S2 Ep #2: Folklore & Race

Host Z & Host Jess discuss the intersectionality of folklore and race with Dr. Pat Turner of UCLA, author of "I Heard It Through the Grapevine: Rumor in African-American Culture" and "Crafted Lives: Stories and Studies of African American Quilters."

 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to awakened in America, two minds
on a journey to create dialogueabout diversity, inclusion and
optimism.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Hey listeners, how is everybody doing?
We are really excited to be backwith our second episode of 2021.
That feels good to say it's beenkind of a long week over here.
I don't know about the rest ofyou, but I am kind of dealing
with some repatriation of sorts.
Kind of like getting back to alittle bit of normalcy.
My kids kind of went back topreschool for a few mornings a

(00:40):
week.
It was my daughter's fourthbirthday, just a lot of things
that were really normal preCOVID, that all of a sudden I'm
kind of reacclimating and kindof throw me for a bit of a loop.
So apologies if I'm sounding alittle bit tired and trying to
get it together here foreverybody.
But having said all of that, I'msuper excited to have with us
today, Dr.

(01:00):
Pat Turner.
And I thought it was especiallyfitting that all of us are women
and it's the beginning ofwomen's history month.
That's very exciting as well.
And, um, as a girl, mom, and I'ma boy mom too, but as a girl,
mom, definitely, you know, alongwith other social issues, really
want to make sure that that thatoccasion is elevated.
So D do you want to say hi toeverybody before we introduced

(01:21):
Dr.
Pat, hello awakens, thank youfor joining us and hope you
enjoy this episode.
So Dr.
Chats, we have here with ustoday, her name is Patricia
Turner.
We kind of just made up thatname, Dr.
Pat, and the last 10 minutes.
And she's being a really goodsupport and letting us go with
that.
So she is a senior professor.
She's actually been a professorsince 1985, and she's been

(01:44):
teaching in world arts andcultures slash dance.
And African-American studies atUCLA here in LA area where we
are, and her research focuses onracial dynamics as they surface
and folklore in popular culture,she's published four books.
And the one we're going toreference probably today, later
in the episode is called.
I heard it through the grapevinerumors and African-American

(02:05):
culture, and then her mostrecent manuscript, which is race
rumor and conspiracy theories.
Sorry, if he, um, what's thefull title of that Dr.
Turner?
Well, you know, with the editorsnow, so the title admitted it,
which doesn't mean that that'sthe title that will be on the

(02:27):
book.
The authors in your audiencewill know that, but the working
title is trash talk, colonanti-Obama lore and race in the
21st century.
She's also served as aconsulting scholar on several
documentaries, including MarlonRiggs, Emmy award winning,
ethnic notions.
And I know she's actually done alot more than that, but this is

(02:49):
the very modest file that shesupplied us with.
And she's also held dualappointments as vice provost of
undergraduate education and thesenior Dean of the UCLA college
before she stepped down last.
So, hello, Pat, great to haveyou with us.
I want to say hi to ourlisteners real quickly.
Hi,

Speaker 3 (03:05):
It's great to be with you.

Speaker 2 (03:07):
So what we're going to be talking about today is
something that I actually feelreally privileged to be able to
have, um, a conversation aboutwith somebody so knowledgeable
and, um, well-studied on, uh,something that DNI do our best
to tackle in our conversationsand in our episodes, this is
very nuanced, you know, hugeissue that, that America's day

(03:29):
thing.
I know other parts of the worldas well, but that will be racism
and, you know, racism in Americaand Z.
And I, although we feel verypassionate about it and you
know, I, myself from a studentof racism and, and how it's
affecting things by no means,are we any sort of expert?
And I always try to caveat thatbecause I think a lot of the
time I find myself kind of likemaking some sort of statement

(03:51):
and I'm like, you know, I don'treally think I'm qualified to
say that, but today we have withthis, somebody who is extremely
qualified.
So I feel really, you know, I'mgrateful to be able to have this
conversation with you.
And I hope my listeners andeverybody that follows us.
Um, hopefully you are going toget the same sort of experience
from, from hearing somebodythat's so knowledgeable on the

(04:12):
topic.
Like I said, so without furtherado, our first question that we
have for you, we know that youstudy folklore and that, you
know, to me, it seems like apretty specialized topic.
Could you kind of tell ourlisteners what your definition
of folklore is to start withproblems?

Speaker 3 (04:30):
Every folklorist will define folklore a little bit
differently, but I think of itas the material of every day
life.
It may help if I sort of tellyou the moment at which I knew
that I was a folklorist, I wasin graduate school and I knew
that I wanted to specialize inAfrican American materials.

(04:52):
And I wanted to make that thecore of, of my scholarly
inquiry, but I didn't know if Iwanted, I had been an
undergraduate major in politicalscience.
I didn't know if I wanted to dohistory.
I didn't know if I wanted to doliterature.
Um, you know, I didn't know whatlens I wanted to use.
And a professor of minesuggested that I take a folklore

(05:15):
class.
I fell in love with it rightaway.
And I remember that theprofessor that, um, on a
particular day, this, thesubject matter of the lecture
was Proverbs.
And I remember leaning back inmy chair in the lecture hall and
saying, this is it becauseProverbs for the literature of

(05:36):
my household, my parents didn'tread Ralph Ellison.
They didn't, you know, theydidn't listen to black opera
singers.
They only bought it any magazineon special occasions.
You know, there had to besomebody really good on the
cover before they were going tospend money on that.
But folklore represented a wayinto the live it's of people

(06:05):
like my family and the membersof our church, because they'll
have a literature and had a modeof communication in terms of
Proverbs and the sermons I'm inthe church on Sunday, the, the
lyrics of the spirituals, thered parte, my father would
engage in with his buddies, um,you know, with beer on Sunday

(06:27):
afternoon and that kind ofthing.
And folklore gave me a way ofprivileging that, and really
focusing all of my academicenergy, uh, in that direction.

Speaker 2 (06:43):
Wow.
That's great.
So it was sort of a naturalgravitation that you have there.
That's really cool.
So as it relates toAfrican-American history, I
guess when in your own personalhistory, did those worlds kind
of come together and you studythem side by side, or they're
two separate entities, right?
You studied folklore and alsoAfrican-American studies.

Speaker 3 (07:03):
I always approached, you know, when I was, you
mentioned that I had my firstfaculty appointment in 1985.
So I was educated at a period,which in which people didn't
study African-American studies,it was very, very new field and
only a few places had focus onit.

(07:26):
And certainly no place had, youknow, a whole graduate
curriculum at the time that Iwould have been going to
graduate school.
So many of the faculty membersin African-American studies of
my generation were trained insomething else and had
identified, you know, their,their, their focus had been, uh,

(07:46):
the experience ofAfrican-Americans.
So my early colleagues werepeople who had English PhDs.
Yeah.
So I, I came to it from thepoint of view of, as I say,
from, from the point of view offolklore and in my, my first
faculty appointments, theadvertisements for the jobs were

(08:07):
basically, you know, looking,looking for someone and, uh,
with, with a PhD in areas thathave required them to explore
the African or African-Americanexperience, you know, folklore
was one of the categories andthat's, you know, that was my
entree point.

Speaker 2 (08:25):
Again, going back to things that, to me seemed very
specialized and I'm genuinelyvery interested in how you
landed on a book about quiltingand its place in American
history.
I know that's another one ofyour four books that you have
published currently.
Could you tell us a little bitabout that?

Speaker 3 (08:42):
Sure.
And I think you mentioned beforethat this is a women's history
month African-American women'sstories are even harder to an
earth, then the story's writlarge.
And one of the things thatfolklore is, you know, in, in,
in terms of trying to figure outthese stories, one of the things

(09:05):
that I found challenging in myearly years as a scholar was
folklore respondents, speak tothe source, right?
We want to interview the peoplethemselves about their lives,
but black women.
And I, I like to resist thesegeneralizations when I can, but
it's a reasonable generalgeneralization to make that, um,

(09:26):
women, I would have beeninterviewing in the 1970s and
eighties who grew up at thebeginning of the 20th century
were unaccustomed to havinganyone really interested in
their lives.
So you would try to interviewthem about what their households
were like, what their educationwas like, any of those kinds of
things.
And you'd get one word answers.

(09:48):
And why do you care about, youknow, they flip the script on
you.
Why do you care?
Nobody, nobody cares.
What kinds of vegetables I grew,nobody cares that you know about
this.
And it was a very frustratingexperience until I was working
with colleagues at theSmithsonian institution on a
Folklife festival.

(10:08):
And they had asked me to be apart of a team that was going to
interview African-Americanquilters from the South.
Who'd been selected toparticipate in this festival in
Washington, DC.
And they brought their quiltswith them.
And with the quilt as the topicof the discussion, they were far

(10:32):
more animated.
So you can get them to talkabout their childhood by asking
them, how did you learn toquilt?
Your mother, teach her to grabwhat was that realized, you know
, what was the furniture like?
You could get to all of theother things about their lives,
about their marriages by makingthe quilt for subject of the
conversation rather than thewoman itself.

(10:55):
And it was a far more revealingthing to me than what I had done
up until that point for sort ofgetting at that generation of
women.
And then I realized that theperception of black women was
quilting was, you know, my firstexperience of it, it was women

(11:16):
from the South who, you know,hadn't had much education, lower
socioeconomic status, all ofthat.
There's a tendency to frame theblack experience sometimes that
way.
And to say that that's the wholeof the black experience.
And I quickly, you know, I knewthis already, but Colts were

(11:38):
another way of saying that's nottrue.
So my book on quilting taught,you know, I've got, um,
explorations of art, quilters ofmale quilters.
I'm a black quilter who learnedto quilt in Alaska, which is
where she grew up, urbanquilters and quilters with PhDs.
The common denominator is thatthey're African-American, but

(12:00):
they represent the range ofAfrican-American demography.
And the common denominator withthem is an artistic impulse to
create something functional orbeautiful with fabric.
That is fascinating.
I wasn't expecting all of thoseconnections.

(12:20):
So thank you for making thosefor me

Speaker 4 (12:22):
Because my grandmother and some of my great
aunts are quilters.
And, um, I know from watching mygrandmother actually do the
quilting and stitching like, youknow, each square that, and
actually own her owngrandmother's sewing machine
that she had, uh, rebuilt.
And we actually have our housetoday.

(12:45):
To me, it was a way to pass onour history because
unfortunately, I feel like muchof the oration has been lost,
like as generations moveforward, that's not a primary
way of disseminating knowledgelike it used to be.
So did you find that like thequilters, were they using that

(13:07):
to pass on history?

Speaker 3 (13:09):
So there's a lot that's been written about that.
And you know, there's not agreat paper trail on, on many
aspects of, of, of particularly19th century and early 20th
century African-Americanexperience.
So there are some people whowould, who make the case.
And I don't think the evidenceis there, that there was a lot

(13:32):
of messaging in the quiltsthemselves.
And I don't find a lot I'm inthis sort of group of scholars
who don't find a lot tosubstantiate that the quilts
themselves, particularly in theera of, uh, you know, again, in
the 19th century and early 20thcentury contained hidden
messages, but your grandmother'sexperience with, um, your great

(13:58):
grandmother and other women inthe family, the time that they
spent with each other, workingon the quilts with they were
working on the quilts in common.
That was certainly the time thatthey use to share family
histories with each other.
It's in those common functionsof life that the younger

(14:21):
generation binds out what theirgrandmother was like, or, um,
what the wedding of an aunt waslike, what the work conditions
were like for the generationbefore, what their access to
education was, you know, and the, and the ritual of giving a
quilt.
One of the most moving sets ofstories I collected during the

(14:45):
quilting time was of, um, lotsof people who were the
generation in their families togo to college in say the 1940s,
fifties, and sixties, and theirmother, their grandmother, their
aunt made a quilt for them totake, to put on their dorm bed
at college and the selection ofthe fabric, you know, what

(15:09):
colors they chose, you know,what, what they opted to give
was a great significance.
And I heard a range of storiesfrom the recipients of those
quilts, some of which was, youknow, they, they treasured it
right away and they were veryproud of it.
And others, these were often themore traumatic stories where
people who said, I didn't wantto put it on my bed.

(15:31):
I wanted a bedspread on my bed.
I didn't realize then what, uh,that this gift represented.
You know, I thought it wasputting something country and
homemade and, you know, I wanteda bedspread, like I thought
other people had in college, onmy dad, and now I would give
anything to go back or, youknow, they all these stories
about retrieval and finding, youknow, finding, finding the

(15:54):
quilts and so forth came up.
So, so, so certainly quilts hada historical dimension to them
often, not in the actual makingof the design of the quilt
itself.
Thank you for explaining that.
That definitely makes a lot ofsense.

Speaker 2 (16:10):
Yeah.
So I now have a betterunderstanding of the way that
folklore AfricanAfrican-American studies and
quilting all kind of cometogether.
So related, we read that yourresearch focuses on racial
dynamics as they surface infolklore in popular culture.
So now we have a betterunderstanding of what you mean
by that.
So tying it back to the, we'recurious what your feedback would

(16:33):
be on how you think it affectsthe racial tension in this
country and kind of what we'regoing through right now.

Speaker 3 (16:39):
Yeah.
So I think I started out wantingto reveal and, and a lot of my
work is focused on revealingmore about everyday life in
black culture, butAfrican-Americans have had to
grapple with the way whiteAmericans treat us and deal with

(17:00):
us and sort of structural racismand so forth.
And that often gets manifestactually in white folklore in
the kinds of slurs that becomeassociated with blacks, with the
stereotypes that will frame theblack experience, the same tools
of folklore that I can use tocelebrate a beautiful quilt that

(17:24):
a woman has made, or a man ismade every day.
White life can be populated bynegative stereotypes about
blacks stories that, that theytell, um, most recently,
obviously the kinds ofconspiracy theories, the kinds

(17:44):
of rumors, you know, my, myrecent work on Obama is really
all a largely white folk loreabout black people.
And there you see enormousevidence of the, of the racial
tensions from the moment that heemerged prominently in the sort

(18:05):
of mindset of people who werehardcore political junkies,
which most people would tracedto 2004 when he gave the
nominating speech for John Kerryat the democratic national
convention, the rumors and theinnuendo about him started
within the weeks following that

Speaker 2 (18:28):
[inaudible] yeah, I think I actually read something
that you published that wastalking about, you know, it was
a combination of factors, butthe fact that he kind of little
known before the election kindof set off this huge media
frenzy of conspiracy theoriesand things like that.

Speaker 3 (18:43):
Yeah.
I mean, I think it's the work Idid in, I heard it through the
grapevine focused on rumors andlegends within the black
community that were ways inwhich again, lots of scholars at
that juncture had written booksand articles, particularly

(19:04):
contemporary legends as thoughthere weren't, they didn't exist
in the black community.
And so I can remember takingcoursework and so forth and
reading books that said, youknow, this is a white phenomenon
and so forth.
And I knew from my ownexperience that that wasn't the
case.
So, you know, my, like I said,my book, I heard it through the

(19:26):
grapevine and then whispers onthe color line.
You know, my focus there was onbeliefs that reflected the way
in which some African Americans.
And again, you've got to watchthat tendency to generalize made
sense of the world around themand made sense of the messages

(19:47):
they were receiving from, fromwhite society and the way that
the way they interpreted theorder of who has power and who
doesn't have power and how muchpower people have, and, and the
extent of that power.
So, you know, that, that was thefirst two, the first, the first,
the first couple of effortsthere.
And then with the later workwith Obama, it's completely, you

(20:11):
know, it's almost completelyflipped, right?
Because these are the thingsthat are circulating in near
exclusively white communitiesaround, around why he was, why
it was inappropriate for him tobe president, uh, why it was
offensive for him to bepresident, why it was
un-American for him to bepresident, you know, with a

(20:32):
series of beliefs from the factthat he wouldn't wear a flag pin
or salute the flag or sing thenational Anthem, or was Muslim
by birth was born in Kenya orIndonesia

Speaker 2 (20:48):
Intended to inflicting Bola on American
soldiers so that they would killoff other white Americans, you
know, was conspired with theItalian leadership in 2016 to
manipulate American votingmachines in 2020.
So that Joe Biden would beelected presidents.

(21:11):
You know, it goes, it goes fromflag pins, you know, to Q Anon.
So, yeah, that is quite atimeline as he and I were
talking about this, we actually,I came across like a Venn
diagram of all the differentObama conspiracy theories.
So the only two, I feel like Iwas really privy to being a
Caucasian are, um, that he isnot born in the United States.

(21:32):
He's not an American citizen andthat he's a radical Muslim.
Those were the two that Iremember being like, okay, I
have no idea who's circulatingthis and where it's coming from,
but when you lay it out likethat, it does make sense.
It was, you know, presumably,you know, coming from a place of
fear or unfamiliarity or, or, um, that sort of thing.

(21:53):
And, um, some white Americanhouseholds, I guess.
And that's kind of what startedthe avalanche.
How about UV?
Were there anything you rememberwhen Obama was kind of new on
the scene?

Speaker 4 (22:04):
Basically, it was just, I just, I just remember,
especially once he was electedpresident that I just couldn't
turn on like certain newsstations without a hearing, you
know, constant negativity, youknow, to the extent that when I
was working as a nurse, youknow, some patients that were
from other countries wouldactually say to me like, wow,

(22:28):
you know, I can't believe, likethey're saying that about the
president on the television.
And I said, yes, you know, it's,it is very unfortunate.
Um, so they, they actuallythought that, I guess the
America that, you know, everyoneonce believed in like, Oh, it's
such a, you know, such a greatcountry to hear them talk about

(22:50):
a black president that way whowas newly elected, hadn't even
had a chance to prove himself.
That was just being denigratedlike daily.
It was just, I think it wasunbelievable to many people in
the world, you know, not justAfrican-Americans

Speaker 2 (23:09):
Z.
Do you remember, I'm curious toknow if you remember when he was
being considered a possiblecandidate for president that
sort of 2006 to 2008 period,maybe even 2005.
Do you remember members of theblack community who didn't want
him to run?
Because they were afraid he'd beassassinated?

Speaker 4 (23:32):
Honestly, I don't remember that particularly when
he was running, but I doremember that once he was
elected.
Yeah.
That was like, and you know,it's really weird because I, I
think I may have heard it like acouple of times from like random
people, not even like my closefriends or anything, but then

(23:54):
like then when I went to soclose friend, they would like
say the same thing.
And I'm like, yeah, you thinkthat too?
And then like randomAfrican-Americans that I ran
into thought that, and then myclose circle of people also
started to believe the samething was like, well, it
happened to Dr.
King for those who don't agreewith what I'm about to do, it

(24:18):
happened to Malcolm X.
But I'm just saying that, youknow, typically when prominent
black leaders have risen up,things just happen to happen to
them is not like it's aconspiracy theory.
It's more like this is whatactually happened.
And so our belief is that, whycan't it happen again?

Speaker 3 (24:39):
I think it's interesting though, you know, in
terms of this topic of, of sortof race in the 21st century and
where we are in DeVry thing, hetalks about it in promised land
in his biography.
And Michelle talks about it andbecoming that they really
struggled with potential blackvoters on this issue.

(25:01):
And they had to say things likeMichelle would say to political
consultants did and, and, and,and to other people, Oh, we'll
look, you know, he could just,he could get shot cricket,
crossing the street, you know,he could, you know, if he's a
black man, he could get killedanytime.
So, you know, let him run for PRyou know, it's, it's not any
more likely or less likelybecause he's running for

(25:23):
president.
And when I was writing that partof my book, I said, how do I,
this, that this is something, nowhite candidate, no white
candidates partner has toassuage people, Oh, look, he
could get killed anytime.
You know, he's, he's a youngwhite person in America, or
she's a young white person inAmerica, you know, that they're
subject to random violence atany given moment.

(25:45):
So why not let them run forpresents like a whole level of
an issue that is absent.
I think from the considerationsof, you know, people rooted in a
journey of, uh, other candidatesfor president

Speaker 4 (26:02):
Kamala Harris, similarly with, you know, I
believe I heard some rumorsabout that as well, and that she
may have even had for avice-president that her, her
security detail may have startedsooner as opposed to other
vice-presidents.

Speaker 3 (26:20):
Yeah.
It did throw a bomb.
It did for her too.
Yeah.
Yeah.
One of the things that I, in my,you know, and all my whiteness
took issue with our KamalaHarris was that, um, I read, you
know, things saying Indian, shecan't face she's Indian because
Indian people are like, you'renot Indian, you know, you're,
you're black.
And then she can't say she'sblack.
And they're like, no, you'reIndian.

(26:41):
I mean, what a world we in.
I, yeah,

Speaker 2 (26:44):
That was something that struck me about, about the
most recent election was just,it was just, I guess, a
disarming tactic, you know, forpeople that weren't comfortable.
And that was the response justto kind of turn it on its head
and start discussions.
And, um, I guess it waseffective in that regard because
it got to me, so kind of alongsimilar lines, we're talking

(27:06):
about things I've heard throughthe grapevine things of these
heard being in two differentraces.
So what do you think hadaccounts for the fact that some
Caucasians and probably, youknow, even some of the people
you worked with, aren't aware ofthe same conspiracy theories
that circulate among people ofcolor.
I know you've kind of alreadymentioned this, but in like a,

(27:28):
in a sentence, how do you feellike that happens

Speaker 3 (27:31):
Part of what you were saying before, about how few of
the ones from the Venn diagramyou knew part of why you didn't
know them.
Isn't just, it isn't just thatyou're white, it's the, it's the
networks that you're in, right?
It's the, it's where you touchthe kind of materials that, that

(27:54):
I was looking at our own areonly going to be privy to people
who are in those conversations,right.
Who were on those websites inthe first place.
Although, I mean, one of themost fertile grounds for me for
finding material is in thecomments section after one of

(28:15):
the Obamas has been ontelevision or interviewed
somewhere.
So we're given a speech orsomething like that.
So if you go to Michelle Obama'sspeech at the democratic
national convention, both of herlast speeches, and you go to a
YouTube posting of that, andthen you click newest comments.

(28:38):
First on YouTube, you willinevitably get the anti Michelle
lore, which accuses her, ofbeing, um, a man, you know,
she's trans she's transgender,and they will refer to her as
Michael.
And they'll talk about evidencein, yeah, she was born Michael
Robinson.
They'll, they'll talk aboutevidence of male anatomy and so

(29:03):
forth, but you've gotta besomebody who, and I don't
recommend this.
You've gotta be somebody who,who, um, who, who, who knows how
to scroll those comments andknows, you know, and knows what
to look for.
One of the things that I, um,have found with, um, many
aspects of, of doing folkloreresearch in many folklorist have

(29:25):
this experience as well.
It's fairly common to us.
So we're all we're explainingand we're doing interviews and
we're doing this kind of thingoften.
We'll say, you know, I've neverheard of that until I did that
interview with you.
Or I read that book and now Isee it every week.
I wasn't privy to this before,but now, now it's so common.
Even, even quilts people said, Inever thought I'd even seen a

(29:48):
quilt until I heard of yourbook.
And now I realize how manypeople I know have them and how
many gifts there are of theminute, you know?
Um, you know, it's just anotherwhole, uh, exposure level.

Speaker 2 (29:58):
Yeah.
I'm actually one of thosepeople.
Now I'm thinking about quiltsthat were made for my myself,
but I was a baby and all thatstuff.
Very cool.
Um, so I have one last questionfor you, and then I'm going to
hand it over to Z these days,like you said, you know,
conspiracy theories, I guesssocial media is taking over in a
lot of ways.

(30:19):
The relationship between socialmedia and conspiracy theories is
something I came across, youknow, when I was preparing for
this and I read an article thatpresident Obama, I think he
published late last year in theAtlantic.
And he says, he thinks they'rethe single biggest threat to
democracy as it relates tosocial media and conspiracy
theories.
How do you, how do you viewthat?
Do you agree?

Speaker 3 (30:39):
I know no one of the things that social media and the
internet, the coincidence factorof that is kind of an
interesting one.
You know, I wrote two booksabout this before anybody ever
had a Twitter account.
So these things have existed,have existed and have affected

(31:01):
how people behave, how peoplevote, you know, the, the
discord, the, the racial discordof the 1960s and 1970s.
And, um, you know, what werecalled riots, then we're all
fueled by rumors and conspiracytheories.

(31:21):
Nobody had a Twitter account,right?
So the, these things have alwaysexisted.
I will say that it's remarkablyexpedited in our world today
because of the ease with whichpeople can promote and

(31:43):
disseminate them, the anonymitythat you can get.
So people can put something in apost after, you know, Michelle
Obama speech at the, at thedemocratic national convention,
and they can have a quirkyhandle and they can get away
with it in a way that if theyhad to encourage other people to

(32:06):
agree with them, they would haveto out themselves, if they were
doing it, you know, in church,on a bus in the workplace,
they'd have to say me with myname, who, you know, I believe
Michelle Obama was born in aman.
I believe, you know, all ofthese, these things and risk
risk, the, um, refugee, youknow, possible reputational harm

(32:29):
.
You don't have to do that withsocial.
You don't necessarily have to dothat with social media and so
forth.
Although it's remarkable to me,how many people just do insane
things with their own names and,and with their own identities.
And, um, you know, it comes backto haunt them.
You are right on, well, thankyou so much.
I'm going to, I'm going to handit over to Z for now.

Speaker 4 (32:51):
So Dr.
Pet in your book, I heard itthrough the grapevine.
You told the story of how backin 1985 six-ish you were
teaching at a university ofMassachusetts, and there was a
conspiracy that came up relatedto church's chicken.
Can you tell us a little bitmore about that and why that

(33:13):
made such an impact on you thatyou said, you know what, I need
to do more with this, and I needto do research behind that and
look into other conspiracies.

Speaker 3 (33:26):
Sure.
So I was, you know, right out ofgraduate school at the time.
Um, as I said in theconversation earlier, I had
rumors and legends had been acomponent of what I had studied.
And I'd read, you know, thebooks in the articles.
I we'd had a guest lecture whohad come from Scandinavia and

(33:47):
taught a whole course on, on, onlegends for us and in graduate
school.
And they were more so than, Ithink other scholars folklorist
have been traditionally veryattuned to the black experience
in America, uh, because it'slong been recognized by white
folklorist that this was a waythat the black experience could

(34:07):
be, could be rendered.
Anyway, when my student told thestory about church's fried
chicken being owned by the KUKlux Klan, and that the chicken
contained something in it,sterilized black men, and that
this was a mode of genocide.
It hit all of the markers ofrumors and legends that I had

(34:30):
studied, but I knew nofolklorist was looking at it.
And part of what you want to dowhen you're a young scholar is
carve out your turf, right?
You need to carve out what, whatyou, you know, that originality,
that creative thing that nobodyelse is talking.
So I went back to this and Isaid, I better make sure
nobody's done it.

(34:51):
And we're a very collegialgroup.
But back in those days, youeither had to pick up the phone
and call somebody.
But more likely what I did waswrite letters.
I wrote letters to like the sixor seven leading edge and
scholars and said, is anybodyworking on church's chicken?
And nobody was, and everybodysaid, Hey, if this is great,
don't have to attack.

(35:11):
And so I, um, and then as I wasfinishing that one, the, um,
beliefs about the Atlanta childkiller came up and then that we
were on the, the early days of,of AIDS, uh, the early days of
crack.
Um, and how crack cocaine, um,was decimating urban areas and

(35:32):
explanations for that werecoming up.
I found a lot, lots of, um,information as well.
So that's really how I gotstarted.

Speaker 4 (35:43):
Wow.
And you know, that they reallyspeaks to, like you said, that,
that, that time period as well,that it seems like, and I don't
know if this is true, butconspiracies seem to float
around each other in a specifictime period.
So like you had several in thattime period, and now I feel like

(36:06):
there'll be several in this timeperiod.
So maybe each time period hasits own legends and rumors and
things like that.
Do you find that it's really aweight?
Is it some of it's rooted intruth?
I'm sure.
But is it also a way to try andunderstand maybe the culture at
that particular moment?

Speaker 3 (36:27):
Oh, absolutely.
And there are a wide range ofthings that fall into this
category.
So, you know, you can takesomething like church's fried
chicken being owned by the KUKlux Klan and containing a magic
ingredient that sterilizes blackmale leaders.
And I can, you know, I can havescientists, you know, critique

(36:49):
the chicken and make surethere's nothing in there.
I can trace the ownership ofchurch's chicken.
You know, I can do all of thethings that discredit that as a
truth, but part of what's goingon there, I would argue

Speaker 4 (37:06):
Is

Speaker 3 (37:08):
Fast-food pride.
Chicken company has had rumorsor legends associated with it.
And ambivalence about fast foodand an ambivalence about fried
food and particularly chicken.
You know, a colleague of minewrote a book about, about effect
, the affection we have for homecooked chicken.
There's a, a truth that'sunderlying that people are like,

(37:31):
it's not the best thing for meto be spending my money on NAS
produce fried food.
And it's not the KU Klux Klanthat's benefiting from it, but
it's not a black person either.
I mean, when you get to thecorporate hierarchy of church's
chicken, you know, it's, it'swhite basis better there.
So switched hands so many times,I'm not even current on who owns

(37:53):
it.
I could have told you back inthe day, but, but that's part of
what's going on.
There is that it's a way inwhich people are saying, you
know, it's probably not a goodidea for me to eat this in terms
of the, something like theproliferation of crack cocaine
in urban areas.

(38:14):
That is a really, really dense,you know, that's a really dense,
uh, topic and what happens inSan Francisco versus what
happens in New York and Detroitand Philadelphia with how the
drugs got.
There are, you know, it's notnecessarily the same story over
and over again.

(38:34):
In, in, in all of thosesituations, there's not a lot of
evidence to suggest apremeditated plot, which is what
some people imagine a conferenceroom with, you know, white power
brokers sitting around the tableand a Blackboard going, let's do
genocide by bringing drugs fromSouth America.

(38:55):
And we'll have a network thatrebukes it.
Like, like there's not a lot ofevidence that, that happened.
There's evidence thatcontrolling the spread of drugs
in black areas was never apriority.
It was never, um, it's where lawenforcement dollars were going
to be wisely invested wheretreatment programs are.

(39:18):
We're, we're, we're, we're,we're going to surface.
And there's one of the ways inwhich I collected that more
often from people who would gowell.
Yeah, I know it's not true.
I'm dealing with 13 and 14 yearolds who I don't want to pick up
the crack pipe the first time.

(39:39):
So if I tell them just don't dodrugs or, you know, it's not
good for you that doesn't work.
If I tell them the man wants youto do it, if I tell you you're
fulfilling, Oh, white Clark, youknow, white people want to keep
you down.
Some of them will pick up thatpipe the first time.
Some of them that will be that'sa, that's a politically

(40:01):
acceptable appear, respectedspace.
They can be in to say, I'm notgoing to fulfill the white man's
fantasy of, of blacksubjugation.
Um, that that's in a moreeffective story to tell in that
situation than you couldoverdose.
And, you know, all of the, allof the, what we would consider,

(40:21):
what some people would consider,the more legitimate reasons, you
know, not to, not to, uh, not toexperiment in, in drugs.

Speaker 4 (40:30):
That's interesting that you say that.
Um, because when I first thoughtof folklore myself, I thought of
the storytelling component ofmy, I think my grandmother said
that like her grandparents, whenthey spoke to her, they, they
never really gave you a directanswer, that there were a lot of

(40:52):
like metaphors and insinuations,or they tell you a story.
And then you had to gleam theinformation from the story and
kind of try and figure it out.
And then subsequently like thatmy grandmother would do the same
thing to like my mother'sgeneration and her siblings.
And, you know, instead of sayinglike, don't have sex with before

(41:16):
marriage or something, they comeup with some type of story on
chastity or, you know, justsomething, but it was never like
direct information.
So I feel like that's probablyprobably goes way back in the
way that generations used totell stories that almost like

(41:36):
the Bible, like, you know, youcan read the Bible one time 20
times and you will get somethingdifferent each time.
So I wonder if you find that too, um, with the folklore.
So my, my next question was asthe member of the association of
African and African Americanfolklorist and as a professor,

(42:00):
do you feel as if there is anequal representation of folklore
by African-Americans presentedin education?

Speaker 3 (42:08):
No.
Um, and I think this is, this issomething we've long struggled
with.
Folklore is one of those fields.
Unfortunately, I think, youknow, everybody is privileges
their own, their, their, theirown heart, right?
So everybody believes, you know,in, in, in what they, what they
study folklore tends to be oneof those fields that you don't

(42:29):
get to until you get to college.
And then not even all collegesand universities have offerings.
So we don't ever encounteranyone in my field who says, you
know, very few, I think theother people I know who said, I
always knew I wanted to be afolklorist their fathers or
mothers were professors offolklore, because nobody hears

(42:51):
about this in high school.
I'm reading a book now by ablack biologist and his mother
was a high school biologyteacher.
So he, you know, he was a tobiology, you know, from high
school, you know, people go intobiology, you know, from, from
high school folklore, you sortof have to find it in college.
And then it's in the, you know,some places it's in the

(43:13):
humanities someplace, it's insocial sciences, lots of
African-Americanfirst-generation students are
encouraged to do moreprofessionally oriented kinds of
degrees that will make themengineers or lawyers or doctors,
you know, folk people, you know,what do you mean?
You go out, you go around thecountry interviewing quilters.

(43:34):
You can make a living doing thatduring the black person who's
gone through.
They're like, wait a minute.
You know, we don't want you,you're not going to be like,
dependent upon us for money oranything party, you know, you
need to, you know, and it's hardto explain to people that yes,
actually you can make a livingdoing it.
So we struggle to attract moreyoung African-Americans incoming

(43:56):
president of the Americanfolklore society is a black
woman.
And, um, I think that, that,it's very important.
It's very important part, uh,thing to her to, to see what we
can do to just try to make somemore inroads there.

Speaker 4 (44:10):
That's awesome because these days there's so
much that, I mean, kids can beliterally anything.
I mean, you know, the sky reallyis the limit and there are many
more professions.
I feel like then there werepreviously, you know, based on
evil, evolving, you know, withdifferent careers and
professions, it's just more thatwe know now.

(44:30):
So kids can do more.
And at an earlier age, exposingthem to different things also
can encourage and inspire them.
But, um, after 40 years, I wantto mention something referencing
statutes, because that wassomething that came up after
George Floyd's murder and theprotests around statues and, um,

(44:53):
history and whether or not itwas, you know, device of having
historical statues up of peoplewho actually did not contribute
in a positive way to Americanhistory.
Um, so my question is after 40years, um, a bust of a
Confederate general and firstgrand wizard of the KU Klux

(45:17):
Klan, Nathan Bedford, Forrest,which was seated at the
Tennessee state Capitol wasfinally removed in July of 2020
after protests and petitions.
Do you feel that this movementis permanent or are we just
experiencing the aftermath ofGeorge Floyd's murder and what

(45:41):
do you feel needs to be done tomake lasting changes in the way
history is portrayed?

Speaker 3 (45:47):
I don't know if either of you are gardeners and
I have to make sure I, I hatethat the name of this plant, it
has an, has an, a nationalityassociated with it, but do you
know what Japanese not wheat is?
It's an invasive plant.
People planted it in lots ofplaces a long time ago.
And if you don't have a regimenfor keeping it back, it will

(46:10):
take over your garden.
It will take over your guard.
You know, you'll think you havethe Japanese not weed under
control.
And then it just takes over.
And I, I think racism is likethat.
People will think that, youknow, it's been very cyclical.
People thought people thought atthe end of the civil war, we've

(46:32):
got black.
You know, there were blacks inCongress at the end of the civil
war and black collegesdeveloped, and people said, we
are on the road to racialparody.
They were saying that in thelate 1860s in the early 1870s
until radical reconstructioncame along and Jim Crow comes
along and everything getsshoved, it gets shoved back.
They said it again at the end ofworld war II, look at these

(46:53):
black soldiers that come back.
We can't possibly oppress peoplewho have defended America.
So loyally, you know, they we'vegot, you know, and again, white
supremacy surfaces that gets,that gets pushed back.
End of world war two, all of thecivil rights activities of the

(47:14):
1950 sixties and seventies arethe, okay, this is the moment,
you know, we're going to, theykept updating the look of aunt
Jemima, you know, and saying, Ohno, we can't have a mammy on the
cover.
We'll make her look like a blackhome economist.
You know, you know, this, thiskind of thing.
So all of these things happen,but then it's, it just keeps and

(47:35):
you know, it comes back theforces that want it to come back
are strong and resilient.
And we got it again in thenineties, we just had the
anniversary of the Rodney Kingtrial.
And that was another momentafter that, that people said,
okay, you know, we have tochange the curriculums in

(47:55):
schools.
And, you know, we have to makeplaces in board rooms.
You know, when the election ofObama people started using the
term pop, that's supposed to bea post-racial moment, surely
things were going to change.
And now, you know, it's theaftermath of, of George Floyd.
So the forces that want tomitigate racism have to be as

(48:19):
strong and as organized and aspersistent as the forces that
don't, you know, you just, youcan't like ignore your garden.
You just have to stay on it.
And it's not easy work.
It's very hard.
There's a fatigue that comes tomany people from always having

(48:39):
to be the warrior for alwayshaving to be on it.
You know, I, I had a blackcolleague at Berkeley who, a
black female colleague who saidwhen she first came to the
Berkeley faculty, they're like,Oh, this is good.
You know, we've got this blackwoman, we're gonna put her on
the hiring committee and we'regoing to put her on the
admissions committee and we'regoing to, you know, do all of

(49:01):
this work with, you know, she's,she's so great that she's
coming.
And she said, is there acommittee where the faculty get
to contribute to the look of thecampus and the architecture and
the landscaping?
And they said, yeah.
And she said, could I be on thatone place?
I can't even a time when I'mjust, I need a space where I can

(49:23):
do something that, you know, Ido this work of race in my
scholarship and in my classroom,could I just be on the committee
that decides, you know, wherethe next parking lots are going
to go and you know what we'regoing to do with the garden,
just please,

Speaker 4 (49:42):
You know, that's really profound.
That's a great analogy.
And you're absolutely right.
I think, um, some of the earlierdiscussions that Jess and I had
when we initially launched thepodcast, um, were actually about
that very thing was the momentumbehind the George Floyd murder

(50:03):
and COVID, and you know, is, youknow, like that trifecta seemed
to be like a time when thingscould really change.
But that momentum, we keptsaying like, you know, is this
meant going to always be therebecause if it isn't there, then

(50:23):
are we going to go back to thenorm?
You know, uh, the status quowhere even my husband and I
sometimes discuss that, youknow, these businesses that are,
you know, fortune 500 companiesthat are like, Oh, you know, we
stand for DEI.
And so now we have these boardsand, you know, we, we have

(50:45):
guests come in and they talkabout race inequality and this,
that, and the other, but then,you know, add any black board
members or you add one as what,a token or you'll have interns.
So like we had a recent, ourfirst episode for this season,
um, it's called a new Walkerfrom, um, she went to Spelman

(51:05):
and she's an author now also.
And she was just saying that,you know, like we still need
historically black universitiesbecause like, all of this has
happened, but there's this like,but at the end of it in the butt
, is, are we going to have themomentum to keep going to keep

(51:25):
having these conversations?
Are you going to just hire, youknow, black interns from
historically black universities,but then you don't actually hire
them on to work.
And then once you hire them on,are you gonna just keep them at
that level?
Or are you actually going topromote them up the chain, just
like you would, if they werewhite, like, are you going to do
these things?
Are you just saying that you'regoing to do these things and

(51:49):
holding, holding themaccountable, holding companies
accountable, and Justin and Ihave also discussed that really
a large part of it is, isallyship.
It's not a battle thatAfrican-Americans can fight
solo.
It's going to have to be like aUnited front and it's going to
have to be, you know, people ofcolor.

(52:09):
And it's going to be people thatare not of color saying that
enough is enough.
And that's enough is enough withthe statues.
Enough is enough with themicroaggressions.
Uh, enough is enough with, youknow, saying that there
equality, but then not havingfair representation.
So, you know, how do you feel asfar as like race inequality?

(52:31):
Like how, I don't think it'sfair to ask you, how do we
change the narrative?
Cause that's like a hugequestion.
I think that you gave a greatexample of how we have to be as
strong as those who are pushingthe race card constantly.
Is there a way, is there a wayoutside of black lives matters?
You know, is there a way that wecan create that Creek?

(52:54):
We can create that on acommunity level.

Speaker 3 (52:57):
Yeah.
Even just normalizing theconversation.
Yeah.
I think what you said aboutallyship is important again, in
my manuscript on Obama, you knowthat at the end you have to sort
of, you have the obligatory,what, what can we do about this
chapter?
You know, how do we stop this inthe future and all of that.
And one of the things that Italk about there is there's,

(53:21):
there's a real interestingmoment in the whole birther, um,
Muslim debate about Obama.
When John McCain in 2008 wasapproached by a white woman,
volunteer for him, who said shedidn't want to vote for Obama

(53:41):
because Richie mended a Muslimand became, took the microphone
from her and said, well, no,actually he's not, you know,
he's, he's, that's not true, butI don't want to run against him
because of his politics and didthis whole thing.
And there's a similar moment inthe Trump campaign in 2016,

(54:03):
where somebody yells out,Obama's a Muslim and Trump gets
him to repeat it.
And he eggs the crowd on.
And I make the point in my bookthat McCain did not get elected
and Trump did.
And that it wasn't, but it's notenough that became, it's not
enough that McCain, um, took themicrophone away.

(54:28):
Um, that's great.
They kept mentioning it with hisfuneral and everything, but what
if both political parties saidthey would be responsible for
debunking the rumors of theother one?
So what if the democratic party,because now, you know, it's
effected it.
What if the democratic partysaid, we will take the stand, we
will be the ones to say, no, youshouldn't vote for him because

(54:50):
of these principles, because wesee these platforms differently
and, and vice versa.
So that it's not, it's not thepro Obama people or Obama
himself.

Speaker 2 (55:00):
Yeah.
It's funny that you mentionedthat, um, one of the first
things I read actually duringthe beginning of COVID and, you
know, kind of like the height ofGeorge flight and everything, I
think it was Don on the podcast.
And I know I've referenced itbefore, but he says something
about don't ever ask a blackperson to explain to you, you
know, why there's racism in thecountry or, um, how do we fix

(55:22):
it?
Because you're putting theburden back on them.
And I had like an aha moment.
Like, I've definitely done thatto my frenzy here.
And I, I hopefully we don't makethat mistake again.
But, um, you know, I think thatwas really important for me in
terms of understanding thedelicate nature of a
conversation, you know, but alsoit was like, uh, okay, I'm going

(55:46):
to make a lot of mistakes, youknow?
And, um, Robin de Angelo, youknow, the other person that I
reference a lot talks about thattoo, you know, white people
Caucasians kind of need to be upfor that.
And as students of anything, youknow, you're, we're learning as
we go, but the accountabilitypiece is important.
I think in the allyship, youknow, like you said,

Speaker 3 (56:08):
Any closing thoughts, Dr.
Pat?
No.
I think what you're attemptingto do with the podcast is
admirable.
I think this is the part of thesolution, actually conversations
like this and persistence, andthen the application, what
people have

Speaker 2 (56:24):
Learned that, so that your audience, you know, what
they hear from you and, and,and, and putting that to work.
I think that, um, you know,that's, that's a part of how we
move forward.
Thank you very much.
It was a pleasure speaking withyou.
We had Dr.
Patricia Turner on here, gocheck out her book.
Um, once it's published aboutthe rumors and conspiracy

(56:46):
theories about Barack Obama, andhopefully we'll be speaking with
her again soon.
And I think actually we're goingto call the flood and you kind
of named it in the verybeginning of Laura and Rachel in
the 21st century.
Thank you so much.
It was a pleasure to have youon, and thank you listeners
again for listening to this.

Speaker 1 (57:04):
Thank you for listening to awakened in
America.
If you enjoyed today's podcast,be sure to subscribe and leave a
review.
You can also find us onInstagram at awakened in
America.
That's awakened underscore inunderscore America and remember
be mindful, be grateful.

(57:26):
And most of all be you.