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