball that centers the community and brings them into
DC alongside advocacy. And then we culminate on Saturday where
we do a ceremonial freedom walk around the perimeter of
(20:49):
the Reflecting Pool at the Lincoln Memorial. And for folks
who are listening, I want people to understand something that
is very spiritually important, and that is that water carries memory.
And what does that then mean. It means that that
reflecting pool that has been the epicenter for so many
of our movements, whether it be the million Man March
or the March on Washington and every other demonstration in between,
(21:13):
that water is carrying the memory of people who came
there looking to try to make America fulfill its obligation
to be what it says that it is. And so
our goal what we do is we get local African
drummers out of DC. They lead us in a procession
that starts off a little solemn because we do an
invocation of the ancestors. We pour a little water, libation
(21:35):
and gratitude, and then we basically by the end of
that lap we look like a second line in Louisiana
and New Orleans during Marty Gras because we are uplifting
them in this climate, I think it's even more important.
So we'll be the first people allowed in. We're going
in at twelve pm. From twelve to one at the
Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool will have our procession around and
(21:58):
it effectively is a combination apollo santuing that water and
saging it at the same time because soon after we depart,
a lot of potential foolishness and craziness and anti blackness
and anti africanness might be showing up behind us. And
we want that water to that's sacred water, that's sacred location,
to be protected and to be acknowledged and recognized for
(22:19):
holding the possibilities and memories that have been before it.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Hey, what's up.
Speaker 4 (22:23):
This is Ramsay's job, and I am q Ward and
we're inviting you to subscribe to Civic Cipher, our weekly
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(22:44):
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Speaker 2 (22:50):
That civiic cip h e er right here in the app.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
We are here today with doctor Marcus Anthony Hunter, UCLA, professor,
executive director of United by Equity and the originator.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
Of the phrase black Lives Matter Again.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
Well stated, one of the things that I know, just
to kind of provide some support to what you're saying,
is I might have been eighteen seventeen something like that,
and I saw this film called What the Bleep Do
We Know? Now this gets into kind of like quantum
mechanics and you know, all that sort of stuff. But
(23:31):
in the film there's an experiment that it's a documentary,
so they cover an experiment done by a gentleman named
doctor Imoto, and basically he took like some water from
a river, and he thought, okay, what if I put
a label on this water and just check it against itself.
(23:55):
So he has some control water where he doesn't label it,
and he has some water and he has someone pray
over the water. There's like a monk that gave it
a blessing or something like that. Then there's water and
he labels it rights I hate you, I'm going to
kill you. And he does all these different uh puts
all these different energy out there to the water, right,
so it sounds crazy. Then they show the results of
(24:16):
the experiment and you can see the water that received
the blessing. It looks all beautiful and like crystal, like
the water that says I love you too, and it
has the I love you label, you know, it has
just this beautiful shape to it. In the water that
he says I hate you too, that like has this
sort of cancerous like bubbly sort of you know when
(24:37):
you get it under a microscope and all the.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Rest of it.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Right, So he's showing it like how intentionality uh can
affect water. And then the the supposition is that, you know,
because we're made of water, that intentionality words, language, thoughts,
et cetera, could affect, you know, our being. So it's
interesting that you say that about the water in d
C and all the history that's taking place there, and
(25:01):
that you're taking the time to re establish some intentionality
out there and you're taking to the water where the
memories are held.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
So I kind of love that.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
Another thing that you mentioned too, and this is obviously
this is going to be a part of the conversation
we're going to have. So now is as good as
time to get there as any equity. Yeah, you know,
when it comes to diversity, equity and inclusion, I've heard
a couple of times that the defense, the collective defense,
I'll call it from let's say the right that these
(25:35):
people who now newly oppose diversity, equity and inclusion, these
people have turned their back on it. Are these people
that always opposed it? The collective defense The common defense
is that they don't have a problem with diversity. I
would push back against that, but they don't want that label,
so they'll say, look, diversity not a problem. Okay, is
(26:00):
kind of the other side of that coin. So they'll
say inclusion. Nothing to say here, we love inclusion. I
don't think that they do but they can't say that.
So what's the vulnerable part there? It's equity, right, So
to your point, you know, equity is now the new
(26:21):
bad word, and that's the point of attack that people
that oppose diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, that's what they
center on, so that they don't seem like monsters, because
when you say it all out, you know, when you
say it all fully diversity, equity, and inclusion, who would
be opposed to that in the United States of America
in twenty twenty five? Right, So again they hyper focus
(26:43):
on equity, and they suggest that equity is somehow unfair
and equity is the most fair. Right, they suggest that
equity only focuses on the outcomes, when indeed, equity focuses
(27:06):
on every single step along the way. And if every
step along the way is equitable, then the outcomes should
naturally be equitable. Right, given that, you know, our presumption
is that all human beings, all Homo sapien sapiens, are
more or less capable of achieving the same things, right,
(27:29):
and this needs to be borne out over longer periods
of time than what twenty twenty one to twenty twenty
four ish late twenty twenty four. It needs a longer
time to write itself because there's hundreds of years for
this to end up where it is right.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
So equity addresses those hundreds of years.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
And you know, I think that whenever I bring to
people's attention the Monopoly experiments, which is something you may
or may not be familiar with, but in short, for
our listeners, there were these, you know, scientists studying human behavior.
They had people play Monopoly and flipped the coin. Whoever
(28:09):
won the coin toss, that person was going to be
able to play the full game of Monopoly. They passed go,
they got two hundred dollars, they got to roll both dice,
they got to buy all the property, et cetera. And
the person who lost the coin toss was only going
to get one hundred dollars to pass and go, had
to wait to buy property, got half the money upfront,
(28:30):
and could only roll one of the dice. So they
were playing with a handicap, and naturally, the person that
got to play the full game was able to win.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
But after going around the board, you know, four or.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Five times, then they said, okay, well, now both of
you get to roll both dice, and both of you
get two hundred dollars when you pass, going, both of
you can buy property at the same rate or whatever.
And then the person who had the head start still won. Right,
So equity goes back and says, okay, what have what
did you get?
Speaker 2 (29:07):
Take some of that.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
Make sure that everyone's playing the same game, and now
you guys both have a chance at and owning something.
But equality says, oh, you guys, just both roll the
same guys and you both get two hundred dollars, pass
and go, and then this other person is still going
to win. So when when the person who won the
coin toss holds everyone else to his standard, and of
(29:30):
course it looks like everyone else is failing, right, And
the only way to right that wrong is with equity,
not with equality, because equality says, okay, well you can.
You you have access to the same game that I
have access to. But if the schools have been redlined
and the community that you come from lacks the resources
that privileged communities have, if your fathers have been taken
(29:56):
out of the home, not because they're not good fathers.
I think the CDC established clearly that black men are
the best fathers overall from any race. But when when
fathers are taken out of the home from a failed
carceral system, when you know, families are broken up because
of any number of things that take place in the society.
(30:19):
Now that we're seeing this happen to our Hispanic and
Latino brothers and sisters. When families are broken up, community suffer.
You mentioned maternal health rates. We haven't talked about environmental justice,
environmental racism. We haven't talked about the war on drugs.
(30:42):
We haven't talked about the GI Bill and how that was.
You know, you mentioned Friedman's Bank, So you know that
plus many other instances of people actually taking black wealth
from black people, has meant that we have never been
able to even get a proper footing in this country. So, yeah,
discuss how today's anti DEI political climate mirrors, you know,
(31:09):
past errors of backlash, and what it will take to
move this country forward with truth repair and policy.
Speaker 3 (31:19):
Absolutely. First of all, let's just give it up for
Professor Ramsey. I means you just gave a whole curriculum
right there. Okay, that I mean even having a follow that. Okay,
let me just got to give it up for the professor.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
I got, I got some people that inspire me.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
That was that was exceptional. Okay, you already know the
the to your point. First, let's just start with the
word because I love words. You cannot spell equality without
the word equity. So we are starting with equality. We're
already starting from a place of disadvantage because we're trying
(31:58):
to spell a bigger word without having the root word intact.
So this is why all of that unfolds in a
way that it does. The other thing is just recently,
I was in the United Kingdom for editorial board meeting
for a journal that I'm on, and they have, you know,
because they invented the colonies, we always have like a
(32:20):
you know, father grandfather relationship between these two countries, and
they have a similar thing. But they call it EDI,
which I think is really interesting that they call it equity,
diversity inclusion. They put equity first, and it has not
received the same level of attack that it has in America,
which is interesting because like in the past, the British
(32:43):
ended slavery and we continue to love it, you know,
the America continued to do it even though the British
bequeathed slavery to the United States, you know, so that
part is always fascinating where the progenitor is moving in
a certain direction, but it's offspring is still being very
stubborn about something that they should be off of at
(33:04):
this particular point. That still continues today. I think on
the issue of equity, it goes down just like you said,
where it's about getting back to the fundamental starting place.
Even in the legislation. One of the pieces that we're
doing truth racial healing, and transformation. It comes out of
the mind and vision of doctor Gail Christopher. When she
(33:25):
was a leading vice president at the Kellogg Foundation, she
spearheaded an evaluation of the forty plus countries that had
done a truth and reconciliation or reparations process, and what
she found was, in the United States context, the word
reconciliation is not appropriate because reconciliation is about we started
(33:46):
somewhere equal and then that got distorted along the way.
There's nowhere to go back to to have that conversation.
So all we can do is heal and transform, and
so that gets back to even what equity means. I
think also one of the dilemmas about all of these
policies is that as black people, we have been told
(34:08):
that things like affirmative action or DEI are ways to
address our experience, that they're born out of our experience.
Except time and again, when we look at the beneficiaries,
it tends to be white women women, right, and then
when we look at people who are voting for political
(34:28):
operatives who are anti that tends to be white women.
White women also give birth to these entities called white men,
and so there's this way that white women continue to
hedge their livelihoods and their bets off of the experience
of oppressed and marginalized people to get benefits for themselves
while also then giving birth to and facilitating mindsets that
(34:51):
will continue to oppress and marginalize those people. So that's
the very interesting dynamic that hinges on the fact that
white women themselves did not voting mass for Hillary Clinton,
so they have a mirror problem. There's something going on there,
and there's also this convenience of being able to be
mad at the very system, but you continue to pro
(35:11):
create that same system. So that's one of the dilemmas
is that white women as a class have to have
I often call it white Thanksgiving with each other, where
they start to talk about that and really get to
the root of why they are continually both prospering from
experiences born out of an experience and inn pro creating
the resistance what is going on there. In the meantime,
(35:35):
we as black people must also see these attacks on
equity or diversity or inclusion as the continued permission slip
to just triple down on being unapologetically black, and as
we go forward, we need to resist these approaches. Say
that tell us that, oh, we use a shorthand they
(35:56):
won't know. No, they keep telling us they gonna find out.
They find out, they use the Supreme Court and other
apparatus of the government to roll back whatever other progress
we were making at the same time. So this is
why for me, when I talk about reparations and then
shout out to you for bringing up the GI Bill,
one of the other pieces of our legislative slate is
(36:18):
the GI Restoration at shot to Richard Brokshire, who's been
leading the Black Veterans Project, that's their signature piece of legislation.
And that's another piece of this story, because what we're
talking about is that the GI Bill happens and then
black veterans do not receive equal benefits. They're getting that
monopoly experience down to the VA can provide zero down
(36:43):
payment houses, you know, it can help you go to college.
Black veterans were not getting that in the same degree,
which is why intergenerational wealth even among black military families
is way different than intergenerational wealth among white military families.
Both of them are serving our country, So what does
it mean to have served equally and receive less. That
(37:07):
is the dynamic that we're in. And I also want
black people, I feel, to feel completely comfortable and saying
that black people need this, black people deserve this, black
people have earned this, like to be in that and
to recognize that. It's the steady diet of misinformation that
(37:28):
leads other people to hear Black people talk about black
politics and think it doesn't apply to them, because ultimately,
black politics is all about how do we eliminate subhuman bondage,
how do we eliminate human hierarchy, because it is through
us that they created all of that human hierarchy. So
when we're talking our black politics, it's saying human hierarchy
(37:51):
is false. There's no such thing, and as long as
we keep participating in it, we're reaffined the very system
that has now people in detention camps, has ice rolling
up into elementary schools, taking children or their families at graduations,
has people now you know, blocking the loop, blocking the
one ten freeway. Our experience tells us that it becomes
(38:12):
acceptable because we were the original test case. You know,
how far can you dehumanize somebody. Let's go to Africa.
Take people, call them black, not African, take them across
the world and convince the world that they don't have
brains the same size, that there have a high pain
tolerance and threshold, that they are not honest or truthful,
(38:34):
that they don't like working. And that's always crazy to
me that people think that people who are descendants of
enslaved people are lazy.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (38:43):
The word slave and lazy don't go together, not at all.
The fact what's interesting is that it only happens to
what we think of as black African people because the
other slaves that we know of were Hebrew slaves. People
do not refer to Jews as lazy. They do not
refer to Hebrew p people as lazy. They think they're
hardworking and all these other things. And that's where the
(39:04):
anti blackness and anti africanness shows up. And the last
thing I'll say on the whole point about this is
that back to the whiteness of it all. Whiteness is
the original Ponzi scheme. It is paying less dividends to people,
which is why fentanyl, meth and opioid are at all
time high, because you've been sold to bill of goods
(39:26):
and the returns are negative. And so now you're being told, oh,
it's because we gave this to these Native Americans, or
we gave this to Hispanics, so we gave this to
this and that. But equity is always about. Even in
the story that I Love You shared about that experiment,
it never said that the person who was getting two
hundred dollars in both dice what happened and the equality
(39:49):
version was that you took their money and their dice. No,
they still got what they had. It was that in monopoly,
the bank had more to give, and that's America. They
got the money. It is not at what he does
not mean taking something from other individuals. It means making
a government accountable for opening up the actual vault that
has the money that they know they have.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
This concludes part one of our two part conversation with
doctor Marcus Anthony Hunter as we discuss reparations, the State
of the People tour, and equity week in Washington, d C.
Check back in with us for Part two right here
on the Black Information Network Daily Podcast
At the Helm of Social Change and Academic Excellence sits
doctor Marcus Anthony Hunter, the esteem Scott Waw Endowed Chair
in the Social Sciences Division and a Distinguished Professor of
Sociology and African American Studies at UCLA. As the visionary
coiner of the transformative hashtag Black Lives Matter, doctor Hunter's
(00:20):
influence transcends academia, igniting global conversations on racial equity. Fresh
off the heels of the State of the People Power
Tour and during the second annual National Equity Week, we
have today's guest, Doctor Marcus Anthony Hunter. This is the
Black Information Network Daily Podcast and I'm your host, Ramses Job.
(00:43):
All right, doctor Hunter, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
How are you doing today?
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Man, I'm blessed in the city. As Rah Hammer says,
you know, peace acraticue for you.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Thank you for having me on, absolutely so. Uh do
us a favor for folks that don't know about your
work just yet. You know, I've given you a little
bit of an introduction, but you know, talk about who
you are, you know, the work you've done and sort
of what led you to kind of the position you
hold in the conversation.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
We're about tap today.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Yeah, I've been a student my whole life of the
black experience. I grew up in a black and the
black household in Southfield, where you know, if there was
something black excellent happening, we were a fan of it.
So there were two black girls with braids and beads
playing tennis and whipping people. We were tennis fans. Debbie
(01:34):
Thomas was twirling and ice skating. We were ice skating fans.
And so in that kind of incubator of blackness, it
then meant when I went out into the world and
started to pursue my education, I really centered the black experience.
I wanted to be curious about my own people and
about my community, and that led me down a very
(01:55):
interesting adventure which includes like formal school, but also just
taking me to places near and far. So how I
come into the reparative justice reparation space is really through
doctor w EV du Boys. So my first book and
dissertation followed the neighborhood he studied in the Philupia Negro
(02:17):
So that book is eighteen ninety nine. I went and
basically asked what happened after du Boys left, you know,
And I looked at that same neighborhood over the twentieth century,
and I found that a lot happened, including the evention
of public housing. There were black banks, and those black
banks took me down a path of WHOA. I didn't
know there were black banks in nineteen twenty something. And
(02:37):
as I went down that journey, I discovered the Freedman's Bank,
which was established right before Abraham Lincoln was assassinated at
the end of the Civil War, and it had upwards
of a billion dollars of black people's money after being
founded in eighteen sixty five. By eighteen seventy one, over
a billion dollars in today's money. Eighteen seventy four it
abruptly closes and had Frederick Douglass as the manager, who
(03:00):
had also put ten thousand dollars worth of his own
money in there. And that made me think about reparations
really differently, because up until that point I heard the
forty eight years and the mules shout out to Spike
Lee and General Sherman. But when I read about the
Freeman's Bank and I started to study it, which, by
the way, for all of the folks who are listening,
those records are being held by the Mormon Church, the
(03:22):
Church of Latter day Saints holds those records, which I
find fascinating. But I then thought, well, we're always talking
about promises made versus money we actually had, and that
was our first money when you were actually able to
actually really be paid, especially military folks. And once I
got there, I thought, how can I understand this concept?
(03:43):
Where does it need to take me? So I found
myself in Jamaica and Barbados and Ghana, in South Africa
and the United Kingdom and France and South Carolina and
Georgia and Oklahoma to kind of figure out how we
as a people got from one place to the next place.
And then in the midst of that journey, one day
I was sitting home in a two O two number
(04:04):
called me and I looked at that area code and
I'm thinking two O two. That looks like IRS, and
that looks like student loan. I don't want to talk
to any of them, and now today it might look
like ice, you know, so I really don't want to
answer this call. But the spirit said Marcus into the
phone call. I answered the call, and when I say hello,
(04:26):
it is then congresswoman, now first black mayor woman, Mayor
of Oakland, Barbara Lee, on the phone, and she says,
I'm calling to speak to Professor Marcus Hunter. She saw
me on c spam Book TV moderate a panel on slavery,
and she thought it was really good. She wanted me
to know. And then she says she was developing legislation
that would compliment HR forty, which is the Legacy Reparations
(04:48):
Bill in Congress with a bill called Truth, Racial Healing
and Transformation, modeled off of the South Africa Truth and Reconciliation.
And she asked if I was available, and then she
asked if I would help drafted and then she introduced it,
and then she asked me to help her build a coalition,
and then the whole story unfolds from there.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Okay, all right, well, thank you for that. One of
the things that I think that it's important to share
with you and with our listeners is that I learned
how dynamic and profound a speaker you actually are. This
(05:32):
past weekend in Los Angeles at the State of the
People Power Tour.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
And.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
We were invited there by Joy Joy Reid and doctor
John's right. And so when we first got in to
the to the building, there was a gymnasium. I'm not
sure how much of this stuff you remember, but when
we first got remember.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
Yes, as you said, the whole phase, everything exactly.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Okay, So we were sitting in the front right and uh,
you know, because we kind of have a little bit
of familiarity with doctor Johnson's been on the show before,
you know, we knew what he was bringing to the table.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
The same with Joy Angela.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
You know, it was you know, a lot of this
was kind of like, Okay, these are people that we've
looked up to, but that day we met a new
hero and met we're meeting right now for the first time.
So meta is a strong word, but we were introduced,
I'll say, to a new hero, and that's you. And
and your position was firmly on, here's reparations. Here's why
(06:35):
we need reparations. Here's how reparations can impact our plight.
You know, this is where reparation fits into the overall
puzzle of black people's story in America. And you know,
with the type of show that we make, we've had
reparations conversations before, and we do understand the you know,
sort of the gravity of reparations just as a as
(06:57):
a subject and the impact that it can have. But
never before had we had the opportunity to bear witness
to someone who was so deep in the weeds on
it and was able to articulate it in such a
way that it was almost a no brainer.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
It's felt like a fight before.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
And this is no disrespect to anyone who's come on before,
because I recognize that it is a fight. But you know,
when you put the data with it, when you put
you know how it makes sense for the country and
for us, it was a no brainer. And you know,
we we you know, you know how it was back
backstage there and when Kamala Harris came and you know,
(07:40):
the Fruit of Islam and everyone holding court and then
we have to film our documentary piece of cameras back there,
so we didn't get a chance to actually talk. So
when I saw you on the schedule and Chris introduced
you know, your name to the to the conversation, you
don't know this, but I hit back absolutely, absolutely, because
that was our plan initially and it just kind of
happened to come together this way. So I know that
(08:03):
I've talked around the state of the People Power Tour
and you know, you're a first guest on from there
in hindsight, and I didn't mean to get in front
of you, but do us a favor for our listeners.
Talk about the State of the People Power Tour, what
it meant, what's happening moving forward with that, and then
we'll shift gears and talk about Equity Week because I
(08:25):
want to get to that as well.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
Yeah. No, First, God, bless you. Thank you so much
for not only what you're doing, but also just for
the amount of loving water you just poured into me.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
I just want to of course I can see.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Thank you so much. The State of the People Power
Tour shout out to ang Angela Ray and all of
the people because effectively the idea is to go through
multiple cities across the United States and tap in with
the community to have both sort of town hall community
(08:59):
style conversation, but also give people what they need on
the ground, what are our people's needs, and bring a
collection of people who are working in all sorts of ways,
but bring people together in the same synergistic space so
that we can see what the state of our condition
is and really centering people in that conversation and in
(09:19):
that experience. And so when we were in Los Angeles,
which was the final stop of the first leg of
the Power of the Power tour for the State of
the People, we were also launching several of the Black Papers,
and so for folks listening in, the Black Papers are
the scholarly policy compliment to the rest of the activations
(09:44):
happening through the State of the People, led by doctor
David Johns. It is a curation of papers that are
intentionally called black papers, because traditionally policy papers are referred
to as white papers, and so the idea was to
center blackness even in the name of those papers. And
they cover a range of topics from housing to reproductive justice,
(10:06):
to education, economics, and on the day that we were
all together, we were launching also the Reparations black Paper.
And one thing that's I think really important about the
Black Papers is, as a doctor John's would say, is
something that your mom and your grandmama, your auntie, your cousin.
You don't need a high school degree, you don't need
(10:26):
a diploma, you don't need a college degree, you don't
need to do homework in order to show up and
experience the black Paper. They're filled with solutions, strategies and
something I also share with the group there is I
like to see everything that black people do as explicit
and subversive. You know, it just goes back to me
to being enslaved. You're explicitly, you know, accomplishing the free
(10:48):
labor that is being asked of you, but you're also
subversively putting braids in people's hair that shows them a
map to how to get out of this. So the
subversive aspect of the State of the People Black Papers
is also that it's a rolodex An index of workers, warriors, fighters,
advocates who you may not otherwise know, but they're all
(11:09):
listed because all of them are collaborative. So I also
see them as a place you can go and say,
you know, I'm really trying to figure out what I
can get resources on around reproductive justice. Here are the names,
you know, at the top of the actual paper and
in the brain Trust listing and in the citations in
a way that it's super accessible. And so what I
(11:30):
think about that whole initiative, and this is something I
also said to Ange personally, is that she could be
doing so many things, you know, and she's from the
center of her heart doing this voluntarily, and then having
a list of people who could be doing other things
show up voluntarily as well. And I think at a
(11:51):
time when you know, thin gases at all time high,
poverty is at all time high, Black maternal mortality is
at an all time high. That to have people come
together and be with people and recognize that as long
as we have us, we got a lot, you know.
And I think that's one of the major takeaways of
(12:12):
the State of the People Power Tour is that you
see us in Atlanta, US in Baltimore, US in LA
as we were, that you start to see us Saint Louis.
There's a lot of US, and I think in a
time when people are trying to figure out what's next,
being able to be rooted and the usness is very powerful.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Yeah, And just to echo that, Q the co host
for this show, who was on the ground with me there,
he was fortunate enough to make it to the Detroit
stop and to LA with me, or I should say
(12:53):
I made it to LA with him and he was
having a conversation backstage with Jammel Hill there. Their friends
are both from Detroit, so I got a chance to
overhear a bit of that. Jamel's been on the show
of course as well, and she's a friend of ours.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
But but.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
You know, listening to them kind of recap the importance
of that. I cannot stress to our listeners enough. You know,
if there's a way to get involved, if there's if
the tour stops anywhere near you, it is energizing in
a time when there's a lot of uncertainty, a lot
of concern about our future as a people. Are our
(13:41):
political plight the plight of our day to day lives.
You know, who is coming to to serve and protect
our community? What are that what are their intentions? Who's
representing us? You know, who are elected elected officials? And
how much of our plight is something that they're cognizant of.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
You know, this is an event.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
That helps ease a lot of the concern because there's strategy.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
It's not easy, but there's strategies.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
There's things that you can implement, there's you know, things
that you can be made aware of. There's initiatives that
you should be made aware of that are concerning, deeply concerning.
But you know, none of this comes without strategy. None
of this comes without black brilliance, None of this comes
without black excellence and to be informed about the goings
on in your community and in the country and.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Specifically with respect to the plat of black people. Is
the best tool that you will.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Have in your arsenal that information and the best way
to receive that information is, as you mentioned, in a
in a in an environment where everyone's there to love
on each other and to pour energy into each other
and to inform each other, and you know, everyone's goals
are aligned. So you know, I implore you listening, just
(15:01):
check it out again a State of the People Power Tour.
That's PPL State of the PPL if you want to
look that up on any social media or online. All right,
so let's move on because what's going on right now
is Equity Week in DC and we should be there
on the ground, but it didn't quite work out for
this time. I think we're going to do something in
(15:23):
Baltimore with Doctor John's, but this week didn't quite work
out for us. But you're there, so talk to us
about Equity Week, what it means, what's going on, and
what people can expect if they're able to attend, either
in person or virtually.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
Absolutely so, we had our inaugural Equity Week last year,
Puity Week was born out of so when mister Floyd
also known as George Floyd, Miss Brehonna Taylor lost their lives,
we were told we were in a racial reckoning. And
I mentioned the honorable barbar Lee earlier. She was a
(15:59):
part of a collaboration of members in Congress that were
introducing legislation like the Truth Racial Healing Transformation Bill HR forty.
Then we had the George Floyd Policing Reform Bill that
then Member now Mayor Karen Bass introduced. We had the
Voting Rights Act that then became the John Lewis Voting
Rights Act, the Third Reconstruction Bill, which is Reverend Barber's
(16:23):
Poor People campaign signature anti poverty legislation. And what was
happening is that there was a lot of energy around
what all of us were doing. And for folks who
don't know, usually when there's a policy, there's a work
group that's behind that policy. Of course, there's a member
that you see, but there's a collection of individuals that
form a coalition that are calling for co sponsorship, that
(16:45):
are meeting with journalists and trying to get that moved
up the hierarchy and the food chain of policy. And
after about two and a half years of advocating for
this with the Biden Harris administration, I started to notice
that none of us were getting anything. You know, so
the John Lewis Voting Rights Act have been moved to
(17:05):
HR one, which means that it's the number one priority
in the House of Representatives. It was not becoming long.
We see HR forty getting to two hundred plus co sponsors,
not getting on the floor for a vote. We had
Truth Rachel Healing and Transformation Major PSA's circulating shout out
to Beyonce, shout out to Quevo, shout out to Keki
(17:26):
Palmer and Alicia Keys. And then we have faith leaders,
Reverend Wallace and so many other people, so joiners. We
had activists shout out to Mark Lamont Hill and Salamisha
Tillet and Shahraza Tillett, do psays that were getting millions
of views, and we still were not getting the legislation
or executive action. And so what I started to notice
(17:49):
is that when we would have our meetings, the administration
would say, well, if we did the Truth Commission, how
would this work with third reconstruction? If we did HR forty,
how would this work with the voting Rights Bill, and
so that's kind of pitting everybody against each other when
in fact, I believe, and I think all of us
who are working in a space believe and know that
(18:10):
black people and the American people have earned a buffet
of options, not just to have to pick from one
or the other thing. And so the thought for me was,
what if we started combining forces. What if we had
the members who represent these bills show up and do
a joint Congressional briefing where here is a slate of
equity and reparative justice legislation, including them Restoring Artistic Protections
(18:34):
Act that then Congressmen Jamal Bowman and current Congressman Hank
Johnson were leading on behalf of the Black Music Action
Coalition shout out the profit and part of what we
did was, rather than us fight individually, what if we
have that slate, and then what if we create an
opportunity to bring people from across the country to DC.
(18:55):
And what is that final week in June before June
teenth before they go into re And so it's a
series of events. One of the main things that's called
out on the Hills, the signature event of the National
Black Justice Collective, where right now as I'm out here.
Thanks to support from UCLA, I was able to bring
thirty students from UCLAD flew in yesterday to come for
(19:20):
Equity Week. I had nineteen last year, and they're up
right now at the Capitol with meetings all day long
where they're going across Democrat and Republican offices to advocate
for these policies that are about reparative justice and equity.
And at the time when we started, equity wasn't then
a bad word. You know, now it's become public enemy
(19:41):
number one, and I think that's an important time to
triple down on the term and the effort. Tomorrow night
on Friday at Howard Theater from nine pm to one am,
we have the Equity Ball, which is a way to
bring in what I affectionately called the Alphabet community, but
the LGBTQIA plus SGL community, because part of my understanding,
(20:03):
and my understanding is a student of history, is that
Bayer Rustin, who is a part of the Alphabet community,
was at the forefront of organizing the March on Washington
for Jobs and Freedom, but is often forgotten it and
not remembered as the anchor that he was. Ella Baker
is often not remembered. Paul Murray not remembered, like there
are a lot of people who don't get remembered. But importantly,
(20:26):
when people see the March on Washington, they're allowed to
look at all of those people and think, everybody there straight,
They're all straight people. We're not there, but we are.
And so the idea behind the ball was to have
a ball that centers the community and brings them into
DC alongside advocacy. And then we culminate on Saturday where
we do a ceremonial freedom walk around the perimeter of
(20:49):
the Reflecting Pool at the Lincoln Memorial. And for folks
who are listening, I want people to understand something that
is very spiritually important, and that is that water carries memory.
And what does that then mean. It means that that
reflecting pool that has been the epicenter for so many
of our movements, whether it be the million Man March
or the March on Washington and every other demonstration in between,
(21:13):
that water is carrying the memory of people who came
there looking to try to make America fulfill its obligation
to be what it says that it is. And so
our goal what we do is we get local African
drummers out of DC. They lead us in a procession
that starts off a little solemn because we do an
invocation of the ancestors. We pour a little water, libation
(21:35):
and gratitude, and then we basically by the end of
that lap we look like a second line in Louisiana
and New Orleans during Marty Gras because we are uplifting
them in this climate, I think it's even more important.
So we'll be the first people allowed in. We're going
in at twelve pm. From twelve to one at the
Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool will have our procession around and
(21:58):
it effectively is a combination apollo santuing that water and
saging it at the same time because soon after we depart,
a lot of potential foolishness and craziness and anti blackness
and anti africanness might be showing up behind us. And
we want that water to that's sacred water, that's sacred location,
to be protected and to be acknowledged and recognized for
(22:19):
holding the possibilities and memories that have been before it.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Hey, what's up.
Speaker 4 (22:23):
This is Ramsay's job, and I am q Ward and
we're inviting you to subscribe to Civic Cipher, our weekly
social justice podcast right here in the app. We pride
ourselves on creating a show that busters allyship empathy and understanding,
all the while conducting journalistically credible research, featuring influential, noteworthy
yests and empowering historically marginalized communities. The African proverb breeds,
(22:44):
if you want to go far, go together. So we
are asking you to search for and subscribe to Civic Cipher.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
That civiic cip h e er right here in the app.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
We are here today with doctor Marcus Anthony Hunter, UCLA, professor,
executive director of United by Equity and the originator.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
Of the phrase black Lives Matter Again.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
Well stated, one of the things that I know, just
to kind of provide some support to what you're saying,
is I might have been eighteen seventeen something like that,
and I saw this film called What the Bleep Do
We Know? Now this gets into kind of like quantum
mechanics and you know, all that sort of stuff. But
(23:31):
in the film there's an experiment that it's a documentary,
so they cover an experiment done by a gentleman named
doctor Imoto, and basically he took like some water from
a river, and he thought, okay, what if I put
a label on this water and just check it against itself.
(23:55):
So he has some control water where he doesn't label it,
and he has some water and he has someone pray
over the water. There's like a monk that gave it
a blessing or something like that. Then there's water and
he labels it rights I hate you, I'm going to
kill you. And he does all these different uh puts
all these different energy out there to the water, right,
so it sounds crazy. Then they show the results of
(24:16):
the experiment and you can see the water that received
the blessing. It looks all beautiful and like crystal, like
the water that says I love you too, and it
has the I love you label, you know, it has
just this beautiful shape to it. In the water that
he says I hate you too, that like has this
sort of cancerous like bubbly sort of you know when
(24:37):
you get it under a microscope and all the.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Rest of it.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Right, So he's showing it like how intentionality uh can
affect water. And then the the supposition is that, you know,
because we're made of water, that intentionality words, language, thoughts,
et cetera, could affect, you know, our being. So it's
interesting that you say that about the water in d
C and all the history that's taking place there, and
(25:01):
that you're taking the time to re establish some intentionality
out there and you're taking to the water where the
memories are held.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
So I kind of love that.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
Another thing that you mentioned too, and this is obviously
this is going to be a part of the conversation
we're going to have. So now is as good as
time to get there as any equity. Yeah, you know,
when it comes to diversity, equity and inclusion, I've heard
a couple of times that the defense, the collective defense,
I'll call it from let's say the right that these
(25:35):
people who now newly oppose diversity, equity and inclusion, these
people have turned their back on it. Are these people
that always opposed it? The collective defense The common defense
is that they don't have a problem with diversity. I
would push back against that, but they don't want that label,
so they'll say, look, diversity not a problem. Okay, is
(26:00):
kind of the other side of that coin. So they'll
say inclusion. Nothing to say here, we love inclusion. I
don't think that they do but they can't say that.
So what's the vulnerable part there? It's equity, right, So
to your point, you know, equity is now the new
(26:21):
bad word, and that's the point of attack that people
that oppose diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, that's what they
center on, so that they don't seem like monsters, because
when you say it all out, you know, when you
say it all fully diversity, equity, and inclusion, who would
be opposed to that in the United States of America
in twenty twenty five? Right, So again they hyper focus
(26:43):
on equity, and they suggest that equity is somehow unfair
and equity is the most fair. Right, they suggest that
equity only focuses on the outcomes, when indeed, equity focuses
(27:06):
on every single step along the way. And if every
step along the way is equitable, then the outcomes should
naturally be equitable. Right, given that, you know, our presumption
is that all human beings, all Homo sapien sapiens, are
more or less capable of achieving the same things, right,
(27:29):
and this needs to be borne out over longer periods
of time than what twenty twenty one to twenty twenty
four ish late twenty twenty four. It needs a longer
time to write itself because there's hundreds of years for
this to end up where it is right.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
So equity addresses those hundreds of years.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
And you know, I think that whenever I bring to
people's attention the Monopoly experiments, which is something you may
or may not be familiar with, but in short, for
our listeners, there were these, you know, scientists studying human behavior.
They had people play Monopoly and flipped the coin. Whoever
(28:09):
won the coin toss, that person was going to be
able to play the full game of Monopoly. They passed go,
they got two hundred dollars, they got to roll both dice,
they got to buy all the property, et cetera. And
the person who lost the coin toss was only going
to get one hundred dollars to pass and go, had
to wait to buy property, got half the money upfront,
(28:30):
and could only roll one of the dice. So they
were playing with a handicap, and naturally, the person that
got to play the full game was able to win.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
But after going around the board, you know, four or.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Five times, then they said, okay, well, now both of
you get to roll both dice, and both of you
get two hundred dollars when you pass, going, both of
you can buy property at the same rate or whatever.
And then the person who had the head start still won. Right,
So equity goes back and says, okay, what have what
did you get?
Speaker 2 (29:07):
Take some of that.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
Make sure that everyone's playing the same game, and now
you guys both have a chance at and owning something.
But equality says, oh, you guys, just both roll the
same guys and you both get two hundred dollars, pass
and go, and then this other person is still going
to win. So when when the person who won the
coin toss holds everyone else to his standard, and of
(29:30):
course it looks like everyone else is failing, right, And
the only way to right that wrong is with equity,
not with equality, because equality says, okay, well you can.
You you have access to the same game that I
have access to. But if the schools have been redlined
and the community that you come from lacks the resources
that privileged communities have, if your fathers have been taken
(29:56):
out of the home, not because they're not good fathers.
I think the CDC established clearly that black men are
the best fathers overall from any race. But when when
fathers are taken out of the home from a failed
carceral system, when you know, families are broken up because
of any number of things that take place in the society.
(30:19):
Now that we're seeing this happen to our Hispanic and
Latino brothers and sisters. When families are broken up, community suffer.
You mentioned maternal health rates. We haven't talked about environmental justice,
environmental racism. We haven't talked about the war on drugs.
(30:42):
We haven't talked about the GI Bill and how that was.
You know, you mentioned Friedman's Bank, So you know that
plus many other instances of people actually taking black wealth
from black people, has meant that we have never been
able to even get a proper footing in this country. So, yeah,
discuss how today's anti DEI political climate mirrors, you know,
(31:09):
past errors of backlash, and what it will take to
move this country forward with truth repair and policy.
Speaker 3 (31:19):
Absolutely. First of all, let's just give it up for
Professor Ramsey. I means you just gave a whole curriculum
right there. Okay, that I mean even having a follow that. Okay,
let me just got to give it up for the professor.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
I got, I got some people that inspire me.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
That was that was exceptional. Okay, you already know the
the to your point. First, let's just start with the
word because I love words. You cannot spell equality without
the word equity. So we are starting with equality. We're
already starting from a place of disadvantage because we're trying
(31:58):
to spell a bigger word without having the root word intact.
So this is why all of that unfolds in a
way that it does. The other thing is just recently,
I was in the United Kingdom for editorial board meeting
for a journal that I'm on, and they have, you know,
because they invented the colonies, we always have like a
(32:20):
you know, father grandfather relationship between these two countries, and
they have a similar thing. But they call it EDI,
which I think is really interesting that they call it equity,
diversity inclusion. They put equity first, and it has not
received the same level of attack that it has in America,
which is interesting because like in the past, the British
(32:43):
ended slavery and we continue to love it, you know,
the America continued to do it even though the British
bequeathed slavery to the United States, you know, so that
part is always fascinating where the progenitor is moving in
a certain direction, but it's offspring is still being very
stubborn about something that they should be off of at
(33:04):
this particular point. That still continues today. I think on
the issue of equity, it goes down just like you said,
where it's about getting back to the fundamental starting place.
Even in the legislation. One of the pieces that we're
doing truth racial healing, and transformation. It comes out of
the mind and vision of doctor Gail Christopher. When she
(33:25):
was a leading vice president at the Kellogg Foundation, she
spearheaded an evaluation of the forty plus countries that had
done a truth and reconciliation or reparations process, and what
she found was, in the United States context, the word
reconciliation is not appropriate because reconciliation is about we started
(33:46):
somewhere equal and then that got distorted along the way.
There's nowhere to go back to to have that conversation.
So all we can do is heal and transform, and
so that gets back to even what equity means. I
think also one of the dilemmas about all of these
policies is that as black people, we have been told
(34:08):
that things like affirmative action or DEI are ways to
address our experience, that they're born out of our experience.
Except time and again, when we look at the beneficiaries,
it tends to be white women women, right, and then
when we look at people who are voting for political
(34:28):
operatives who are anti that tends to be white women.
White women also give birth to these entities called white men,
and so there's this way that white women continue to
hedge their livelihoods and their bets off of the experience
of oppressed and marginalized people to get benefits for themselves
while also then giving birth to and facilitating mindsets that
(34:51):
will continue to oppress and marginalize those people. So that's
the very interesting dynamic that hinges on the fact that
white women themselves did not voting mass for Hillary Clinton,
so they have a mirror problem. There's something going on there,
and there's also this convenience of being able to be
mad at the very system, but you continue to pro
(35:11):
create that same system. So that's one of the dilemmas
is that white women as a class have to have
I often call it white Thanksgiving with each other, where
they start to talk about that and really get to
the root of why they are continually both prospering from
experiences born out of an experience and inn pro creating
the resistance what is going on there. In the meantime,
(35:35):
we as black people must also see these attacks on
equity or diversity or inclusion as the continued permission slip
to just triple down on being unapologetically black, and as
we go forward, we need to resist these approaches. Say
that tell us that, oh, we use a shorthand they
(35:56):
won't know. No, they keep telling us they gonna find out.
They find out, they use the Supreme Court and other
apparatus of the government to roll back whatever other progress
we were making at the same time. So this is
why for me, when I talk about reparations and then
shout out to you for bringing up the GI Bill,
one of the other pieces of our legislative slate is
(36:18):
the GI Restoration at shot to Richard Brokshire, who's been
leading the Black Veterans Project, that's their signature piece of legislation.
And that's another piece of this story, because what we're
talking about is that the GI Bill happens and then
black veterans do not receive equal benefits. They're getting that
monopoly experience down to the VA can provide zero down
(36:43):
payment houses, you know, it can help you go to college.
Black veterans were not getting that in the same degree,
which is why intergenerational wealth even among black military families
is way different than intergenerational wealth among white military families.
Both of them are serving our country, So what does
it mean to have served equally and receive less. That
(37:07):
is the dynamic that we're in. And I also want
black people, I feel, to feel completely comfortable and saying
that black people need this, black people deserve this, black
people have earned this, like to be in that and
to recognize that. It's the steady diet of misinformation that
(37:28):
leads other people to hear Black people talk about black
politics and think it doesn't apply to them, because ultimately,
black politics is all about how do we eliminate subhuman bondage,
how do we eliminate human hierarchy, because it is through
us that they created all of that human hierarchy. So
when we're talking our black politics, it's saying human hierarchy
(37:51):
is false. There's no such thing, and as long as
we keep participating in it, we're reaffined the very system
that has now people in detention camps, has ice rolling
up into elementary schools, taking children or their families at graduations,
has people now you know, blocking the loop, blocking the
one ten freeway. Our experience tells us that it becomes
(38:12):
acceptable because we were the original test case. You know,
how far can you dehumanize somebody. Let's go to Africa.
Take people, call them black, not African, take them across
the world and convince the world that they don't have
brains the same size, that there have a high pain
tolerance and threshold, that they are not honest or truthful,
(38:34):
that they don't like working. And that's always crazy to
me that people think that people who are descendants of
enslaved people are lazy.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (38:43):
The word slave and lazy don't go together, not at all.
The fact what's interesting is that it only happens to
what we think of as black African people because the
other slaves that we know of were Hebrew slaves. People
do not refer to Jews as lazy. They do not
refer to Hebrew p people as lazy. They think they're
hardworking and all these other things. And that's where the
(39:04):
anti blackness and anti africanness shows up. And the last
thing I'll say on the whole point about this is
that back to the whiteness of it all. Whiteness is
the original Ponzi scheme. It is paying less dividends to people,
which is why fentanyl, meth and opioid are at all
time high, because you've been sold to bill of goods
(39:26):
and the returns are negative. And so now you're being told, oh,
it's because we gave this to these Native Americans, or
we gave this to Hispanics, so we gave this to
this and that. But equity is always about. Even in
the story that I Love You shared about that experiment,
it never said that the person who was getting two
hundred dollars in both dice what happened and the equality
(39:49):
version was that you took their money and their dice. No,
they still got what they had. It was that in monopoly,
the bank had more to give, and that's America. They
got the money. It is not at what he does
not mean taking something from other individuals. It means making
a government accountable for opening up the actual vault that
has the money that they know they have.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
This concludes part one of our two part conversation with
doctor Marcus Anthony Hunter as we discuss reparations, the State
of the People tour, and equity week in Washington, d C.
Check back in with us for Part two right here
on the Black Information Network Daily Podcast
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