July 3, 2024 • 31 mins
Dr. Marcus Anthony Hunt examines the Tulsa, Oklahoma massacre and the quest to honor it. Actor Griffin Dunne details his new book "The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir."
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
today's best minds.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Happy Independence Day. We're on vacation with that doesn't mean
we don't have a great show for you today. Doctor
Marcus Anthony Hunt Stopspy to talk to us about the Tulsa,
Oklahoma massacre and the quest honor it. But first we
have actor Griffin Dunn on his new book The Friday
Afternoon Club, a family Memoir.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Welcome to Fast Politics, Griffin Don.
Speaker 4 (00:28):
Thank you for having me. Molly.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
I really wanted to talk to you about this book
because it's not really politics, and Jesse.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Is always like it's Fast Politics, Molly.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
But I felt like we should talk about it because
your story is in the intersection of all of these
different important political moments. It can you talk to us
about just growing up in LA and a little bit
about what that looked.
Speaker 4 (00:53):
Like bagging up than just La and the book does
intersect with many moments and really in history. In order
to get to my childhood and growing up in Los
Angeles in my teen years, I had to as this
was always subtitle in my mind, a family memoir, I
had to go all the way back to Pancho Villa
(01:15):
in the Mexican Revolution that you know, drove my mother's
family to No Gallas, the border town in Mexico and Arizona,
and the Irish famine. And I was always conscious as
I was approaching Hollywood, you know, I would be passing
you know, World War two, how that intersected and my
mother's side of the family and my father's side of
(01:36):
the family, my father in particular, who was in fact
a war hero and fought in Battle of the Bulge.
So when I was growing up first in New York,
where my father was in live television and that occupation
brought him to to Hollywood in nineteen sixty where television
was you know, still black and white and about to
(01:58):
maybe go into color. We were in this house that
my probably my mother bought. She was from a family
in Chicago. Her father was a Griffin and there was
a Griffin wheel company and they it was really an empire,
and all the wheels in America, on train on pullman
train cars were with Griffin wheels. So my parents were
(02:19):
very social, my father in particular, and they were married
and gave parties with you know, some of the greatest
movie stars, most elegant, glamorous, David Nivid and you know,
Joseph Cotton, and also great directors of that time. But
they were all you know, this is now in the
early sixties about to approach, you know, up to the
mid sixties, their best films probably were behind them. Dennis Hopper,
(02:43):
who was also a guest in her home, would in
just a few years be making easy writer and and
sort of render these great old stars and directors, you know,
out of touch, very difficult to get work now. Of course,
as a child growing up in this house, surrounded by
all this elegance and extravagance, you know, I didn't know
these people were as much as you know. They were
(03:04):
funnier and charming and made me laugh as a kid,
but I wouldn't know who they were until I looked
at my father's scrap books, and he'd been divorced, and
he luckily kept a record of these amazing years and
in our house and in his life as he traveled,
you know, to Europe with these people and would visit
royal families, and social interaction, particularly with you know, wealthy
(03:26):
and powerful and famous people was at that time his priority.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
So one of the things I think about when I
think about Dominic was that he had this very interesting
second act where the murder of your sister ended up
being the kind of galvanizing force where he became a
kind of you know, a chronicle of society crime, but also,
(03:52):
you know, in his own way, a sort of someone
who was really a person who was trying to change
how domestic violence and trying to stop that and shine
a light on it, and also you know, changed the
way that men were punished for things like that. It
hasn't really changed, but there was really a quest there,
(04:14):
I think, a sort of quins oud a quest. So
can you talk about that, because that is such an
I always am struck by things like that.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
Yeah, well, you're exactly right. I mean, in the years
prior to Dominique's murder, my father had gotten sober, he
had really reassessed his life. Everything had been stripped away
from him, money, all these social and powerful contacts he had,
you know, had abandoned him, and he was in exile,
self exile in a little town in Oregon where it
(04:42):
was car broke down, and he tried very much to
be writing. He wanted to write. That was the profession
he envisioned for himself, and so he would write us
these letters, Dominique, Alex and I, these single space letters,
and you could see he was working on his forum,
trying to find his voice. And he came back to
New York, and then Dominie, as you said, was attacked
and it changed at great cost. After the trial of
(05:05):
her killer, in which we were as a family put
through the mill of having to listen to the defense.
A man dragged my sister's name through the mud. It
was a dirty but common strategy, blaming the victim for
their own death. This was a textbook case of which
the jury bought completely and was kept out of watching
(05:28):
the testimony of a previous girlfriend of the killer, who
he had put in the hospital twice and hit her
so hard and just joined at her eye socket and
her jaw. It beat her senseless twice and put her
in the hospital twice. The jury was kept out of
this because it was prejudicial. I guess it's prejudicial to
have a prior history of violence against women. It speaks
(05:51):
I all of your character. So they were kept out.
They were kept out of seeing a tantrum that the
killer had and the Roman had to be dragged to
the ground by the bailiff, and then the killer has
to date served three and a half years for manslaughter.
They didn't even call it murder. So this changed all
of our lives. But this is where my father found
(06:13):
his voice and his cause and his purpose. And so
whenever he wrote about of which he became a reporter,
a very high profile reporter for very high profile cases.
And so when he covered OJ he never lets you
forget about the Browns or Nicole, and he never lets
you forget about Lana Clarkson. When who Phil Specter killed
(06:35):
media called a fourth rate actress's His daughter was an actress.
My mother, who had MS, was in a wheelchair all
the way through. We wheeled her into court every day
in our formation of my brother and I on either
side of her chair and my father pushing. We thought
this trial would kill her. It did just the opposite.
She became an activist as well for victims rights, and
(06:55):
she started a group called Justice for Victims of Homicide
in California, and she made laws Marcy's Law that protects
the right of victims of being notified when the killer
is out on bail, let out of jail, or prison.
You think that would be common practice to notify a family.
You know, she has other jault laws and they're instituted
in twenty three or thirty other states. In California. So
(07:17):
my parents, who I never detected, really any political passion from.
In fact, you know, while I was growing up in
idolizing Kennedy, they voted for Nixon. But you know, this
changed all so they became very political, which does make me,
I think, an app guest for your podcast.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Yeah, when people are able to turn terrible tragedies into
galvanizing moments.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
You know, it really is.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
And I remember how Dominic covered the Nicole Brown Simpson
murder and just it was a real sea change for
how we talk about victims.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
Yeah, it still happens though. When he was covering OJ
he was so personally invested for obvious reasons. But what
the Dream Team, I'm putting that in quotes, the tactics
that they were using. I would see him because it
was televised. I would see him in the spectator's office.
He always sat with the Browns. I could see the
toll it was taking on him. I'm in New York
(08:17):
and I can see in television that I think He's
going to have an heart attack just having to go
through this over and over again. He'd done trials like
this before, but this one really took a toll on him.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Yeah, I mean, I think that it really is.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
The way that Dominic covered the Nicohole Brown Simpson murder,
the OJ Simpson trial and a lot of these other
trials really was a sort of sea change for standing
up for victims and you know the experience of the victims'
families in ways that we probably hadn't seen before.
Speaker 4 (08:51):
Yes, however, I kind of relived our circumstance in nineteen
eighty three when Harvey Weinstein's came was thrown out in
the highest court in New York because in our case
I described to you, you know how the jury was
not allowed to watch the testimony of the killer's previous
(09:12):
victim in domestic violence. The reason that the judge said
he did this when the world came crashing down after
Dad stood up in the court room and called it unjust.
He said that he wasn't on trial for beating up
and putting in the hospital twice the woman that was testifying. Therefore,
the jury should not hear it. When the New York
(09:34):
courts threw out Harvey Weinstein's case. It was for the
exact reason. When other women who testified about their experience
of abuse with Harvey Weinstein and testified very effectively, the
New York courts ruled that's not what Harvey was being
tried for, so they threw that out and there for
the whole case. So it hasn't really quite changed. Judges
(09:55):
still get to choose whether a history of domestic violence
is relev UNDERDT. Incredibly enough.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
Yeah, but the idea of the victim's family being injected
into the coverage is new and important, or was at
the time very new and important. I'm wondering if you
could talk just for a minute about what the sort
of lessons of this literary family. I mean, we all
(10:22):
have them, the sort of broader lessons that you learned
writing this book.
Speaker 4 (10:27):
I always thought I would write a book. It was
on a bucket list of mine. I'm from a long
line of storytellers, and I envisioned writing a mostly humorous
book that would be along the lines of David Sedaris's
Me Talk Pretty of it being sort of different chapters
that were both funny and touching about my family and
having them intersect over the years, and when I started
(10:48):
to write chronologically, in order to do that, I kind
of had to wait a few years, not to get
out of the yoke of being from a literary family,
and what would they think or that I was going
to do a tell all of anything. As time went by,
when I looked at my loved ones and then, you know,
in my family who were no longer with me, their arcs,
the arcs of their character really became clear to me.
(11:12):
When I was writing chronologically, I could see the incredible
transformation of my father. So I was able to write
about his weaknesses as a young father and a young
husband and see that, you know, the shame that he
was he was burying and you know, was struggling with
alcohol and his closeted life. And I could see the
(11:33):
loneliness of my mother. I knew where they were going
to end up. I knew that they you know, I
used as an epitaph of my father that he once
said to me when I was criticizing him for something,
and he said, what could I say, kiddo, I'm a
work in progress. And I looked at all these characters
and I knew and I thought of them I mean,
as much as I produce, I make movies, I think
(11:55):
they were characters who I loved very much, and I
knew where they were going to end up. I walked away.
You know, when I finished this book, the hard part
was not writing about Dominique and being attacked and on
life support and going through what we went through in
the trial. Because I was in company while I was
writing it. They were all so vivid, right, you know.
The hard part was finishing it. I kind of went
into a state of mourning when I was finishing it,
(12:17):
and quite honestly, now I'm in this next chapter, you know,
promoting and talking about these these people in my family.
I feel them all over again and it's quite emotional.
Speaker 5 (12:27):
You know.
Speaker 4 (12:27):
My job is to be sort of in service of
their memory at this point, which was not as clear
a thought when I was writing it. I just wanted
to tell their story. That was my original intent, and
then I just kept on doing it. When I was finished,
I went, wow, look at these people. Wow, and I'm
related to them.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Yeah. Oh, Griffin, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 4 (12:46):
You're very welcome. Thank you, Mollie, good to talk to you.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
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Speaker 2 (13:13):
Doctor Marcus Anthony Hunt is a UCLA professor and the
author of Radical Reparations.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Welcome to Fast Politics, doctor Marcus Hunter.
Speaker 6 (13:22):
Thank you so much. I appreciate you and the whole
team for having me.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
We're delighted to have you.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
And it feels very much like something we should be
talking about right now, because the Supreme Court, in their
infinite fucked upness as one of their first decisions, and
I feel like it flew under the radar, but when
I saw it, I was like, of course, those fuckers,
So let's talk about the Tulsa massacre and also the
(13:50):
Supreme Court's just continual talk to me.
Speaker 5 (13:53):
Yeah, I think, you know, one of the intense things,
especially around Tulsa. I was fortunate enough to be invited
by doctor Tiffany Krutcher and the Terrence Krutcher Foundation and
Justice from Greenwood just earlier this month for their legacy
festivals celebrating one hundred and three years since the Tulsa
race massacre, and they were really hopeful about the possibilities
(14:14):
of the Oklahoma Supreme Court doing right by the survivors
and the descendants. And so I was in DC when
the decision came down that they won't even get their
day in court, which is wild and it's even wilder
because now there is a mountain or mountains of evidence
that demonstrate that this did actually happen. And I also
(14:37):
think a lot about the fact that when we hear
about descendants, when you meet them, like Mother Randall, who
I had the opportunity to meet while I was there,
she's a descendant, she's one hundred plus now, but it's
because she was a child when this happened. So the
children who witnessed, experienced and survived this never got a
chance to go before authorities and legal authorities and testify
(15:01):
and share that this crime happened to them and their community.
And the fact that they won't even get an opportunity
to present that before a jury of their peers is
really really disheartening and just a reflection of how deeply
important the issue of reparations of reparative justice is.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Yeah, I know that everyone who listens this podcast is
educated enough to know about the Tulsa massacre, but would
love it if you would just give us like a
little bit of background on it, for just the people
who are not completely read in on it.
Speaker 5 (15:36):
The Tulsa race massacre, which, by the way, I think
is still an adequate term to describe what happened. There
was a thriving black community in Greenwood, a neighborhood in
Tulsa that had actually arrived as formally enslaved people who
were enslaved by many of what are called the civilized tribes,
the Native Americans, who were made to participate in a
(15:58):
trail of tears. Folks don't know is that as they
were participating in a trail of tears, many of those
tribes brought along with them enslaved Black Africans. And so
those folks then later become the founders of a community
and a city named Tulsa, but the founders of a
community that blossoms in to what affectionately becomes called Black
Wall Street. And in nineteen twenty one, over two days
(16:22):
May thirtieth and thirty first, one of the most horrific
acts of domestic terrorism occurs whereby there are rapes, there
are bombings, burnings, hangings, shootings, and death of all of
those black residents who were in that community just because
they had become so successful. And so part of what's
(16:42):
happened over the years is one it's lived as a mythology,
only really held together in some ways. Shout out to
the great sociologist Charlie Wilson and a GAP band because
they keep it.
Speaker 6 (16:54):
In their name.
Speaker 5 (16:55):
Greenwood, Archer and Pine is what GAP stands for for
people who know the Gap Band, and one of the
most famous songs is called You Dropped a Bomb on Me.
They codify it in music as a way to say
and keep the memory alive that this happened to the community.
Charlie Wilson and that band are descendants of the Greenwood
massacre and the Tulsa Race massacre. And so part of
(17:17):
what's happened in recent time is that once Miss Breonna
Taylor and mister Floyd lost their lives, there became renewed
attention to this issue. As the one hundred year anniversary
was approaching, and so there's been a lot of action
around it. But in the last four years it was
getting some forward momentum for the very first time, and
(17:37):
the Oklahoma Supreme Court has decided that there's not enough
of a case from their judgment that it warrants them
having an actual day in court.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Yeah, it's just heartbreaking. And there aren't that many survivors
right exactly.
Speaker 5 (17:51):
There are only right now three living survivors. And then
when you go to the community, which is really deep,
and I encourage all of the folks who are listening
to us to, you know, take some time and go
visit Tulsa, because most all of the people who survived
it stayed, they didn't leave, and so there was also
like you go into the museum that they have there,
(18:13):
and there's, for example, a letter that a friend who's
living in Detroit writes to a survivor in Tulsa says,
you know, I read in the Chicago Defender about how
this happened down there, and here's forty dollars for a
bus ticket that I'll get you to Detroit. Come on
up here. And he writes back and he says, thank
you so much. I really appreciate that you care enough
(18:35):
about me, But I'm sending the money back to you
because I'm staying in Tulsa. So that's also just to
say that people stayed. So most all of the folks
who are native to Tulsa, the black natives of Tulsa,
not only are many of them Creak Indian, but also
they never left, so they're still there. So there's a
community of repair that is still there that has been
(18:56):
waiting for over now one hundred and three years.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
This Supreme Court terrible, is not anything new. But is
there any way to go around them? Is there anything
that these survivors can do? Is there any other legal recourse?
Speaker 5 (19:13):
Yeah, one of the recourses that we have, and this
is part of what happens in this country, is that
we no longer have government and there is not necessarily
public education around civic engagement. But we know, as you know,
there are three branches of government. Only one of them
is the judicial. The other one is the legislative, which,
of course, we can think about our elected officials passing,
(19:35):
for example, the Tolsa Race Massacred Descendants Fund.
Speaker 6 (19:39):
That could be an act that is passed in Congress.
Speaker 5 (19:41):
Okay. The other thing that we know is that there's
the executive branch where you have the president, the White House,
the Vice president, and their entire staff that can execute
either orders or actions on behalf of this community. And
so one of the things that I've been up to
for the last four or five years, working with Congressoman
Barbara Lee, is trying to encourage the bid To Harris
(20:02):
administration to more publicly use the bully paulpit to bring
more attention and public awareness to these issues, because underneath
the horror and the terror is a very positive story
because these folks, like Mother Randall have kept the faith.
They still believe that America can do right. Can you
imagine you watch your whole community be bombed and terrorized
(20:22):
for two entire days, then many of them were put
in internment camps afterwards, which many folks don't know. And
fast forward after being over one hundred years old, you
still believe in the American justice system, You still believe
in the American legislative system. They still vote, you know
what I mean. And so it's really about getting the
(20:43):
right light shed on this issue because when you find
out most Americans find out about this, and their hearts
go out to these folks, their hearts break for them.
Speaker 6 (20:52):
And the question is why.
Speaker 5 (20:53):
Has the Bida Harris administration not shined an appropriate light
or reparative justice across the nation where so many communities
are activating based on the idea of democracy, working and
trying to protect and defend that democracy.
Speaker 6 (21:07):
Why have we not seen the.
Speaker 5 (21:09):
President travel down after this announcement, came out and sit
with mother Randall and just comfort her. That is it
taking a position that's just recognizing the compassionate humanity, and
then it in charges the media to follow the story,
you know.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
Right right?
Speaker 1 (21:25):
And also, I mean I think the position that they
should have their day in court is not a controversial position.
Speaker 5 (21:31):
It's a very you know, it's a very American belief,
you know, like we're not saying that the court is
going to be in your favor, but you, after knowing
what happened, you should be entitled to your day in court.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
Yeah, that's my feeling too, So, uh, talk to me
more broadly though, there are some.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
Like it does feel.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Like, well, there have been a lot of steps back
recently towards racial justice. I'm thinking about like the other
stuff the Supreme Court has done. There have been some
big wins too.
Speaker 6 (22:06):
Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 5 (22:07):
I mean, for me, this whole journey in terms of
like national federal government legislation. Things started with Congressman Barbaroly
calling me on my personal phone five now six years
ago and saying that she wanted to write legislation to
create the first Every US Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation Commission.
(22:27):
I couldn't believe I got that phone call I saw
in two o two.
Speaker 6 (22:31):
I thought it was the IRS. I thought it was
you know.
Speaker 5 (22:33):
Student Loan, and I almost didn't answer, you know, and
when I answered, it was her And.
Speaker 6 (22:38):
She saw me on c spam Book TV doing a panel.
Speaker 5 (22:41):
I was moderating a panel on slavery, and she said,
I watched it and I just wanted you to know
how amazing it was and that you're doing good working.
If you're available, I would love for you to work
with me on this, And you know, I said, of course.
And over the course of that journey, I've met so
many people from so many different walks of life, so
many different races and religions and ethnicities who are all
(23:04):
working around issues of truth, reparations, reparative justice, equity, anti poverty,
voting rights that most of America doesn't get to know about.
And so part of what I've been feeling a lot
about is like people would be surprised to find out
that there are so many towns, cities, regions, states, and
areas of the country and worlds where black people are
(23:26):
not the dominant majority and they're doing a reparations process.
You know, California did the first in the nation ever
reparations commission, and they didn't even become a state until
eighteen fifty. And the nation did not fall apart. California
didn't succeed from the Union, Northern California didn't become its
own state. Los Angeles is still intact because it's a
democratic process, and it demonstrates that you can use this
(23:49):
process to actually find out where the harm lies, where
the damage is. And it's really just saying, why can't
we use reparations as an invitation to create a more
beautiful America. I mean, that's my position on it. And
when you talk with a lot of people, that's the
place that they're operating from. It's not from a place
of anger or hate or rage or zero sum. It's like,
(24:12):
rather than waiting for another war to come, another conflict,
another virus to kill people, and then to use that
to unleash all of the full resources that America has
in its arsenal. We could actually just use the premise
of our history native land dispossession and enslavering Black Africans
as the kind of continuous permission to build a better nation.
(24:33):
We could just do it from that place and it
would be beneficial to everyone.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
Yeah. I also think that it's a question of like
are we.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Of country that is fair and just or are we
a country that is not fair? You know, like this
is I mean, who do we want to.
Speaker 6 (24:50):
Be that's right?
Speaker 5 (24:51):
And are we a country that continues to operate with
multiple injuries?
Speaker 6 (24:57):
The answer is yes.
Speaker 5 (24:58):
If we were a national foo fotball team, it would
be like, you know, Aaron Rodgers got injured the first
game with the Jets ACL tear, you got to go
have surgery. Not only do we have an ACL tair,
then we had a knee tair, a back tair, all
of these different things. When people say trail of tears,
when people say slavery, when people say Jim Crow. These
if we think about the body, these are injuries to
(25:19):
the body. And yet and still we then go to
war multiple times over our history, and we think that
we're fully healthy in when we're doing this, rather than
being on the field of the global stage, playing injured
all of the time. And of course, when you have
an injury and you have to go to the hospital
and go through a healing, it isn't the most fun
thing initially, But when you get on the other side
(25:41):
and you're actually healed from it, you're back better than ever.
You know, you can then take on what's ahead. And
we know that the world has so much more other
things that are on the horizon, other challenges that if
we continue to be on a global field playing injured,
I don't know how long we can keep pace.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
No, I agree.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
I also wonder a little bit about how it might
fix the sort of brokenness in America.
Speaker 5 (26:09):
Yeah, one thing that could happen is that we could
really get into the point that once upon a time,
not long ago, there was no such thing as white people.
It just did not exist. And the reason why whiteness
was working is because there was a dominant majority that
was experiencing a kind of dominant experience of upward mobility,
of you know, American dream happening in your family, the
(26:32):
kind of Horatio Alger story. But what we've been seeing
for the last fifty years in white communities, for so
called white communities, opioid epidemics, the loss of intergenerational wealth,
educational outcomes declining, people dying of early ages. All sorts
of things that traditionally were thought to be happening only
in marginalized communities are now happening amongst a dominant group.
(26:55):
Hence the tea Party, they insurrect, all of they occupy
Wall Street. And if people start to understand that whiteness
is a scam and at the very least one of
the most toxic identities ever created, then we can start
to think, like, Yeah, why am I invested in an
identity that's.
Speaker 6 (27:11):
Literally killing me and other people?
Speaker 5 (27:13):
Why am I invested in something that makes me responsible
for a US government that created a three fifths clause
in its own constitution? Why am I invested in identity
that is no longer returning the benefits that they promised me?
That is I think a big part of it is
understanding that a lot of these things that people are
in vested in are lives that were told to them
(27:34):
so that they could feel okay with being in a
kind of dominant experience, and that experience is becoming less
accessible for everyone. But with the affirmative action conversations and
Supreme Court decisions. It just keeps feeding the distortion that
when black people or a LATINX folks or Asian Americans
are getting success, it's at the expense of the dominant majority,
(27:54):
when in fact, LATINX, black and Asian folks are not
experiencing this super generational, once in a lifetime generational mobility.
Most Americans are finding a loss at it, and rather
than attending to that, they just distract us with stories
about the fearless fun is just for black women.
Speaker 6 (28:12):
That's unfair.
Speaker 5 (28:13):
You know, Evanston is going to give out ten million
dollars to descendants of African American descendants of slavery.
Speaker 6 (28:20):
That's not fair.
Speaker 5 (28:20):
And it's like, but we learned when a coronavirus came
something we never expected to happen and killed millions of people,
there were trillions of dollars available. People got PPP loans,
including members of Congress, and no one bad it than I.
So we know that the resources are there, and we
know that they don't take away from somebody. It wasn't
like the PPP loan was money that they took from
(28:43):
San Francisco to give the Los Angeles.
Speaker 6 (28:45):
It didn't work like that.
Speaker 5 (28:46):
It came from the collective pot that we call the
United States government and it went to everyone in need.
And that's what reparative justice is about in the first place.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
So there's some anxiety that Biden is not performing as
well as he has historically with black voters.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
What could he do to win black voters?
Speaker 5 (29:05):
What he can do is one listen more than he speaks,
to take and make the meeting with Congresswomen Barbara Lee
that she's been waiting for his entire administration. We've now
done three open letter campaigns, public open letter campaigns, including
one that she coordinated with her colleague, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson,
league Congresswomen Corey Bush and Congressman Jamal Bowman. They've asked
(29:29):
for a meeting.
Speaker 6 (29:30):
That was it. There's been no meeting.
Speaker 5 (29:32):
And Congresswomen Barbara Lee is the highest ranking black woman
in the US Congress. How can you just decide not
to meet with her? That tells me everything about what
you think about black people and black voters. And part
of what happens is when you try to make them
accountable for that, there's this pushback of like, we're the
most diverse administration. Ever, on day one, we put forward
(29:54):
a racial Equity Executive Order, the first of his kind,
Katanji Brown, Kamala Harris, and it's like, I don't weaponize
black representation to silence people about the things that the
community needs, especially because some of the things that they're acclaiming,
for example, the most diverse administration, the Racial Equity Order,
(30:14):
all of these other gods. They closed the black white
wealth gap at percentages not seen in many years or
in decades.
Speaker 6 (30:20):
That is the responsibility of every president.
Speaker 5 (30:23):
If we're talking about society that was founded on enslaving
Black Africans, there was a gap when you got the
job that you got to close. That's always every president's job.
So you're doing it, okay. But why you were hired,
why seventy two plus million people voted for you, was
because Breonna Taylor lost her life. Was because George Floyd
lost his life. And you brought George Floyd's grieving orter
(30:45):
to your office and you told her on national television
you would get this done for her, and you would
bring her back to the Oval office and sign this bill.
Four years later, that has not happened. Four years later.
There have been multiple state of the unions where Breonna
Taylor's name has not even been mentioned. And I think
as citizens, as people who care about our democracy, we
(31:06):
all have a duty to ensure that this remains an
unfulfilled promise and not a lot, because if we start
to live in a world where elected officials are allowed
to publicly on camera lie to black children, then what
are we here for?
Speaker 3 (31:19):
Such a good point. Thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 6 (31:22):
You already know.
Speaker 5 (31:23):
Thank you so much for holding the space and for
modeling for your colleagues across the media spectrum that these
kinds of conversations are really needed and actually really positive.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to hear the best minds
in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you
enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend
and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
today's best minds.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Happy Independence Day. We're on vacation with that doesn't mean
we don't have a great show for you today. Doctor
Marcus Anthony Hunt Stopspy to talk to us about the Tulsa,
Oklahoma massacre and the quest honor it. But first we
have actor Griffin Dunn on his new book The Friday
Afternoon Club, a family Memoir.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Welcome to Fast Politics, Griffin Don.
Speaker 4 (00:28):
Thank you for having me. Molly.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
I really wanted to talk to you about this book
because it's not really politics, and Jesse.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Is always like it's Fast Politics, Molly.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
But I felt like we should talk about it because
your story is in the intersection of all of these
different important political moments. It can you talk to us
about just growing up in LA and a little bit
about what that looked.
Speaker 4 (00:53):
Like bagging up than just La and the book does
intersect with many moments and really in history. In order
to get to my childhood and growing up in Los
Angeles in my teen years, I had to as this
was always subtitle in my mind, a family memoir, I
had to go all the way back to Pancho Villa
(01:15):
in the Mexican Revolution that you know, drove my mother's
family to No Gallas, the border town in Mexico and Arizona,
and the Irish famine. And I was always conscious as
I was approaching Hollywood, you know, I would be passing
you know, World War two, how that intersected and my
mother's side of the family and my father's side of
(01:36):
the family, my father in particular, who was in fact
a war hero and fought in Battle of the Bulge.
So when I was growing up first in New York,
where my father was in live television and that occupation
brought him to to Hollywood in nineteen sixty where television
was you know, still black and white and about to
(01:58):
maybe go into color. We were in this house that
my probably my mother bought. She was from a family
in Chicago. Her father was a Griffin and there was
a Griffin wheel company and they it was really an empire,
and all the wheels in America, on train on pullman
train cars were with Griffin wheels. So my parents were
(02:19):
very social, my father in particular, and they were married
and gave parties with you know, some of the greatest
movie stars, most elegant, glamorous, David Nivid and you know,
Joseph Cotton, and also great directors of that time. But
they were all you know, this is now in the
early sixties about to approach, you know, up to the
mid sixties, their best films probably were behind them. Dennis Hopper,
(02:43):
who was also a guest in her home, would in
just a few years be making easy writer and and
sort of render these great old stars and directors, you know,
out of touch, very difficult to get work now. Of course,
as a child growing up in this house, surrounded by
all this elegance and extravagance, you know, I didn't know
these people were as much as you know. They were
(03:04):
funnier and charming and made me laugh as a kid,
but I wouldn't know who they were until I looked
at my father's scrap books, and he'd been divorced, and
he luckily kept a record of these amazing years and
in our house and in his life as he traveled,
you know, to Europe with these people and would visit
royal families, and social interaction, particularly with you know, wealthy
(03:26):
and powerful and famous people was at that time his priority.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
So one of the things I think about when I
think about Dominic was that he had this very interesting
second act where the murder of your sister ended up
being the kind of galvanizing force where he became a
kind of you know, a chronicle of society crime, but also,
(03:52):
you know, in his own way, a sort of someone
who was really a person who was trying to change
how domestic violence and trying to stop that and shine
a light on it, and also you know, changed the
way that men were punished for things like that. It
hasn't really changed, but there was really a quest there,
(04:14):
I think, a sort of quins oud a quest. So
can you talk about that, because that is such an
I always am struck by things like that.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
Yeah, well, you're exactly right. I mean, in the years
prior to Dominique's murder, my father had gotten sober, he
had really reassessed his life. Everything had been stripped away
from him, money, all these social and powerful contacts he had,
you know, had abandoned him, and he was in exile,
self exile in a little town in Oregon where it
(04:42):
was car broke down, and he tried very much to
be writing. He wanted to write. That was the profession
he envisioned for himself, and so he would write us
these letters, Dominique, Alex and I, these single space letters,
and you could see he was working on his forum,
trying to find his voice. And he came back to
New York, and then Dominie, as you said, was attacked
and it changed at great cost. After the trial of
(05:05):
her killer, in which we were as a family put
through the mill of having to listen to the defense.
A man dragged my sister's name through the mud. It
was a dirty but common strategy, blaming the victim for
their own death. This was a textbook case of which
the jury bought completely and was kept out of watching
(05:28):
the testimony of a previous girlfriend of the killer, who
he had put in the hospital twice and hit her
so hard and just joined at her eye socket and
her jaw. It beat her senseless twice and put her
in the hospital twice. The jury was kept out of
this because it was prejudicial. I guess it's prejudicial to
have a prior history of violence against women. It speaks
(05:51):
I all of your character. So they were kept out.
They were kept out of seeing a tantrum that the
killer had and the Roman had to be dragged to
the ground by the bailiff, and then the killer has
to date served three and a half years for manslaughter.
They didn't even call it murder. So this changed all
of our lives. But this is where my father found
(06:13):
his voice and his cause and his purpose. And so
whenever he wrote about of which he became a reporter,
a very high profile reporter for very high profile cases.
And so when he covered OJ he never lets you
forget about the Browns or Nicole, and he never lets
you forget about Lana Clarkson. When who Phil Specter killed
(06:35):
media called a fourth rate actress's His daughter was an actress.
My mother, who had MS, was in a wheelchair all
the way through. We wheeled her into court every day
in our formation of my brother and I on either
side of her chair and my father pushing. We thought
this trial would kill her. It did just the opposite.
She became an activist as well for victims rights, and
(06:55):
she started a group called Justice for Victims of Homicide
in California, and she made laws Marcy's Law that protects
the right of victims of being notified when the killer
is out on bail, let out of jail, or prison.
You think that would be common practice to notify a family.
You know, she has other jault laws and they're instituted
in twenty three or thirty other states. In California. So
(07:17):
my parents, who I never detected, really any political passion from.
In fact, you know, while I was growing up in
idolizing Kennedy, they voted for Nixon. But you know, this
changed all so they became very political, which does make me,
I think, an app guest for your podcast.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Yeah, when people are able to turn terrible tragedies into
galvanizing moments.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
You know, it really is.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
And I remember how Dominic covered the Nicole Brown Simpson
murder and just it was a real sea change for
how we talk about victims.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
Yeah, it still happens though. When he was covering OJ
he was so personally invested for obvious reasons. But what
the Dream Team, I'm putting that in quotes, the tactics
that they were using. I would see him because it
was televised. I would see him in the spectator's office.
He always sat with the Browns. I could see the
toll it was taking on him. I'm in New York
(08:17):
and I can see in television that I think He's
going to have an heart attack just having to go
through this over and over again. He'd done trials like
this before, but this one really took a toll on him.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Yeah, I mean, I think that it really is.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
The way that Dominic covered the Nicohole Brown Simpson murder,
the OJ Simpson trial and a lot of these other
trials really was a sort of sea change for standing
up for victims and you know the experience of the victims'
families in ways that we probably hadn't seen before.
Speaker 4 (08:51):
Yes, however, I kind of relived our circumstance in nineteen
eighty three when Harvey Weinstein's came was thrown out in
the highest court in New York because in our case
I described to you, you know how the jury was
not allowed to watch the testimony of the killer's previous
(09:12):
victim in domestic violence. The reason that the judge said
he did this when the world came crashing down after
Dad stood up in the court room and called it unjust.
He said that he wasn't on trial for beating up
and putting in the hospital twice the woman that was testifying. Therefore,
the jury should not hear it. When the New York
(09:34):
courts threw out Harvey Weinstein's case. It was for the
exact reason. When other women who testified about their experience
of abuse with Harvey Weinstein and testified very effectively, the
New York courts ruled that's not what Harvey was being
tried for, so they threw that out and there for
the whole case. So it hasn't really quite changed. Judges
(09:55):
still get to choose whether a history of domestic violence
is relev UNDERDT. Incredibly enough.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
Yeah, but the idea of the victim's family being injected
into the coverage is new and important, or was at
the time very new and important. I'm wondering if you
could talk just for a minute about what the sort
of lessons of this literary family. I mean, we all
(10:22):
have them, the sort of broader lessons that you learned
writing this book.
Speaker 4 (10:27):
I always thought I would write a book. It was
on a bucket list of mine. I'm from a long
line of storytellers, and I envisioned writing a mostly humorous
book that would be along the lines of David Sedaris's
Me Talk Pretty of it being sort of different chapters
that were both funny and touching about my family and
having them intersect over the years, and when I started
(10:48):
to write chronologically, in order to do that, I kind
of had to wait a few years, not to get
out of the yoke of being from a literary family,
and what would they think or that I was going
to do a tell all of anything. As time went by,
when I looked at my loved ones and then, you know,
in my family who were no longer with me, their arcs,
the arcs of their character really became clear to me.
(11:12):
When I was writing chronologically, I could see the incredible
transformation of my father. So I was able to write
about his weaknesses as a young father and a young
husband and see that, you know, the shame that he
was he was burying and you know, was struggling with
alcohol and his closeted life. And I could see the
(11:33):
loneliness of my mother. I knew where they were going
to end up. I knew that they you know, I
used as an epitaph of my father that he once
said to me when I was criticizing him for something,
and he said, what could I say, kiddo, I'm a
work in progress. And I looked at all these characters
and I knew and I thought of them I mean,
as much as I produce, I make movies, I think
(11:55):
they were characters who I loved very much, and I
knew where they were going to end up. I walked away.
You know, when I finished this book, the hard part
was not writing about Dominique and being attacked and on
life support and going through what we went through in
the trial. Because I was in company while I was
writing it. They were all so vivid, right, you know.
The hard part was finishing it. I kind of went
into a state of mourning when I was finishing it,
(12:17):
and quite honestly, now I'm in this next chapter, you know,
promoting and talking about these these people in my family.
I feel them all over again and it's quite emotional.
Speaker 5 (12:27):
You know.
Speaker 4 (12:27):
My job is to be sort of in service of
their memory at this point, which was not as clear
a thought when I was writing it. I just wanted
to tell their story. That was my original intent, and
then I just kept on doing it. When I was finished,
I went, wow, look at these people. Wow, and I'm
related to them.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Yeah. Oh, Griffin, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 4 (12:46):
You're very welcome. Thank you, Mollie, good to talk to you.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Spring is here, and I bet you are trying to
look fashionable, so why not pick up some fashionable all
new Fast Politics merchandise. We just opened a news store
with all new designs just for you. Get t shirts, hoodies, hats,
and toe bags. To grab some, head to fastpolitics dot com.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Doctor Marcus Anthony Hunt is a UCLA professor and the
author of Radical Reparations.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Welcome to Fast Politics, doctor Marcus Hunter.
Speaker 6 (13:22):
Thank you so much. I appreciate you and the whole
team for having me.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
We're delighted to have you.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
And it feels very much like something we should be
talking about right now, because the Supreme Court, in their
infinite fucked upness as one of their first decisions, and
I feel like it flew under the radar, but when
I saw it, I was like, of course, those fuckers,
So let's talk about the Tulsa massacre and also the
(13:50):
Supreme Court's just continual talk to me.
Speaker 5 (13:53):
Yeah, I think, you know, one of the intense things,
especially around Tulsa. I was fortunate enough to be invited
by doctor Tiffany Krutcher and the Terrence Krutcher Foundation and
Justice from Greenwood just earlier this month for their legacy
festivals celebrating one hundred and three years since the Tulsa
race massacre, and they were really hopeful about the possibilities
(14:14):
of the Oklahoma Supreme Court doing right by the survivors
and the descendants. And so I was in DC when
the decision came down that they won't even get their
day in court, which is wild and it's even wilder
because now there is a mountain or mountains of evidence
that demonstrate that this did actually happen. And I also
(14:37):
think a lot about the fact that when we hear
about descendants, when you meet them, like Mother Randall, who
I had the opportunity to meet while I was there,
she's a descendant, she's one hundred plus now, but it's
because she was a child when this happened. So the
children who witnessed, experienced and survived this never got a
chance to go before authorities and legal authorities and testify
(15:01):
and share that this crime happened to them and their community.
And the fact that they won't even get an opportunity
to present that before a jury of their peers is
really really disheartening and just a reflection of how deeply
important the issue of reparations of reparative justice is.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Yeah, I know that everyone who listens this podcast is
educated enough to know about the Tulsa massacre, but would
love it if you would just give us like a
little bit of background on it, for just the people
who are not completely read in on it.
Speaker 5 (15:36):
The Tulsa race massacre, which, by the way, I think
is still an adequate term to describe what happened. There
was a thriving black community in Greenwood, a neighborhood in
Tulsa that had actually arrived as formally enslaved people who
were enslaved by many of what are called the civilized tribes,
the Native Americans, who were made to participate in a
(15:58):
trail of tears. Folks don't know is that as they
were participating in a trail of tears, many of those
tribes brought along with them enslaved Black Africans. And so
those folks then later become the founders of a community
and a city named Tulsa, but the founders of a
community that blossoms in to what affectionately becomes called Black
Wall Street. And in nineteen twenty one, over two days
(16:22):
May thirtieth and thirty first, one of the most horrific
acts of domestic terrorism occurs whereby there are rapes, there
are bombings, burnings, hangings, shootings, and death of all of
those black residents who were in that community just because
they had become so successful. And so part of what's
(16:42):
happened over the years is one it's lived as a mythology,
only really held together in some ways. Shout out to
the great sociologist Charlie Wilson and a GAP band because
they keep it.
Speaker 6 (16:54):
In their name.
Speaker 5 (16:55):
Greenwood, Archer and Pine is what GAP stands for for
people who know the Gap Band, and one of the
most famous songs is called You Dropped a Bomb on Me.
They codify it in music as a way to say
and keep the memory alive that this happened to the community.
Charlie Wilson and that band are descendants of the Greenwood
massacre and the Tulsa Race massacre. And so part of
(17:17):
what's happened in recent time is that once Miss Breonna
Taylor and mister Floyd lost their lives, there became renewed
attention to this issue. As the one hundred year anniversary
was approaching, and so there's been a lot of action
around it. But in the last four years it was
getting some forward momentum for the very first time, and
(17:37):
the Oklahoma Supreme Court has decided that there's not enough
of a case from their judgment that it warrants them
having an actual day in court.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Yeah, it's just heartbreaking. And there aren't that many survivors
right exactly.
Speaker 5 (17:51):
There are only right now three living survivors. And then
when you go to the community, which is really deep,
and I encourage all of the folks who are listening
to us to, you know, take some time and go
visit Tulsa, because most all of the people who survived
it stayed, they didn't leave, and so there was also
like you go into the museum that they have there,
(18:13):
and there's, for example, a letter that a friend who's
living in Detroit writes to a survivor in Tulsa says,
you know, I read in the Chicago Defender about how
this happened down there, and here's forty dollars for a
bus ticket that I'll get you to Detroit. Come on
up here. And he writes back and he says, thank
you so much. I really appreciate that you care enough
(18:35):
about me, But I'm sending the money back to you
because I'm staying in Tulsa. So that's also just to
say that people stayed. So most all of the folks
who are native to Tulsa, the black natives of Tulsa,
not only are many of them Creak Indian, but also
they never left, so they're still there. So there's a
community of repair that is still there that has been
(18:56):
waiting for over now one hundred and three years.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
This Supreme Court terrible, is not anything new. But is
there any way to go around them? Is there anything
that these survivors can do? Is there any other legal recourse?
Speaker 5 (19:13):
Yeah, one of the recourses that we have, and this
is part of what happens in this country, is that
we no longer have government and there is not necessarily
public education around civic engagement. But we know, as you know,
there are three branches of government. Only one of them
is the judicial. The other one is the legislative, which,
of course, we can think about our elected officials passing,
(19:35):
for example, the Tolsa Race Massacred Descendants Fund.
Speaker 6 (19:39):
That could be an act that is passed in Congress.
Speaker 5 (19:41):
Okay. The other thing that we know is that there's
the executive branch where you have the president, the White House,
the Vice president, and their entire staff that can execute
either orders or actions on behalf of this community. And
so one of the things that I've been up to
for the last four or five years, working with Congressoman
Barbara Lee, is trying to encourage the bid To Harris
(20:02):
administration to more publicly use the bully paulpit to bring
more attention and public awareness to these issues, because underneath
the horror and the terror is a very positive story
because these folks, like Mother Randall have kept the faith.
They still believe that America can do right. Can you
imagine you watch your whole community be bombed and terrorized
(20:22):
for two entire days, then many of them were put
in internment camps afterwards, which many folks don't know. And
fast forward after being over one hundred years old, you
still believe in the American justice system, You still believe
in the American legislative system. They still vote, you know
what I mean. And so it's really about getting the
(20:43):
right light shed on this issue because when you find
out most Americans find out about this, and their hearts
go out to these folks, their hearts break for them.
Speaker 6 (20:52):
And the question is why.
Speaker 5 (20:53):
Has the Bida Harris administration not shined an appropriate light
or reparative justice across the nation where so many communities
are activating based on the idea of democracy, working and
trying to protect and defend that democracy.
Speaker 6 (21:07):
Why have we not seen the.
Speaker 5 (21:09):
President travel down after this announcement, came out and sit
with mother Randall and just comfort her. That is it
taking a position that's just recognizing the compassionate humanity, and
then it in charges the media to follow the story,
you know.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
Right right?
Speaker 1 (21:25):
And also, I mean I think the position that they
should have their day in court is not a controversial position.
Speaker 5 (21:31):
It's a very you know, it's a very American belief,
you know, like we're not saying that the court is
going to be in your favor, but you, after knowing
what happened, you should be entitled to your day in court.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
Yeah, that's my feeling too, So, uh, talk to me
more broadly though, there are some.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
Like it does feel.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Like, well, there have been a lot of steps back
recently towards racial justice. I'm thinking about like the other
stuff the Supreme Court has done. There have been some
big wins too.
Speaker 6 (22:06):
Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 5 (22:07):
I mean, for me, this whole journey in terms of
like national federal government legislation. Things started with Congressman Barbaroly
calling me on my personal phone five now six years
ago and saying that she wanted to write legislation to
create the first Every US Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation Commission.
(22:27):
I couldn't believe I got that phone call I saw
in two o two.
Speaker 6 (22:31):
I thought it was the IRS. I thought it was
you know.
Speaker 5 (22:33):
Student Loan, and I almost didn't answer, you know, and
when I answered, it was her And.
Speaker 6 (22:38):
She saw me on c spam Book TV doing a panel.
Speaker 5 (22:41):
I was moderating a panel on slavery, and she said,
I watched it and I just wanted you to know
how amazing it was and that you're doing good working.
If you're available, I would love for you to work
with me on this, And you know, I said, of course.
And over the course of that journey, I've met so
many people from so many different walks of life, so
many different races and religions and ethnicities who are all
(23:04):
working around issues of truth, reparations, reparative justice, equity, anti poverty,
voting rights that most of America doesn't get to know about.
And so part of what I've been feeling a lot
about is like people would be surprised to find out
that there are so many towns, cities, regions, states, and
areas of the country and worlds where black people are
(23:26):
not the dominant majority and they're doing a reparations process.
You know, California did the first in the nation ever
reparations commission, and they didn't even become a state until
eighteen fifty. And the nation did not fall apart. California
didn't succeed from the Union, Northern California didn't become its
own state. Los Angeles is still intact because it's a
democratic process, and it demonstrates that you can use this
(23:49):
process to actually find out where the harm lies, where
the damage is. And it's really just saying, why can't
we use reparations as an invitation to create a more
beautiful America. I mean, that's my position on it. And
when you talk with a lot of people, that's the
place that they're operating from. It's not from a place
of anger or hate or rage or zero sum. It's like,
(24:12):
rather than waiting for another war to come, another conflict,
another virus to kill people, and then to use that
to unleash all of the full resources that America has
in its arsenal. We could actually just use the premise
of our history native land dispossession and enslavering Black Africans
as the kind of continuous permission to build a better nation.
(24:33):
We could just do it from that place and it
would be beneficial to everyone.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
Yeah. I also think that it's a question of like
are we.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Of country that is fair and just or are we
a country that is not fair? You know, like this
is I mean, who do we want to.
Speaker 6 (24:50):
Be that's right?
Speaker 5 (24:51):
And are we a country that continues to operate with
multiple injuries?
Speaker 6 (24:57):
The answer is yes.
Speaker 5 (24:58):
If we were a national foo fotball team, it would
be like, you know, Aaron Rodgers got injured the first
game with the Jets ACL tear, you got to go
have surgery. Not only do we have an ACL tair,
then we had a knee tair, a back tair, all
of these different things. When people say trail of tears,
when people say slavery, when people say Jim Crow. These
if we think about the body, these are injuries to
(25:19):
the body. And yet and still we then go to
war multiple times over our history, and we think that
we're fully healthy in when we're doing this, rather than
being on the field of the global stage, playing injured
all of the time. And of course, when you have
an injury and you have to go to the hospital
and go through a healing, it isn't the most fun
thing initially, But when you get on the other side
(25:41):
and you're actually healed from it, you're back better than ever.
You know, you can then take on what's ahead. And
we know that the world has so much more other
things that are on the horizon, other challenges that if
we continue to be on a global field playing injured,
I don't know how long we can keep pace.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
No, I agree.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
I also wonder a little bit about how it might
fix the sort of brokenness in America.
Speaker 5 (26:09):
Yeah, one thing that could happen is that we could
really get into the point that once upon a time,
not long ago, there was no such thing as white people.
It just did not exist. And the reason why whiteness
was working is because there was a dominant majority that
was experiencing a kind of dominant experience of upward mobility,
of you know, American dream happening in your family, the
(26:32):
kind of Horatio Alger story. But what we've been seeing
for the last fifty years in white communities, for so
called white communities, opioid epidemics, the loss of intergenerational wealth,
educational outcomes declining, people dying of early ages. All sorts
of things that traditionally were thought to be happening only
in marginalized communities are now happening amongst a dominant group.
(26:55):
Hence the tea Party, they insurrect, all of they occupy
Wall Street. And if people start to understand that whiteness
is a scam and at the very least one of
the most toxic identities ever created, then we can start
to think, like, Yeah, why am I invested in an
identity that's.
Speaker 6 (27:11):
Literally killing me and other people?
Speaker 5 (27:13):
Why am I invested in something that makes me responsible
for a US government that created a three fifths clause
in its own constitution? Why am I invested in identity
that is no longer returning the benefits that they promised me?
That is I think a big part of it is
understanding that a lot of these things that people are
in vested in are lives that were told to them
(27:34):
so that they could feel okay with being in a
kind of dominant experience, and that experience is becoming less
accessible for everyone. But with the affirmative action conversations and
Supreme Court decisions. It just keeps feeding the distortion that
when black people or a LATINX folks or Asian Americans
are getting success, it's at the expense of the dominant majority,
(27:54):
when in fact, LATINX, black and Asian folks are not
experiencing this super generational, once in a lifetime generational mobility.
Most Americans are finding a loss at it, and rather
than attending to that, they just distract us with stories
about the fearless fun is just for black women.
Speaker 6 (28:12):
That's unfair.
Speaker 5 (28:13):
You know, Evanston is going to give out ten million
dollars to descendants of African American descendants of slavery.
Speaker 6 (28:20):
That's not fair.
Speaker 5 (28:20):
And it's like, but we learned when a coronavirus came
something we never expected to happen and killed millions of people,
there were trillions of dollars available. People got PPP loans,
including members of Congress, and no one bad it than I.
So we know that the resources are there, and we
know that they don't take away from somebody. It wasn't
like the PPP loan was money that they took from
(28:43):
San Francisco to give the Los Angeles.
Speaker 6 (28:45):
It didn't work like that.
Speaker 5 (28:46):
It came from the collective pot that we call the
United States government and it went to everyone in need.
And that's what reparative justice is about in the first place.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
So there's some anxiety that Biden is not performing as
well as he has historically with black voters.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
What could he do to win black voters?
Speaker 5 (29:05):
What he can do is one listen more than he speaks,
to take and make the meeting with Congresswomen Barbara Lee
that she's been waiting for his entire administration. We've now
done three open letter campaigns, public open letter campaigns, including
one that she coordinated with her colleague, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson,
league Congresswomen Corey Bush and Congressman Jamal Bowman. They've asked
(29:29):
for a meeting.
Speaker 6 (29:30):
That was it. There's been no meeting.
Speaker 5 (29:32):
And Congresswomen Barbara Lee is the highest ranking black woman
in the US Congress. How can you just decide not
to meet with her? That tells me everything about what
you think about black people and black voters. And part
of what happens is when you try to make them
accountable for that, there's this pushback of like, we're the
most diverse administration. Ever, on day one, we put forward
(29:54):
a racial Equity Executive Order, the first of his kind,
Katanji Brown, Kamala Harris, and it's like, I don't weaponize
black representation to silence people about the things that the
community needs, especially because some of the things that they're acclaiming,
for example, the most diverse administration, the Racial Equity Order,
(30:14):
all of these other gods. They closed the black white
wealth gap at percentages not seen in many years or
in decades.
Speaker 6 (30:20):
That is the responsibility of every president.
Speaker 5 (30:23):
If we're talking about society that was founded on enslaving
Black Africans, there was a gap when you got the
job that you got to close. That's always every president's job.
So you're doing it, okay. But why you were hired,
why seventy two plus million people voted for you, was
because Breonna Taylor lost her life. Was because George Floyd
lost his life. And you brought George Floyd's grieving orter
(30:45):
to your office and you told her on national television
you would get this done for her, and you would
bring her back to the Oval office and sign this bill.
Four years later, that has not happened. Four years later.
There have been multiple state of the unions where Breonna
Taylor's name has not even been mentioned. And I think
as citizens, as people who care about our democracy, we
(31:06):
all have a duty to ensure that this remains an
unfulfilled promise and not a lot, because if we start
to live in a world where elected officials are allowed
to publicly on camera lie to black children, then what
are we here for?
Speaker 3 (31:19):
Such a good point. Thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 6 (31:22):
You already know.
Speaker 5 (31:23):
Thank you so much for holding the space and for
modeling for your colleagues across the media spectrum that these
kinds of conversations are really needed and actually really positive.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to hear the best minds
in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you
enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend
and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.
Host
Molly Jong-Fast
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