Episode 35: Blacks and Democrats: A Failed Marriage, with Dr. Marc Lamont Hill

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Up next. Wow what Giano called part of the gig
which switch secually, we all know that the black community
votes overwhelmingly for Democrats, so much so that the Democratic
Party takes the black vote for granted. Is it time
for black folks to take charge of their voting habits. Today,
one of the left leading intellectuals and I debate the
black communities relationship with the Democratic Party. This is allied

(00:21):
with Gianno called well, thank you Dr Mark Lamont Hill
for joining me today on all of Gianno called well,
a lot of folks know you as a very influential
brother on the left for your intellectual Clearly you have

(00:43):
your own show and people may not realize that you
Before you were on CNN and all those different places.
You were on Fox News Channel doing weekly ball Battle
with Bill O'Reilly and you did it. Yeah, Bill really
respected you. I remember this one particular clip where he
was giving an example about a coke dealer and he said, hey,

(01:05):
you look like one, and you said, well, you look
like somebody who does coke. Those were the good old
days where you can make jokes and people weren't as
pc as they are now. So definitely a different place
to be, so thank you for joining me again. That's
my pleasure, brother, it really is. Man. I always love
a good civil dialogue. I've seen some recent chat on

(01:30):
social media's uh, that's what we're here for today, a
good civil dialogue. So you you're clearly a prominent voice
on the left, You've got a big platform, and I
wanted to figure out from you, what do you think
thus far Joe Biden's presidency. It's a good question. I first,

(01:50):
I say that the Biden presidency is exactly what I
expected it to be. It is a presidency that won't
meet the needs of the real left, but it will
irritate the right significantly because he's not the centrist that

(02:13):
he campaigned on either, And so what you end up
with is a presidency that is slightly left of center
that problem, which is sort of what it promised to be.
But I would argue not nearly as progressive as he
promised right, which was to be the most progressive president
since l B J or since FDR Right. He ain't that.

(02:34):
But he's also not the right winger that some people
on the left was we're afraid he would be. But
he's also not the socialist leader that many people on
the right are now pretending that he is because of
some of the spending that he's doing and because some
of the plans that he's trying to enact. Well, I
think a lot of folks in the middle, you know,
most voters are in the middle. They're more so independent

(02:56):
than anything else. They were told and sold on the
fact that Joe Biden was going to be a moderate,
and I know you said that, clearly he's not. A
lot of folks have said pre election that progressives have
said that they were going to drag him to the left,
and we clearly see that happening. But what we're not
really seeing is any policy specific and direct for African Americans,

(03:18):
which is the reason why he's in office today because
of the black vote. Black folks seemingly, especially when it
comes to Democratic politicians, seem to always get left out
in the cold. They vote for him, they rally for him,
but they never really get any tangibles for their support.
Why is that? You know, It's an interesting question. And

(03:39):
I'm somebody who sits on the left and I've been
critical of the Democratic Party for many years for this,
I wouldn't say we don't get anything for Democratic votes
but we certainly don't get the kind of race targeted
policy and other groups get. We are with political scientists
referred to as a captured electorate. We uh, we ain't

(04:04):
going nowhere. The assumption is Black people gonna vote Democrat
no matter what happens, and so very little is done
to get us to vote Democrat. What's done is to
get us motivated to vote at all. So, in other words,
if a h Black people come out and vote, somewhere
between eight eight and ninety four of them are going
to vote Democrat. But if we don't speak to their needs,

(04:26):
you're only gonna get a hundred. If you speak to
their needs or or you promise some stuff, maybe three
d come out, you'll still get the same percentage, but
you'll have a lower turnout. So a big part of
what Democrats strategy has been is doing stuff to get
voter turnout, but not trying to convince people to vote
for them. And that's something that you don't see with
the Latino communities for for lots of complex reasons, the

(04:48):
biggest of which is just internal political and ideological diversity
among the various types of Latin X voters. White folks
certainly aren't trailed with an assumption that they're just going
to vote for whoever. And so I think it's it's
a big part of the fact. It's largely do rather
to the fact that black folks don't have a lot
of political options in a two party system where they
don't trust the Republican Party and where they don't feel

(05:10):
like Republican policy speaks to their needs, and so they
end up saying, well, look, I don't trust these Democrats,
I don't like these Democrats. I like some of them,
but at the very at the end of the day,
I know that they'll do better for me than Republicans,
and that becomes, uh, the kind of endgame. And so
you don't see the kind of attempt to shift policy
or shape policy around African American needs and interests. Well,
you know what what's interesting is I did see some

(05:34):
some various outreach from the Democrats, especially calling Republicans racist
more so than they typically do, which we know that
exists in every election. But because Donald Trump was doing
a lot of outreach to African Americans, especially African American men,
you saw al what he got in twenty sixteen, which
was a percent generally the black vote to percent black men,

(05:55):
and this year for African American men who had a
high school diploma or below that they voted for him
to the tune I believe. So we do see when
there is some policy tangibles. We talked about the first
step back in the number of these things that I
know folks on the left typically dismiss as real and
tangible efforts. We do see black folks say, Okay, I'm

(06:19):
willing to give this a shot, give it a chance.
But we without any real tangibles. Because I'm from the
South Side of Chicago, I've heard the song and thence
pretty much all my life. You know, white Democrats are races,
so we couldn't get anything done for you. But we're
gonna come back the next election cycle. We're gonna have
a fish fry, a chicken cookout, and we're gonna tell

(06:40):
you what we're gonna do for you. And nothing gets done.
Wouldn't you? Would you advocate for black folks just become
an independent versus being in that out which we saw
under Barack Obama In two thousand and eight, black folks
voted for Barack Obama. You know, it's an interesting question.
You asked first let me get to the first one.
I'm not convinced. I don't. I don't concede that black men,

(07:02):
particularly educated black men, voted for Donald Trump because of
policy tangibles. And I'm not convinced that that's the case.
I haven't, uh when I look at so when I
when I've interviewed folk and talked to folks, that's not
what I get. Now, I don't assume that my experience
is I don't confuse my experience for data. So I'm
not going to say that, you know, anecdotally what I'm

(07:23):
experiencing is necessarily the whole story. But if I look
at Trump's proposed plans and I juxtaposed that to say
Ronald Reagan's plans or say Mitt Romney's plans, um, it's
not that Trump offered vastly broader or even more targeted policies, um,

(07:47):
and yet black men voted for Trump much more. I
think that there were several things that play here when
we look at Trump versus Hillary Clinton. I think there's
a very complex comm station we have to have about gender,
about whether black men are willing to vote for a
white woman, and whether they were willing to vote for
a Clinton in particular of whether they're male or female

(08:10):
at this stage in history, given everything that happened with
Clinton's in the nineties. UM. The second piece of it, though,
in the second election of Trump, the second election that
he lost, is an interesting connection that many black male
voters had to Donald Trump. And there's something about Donald
Trump's personalities or something about the way that he navigates

(08:32):
the world that does sort of resonate with certain voters.
And I'm not sure that it's because of, you know,
Trump's vision of school choice or because of Trump's understanding
of the free market. I don't think it's necessarily because
you know, any particular policy, as much as as it
is who Trump represents, which I think is deeply problematic.

(08:53):
But the second part of your your question, I think
we is where we probably find some common ground. I
don't believe black voters should be have allegiance to the
Democratic Party. Now. I happen to be a Green Party member,
and I've been a Green Party member almost all of
my voting life. I voted for Joe Biden in this
last election. It was the first time since I've been
voting for presidents that I can remember that I voted

(09:15):
for a Democrat and in an election, and it was
for me, it was because of the particular stakes of
this election. But I say that the same I'm still
able to weigh in on policy, I'm still able to
be part of the conversation. I'm still able to drag
Joe Biden in the direction that I want them to
be dragged. But the Democratic Party doesn't take for granted
I'm going to vote for them. And I think that

(09:35):
if black people had that kind of flexibility, it would
be fine. But if all black folks are registered independent
but they still vote Democrat every single time, then you
end up in the same vote. Democrats don't care whether
you're registered or not. I mean, it might matter for
the primary, but in general, Democrats want are you gonna
vote for us? So if a whole bunch of independent
black folks still voted for Democrat in every election, I'm

(09:57):
not sure that changed anything. So black folks don't have
to just change your affiliation with to actually change how
we vote, not just in the national election, but particularly
in these local and state wide elections. Okay, do so
do you think folks are gonna answer that call? And
and before you answer that question, because you were saying, hey,
you don't know the reason why so many voted for
Trump if his personality what what the case may be,

(10:20):
And and many could argue that the personality was a
part of it. Certainly people were attracted to his personality.
Is bravado all of that that that alpha male type energy.
So yeah, I can understand that piece. But we also
if we're looking at the data just in terms of
how well black folks did over four years, by the
time he was leaving it was he was up for election.

(10:41):
Rather during that time of the election cycle, unemployment in
the black community was it is lowest on record five hispanics.
These are tangibles. You talk about the deregulation of the
economy and how it benefited everyone. It wasn't just the wealthiest. Again,
they would gain more because they pay the most in taxes.
But certainly there was some tangible benefits, unlike what we're

(11:04):
seeing with Joe Biden, who's regulating the economy and he's
coming out with a lot of kind of uh, welfare
initiatives if you will, to say this is what I'm
gonna do for the black community, when the black community
actually need jobs, not welfare programs. Here's what I following
them because you're saying that that the demographic of blackmail

(11:25):
voters who voted the most Trump board between earners, of
which I said that the original number that I stated
with those who had high school diplomas are below overall
in terms of black folks, has supported him black men,
I believe it was almost My understanding is, and I
don't have the data in front of me. That's why
I don't. I don't want to speak with certainty, but
my understanding of the data was that the highest slights

(11:48):
of black men who voted for Trump were actually those
who had higher educational attainment and higher income. Yeah, I don't,
I don't have the data to support that that particular conclusion.
But but but but so because it's interesting to think about
the most vulnerable people are voting for Trump workers, people
who honestly are fairly recession proof. For example, you know,
when you look at black men who make over seventy

(12:09):
dollars a year, who have graduate degrees or college degrees,
they're they're they're not recession proof per se, but they
certainly are less vulnerable to the whims of the economy
than say, someone with a high school diploma and someone
who's making minimum wage. And so I'm always fascinated to
know which slices of our population, of of our community
are finding residents with Trump's message. But but again, black

(12:31):
voting patterns with regard to Republicans aren't don't necessarily hindle
on the economy. So you could look at moments under
George W. Bush when the economy was fairly strong, right
particularly the first two years of his presidency, and when
you when he goes up for re election in two

(12:51):
thousand and four and John Carey's on the table, it
could have made complete sense to vote for George Bush
based on the economy at that at that time. But
they didn't because there's something about George W. Bush that
didn't resonate with them. And of course we have nine eleven,
we have the Iraq War, we have weapons of mass instruction,
there are other conversations going on. Similarly, you could look
at the economy under the kind of small government except

(13:14):
for the military Ronald Reagan years, and you see a
very interesting voting pattern. Black men are not They're voting
for Reagan more than they did George H. W. Bush.
George W. Bush, UH and and uh and John McCain, etcetera.
But they're still not voting as higher numbers they are
for Trump, despite the fact that based on just the
economic metrics, you could make a case for it. And

(13:35):
so I think it's really complicated. I think that black
people are are committed to the Democratic Party as as
a cultural move, as a confidence move, and to a
large extent, as as a for policy reasons. But I
do think that Donald Trump might be an anomaly. And

(13:56):
I wonder and we'll know, and you will certainly know
in three years, right when when when these when when
we campaigning again and and Republicans are attempting to rest
control of the White House again. If Donald Trump runs again,
will know, we'll have an answer. But assuming Donald Trump
doesn't run, it will be interesting to see if anyone
else in the GOP can get the kind of support

(14:18):
that the Donald Trump got. I think it's an anomaly.
I think it's I don't see it happening again. Well,
there's one indicator that I think that you you you
didn't reference there, and that's the fact that Donald Trump
has been the only president to my knowledge or really
in my lifetime, that has went after the black vote
in such a way that it was almost his every
conversation when he was running in sixteen. He will be

(14:40):
before all white audiences and you will say the Democratic
Party of taking black people for granted. Republicans were afraid
to use that kind of language, and they certainly were
afraid to be looking to recruit African Americans to support them,
and in the same way that Donald Trump did. You
don't even see Democrats per sely go after the black
vote in the way that Donald Trump did so. If,

(15:02):
for example, he doesn't run for a second goal at it,
rather a third go at it, he and the next
person to say, if it's rhond de Santas or someone else,
they may not go after the black vote in the
way that Donald Trump did so, then that would make
him an anomalo. So that that's a fair point. I
think you're right. I think it would be so unwise

(15:24):
though general like if after watching Donald Trump, despite all
the drama, all the messiness of his of his presidency,
um secure that much of the Black vote, it would
be full foolish for the Republican Party. Whoever, the next
standard bear is to not follow Donald Trump's blueprint one
at least targeting the black vote and Donald Trump didn't

(15:46):
just do it during the election. I mean, we're in
the kind of moment of the called the doctrine of
the permanent campaign, which is kind of post George W. Bush,
where you're always campaigning. But but Donald Trump was very
particularly to say, look, from day one until day whatever,
I'm going to constantly be speaking to the black community.
You know, whether it was bringing HPCU presidents into the
White House, whether it was you know, meeting at Trump

(16:07):
Tower with everybody from Jim Brown to Steve Harvey too.
I mean, this stuff matters. Now. I disagree with it
as a tactic and as a strategy, as a philosophy,
and as a policy move Donald Trump or not just
don't see the world the same way. So I don't
agree with him. But if I were in charge of
the GOP, or if I were managing the next presidential

(16:27):
campaign for the Republicans, I would absolutely say, look, Donald Trump,
just because Donald Trump did it don't mean it's wrong.
You know, donaldrup did a lot of stuff right tactically,
and one of those things was targeting in the black
community in the way that he did. And so for me,
you know, I I think you're right that if the
next person does with the GOP usually does. It wouldn't

(16:48):
be at apples and apples comparison. I just have enough
faith in politicians ability to do it's best for them
to think that now that they see that it works,
that they'll do it. I mean, if you remember, uh
guess it's been over ten years and now kind of
time moves so quickly. But after just getting smashed in
in an election, Bobby Jendo did the autopsy of the

(17:09):
GOP and he's you know, and and and he said,
look at where we are, look at what we're doing,
look at what we're not doing, and here's you know.
And they made other problems. One of them, of course,
was the tent was getting smaller. The Republicans too often
said we're gonna double down on what's already worked. Trump's
had found a way to do both. He found a

(17:29):
way and you and I may not agree on this,
but he found a way to appeal to the most
racist sector in America at the same time that he
said I want some black people on board. I mean,
it was it's actually quite stunning how how he was
able to kind of speak to the populations that are
so desparate and be so successful at getting one side

(17:52):
and getting enough of the black vote to make him
competitive in every state. That's that takes more than the notion.
You know, I disagree with you on that point, but
we'll debate more after this quick break. Let's be clear,
there were some people that were racist. Didn't they did
like what he said? Okay, that's fair, that's fair. There

(18:16):
were some people. There were some people, so that's but
that's gonna be the case with Joe Biden's base too.
There will be some raceist that say, I like some
of the things that Joe Biden says. That happens on
both sides. But if you yeah, But if we're big artists,
I think it'll be safe to say that if you
were to take the one million most racist people in
America and and line them up and ask who they

(18:41):
voted for it, would you would you agree that they
would that Trump would would would win by landslide. I
don't have the people, I don't have any data to
support that conclusion. But if we were to say, a
candidate who's using some language that may not be racially
sensitive at times, will both of them with be be
in that category or are candidate who's literally legislated policy

(19:03):
to put as many black men in jail as possible,
who's used the N word on the floor of of
of Congress, multiple times, whether it be he was repeating
what someone said or not. I think most racists would say, hey,
give me that person. You don't name Trump or Biden.
They would say, give me that person, and that person
would be Joe Biden. Yeah, I think out of context

(19:23):
that could be true. But I guess I'm making a
different argument. My argument here isn't about whether or not
Trump is racist or whether Trump is even intending, and
that's not That's not what I'm arguing either. My point is, yeah,
I'm just saying. I'm just saying that if you look,
if you go to rallies taking my golf the table
for a minute, if you if you if you just

(19:43):
if you look at the people who are marching in
Charlottesville right for as an example, just I think it
would be dishonest to suggest that those people are marching
to tear down who are protesting the tearing down Confederate statues,
Those people who are anti Semitic, anti black, et cetera.
Are also voting also voted for Hillary Clinton, in the
previous election. I think that would be an unreasonable um interpretation.

(20:08):
Now whether Trump, I'm not so when I say Trump
is appealing to them. I'm not even making at this
moment a judgment about whether or not he wants to
or not. I'm not making a judgment about whether it's
his fault or not. I'm not making it he's more
or less racist than his opponent claim at all. I'm
simply saying that Trump's campaign and Trump's president seemed to
appeal to those people. Those who made a choice for president.

(20:30):
They chose Trump, and lots of other people chose I'm true.
I'm not saying that everybody who voted for Trump was racist,
but I think if you're a racist, it's much more
likely you voted for Donald Trump than Hillary Clinton in
two thousand and sixteen and then in two thousand and twenty.
I would make the same for Biden. But I have
no I make no I do not believe that Joe
Biden is racist. But I absolutely could dissect Joe Biden's

(20:53):
career and point out numerous instances where he said some
racist stuff, or did some racist stuff, or reported a
racist policy. Absolutely I would agree with you a thousand percent.
But just to be clear, you know, when we talk
about the crime bill, for example, or three strikes or
the welfare reformat wealfare reformat, or the prison litigation reformat.
All of these policies that emerged in the nineties, Democrats

(21:15):
were in control or but Republicans supported them as well.
So for me, it need you don't think you don't
think that Republicans supported the welfare wealth reform no wealthfare reform. Yeah,
but I don't I don't understand where where that would
be institutional racism or racism generally. The ninety four crime bill.
You said holistically, you mentioned a bunch of policies, and

(21:38):
you said Democrats supported the Republicans supported them as well.
Republicans as a whole did not support the ninety four
crime bill. There were some Republicans that voted for, but
the majority that voted for that was Democrats. If we
look at I don't have the I'm gonna put up
the rod call now. But no, that's it's angry. You
can take you can take my word is fact. The

(21:59):
majority that voted for the institutional rate because my colleagues
a lot of them don't believe in institution racism. I
get it. I do. I think it exists. In the
ninety four crime Bill, most majority Democrats supported it. I'm
not I'm not distributing that, but I'm looking I'm literally
looking at the crime deal. Now everybody supported the crime
That's not true. It was. It was ninety five years

(22:19):
and four days and one he didn't vote. Were you
looking at the you're looking at the Senate right now,
look at the House. But I mean, let's and then
I was wondering, what exactly are you looking at? Because
the majority of folks that voted for it, and who
was it? What was the makeup in the Senate at
that time too, That's another consideration. But the majority of

(22:40):
the folks, especially when you look at the House of
Representatives the word democrats, right, But we're talking about that
the Senate where Joe Biden was, right, Joey wasn't in
the House, he was in Senate. So my point is
everybody voted for it. I'm not. I'm not making a
claim that Republicans were more forward. Wait, just maybe we're
talking abow diferent things. You you you you agree that

(23:02):
in the Senate nearly everyone, it was nearly unanimous support
for the crime bill. You agree with that, right, No,
I don't agree with that. I gotta look at that record.
I don't think I'm okay. I mean, I'm talking about
the majority already stands. The majority party stands. Was the
Democrats supported it. It It was their issue, their bill. Uh.
Jesse Jackson, Jackse Jackson went and sat down in the

(23:24):
Judiciary Committee and he said this was gonna cause mass incarceration.
And he was absolutely right. And he was the spokesperson
for the black community at that time, one in which
Democrats supported. So with that hold on, I'm confused because
this is just a matter of fact. I'm looking. There
were four days and one instention. So again in the Senate,

(23:49):
I mean, we can't really disagree on this, right, I mean,
this is a matter of fact. Right, Almost everybody voted
for it. Only four people out of a hundred said no,
that's a fact. You still think that that most people
didn't vot for it. Look at the House, Look at
the House totals. I'm only talking about the Senate because
I'm talking about Joe Biden. I'm saying that Joe Biden.
I'm saying that Joe Biden supported it. Right. I agree,

(24:10):
Democrats supported it. Democrats advanced this was a project. In fact,
this was one of the policy. But you said Republicans
and Democrats everybody voted for it. That would means if
everyone voted for everyone in the House and everyone in
the Senate would have to have supported it. That is inaccurate.
It's factually that's not what I'm saying that I'm saying

(24:34):
so clearly we're miscommunicating. So so that we could be
on the same page. I'm saying in the Senate where
Joe Biden was, where Joe Biden advance, that was a
serving architect in advance a policy that had detrimental impacts
on the black community. I agreed, most it was a
democratic project. I agree. I'm saying that Republicans also supported it,
that this was not a u and I conceded that

(24:57):
point from the beginning. I said that there were some
report Republicans that did support it. That's what I said
that I said, the majority, the majority that supported the bill,
we're Democrats, That's what I said. We're on the same page, right,
I'm saying, But the majority of Republicans who were in
the Senate also voted for it. We agree with that too, right,
I was listening to your point in terms of the majority.

(25:17):
I don't know what the Senate totals are. So if
you say that that's the case, but that's still but
that's still we're talking about over four hundred people in
the House of Representatives. We're still there's still more Democrats
supported it than Republicans. So that's the point there. Move on. Yeah,
I'm I'm not I'm not just I'm not just agreeing
with that. Right, we were on the same page from

(25:38):
the beginning. I said the majority supported it, and some
Republicans did supported Sure, but it wasn't just majority of Democrats.
I have. I have no dog in the dimocrats. I'm
fine saying with Democrats supported I have. That's I'm saying. Yes,
I'm that's never been in the street for me. My
overall point in saying this is to say that I
don't look at the Crime Bill or any of these

(25:59):
other and I did. It wasn't just some of the
crime but like I said, the Welfare reformat, prison Lilegation
REFORMAC these were all bills that were they all and
I was speaking about all four of the bills that
a one time that was the other thing. I wasn't
speaking just of the House. That's that's not true, because
you lumped them all in there. There you go, right,
And what what I'm saying is if we look at
if we look at this body of work emerging in
the nineties, there were not Republicans saying, no, we should

(26:22):
get softer on crime. There were there, they were not.
In fact, most of the if you remember, most of
the opposition, Republican opposition to these bills were about the
details of the bill, not against the premise of the bill.
Right as you as you know in Congress, it's it's
the devil's in the details. People saying we don't want pork,
we don't want these add ons, we don't we don't
want to people Democrats and Republicans sins were smuggling other

(26:43):
things on a on a bill that has nothing to
do with the thing they're talking about. We saw with
the COVID release package. But there were there were not
a string of Republicans saying, no, we should we shouldn't,
we shouldn't give we shouldn't have welfare from No, we
shouldn't be the soft tougher on prisons form. For I'm
not making a case about what I'm making. The case

(27:05):
when it comes to legislation and bills is the devil's
is in the details, and people put pork in it
and things that Okay, got it all right, I understand absolutely,
But also but also the Clinton presidency. Clinton was very
strategic and saying. Clinton had a series of policies that
he knew would be palatable to the mainstream, and he
knew that would um make him seem like a centrist,

(27:26):
and and and and Bill Clinton was quite savvy in this,
and he understood that the crime bill here said, the
string of bills that we just talked about, would be
things that would make him look reasonable and tough and
quite frankly, in many ways, it was the Clinton campaign
and Clinton administration that threw black people under the bus
because they said, well, if if I could be a
two term president by governing this way, by by by

(27:48):
attempting to govern from the center. Um. Of course they
say now they regreted. It's very easy to regret things
twenty years later, thirty years later. It's very easy to
regret things when there's nothing at stake. That the question is,
do you know, how did you feel when you were
when you're in the midst of doing it, and was
it just an air of judgment or was it what
you wasn't that you did whatever you needed to do
to succeed. And so when I look at that, I say,

(28:11):
Joe Biden's a little bit of both. Joe Biden's. You
don't get to be a career politician. You don't get
to be in the Senate for all that time and
and not have to make some calculations that are not
ethically strong. Right, you're but you can convince yourself that
you're looking big picture. And then there's a way that
I think Joe Biden has grown. I think that's way
that Joe Biden has been challenged and pushed and made

(28:31):
to look at the world differently. And I appreciate that
in him, and I think there are a lot of
politicians like that. I don't think it's just Joe Biden.
And So when I think about racism, and I think
about what it means to live in a country where
they're still lingering racism, and I think about who who
those people to tend to vote for. They tend not

(28:51):
to vote for people who speak about racial diversity. It's
not to vote for people who say black lives matter.
They tend not to vote for people who want to
reform police, you know, all things that Joe Biden has
talked about. Even though again I don't Joe Joe. I
happen to think Joe Biden is not strong enough on
these issues. I don't. I'm deeply critical of Joe Biden
on these issues. But it's hard for me to imagine
that someone who supports police votes for Joe Biden if

(29:14):
that's their pride, if if they're voting on that issue. Obviously,
people aren't single issue voters all the time. Um, it's
hard for me to believe that somebody who cares about
the environment, I'm sorry, who who who doesn't believe in
global warming for example, or someone who wants to put
out the Parents Accords hard to believe they vote for
Joe Biden. It's complicated because, you know, voters vote for

(29:34):
lots of reasons. That's that's true. People vote for lots
of reasons. And I think a lot of people, especially
some prominent black folks. I'm not sure if you know
Terik Nashid or not. He's he's been on a podcast
he believes or rather he has said that he believes
that Joe Biden is a suspected white supremacist, which he
has a you know, big following, as you know, and

(29:55):
he had he said some very insightful things. He says
some really insightful things on the podcast that made me
think and say, man, I never thought about it that way.
That's interesting. So when we talk about these policy is
very smart, Yeah, very very smart, very very smart, very smart,
both a lot of insightful thoughts and comments on lots
of issues. Indeed, indeed, now you you were saying that,

(30:18):
and I'm not trying to stay on the ninety four
crime bill because there's so much other things to be
talking about than that, But you were saying that with
Bill Clinton. It's interesting how you can say that you
regret something twenty years ago. What Joe Biden is in
office right now. It was his crime bill. We've not
seen any policy pushed forward in terms of reversing some
of the draconian effects of that that crime bill. We
saw with Donald Trump, he pulled out the first step back,

(30:41):
which was what he said to be the first step
and reversing these these negative effects. What are you doing
to push folks on the Joe Biden's team on the
left to tell him that he needs to right these
wrongs that continue to devastate the black community to this day.

(31:01):
You know, Um, for me, the strongest thing we can
do is take to the streets and and mobilize our votes.
Those are two separate things, right, there's protesting this voting,
and for me, both of those things are key. You know,
I've met uh and publicly and behind the scenes with
many lawmakers in the last few years to talk about
these issues. I'm an abolitionist. I believe in the abolition

(31:21):
of police and abolition of prisons. So Joe Biden and
I will never be on the same page. But what
I can do is make moves and support the types
of reforms that aren't antithetical to the project of abolition.
In other words, I don't believe in reform as the solution,
but I don't I don't oppose reforms that that can

(31:43):
make create more livable lives as we fight to produce
this new world, this ultimate world, which might we might
be decades from, we might be centuries from who knows,
But but we have to we have to fight and
live in the world that we're in. Right now, And
for me, that means, for example, pushing Joe Biden to say, hey,
what about what about cash bail? Pushing Joe Biden saying, hey,
what about privately funded prisons, federal prisons. These are things

(32:04):
that we pushed them on during the campaign, and it's
paid off because he's already saying no, no, you know,
no to privatize federal prisons. You know, you know Obama
had already said a note to cash bail and uh
in federal prisons. Definitely. We're pushing on, pushing against the
death penalty, pushing for retroactive parole, in release for people

(32:27):
who incarcerated for for for marijuana in the nineties, who
got these draconian sentences under under these various laws. These
are things that we can do right now. And these
things that I'm doing to push Joe Biden, but not
just to push Joe Biden, but to push state level
law making, because so much of the stuff happens at
the state level, and we gotta push them to Okay,
So I'm hearing what you're saying, and it's two things

(32:48):
that pop out. One, Um, I get getting rid of
the private prisons, But are you saying that you're are
you against all prisons or just private prisons? Against prisons?
I believe in the abolition of prisons. Yeah, so so
what do you so? What do you do with the people? Who? Who?
And I know you have I'm not sure how many
children you have, but I know you have a daughter.

(33:09):
So someone tries to do anything to hurt what do
you what do you do? You take the law into
your own hands or what is it you would advocate
to prevent the destruction of life? And what criminal penal?
Is there any criminal penalties? Do they go in the
corner for a few hours? And what? What? What? What
are we doing? Well? I think there's a lot of um,

(33:30):
there's a lot of space between putting someone in a
cage and sitting someone in a corner. Right, There's there's
lots of ways that we can reimagine the world. Yeah, no,
I know what I mean. These are the questions I
get asked all the time. Right, is it a slap
on the wrist? You know? Do we get people slap
on the wrist or do we you know? And if
because people can only think in extremes, because that's how
we've been talked to things, Right, We've been We've been

(33:52):
only talked to think about the extremes, which are either
we lock of people in cages for years or decades
or their whole life. Are we kill them or we
do nothing? And Um, the first thing I say to you,
because it's it's an it's an important question you're asking, UM,
the first thing I say is, well, I don't think
about this purely in those extremes. Right the bulk of

(34:16):
the cases, the bulk of the people sitting in prisons
right now aren't there for violent crimes. The bulk of
people in prison aren't there as serial killers and rapists
and murderers and etcetera. Right if they were, there are
two point five million of those, we might be having
a different conversation. So I think about, um, the various
ways that the prison is used right now to cage people, uh,

(34:38):
for crimes of need, for crimes of addiction, for crimes
of of mental illness, for crimes of homelessness, for crimes
of poverty. And the first thing that we always talked
about is investing in the world in such a way
that those crimes are not necessary, That people aren't stealing
to eat, that people aren't stealing to live, that people
aren't selling drugs out of this session, that people are
using drugs to treat mental illness UM, and that we

(35:01):
understand drug addiction as a mental as a mental as
a mental as a medical problem, rather than as a
as a criminal problem. So part of what we have
to do is really is a strip away are the
logic of criminalization, so that we don't always criminalize everything.
I'm still getting to your crazy serial killer question. I'm
just I'm just explaining that that that's the which is
because I think that's the right question. No, I think
it's the right and fair question because people aren't scared

(35:23):
of the person steals a TV in the same way
to scared of the person who might sexually assault them.
So I'm I'm with you. I don't want you to
think I'm avoiding your question. I'm just saying I think
that we tend to only thinking those narrow terms right
of of what happens to that small slites of people
in prison for that, UM, I think about so so.
So it's about that. It's about imagining what the world

(35:44):
would be like if we had uh decarceration. For me,
prison never listens about decarceration. It's about saying how can
we empty the prisons now? And during COVID we saw
lots of signals as to how that's possible. A whole
bunch of people didn't get A whole bunch of people
did do their time. We let them out. They were aging,
they were dying, they were sick, they want to threat

(36:06):
to society more, and we said, you know, we can
let these people out. We did it for health reasons,
but the truth is we could have done it a
year prior with with the same consequence. Right they were.
They weren't more or less of a danger because of COVID.
We let them out because they weren't really threat to
society anymore. So we have way more people caged than
we need to. We cage people when they don't have
enough money to pay for their bail. So essentially you're
in jail because you don't have enough money not to

(36:27):
be in jail. That's an evil system. You should that's it.
Sinmily becomes a debtor's prison. So we can decarceerate that way.
We can decarcate by giving people suspended sentences by right
by doing work release, by doing community based um action,
community based dispute resolution as opposed to adjudicating things in
courts and lead to prison. We can empty out so

(36:48):
much of the prison without separating fathers and mothers from
their families, without breaking down communities, without stripping away so
much of what we need excarceration. As an other part
of what I'm talking about, um, it means that some
of the party because part of your questions is what
do we do when people commit crimes? But remember crimes
of social constructs? Right? Okay, I mean, I mean they

(37:12):
are right. You would agree that everything you there's laws
that are past and people feel whatever it's criminal behavior,
they provide a punishment for it. Okay, got it. So
you agree that crimes is a social construct They're created
by people, They're created by lawmakers. You laughed at you

(37:33):
don't want your audience, No no, no, no, no, no,
no no no, because I'm listening to where you're going
with it, because okay, let's let's continue. I want to hear.
I want to hear you. I want to hear. The
reason I'm saying that, because so much of our attachment
to things once might commit to crime, is that many
of the things that we as a society agree on
his crime shift from time to time. For example, when
you when I was growing up, Um, if you told

(37:55):
me somebody was smoking weed, we oh my god, you
know what I mean. Now it's like you're smoking weed?
Do I mean? People joke about it, people talk about it.
You can you can run for president. I mean even
Bill Clinton inhaling with he had to lie about it.
How much Weedy spoke just to be president? Right, And
it was like wink wink. But like now, if you
told me somebody smoke we nobody would trip about it. Right. So,
but that was a crime, and and and so learning

(38:16):
to read was a crime for black folk at one point, right,
black people and white people getting married was a crime
at one point in history. So so what I'm saying
is just because it's a crime doesn't necessarily mean that
we have to punish it. We can reimagine what crime
is and say, okay, is everything that we consider a
crime actually something that we as a society want to

(38:37):
commit to punishing. Now, some things I think in any
juncture in history we might say should be a crime,
there are other things a hundred years ago that should
have been crimes that worked. I mean, there was a
time where you could beat slaves legally, right, that should
have been a crime. Uh. You know, sexual assault, particularly
among married people did not exist. That should have been

(38:57):
a crime. So I'm not. You know, lynching or lynching
was act and legal, they just didn't care. But so
my point is I'm not. My point is that crime
is people don't commit crimes. They commit acts, and then
society decides whether these things are criminal or not. So
another piece of this X carceration is making the is
making the determination about whether or not all the things

(39:18):
that we call crimes need to be And I'll give
you a concrete example. Uh, smoking crack. Right, you grew
up in Chicago, you had crackheads as they called them, Right,
they call people crackhead. The crackhead was seen as somebody
who was not just making a bad choice, but somebody
who was a bad person. Juxtaposed crackhead with the cocaine. Right,

(39:40):
you could have a cocad lawyer, You can have a
cokehead accountant. You could have a cocade holding that goes
to college when you gets high and he goes to
class the next day. And we didn't we would say, yo,
he's making a bad choice. But the crackhead was a
bad person. So it was much easier to imagine taking
of one addicted to crack and put them in jail,

(40:02):
because because that's where bad people go. Then it is
to take that that that rich guy sniffing coke in
his office before he goes to a board meeting, right,
And that's abound race. That's about classes, about gender, it's
about lots of stuff. And so my point is we
have to strip away some of our some of these
ideas we have about crime. You know, do we really
do we need to criminalize sex work? Do we need

(40:24):
to criminalize two people in the corner shooting dice? Because
there's plenty people some Sich Chicago shooting dice and you
don't care about that when you walk past, and you
don't really think they need to be in jail for
for illegal gambling. But it's still illegal. So we have
to ask ourselves are all these crimes on the books
um necessary? But then there's this thing you that you're
talking about, which again I don't want to ignore. And

(40:47):
for as an abolitionist, is what I call, or not
what I call. It's what abolitionists have called and what
I echo restraint of the few. Yes, there are people
in society who need to be restrained from society. They do.
I grew up with them kind of people. I grew
up in a hood. It's people You're glad they somewhere else.

(41:09):
I've seen people kill people. I've seen people do extraordinary
harm to people, and it's not because they're poor. Sometimes
it is, but sometimes it's not. It's people who have means,
who have resources. There's sometimes people just do bad ship.
And it is not my contention that we put them
in the corners. That my contention that we give a
slap on the wrist. But the question is is there

(41:32):
a way to have restraint of the few in a
way that actually makes those people whole again and makes
the people they harmed whole again outside the logic of
the prison. And you might say, well, why, Well, because
the prison doesn't work. The prison doesn't actually rehabilitate. The
prison actually produces more crime. The prison actually makes it

(41:55):
is criminal genic. It actually makes people worse than when
they you go to prison for one thing, you learn
how to do more crime you in there. The prison
is unsafe, the printed, the prison creates more untreated trauma.
So for me, it's I'm not I'm not against developing
a system of restraint of the few for the purpose
of restorative justice. But the prison isn't the only model.
But even if you say, all right, Mark, that's a

(42:16):
distinction without a difference. You still, whatever you call it,
you're putting people away for some time. Let's tall you
that's true. I don't agree, but let's say that's true.
That's still would reduce the prison population from two point
three million to maybe a few hundred thousand, which for me,
would be the ultimate way to undo the violence of
the crime bill, the violence of the prison litigation, re format,

(42:37):
the violence of the war on drugs. That's that's and
I know that's a long answer, but that that would
be my knowledge. Yeah, So it was so important to
hear you out in your concept and your analysis failing.
And I wanted to make sure that I didn't interrupt.
But let me say, and I know that you're a
very smart guy, but my opinion of this and this
has not been you just pushing it. There's been a

(42:58):
lot of people pushing the same concept on a national level.
I'll tell you, I think it's an intellectually bankrupt concept.
And i'll tell you why. So you talked about coming
from this South side of Chicago, talk about my best
selling book, Taken for Granted. My mom was one of
those quote unquote crackheads that you you just referenced. I
recognize that she isn't a bad person and wasn't a

(43:19):
bad person. Then, However, there are people who are quote
unquote crackheads, didn't do criminal behavior, and they abuse their family,
They rob people, they steal from people, and they may
murder someone just to get a hold of that drug
to get in their pocket. Those people deserve jail time.
When you think about the fact that I'm telling you,
if you're gonna murder somebody that deserves jail time, if

(43:42):
someone shoots you, so one murders you, your family is
gonna want to get justice. Just like with George Floyd,
his family wanted justice, America wanted justice. Let me ask
you just a client, Frank, because because my premise was
if we invest in the world, I agree. But most
people who most people who do who are doing crime

(44:03):
as crack addicts are doing so as crimes of addiction.
You'd agree with that, right, Like you said, they steal,
they robbed, they do the stuff. I mean people, it's
like steeling your VCR in the nineties. It's not because
they just like to steal VCRs and they tell them
to get right. Yeah, they were selling still in all, Still,
in all, there's someone being disenfranchised by that action. So
that that's that's what I'm saying. Let me finish this
point really there. So the same philosophy that you're you're

(44:26):
pushing is being pushed on the national stage. So I
won't even say as your philosophy. I'll say that is
being pushed on the national stage. There's people like Kim Fox,
she's the Cook County prosecutor in Chicago right now, who's
moving about life with this very same philosophy. She has
since she's been in office, over the course of three years,
has dropped all charges. And I'm talking about felony counts,

(44:50):
real legitimate felony accounts, which are up to murder, all
charges for twenty nine point nine of defendants. That's about
twenty five thousand people. This is not made Chicago more safe.
My little brother in a car Memorial Day weekend, seen
in the car with two of his friends. Uh yeah,
two of his friends just sitting on the street talking.

(45:13):
That's it. And that's all they were doing. Two men
walked up, shot the car twenty five times. His best
friend died in his arms. Should we reimagine the punishment
for the shooters because it was two shooters at that point.
Should we say like, oh, well, maybe they don't deserve
jail time, or we have to think about this differently. No,
people want justice. My little brother wants justice. His best
friend died in his arms and he could have been dead.

(45:35):
I would want justice. So there has to be a
place for the bad people to go for those who refuse,
and there's gonna be people who refuse to obey the law.
There's not gonna ever be a time where we can
just say, hey, you can be rehabilitated. Some people, simply put,
cannot be rehabilitated. They have to face some harsh consequence
in order to turn theirselves around if they were to
choose to do so. Would you not agree with that?

(45:58):
I would disagree with almost everything you said. Well, I
reject some of the premises, right, So again you said
that you're asking why why shouldn't those people get justice?
My premise, I'm not sure. I never argue that people
shouldn't get justice. What we're disagreeing is what justice looks like, right,
he'd not go to jail. Derek Hilman shouldn't go to
jail in your in your argument? Is that right? Yeah,

(46:22):
that's my argument. So you're saying Derek Chauvin should not
be in jail for uh, what he did to George Floyd.
You're I mean, if I don't want to get into
a sound bite thing, you understand that we're speaking about
in the ultimate you're talking about right now, in this
very moment, are you talking about in an abolitionist world?

(46:42):
You're saying, you're arguing, generally speaking, the jails shouldn't exist.
That's right or no? Yeah, okay, I'm saying in this world,
hold on, hold on. You also remember me saying that
we have to also to navigate the world we're in.
Then it could it could decades or even centuries to
build the world that I'm talking about. Remember that part.

(47:03):
So let's just say it takes decade. Let's let's just
say one decade, because that because that would be it
becomes a disignest conversation because what you design is you
don't want to mention it. Has it dishigonness? Are you
being intellectually dishonest and I don't know. I'm trying to
understand your point. You don't believe in jail. What I'm
saying is it becomes misleading to the audience because the

(47:25):
way they walk with a headline saying makoel moont Hill
says Derek Schulman shouldn't be in jail, as opposed to
saying markol mont Hill is saying that we should we
should construct a world that would that would deal with
these issues in a different way. I also said that
people who are a threat to society should be restrained
and held out of society. I just think the model
should look different than the prison as it's currently constructed.
I also said that, And so to take all that

(47:47):
away and just walk away with markol Monthill said Derek
Shulman shouldn't go to jail, I think that was a
misrepresentation of what I'm saying. You say you clarified your
point because you said, oh, yes, that's what I'm saying.
So you just clarified your point. Fine, we we we
we You move on from that, But I begin with that.
I began with that. I began by saying that again,
this could take centuries to create. I began by and

(48:08):
I also began. But I also began by saying restrain
of the few doesn't mean that people just go home.
It doesn't mean that we get people slaps on the wrist,
but that we reimagined how we can do it, but
that the goal is restoration and rehabilitation rather than simply punishment. Also,
I also never suggested that people shouldn't get justice. What
I said is that justice may look different if we

(48:29):
have other models outside of just the prison. Right, I'm
talking about restorative models. I'll give you an example. Someone
shot the president, right, Ronald Reagan gets shot. All right,
there's a fact he wasn't putting, he wasn't sent to prison.

(48:50):
It's also a fact. You're not disputing any this, right, No, no, okay.
So it was determined that he had mental illness, and
so for decades he got treatment, he got care, he
got medicine, he got scoping strategies, he learned how to
navigate society. And this man is now where back in society, reintegrated.

(49:13):
But he didn't sit in a cage for thirty years.
This is my point. So it's it's so and so yeah,
but so yeah, we could we could have a cheap
headline of you know, he says, you know, the person
shoots the president shouldn't go to jail. We yeah, but um,
But the more nuance and sophisticated conversation, I think is
to say, what did that set of services do for
him that still kept the public safe, that still held

(49:34):
him accountable, but but allow him to re enter society
better than when he left. That's what I'm looking for,
and and and and remember I also began by saying,
we have to invest in the systems that, um, that
that create the problems that we have. So again, if
somebody is addicted to drugs and they're stealing because they

(49:56):
don't have drugs, part of why they're stealing to get
drugs because they don't act us to them. Right, Drugs
are illegal, they're they're they're poorly regulated, they're they're unsafe
for that reason, and you have to live in the
underside of society to consume a lot of them. Right,
You can't just go and do heroin like sitting on
sitting on the steps or so. And many people are unhoused,

(50:16):
and and so what would what would the world look
like with safe injection facilities? What would the world look
like with with the with the decriminalization of these drugs,
What would the world look like if we invested and
create a social safety net so that so that the
people who are the poorest among us still have resources
for a living wage at the same time that I
would say, just to use example, with your with your

(50:38):
your your beloved mother, I don't want her to stay there.
I'm not saying that we should give our living wage
so that she can buy drugs. I'm saying, give her
a living wage at the same time that we're we're
supplying drug counselors and drug treatment, and we're treating it
like a medical problem rather than rather than a criminal problem.
That's all I'm saying. So I'm not saying ignore the
fact that the person just stole your TV. I'm saying,

(51:00):
let's create a context where someone doesn't have to steal
t vs to deal with a medical problem and a
social problem. That's what I'm saying. So I'm not trying
to ignore what happens when they steal the TV. I'm saying,
let's try to prevent the stealing of the TV through
these other investments, But that doesn't change the fact that
somebody's going to steal the TV. Right, everybody isn't going
to follow this the rules. There's going to be somebody

(51:21):
who steals the TV, either because they need to or
because they just want to. Some people are just suck
up people and they just want to steal TVs. Let's
let's let's accept that. I'm saying, though, if General Carbon
steals my TV, I don't want you to put it
in here. I want you to make me whole again.
I want I want you to restore me to where
I want right. But potentially yes, and it could look

(51:44):
like buying me another TV, but it could look like
a few other things. And I'm saying that that also
has to be part of how we think about this.
And if we do, if we do those processes, then
the Derek Chauvin's of the world, or the Dealing Roofs
of the world, Right, these are awful people. They can
be dealt with through mechanisms that we can create in society.

(52:08):
There's no way you're gonna tell me de Laruf is sane.
There's no way you're gonna tell me a child molester
is sane. There's no way you're gonna tell me a
serial killer, the Boston bomber it's sane. I'm saying that
they need mental mental mental health treatment as much as
they need to be kept out of society. We can
imagine alternatives to the prison that that doesn't mean that
you don't get justice. Okay, we're talking to Dr Martin

(52:30):
Lamont Hill. We'll be back in a second. Let me
ask you about this because you know we're we're in
a place where, uh, being woke is. I remember when
woke was a thing, it was just kind of more
among the black community. But now being woken seemingly everybody's

(52:51):
thing and whatever the general the purpose of being woke
was has been usurped to something else altogether in my view,
So I want to ask you about wokeness and social justice.
I recently saw a story about Coca Cola urging its
employees to be quote less white as a part of
their company's diversity training program. Do you support that kind
of thing in the workplace? At what point do we

(53:13):
get to woke? I still don't know what woke means.
I'm still very confused at what people mean when they's here,
and I mean, that's that's not me being silly a
core or like I feel like it's the term, like
you said, that has been co opted so much that
I don't I don't know what it means to people. UM.

(53:35):
For me, woke at least what Erica used to say it,
you know, stay woke and all that. For me, it
was about being socially conscious. Woke was about being aware,
it was about it was about being aware of who
you are is and having knowledge itself. Now woke to me,
it is about playing into some real narrow thin liberal

(53:56):
politics that I don't necessarily share. UM, And so watching
core operations or or media outlets or whatever co op
that language to look like that that they're part of
the diversity, equity and inclusion game, which is really about
um posturing and making themselves accessible to more money, uh
and resources. For me, I have, I have very little.

(54:17):
I have very little trust or I put very little
credence in those in those efforts. Yeah, so would you
would you agree that, uh, the Coca Cola really advocating
for his employees to be less white would be a
form of racism that advocating for their employees. Yeah, that's

(54:40):
what they said. They im sorry, I'm asking for claring.
You say the one the employable this way? Do you
mean demographically or to act less one no, no, no,
to act less white, to act less white. I think
that that's uh a very The language is so ambiguous

(55:01):
that I think it can it can potentially do harm.
I can understand the context in which that would make sense,
and I can understand the context on which that would
be problematic. I don't think it's racist, but I think
that it can. It's wildly insensitive and deeply irresponsible. If
it's if it's unless it's given extraordinary context. And even

(55:23):
in that context, I would say, is that really the
best way to make that happen? So if if you
and I were a part of a corporation, let's say
Apple or whatever, and they can't no, no, no, Let's
say we work for Sea Pack, if you will. Let's
say we work for Sea Pack and we were in
the room with our white colleagues and they said, listen,

(55:44):
you and Mark need to be less black. Would that
be considered racist or would that just be uh, deeply
disturbing the premise of the question the answers the answer
your questions, Yes, would be racist. And the reason why
there's a difference is because black and white aren't opposite sides.
Of the same coin. Surely it's surely if if when when,
when you're again, you're from Chicago, you know all about

(56:04):
the Black Panthers, when people stood up and said black power.
Surely you don't think that that's the same thing is
somebody sending up and saying white power? Right? They words
have different meanings given the context and the histories that
they come out of. Black and white are opposite sides
of the same coin. One has normative power, one has
state power behind it, and so when and so again.
I don't know the context which Coca Cola is saying it.

(56:27):
But if if I asked you, if I said, Gianna,
what do you love about being black? I think that
there are certain answers you would give. Right, you can
talk about all the ship you like about being black. Right.
If I if you walk to white person, what do
you love about being white? Right? That's a very different question.
Not what do you love about being Irish or Russian
or Polish or or whatever, but what do you love

(56:47):
about being white? And the reason why it would be
an uncomfortable question to ask someone is because of what
whiteness means in our social world and with the social
and political meanings attached to white nest. So it's not
the same thing. And so when you ask me, well
what if a white person did that, Well, the context
is different, you know what I mean. Similarly, if um,
you're I don't know if you're part of blex it

(57:09):
or not, but you know if but if somebody says
there's a Blexit, that's not the same thing as a
wex it. If white people said, you know, all the
white people need to lead Republican the Democratic Party, that
ship would be profoundly different than saying all the black
people need to leave why Because there's a history and
a context for why black people need to leave the party.
The Democrats have served white liberals quite well, and white

(57:32):
people aren't under or under attacking the Democratic Party, right,
So so a wexit would be a very different kind
of move. And so we could look at this across
across the board and say, well, yeah, that's why we
don't have white history model, that's why we don't have
w E T for a for a TV network because
these things aren't necessary in context. So when I hear
them say so, so part of what whiteness, part of

(57:53):
what we've learned, and part of what we talk about
with regard to whiteness is whiteness is is when people
is when we say we're trying to rid ourselves of whiteness.
Typically what that means is white privilege. Typically what that
means is being at the center of the cultural experience
at all times, being at the center of the the

(58:15):
intellectual experience at all times. And so to so what
I use the language be less white. No, I would not,
But I wouldn't assume that that means the same thing
as being less black. They don't mean the same thing. Yeah,
but that that that's that's your interpretation of it as
you as you would say. They said, be actuively. But
but here's the distinction too. You talk about how do
you feel about being black? Um, I can ask my

(58:37):
friend Connor, for example, how do how does it feel
being an Irish American? Or how does it feel being
an attack? No, no, no, no no, no, you didn't
say that. I'm saying. I'm saying you said about you know,
how does it feel about being black? That was your example.
I'm saying I did not say, did not say that that? No,
I said, what do you like about it? What do
you like about? Being very specific? Okay, what do you like?

(59:00):
It is important. I'm not I'm not being pedantic. The
distinction is important because liking something about being white when
white is born out of a certain kind of power
and privilege. It's hard to say what you like about
being white? What what if you like to be white?
Is different what you like about as white prisons? What
do you like about being white? And see what kind
of responses you get? What do you think a white
person would say about your white friends? I have white friends.
What do you think a white person said, what do
you like about being white? Not about your ethnicity, but

(59:22):
about being white? What do you think they say? Yeah,
I've never I've never had that discussion before, so I
wouldn't I would know. I barely like I barely hear
black folks saying what do you like about being black?
I don't really hear that. And I'm just saying, if
we're talking about equality and we want things to be
the same for everybody, if we wanted to be uh
even bored, if you will, then one would say, if

(59:43):
I'm gonna tell you be less black, which we know
you and I both know that there's been corporations that
I've done this there's been supervisor just said, listen, you
should be less black. Therefore you would be more appropriate
for us, so you would be more accepted by us.
If we're saying that that's racism and that's wrong, than
being saying be less white can also be viewed as
racist and wrong. I get what you're saying. I hear,

(01:00:05):
I hear what you're saying. You're looking at it through
the context of uh context. It's a different context. It's
a different it's a different context. But that your context
doesn't necessarily mean that it's right. Just because you have
a different context. I can I can look at a
glass that has water, and then I can say that
glass is half full or is half empty. That's that's context,

(01:00:26):
that's the distinction. But either way, it's still a glass
would water at a particular level, right, And I'm saying
something different. I'm saying because those are objective measures. There's
a certain amount of water in the glass, and and
it's and it's and and my perspective may shape how
I describe it, but there's still an objective amount of
water in the glass. What I'm saying is that the

(01:00:47):
very idea of white and black aren't objective in that
way that they're not flat objective categories. They're categories and
ideas and identities that emerge out of history, and they
emerge out of politics, and they emerge out of social meaning.
And so when we make social meanings about things, they
don't necessarily mean the same thing. And so, and even
an example you just gave when I tell somebody, this

(01:01:09):
is what I said. If you would ask a bunch
of black people, what do you like about being black?
You don't think that. I think. You go on Twitter
and find a hashtag what I like about being black?
You can find million people tell you all the ship
they like about being black. Right, you don't find white
people in general talking about things they like about being
white that aren't about and if they do, it's from
You'll you'll see some very interesting answers. And I'd like
you to do this and anyone else listening to this

(01:01:30):
as an experiment as white people, what do you like
about being white? Not about being Irish or any other ethnicity, Italian?
What have you? What are you like about being white?
And the problem is it creates a discomfort because whiteness
is often defined or the things you like about being
white or often in opposition to what black people don't
have or to what other people don't have, because whiteness
is about a power relationship, just like blackness is about

(01:01:51):
a power relationship. And so that's why I'm saying it's different.
And so when you ask, when you when if somebody
says that you be less black, like you said, they're
saying you need to hide that society has decided are
wrong and bad in order to achieve right. Don't talk
the way you talk, don't move the way you move,
don't dress the way you move, do a dress the
way you dress, don't do the things that you do

(01:02:11):
culturally or don't don't identify in the world with the
people that has been despised. Yeah, you're right, that would
be racist when they tell you don't be white, when
they said don't don't act white. And again I'm not
saying it's okay. I'm just saying it doesn't necesarily to
be racist. Everything is not the same if I say, um,
actless white. A lot of times just saying, at least
in experiences that I've had where this has been said,

(01:02:32):
they're saying, be more culturally sensitive, listen to other people,
decenter yourself. Can you just say that I agree with you.
I said there are other ways to do it. I'm
not I'm not. What I'm saying, though, is the sentiment
behind beat less white is not the same as a
sentiment behind beatlist like they're not the same thing. I
agree with you that there are better ways to deliver it.

(01:02:53):
I agree with you that this is not a helpful
or healthy way to build community. We're on the same
page that you shouldn't do it. But just because you
shouldn't do it doesn't mean it's racist. Okay, all right, UM,
I hear your point. Now, let me ask you about
something because we were talking about walking this right now
and we're seeing and to your point where you were saying, hey,
you shouldn't be like this like that, and you're using

(01:03:14):
your example in your descriptor for black people be less black,
I would I would argue that they're the same thing
is occurring with white people, with a lot of white
people saying, hey, I hate my white skin and I
hate um what has happened in this country and what
I what I might me being white has has done
to this country, and that that's a whole another set
of issues and probably self hatred because obviously these are

(01:03:36):
people ancestors and not them actually committing the acts. But
there was a guy by the name of Andrew Gutman
who head is I believe it was his daughter in
a private school in New York City, and he recently
took her out, and he wrote a letter to to
UM six hundred parents about what they were teaching. And

(01:03:56):
in the letter and some of the things he said
in the letter I disagree with. I want to read
this part UH here what he said, object to the
idea that blacks are unable to succeed in this country
without the aid from government or from whites. He disregards
the view that blacks should be forever, forever regarded as
helpless victims and are incapable of success, regardless of their skills, talent,

(01:04:19):
or hard work. And he believed that's what they were
teaching in the class. And I think to some degree
a lot of people can agree with that statement in
terms of UH saying that, hey, you, because you're black,
you can't be as successful. And I grew up with
people saying that to me that I can only go
so far in life because of the color of my skin.
I'm talking about black folks telling me that exact same thing.

(01:04:40):
And these are things that are passed down, theories that
are passed down from generation to generation. I understand that
their systems against us. I understand the history of this country.
I get all those things. But for us to form
our mentality around we can't succeed because of the color
of our skin. It's not just a dangerous concept, it's
one that provides um that we're incapable of any success whatsoever.

(01:05:03):
So what do you do if you believe that you
can't succeed doing things the right way? You you get
involved in criminality, You pretty much story your life away.
You don't believe in education because hey, I'm not going
to succeed regardless because of the color of my skin.
Are you seeing that in this woke culture? Now? Are you?
Are you? Have? You are familiar? You're not seeing that
at all? Have you never heard of any of this? No?

(01:05:26):
What I what I've heard in my experience in the
forty two years I've been on this planet. Um is
uh more black people acknowledging this is no internal conversations
that it happens. White people are engaging in it as well.
They're saying Hey, we need to bring about qutches because

(01:05:48):
there's no way you can succeed because you're black. That
that that does exist. We see that very little. Yeah,
I'm just saying, you asked me about my experience. Experience.
I get an example. I went to Cook County Jail
with Jesse Jackson. Of time, since you missed Jesse Jackson,
you would agree that Jesse Jackson, someone who talks about
systemic racism, right, and and and black people having a
tough way to go. Jack is not shy about criticizing

(01:06:11):
racism and calling out racism. Right. So we go to
the jail and he says, to the incarcerated brothers, how
many of you are here for a non violent drug offense?
Hands go up? Almost everybody, right, systemic stuff, He says,
how many of you finished high school? Almost no hands
go up? He said, how many of you have kids?

(01:06:34):
Hands go up? Two kids, hands go up, three kids?
Whole bunch of hands up. He stopped asking, So how
many of you are here under twenty five years old?
A whole bunch of hands go up? So about young
black men, systemic drug crimes, kids, broken schools, the whole nine.
But he just asked questions. He says to him, how

(01:06:55):
many of you I want to get out of this
prison or his jails? She is, how many you want
to get out of here? They raised their hands. He said,
how many you'll want to leave his place? He said, yeah,
how many you'll want to shut this prison down? Everybody
raised their hand. They said, what do we do? You
know what he said? He said, don't come back no more.

(01:07:16):
He said, don't come back no more. Jesse Jackson as
a critique of society. It's a critique of the drug war.
He is a critique of broken schools. But when he
met with those young men, what he said to them was,
if you want to shut this thing down, don't come
back no more. You're from Chicago. I'll give you another example,
Elijah Mohammed, and I don't you Mohammed. He said, we

(01:07:38):
have to starve the system. Nobody would ever say the
Nation of Islam doesn't have a critique of racism. But
what he said was, we have to starve the system
by cleaning ourselves up. So when you look at Marcus Garvey,
when you look at do Boys, when you look at
book or t when you look at Malcolm, when you
look at King the argument and our tradition, the churs

(01:08:00):
and I've been a part of, is not to ignore
that we got work to do and that we need
to do better, and that we need to act right.
But it's to balance the need for act right with
the realities of a system in which we need to
act right. And so when I hear people say the

(01:08:21):
system is messed up, there's a conspiracy against us, they're
trying to kill us, they're trying to arrest us, they're
trying to push us out of school, they're trying to etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
The the endgame has never been to just concede to that.
It's to understand, as Ratcas used to say back in
the nature of the threat, it's to understand what you're

(01:08:44):
up against so that you can fight and win. So
when I meet with young black men, I say, yes,
there is a conspiracy against you. They want you go on,
they want your erase, they want you silence, then want
you marginalize. But I said, the next question is are
you going to be part of the conspiracy or are
you going to fight the conspiracy? And that's how I

(01:09:06):
think about this work, and that's what I've always heard
of our tradition. The system is sucked up, but you
gotta act right, and that's the only way we can succeed.
The system is left up, but you gotta right. Yeah. Wow,
let me ask you this question because I really want
to ask you about this. And you know it's about
racism because you mentioned Jesse Jackson. You said you you

(01:09:27):
know he talks about racism all the time. Yeah, of course,
racism exists, and I personally don't believe it. It will
never not exist. I think hate will always be with us,
whether it be hate against Hispanics, hate against White's, hate
against blacks, whatever the case may be. I think hate
is is here to stay. I don't think that that's
gonna change at any point until Jesus come. Maybe then

(01:09:48):
you know that that are changing. And I'm not sure
how you feel about Jesus and one on that, but
you see racism continuously being used in ways like I
saw that. It was a a transgender woman who says,
for those who say that we shouldn't have um biological
men playing in women's sports, that's the new form of

(01:10:10):
white supremacy and racism in this country. Uh. You you
have a home, I know you might be in your
home right now, you have a master bedroom. Right. People
are saying that master bedrooms, the phrasing of that is racist.
People are saying that trees are racist. People are saying
a lot of different things and a lot of a

(01:10:30):
lot of cases. What I'm seeing now it has nothing
to do with black folks and legitimate racism. White liberals
have usurped what true and real racism is for their
own agenda and their own benefit. And we got policymakers
like Joe Biden who no longer speaks to black people
in terms of direct policy. He's saying minorities. Um, do

(01:10:50):
you think that the liberals, like really far left liberals
or even just liberals in general right now, have usurped
these not even concepts, but what has happened with racism,
and they created their own agenda to the kind of
fuel whatever they want to target and push forward in
their own life. No. Um, I think that if we

(01:11:15):
have a look at the grand swoop of history, they've
always been these kinds of tensions and debates. They've always
been these skepticisms of white liberals and criticisms of white liberals,
very skeptical of white liberals, Yeah, he should have been. Um.
And so I don't think this is some new movement
as much as I see part of the tension of
freedom fighting, part of the challenge of of of having

(01:11:38):
moral and political political clarity. What are we fighting for?
What is the endgame here? What is it supposed to
look like? Um? Is every fight worth fighting for? Now?
You and I might disagree on whether these things are,
these terms, these moments, these movements, these controversies, these stories
are racist or not. I mean, that's almost not even
the point, right Uh. Um. The question is who gets

(01:12:02):
determined what the thing is? And I think too often
we have surrendered um our power to define, in our
power to lead our own meeting freedom movement, to other people,
including white liberals. We've allowed too many people to shape
the discourse or to tell us who we're supposed to

(01:12:23):
be and how we're supposed to be. And for me,
the best thing we can do at this junction in
history is to rest that control back. And I think
the most beautiful thing I saw in the streets of
Missouri and two thousand and fourteen, or the streets of Minnesota,
in the streets is the people taking control. The people

(01:12:44):
season seizing power, et cetera. We're calling for defunding because
that's what we want, damn what Joe Biden wants. Right,
we're gonna call for medicare for all to help what
Joe Biden wants. And even and even though this is
a particularly black issue, it should be uh, the Green

(01:13:08):
New Deal, we're gonna call for it because that's what
we want, that's the people want. And we're no longer
going to say I pray, We're no longer going to say, um,
not yet, we can't wait. The Democrats won't win on that.
We're now saying, what do our people need? What do
the people need? What do what? What does the world need?

(01:13:30):
And we're making those judgments. Um, And again, we may
have disagreements, You and I may have disagreements, but if
we love black people and we love freedom and we're
willing to fight for it, then we can get somewhere. Well, yeah,
you're right, we we do disagree because I don't think
black folks are so interested in the Green Deal with
some of these other things that you mentioned. But you know,
you know what you said, you know what I just said,

(01:13:50):
the exact same thing I said. I don't think that's yeah, yeah,
but you said they should, but I don't. I don't
think black folks are really for for that. Think Poland
supports that. But I want to finish this conversation by
talking about unity. There's no secret that our country is
very divided. We often hear people, including President Biden, talk
about the need for national unity. Is there any hope

(01:14:12):
of that happening? And what steps can be taken to
unify the American people more uh than they are now.
I don't think you can have unity without justice, which
include prisons. UM. I don't think prisons is the issue
right now. We're talking about unifying the people. I'm saying

(01:14:33):
we're dying in the streets. We don't have access to capital.
There's a huge wealthcap um. Our neighborhoods are over polluted. UM.
We're being our streets are being militarized, jobs are leaving. UM.
I'm saying that there's too there's too much of a

(01:14:53):
gap between those who have and those who don't for
us UM to be unified. There's also a big chunk
of the country that's deeply racist. It's deeply homophobic, it's
deeply transphobic, and the condition of peace the precondition of
peace has to be justice. So if people don't feel

(01:15:17):
whole and whatever that looks like, then no, we won't.
We won't have unity. We can't all right, So justice
in the form of ensuring that police aren't unjustly killing people,
Justice in the form of black folks not killing each other,

(01:15:39):
Justice in the form of jobs. Coming back to the
communities which which existed in pre COVID. Things were going
fairly well for a lot of people. So you're saying
we need justice overall in order to unify the country
in a real way. I'm saying that, yes, but I'm
gonna be clear of the bar is very low right now.

(01:15:59):
You know, where we were pre COVID is not enough.
Where we were, we were there, we were doing really
well things. I mean, the lowest black unemployment rate in
the history of this country, or at least since they've
been recording the data. You're missing my point. I'm saying
that the bar for for the bar for justice and

(01:16:19):
prosperity can't just be that. I'm saying that this isn't
This isn't the partisan argument. I'm thinking, you know, whether
we're talking about the Trump days with Timbo, the Obama
days and saying none of it was enough. We've never
been close to justice. Are we closer than we were
fifty years ago? Of course, I'm not making the case
that there's no progress. What I'm saying is we still
have so far to go, and and and and the
gaps were experiencing don't hinge upon whose president They hinge

(01:16:43):
upon our capacity to imagine the world differently and better,
and um also our our political will to make it happen.
And we're so far from that. There's such a crisis
of leadership. But there's also christ of imagination in this
in this country, political imagination, social imagination, cultural imagination. There's

(01:17:05):
so much further we could go if we just dream
differently and worked differently and organized differently. And I didn't
just say, well, we can't do that because we've never
done it before. And that's too often where we where
we find ourselves. Yeah, I certainly agree with you that
there's a crisis of leadership. We're seeing a board that
uh continuously in crisis. We're seeing a White House that

(01:17:27):
seemingly and they just got into I'll give them that
they've been in office for what five months now, So
I'll give them the fact that they just got in,
but they're seemingly a government that's not completely working for everyone.
So that's that's a problem in and of itself. But
before I let you go, what's next for you? Do
you have any big projects? You know, you want to
plug your your TV show? You know, got a book

(01:17:49):
out as well. I know I'm doing a lot, very
excited about it, you know. I I am the host
of Black News Tonight, which airs every single day Monday
to Friday, eight o'clock on Black News Channel, which is
in fifty two million cable home so it should be
on on whoever's listening is cable provider if not, it's
also in Roku channel, Amazon, uh t vo all all
the things. UM. Also the host of Upfront Without Jazeera.

(01:18:13):
Our season just ended, but we'll be right back in
the fall with with weekly weekly international news and just
great hard hitting stories. UM. I have the Coffee and
Books podcast where I sit down with great authors to
talk through UM their work, their ideas, et cetera. And
I'm the owner of Uncle Bobby's Coffee and Books. So
if you're if you're purchasing books or UH interested in

(01:18:34):
you know, critical community, critical engaged conversations and beautiful beloved community.
Go to Uncle Bobby's dot com uncle b O B
B I E s dot com and you can check
out all this stuff, including our apparel, our books, everything well,
thank you so much for your your time. It was
a great conversation. Thank you for joining me today on
that with cars. It's my pleasure, but bless your brother.

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