WEBVTT - Shifting Perspectives 0:00:11.760 --> 0:00:14.800 Good morning, peeps, and welcome to ook F Daily with 0:00:14.960 --> 0:00:21.240 Me your Girl, Danielle Moody recording from the Home Bunker, Folks. 0:00:21.560 --> 0:00:26.200 The longer that I am in the world of politics, 0:00:26.720 --> 0:00:36.440 the longer I realize that everything is about shifting perspective 0:00:38.800 --> 0:00:49.840 and the understanding that everything changes. Octavier Butler wrote imparable 0:00:49.840 --> 0:00:54.720 of the sewer. Everything that you changes changes you, Everything 0:00:54.760 --> 0:01:00.160 that you touch changes you. The only constant that we 0:01:00.240 --> 0:01:04.560 have is change. And yet those that are in power, 0:01:05.920 --> 0:01:10.680 those that have been elected as our representatives, or those 0:01:10.800 --> 0:01:19.920 unelected bodies like the Supreme Court, refuse to recognize the 0:01:20.040 --> 0:01:26.720 present and reconcile that with policies from the past. We 0:01:26.840 --> 0:01:32.039 just saw this week that the state of Arizona passed 0:01:33.000 --> 0:01:42.479 legislation from the eighteen hundreds to ban abortion. They're referring 0:01:42.520 --> 0:01:47.440 to a law that was in existence before women had 0:01:47.440 --> 0:01:50.480 the right to vote and before Arizona was even a 0:01:50.520 --> 0:01:56.480 state when Lincoln was president. How do you look at 0:01:56.640 --> 0:02:01.680 laws from the eighteen hundreds and think that they will 0:02:01.760 --> 0:02:08.560 work in the twenty first century. What I realize more 0:02:08.600 --> 0:02:13.239 and more is that those that are in power are 0:02:13.840 --> 0:02:21.800 so stuck and stagnant without imagination and the ability to 0:02:21.960 --> 0:02:29.160 reconcile with the reality of our current present times. What 0:02:29.200 --> 0:02:33.840 do I mean by that? I mean that you're looking 0:02:33.960 --> 0:02:40.560 at gun legislation, for instance, through the lens of a 0:02:40.720 --> 0:02:48.880 time and space in this country when AR fifteen's machine guns, bazookas, 0:02:49.040 --> 0:02:56.200 magazine clips didn't exist, where we didn't have police departments, 0:02:56.720 --> 0:03:01.440 where people lived miles in miles apart from one another. 0:03:03.720 --> 0:03:09.240 When those gun laws were created, America didn't have a 0:03:09.280 --> 0:03:15.240 population of three hundred and thirty million people. We didn't 0:03:15.520 --> 0:03:17.960 live inside of a country at that time when there 0:03:18.000 --> 0:03:25.880 were more guns than there are people. So how does 0:03:25.919 --> 0:03:31.919 it make sense then that we continue to use the 0:03:31.960 --> 0:03:43.920 same lens from centuries ago on today? We use the 0:03:44.640 --> 0:03:53.800 racist lens right of the twentieth century and prior to 0:03:53.960 --> 0:03:58.840 dictate our future because we refuse to recognize that America 0:03:59.000 --> 0:04:06.240 is not a white Christian nation. It was founded by 0:04:06.360 --> 0:04:10.880 puritan zelots and founded I use that in quotation marks. 0:04:12.200 --> 0:04:19.000 It was ransacked, pillaged by right wing zelots that didn't 0:04:19.040 --> 0:04:23.400 want to pay taxes because they wanted the freedom to oppress. 0:04:26.160 --> 0:04:32.680 That's the true story about the founding of America, right, 0:04:32.800 --> 0:04:38.719 And so I just realized that when you don't have 0:04:38.800 --> 0:04:42.279 the ability to change the systems in world around you. 0:04:42.680 --> 0:04:45.359 The best thing that you can do is begin to 0:04:45.520 --> 0:04:51.120 change yourself, to begin to open up the aperture to 0:04:51.200 --> 0:04:54.520 see things in a different way through the lens of today, 0:04:55.720 --> 0:05:03.719 and elect people who do the same. Because this stance 0:05:04.360 --> 0:05:10.120 of make America great again lacks the imagination, the innovation, 0:05:12.880 --> 0:05:15.800 and commitment that is actually going to continue to make 0:05:15.839 --> 0:05:24.320 America one of the major powers in the world. We 0:05:24.400 --> 0:05:28.440 are at a critical tipping point in so many ways, 0:05:31.920 --> 0:05:34.960 and if we don't begin to shift our perspective and 0:05:35.080 --> 0:05:39.159 ask real questions about what does freedom look like, what 0:05:39.200 --> 0:05:41.680 does it taste like, what does it smell like? When 0:05:41.680 --> 0:05:45.599 we talk about gun reform, what do we mean, what 0:05:45.720 --> 0:05:48.640 kind of society, what type of country, what type of 0:05:48.720 --> 0:05:53.520 world do we want to live in? Let's get specific. 0:05:56.279 --> 0:06:00.200 So in my conversation today with our dear friend after 0:06:00.279 --> 0:06:05.680 Jonathan Metzel, we get into the ways in which his 0:06:05.880 --> 0:06:11.680 book What We've Become is about recognizing that the path 0:06:12.480 --> 0:06:17.560 that gun reform activists have been on is not the 0:06:17.640 --> 0:06:25.000 right one, and it is okay to stop, reflect and 0:06:25.200 --> 0:06:29.560 pivot because staying the course when the course ain't right 0:06:34.440 --> 0:06:43.480 is just fucking dumb. And at this point dangerous. So 0:06:43.520 --> 0:06:49.320 the question is how do we shift perspective in order 0:06:49.360 --> 0:06:55.640 to create the reality that we all want. That conversation 0:06:56.000 --> 0:07:06.360 is coming up next with our friend, doctor Jonathan in Metzel. Folks, 0:07:06.440 --> 0:07:09.159 you know that whenever I have the opportunity to sit 0:07:09.200 --> 0:07:12.520 down with our friend, our in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzel, 0:07:12.640 --> 0:07:16.360 I am always pleased because each week we get into 0:07:16.440 --> 0:07:19.840 conversations about, you know, everything that is happening, what we 0:07:19.880 --> 0:07:24.040 are feeling, and trying to bring you some clarity in 0:07:24.160 --> 0:07:29.160 the crazy, in the chaos. So, Jonathan, how are you today? 0:07:29.360 --> 0:07:29.960 This week? 0:07:30.480 --> 0:07:33.720 I'm hanging in there. I got a few bookstops left. 0:07:33.920 --> 0:07:36.640 I'm on my way to Seattle tomorrow morning. I leave 0:07:36.680 --> 0:07:39.200 at five in the morning to give a talk tomorrow 0:07:39.240 --> 0:07:42.280 night at town Hall Books in Seattle, which is going 0:07:42.320 --> 0:07:45.080 to be really cool. A really cool journalist is interviewing 0:07:45.080 --> 0:07:48.200 me in Seattle on Wednesday night, which will be I 0:07:48.200 --> 0:07:50.200 think the night people may be here. I can't remember 0:07:50.200 --> 0:07:53.040 when they hear this, but but that, And then I'm 0:07:53.080 --> 0:07:56.320 going to Louisville on Monday to talk about race and 0:07:56.480 --> 0:07:58.880 race and health in America, which I think will be cool. 0:07:59.560 --> 0:08:02.120 Then just a couple more stops it's been. It's been 0:08:02.120 --> 0:08:05.239 an amazing, amazing experience. Great to talk to people across 0:08:05.240 --> 0:08:07.679 the country. I've you know, it's been. It's been interesting 0:08:07.720 --> 0:08:10.440 to be on a book tour at this time of 0:08:10.480 --> 0:08:13.720 the world. So we'll see, but I think, I think, 0:08:14.240 --> 0:08:16.200 you know, I need a little bit of a vacation. 0:08:16.400 --> 0:08:20.360 Also, what are some of the highlights been for you 0:08:20.560 --> 0:08:21.520 as you wind down? 0:08:21.960 --> 0:08:23.040 I say a couple of things. 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:26.800 I mean, the highlight for sure was a green Light 0:08:26.840 --> 0:08:29.520 bookstore in Brooklyn, New York, where you and I had 0:08:29.560 --> 0:08:33.400 incredible conversation that was amazing. And a couple of weeks 0:08:33.440 --> 0:08:35.720 ago I was in La we did this event, a 0:08:35.800 --> 0:08:37.840 huge event at the Getty with a bunch of people 0:08:37.880 --> 0:08:39.960 I was a part of and so I got to 0:08:39.960 --> 0:08:43.800 meet like Carrie Washington and Michelle Norris and Camo Bell 0:08:43.960 --> 0:08:47.080 and all these people. So it's kind of interesting, like 0:08:47.440 --> 0:08:49.800 you pick your topic where that topic takes you in 0:08:50.080 --> 0:08:53.880 a particular way. So the cool part has been just 0:08:53.960 --> 0:08:57.559 every conversation has been really urgent. But you know, what 0:08:57.679 --> 0:09:00.720 I've been thinking about a lot is something that you 0:09:00.800 --> 0:09:05.400 said that I think, I think really stuck with me, 0:09:05.480 --> 0:09:07.200 which is when we were in the back room at 0:09:07.200 --> 0:09:10.840 green Light Books, and you said, because I said, this 0:09:10.960 --> 0:09:12.560 was a hard book to write, and it's a hard 0:09:12.559 --> 0:09:14.400 book to it's a hard book to message. 0:09:14.480 --> 0:09:15.440 I still feel that way. 0:09:15.880 --> 0:09:19.000 I did the Pete Dominico or whatever podcast yesterday and 0:09:19.040 --> 0:09:20.760 he's like, tell me the book in a sentence, and 0:09:20.800 --> 0:09:23.839 I'm like, let's talk for an hour, because it's hard 0:09:23.880 --> 0:09:26.520 to have a talking point about a book that's about 0:09:26.840 --> 0:09:30.160 guns and race and a critique of liberalism and kind 0:09:30.200 --> 0:09:32.840 of how we got here and stuff. So that part 0:09:32.880 --> 0:09:35.120 has been really it continues to be hard. And I 0:09:35.160 --> 0:09:38.400 remember we were in the back room, remember at that bookstore, 0:09:39.080 --> 0:09:41.439 and you said, this is a book that people are 0:09:41.440 --> 0:09:44.560 going to understand ten years from now. And it still 0:09:44.679 --> 0:09:47.640 kind of feels that way, Like I'm still it's so interesting. 0:09:47.679 --> 0:09:49.280 The book's been out now for a couple of months 0:09:49.760 --> 0:09:53.679 and I'm still like either defending the thesis or like 0:09:54.480 --> 0:09:57.600 that just weird things have happened with the with the 0:09:57.760 --> 0:10:02.079 message itself, that predictable stuff, was a lot of pushback 0:10:02.120 --> 0:10:05.440 from liberal gun control, like my colleagues in the liberal 0:10:05.480 --> 0:10:08.400 world who didn't want to understand. What I still hold 0:10:08.480 --> 0:10:11.400 is the argument, which is we have to understand how 0:10:11.400 --> 0:10:14.400 we got here to understand like why we're in a 0:10:14.440 --> 0:10:18.920 particular predicament. But like here, here's my question for you. 0:10:19.000 --> 0:10:21.560 This is a kind of a long winded question. Like 0:10:21.840 --> 0:10:24.600 here's an example of one kind of reception, which is, 0:10:25.360 --> 0:10:29.880 there's a gun blog that this guy kind of defines. 0:10:30.440 --> 0:10:32.679 You know, here's what the books, here's all the gun books, 0:10:32.679 --> 0:10:34.760 and here's what they're about. And he had like point 0:10:34.800 --> 0:10:37.480 by point on my book, and I was, you know, 0:10:37.520 --> 0:10:40.199 any publicity is good publicity. I was glad he read it. 0:10:40.200 --> 0:10:42.640 It was thoughtful that somebody was out there talking about it. 0:10:43.000 --> 0:10:46.240 But the point was, like on page ten, he uses 0:10:46.280 --> 0:10:49.960 the wrong term for a gun for a bullet, which 0:10:50.000 --> 0:10:53.240 is we don't say clips, we say you know, loads 0:10:53.320 --> 0:10:55.440 or something like that. And then on page twenty he 0:10:55.520 --> 0:10:58.040 said AR fifteen and he means XM fifteen, like really 0:10:58.080 --> 0:11:02.439 paying attention to the terminology of you know, his specialty, 0:11:02.480 --> 0:11:05.720 which is guns. And so I understand people read for 0:11:06.040 --> 0:11:08.120 like kind of their own expertise. They want to make 0:11:08.120 --> 0:11:10.960 sure you got their thing right. But there was nothing 0:11:11.040 --> 0:11:13.240 in the entire critique about the fact that the book 0:11:13.320 --> 0:11:17.240 is actually about, Like race was not mentioned once in 0:11:17.320 --> 0:11:21.560 the entire critique, And so I understand, like you write 0:11:21.559 --> 0:11:23.120 a book, you want to get it right. But it's 0:11:23.120 --> 0:11:25.080 weird when you have a book out there. Everybody sees 0:11:25.160 --> 0:11:27.800 like their one little part and they want to make 0:11:27.800 --> 0:11:30.120 sure you get their thing. But you kind of want 0:11:30.160 --> 0:11:32.680 to say, like, hey, how about the bigger argument. How 0:11:32.720 --> 0:11:35.079 about the bigger argument of the entire book, which is 0:11:35.120 --> 0:11:39.840 not about that. So part of the question is, you know, 0:11:39.920 --> 0:11:41.160 that's what you do when you write a book, but 0:11:41.200 --> 0:11:43.800 it's interesting that everybody sees their one little part and 0:11:43.880 --> 0:11:45.720 not the bigger part, and that maybe that's a problem 0:11:45.760 --> 0:11:46.600 of me as the author. 0:11:46.720 --> 0:11:49.760 But I'm like, no, Jonathan, But isn't that the world, Like, 0:11:49.920 --> 0:11:53.560 isn't that the struggle that we find ourselves in, which 0:11:53.600 --> 0:11:58.640 is that everyone is concentrated on their one piece instead 0:11:58.679 --> 0:12:01.720 of the entire pitch. So take it and look at 0:12:01.760 --> 0:12:05.520 it this way. Right, So we're having conversations and you know, 0:12:05.559 --> 0:12:07.600 we talk about democracy, we talk about health, we talk 0:12:07.600 --> 0:12:10.080 about guns, we talk about all of these different pieces, 0:12:10.120 --> 0:12:11.960 and I mean we as in like the greater we 0:12:12.040 --> 0:12:14.760 of progressis and democrats and we say, what is going 0:12:14.800 --> 0:12:17.040 to be the thing that draws people into this election? 0:12:17.480 --> 0:12:19.480 And so the abortion rights people are going to say 0:12:19.520 --> 0:12:21.920 it's abortion. The healthcare people are going to say it's 0:12:21.960 --> 0:12:24.800 the attack on Medicaid and medicare the you know, the 0:12:24.800 --> 0:12:27.040 gun folks are going to say it's guns. Like so 0:12:27.360 --> 0:12:31.440 it's like, while everyone has their specialty, their focus, their 0:12:31.559 --> 0:12:36.720 area of concern, right, what is the bigger picture? And 0:12:36.800 --> 0:12:40.160 I think, to me your book, the bigger picture is 0:12:40.559 --> 0:12:47.880 because we have refused and continue to refuse to have real, critical, thoughtful, 0:12:48.040 --> 0:12:53.360 engaging and hard excruciating conversations on race. And by we, 0:12:53.640 --> 0:12:58.320 I actually am talking specifically about white Americans refuse to 0:12:58.400 --> 0:13:01.920 have a conversation where they don't center themselves as the victims, 0:13:02.480 --> 0:13:06.320 like we don't get anywhere, right, and so like if 0:13:06.400 --> 0:13:11.880 everything everything in America has to do boils back down 0:13:11.920 --> 0:13:16.160 to race and racism, and because we refuse to address 0:13:16.280 --> 0:13:20.240 that very thing, we make up all these other stories 0:13:20.240 --> 0:13:24.400 and narratives. When if you were to just tackle and 0:13:24.400 --> 0:13:26.480 it not like a just like it's so easy, but 0:13:26.520 --> 0:13:30.400 if you were to have honest conversations and critique about 0:13:30.520 --> 0:13:33.640 race and racism and how it shows up in any 0:13:33.679 --> 0:13:37.000 given moment policy, whether it's sports and what happened with 0:13:37.040 --> 0:13:41.200 the NC Double A and the women's game, and how 0:13:41.320 --> 0:13:44.120 the white team is being Iowa's being framed in the 0:13:44.120 --> 0:13:47.679 press versus the black led team of South Carolina, and 0:13:47.720 --> 0:13:51.160 all of these things. We would be in a better place, 0:13:51.520 --> 0:13:55.240 but it's because we choose to ignore it, right and 0:13:55.280 --> 0:13:58.480 make it be about anything else, because we've told ourselves 0:13:58.480 --> 0:14:02.239 that conversations about and racism are too complicated. 0:14:02.720 --> 0:14:04.800 So let me ask you, let's use this example that 0:14:04.800 --> 0:14:06.720 I'm talking about, because I mean, this is kind of 0:14:06.720 --> 0:14:10.000 what I wanted to talk about. I guess I'm centering 0:14:10.000 --> 0:14:14.000 my books act as the conversation. But it was interesting 0:14:14.040 --> 0:14:16.080 to see what happened, right, I mean again, I'm glad, 0:14:16.160 --> 0:14:17.480 you know, you write a book. It's out there in 0:14:17.480 --> 0:14:20.880 the world. People can interpret it however they want. But 0:14:20.920 --> 0:14:23.240 what was interesting after this thing? So this guy posts 0:14:23.440 --> 0:14:26.120 he uses the wrong terminology on page twenty or something 0:14:26.160 --> 0:14:31.000 like that, and his audience is a bunch of people 0:14:31.000 --> 0:14:33.320 who really care about guns, Like that's really his audience. 0:14:33.320 --> 0:14:35.200 So it's great, I'm happy to talk to those people. 0:14:35.840 --> 0:14:37.960 But what happened then is none of those guys read 0:14:38.000 --> 0:14:40.280 the book. They were all like, yeah, this is another 0:14:40.400 --> 0:14:43.600 liberal guy who doesn't use our terminology and all this 0:14:43.680 --> 0:14:45.960 kind of stuff. And then I'm getting bombarded with like 0:14:46.000 --> 0:14:49.760 all these gun owners who just saw their one piece, 0:14:49.800 --> 0:14:52.120 which is one guy realized on page twenty I used 0:14:52.120 --> 0:14:56.160 the wrong term for bullets, and in their world like 0:14:56.240 --> 0:14:59.120 then that became the metaphor, so they only so the 0:14:59.200 --> 0:15:01.680 guy who read the book only saw his little piece, 0:15:01.720 --> 0:15:03.880 which I think you're right, everybody's reading for their one piece. 0:15:04.760 --> 0:15:07.400 And then the people who then sought on social media, 0:15:07.640 --> 0:15:10.080 they didn't even read the book. They were then riffing 0:15:10.120 --> 0:15:13.960 off of this guy's critique, which reinforced their own critiques 0:15:13.960 --> 0:15:17.800 of liberals not wanting to go there. So one guy, 0:15:18.400 --> 0:15:22.160 I feel misread the book, and then ten thousand other 0:15:22.200 --> 0:15:25.400 people went off of his misreading to then categorize me 0:15:25.480 --> 0:15:28.440 and rift back on me. And so again that's how 0:15:28.480 --> 0:15:31.920 our algorithms work. Now, the question I have is should 0:15:31.960 --> 0:15:34.800 the gun guy have been reading for racism? In other words, 0:15:34.960 --> 0:15:37.360 was his blindness not saying racism or was it me 0:15:37.400 --> 0:15:39.240 as the author who didn't use. 0:15:39.160 --> 0:15:39.760 The right term? 0:15:39.920 --> 0:15:40.960 I see, I see, I see it. 0:15:41.080 --> 0:15:43.320 I mean, like, is it fair to say that he 0:15:43.360 --> 0:15:44.760 should have been reading for racism? 0:15:45.440 --> 0:15:48.160 Is it? I mean? The algorithms is yeah. 0:15:47.920 --> 0:15:53.320 I liken it to art right When an artist has 0:15:53.360 --> 0:15:57.200 a canvas and they paint from their perspective. Right, they're 0:15:57.320 --> 0:16:00.160 expressing themselves in what they see and feel and are 0:16:00.520 --> 0:16:05.120 expressing in that moment. How everyone else interprets that piece 0:16:05.240 --> 0:16:08.000 is going to be, it's gonna be subject to their 0:16:08.040 --> 0:16:11.200 own knowledge and perspective and their emotions in that moment. 0:16:11.640 --> 0:16:15.800 And so while you want people to read it for race, 0:16:16.000 --> 0:16:19.360 you wrote it in that way. But if I choose 0:16:19.480 --> 0:16:22.920 quote unquote not to see race, then like, that's not 0:16:23.000 --> 0:16:26.360 the area that I'm going to dig into, right because 0:16:26.400 --> 0:16:29.920 these people, I believe, will make up an excuse about 0:16:29.960 --> 0:16:35.360 anything as to why that man that shot up all 0:16:35.400 --> 0:16:38.240 of those black people in a waffle house, like why 0:16:38.880 --> 0:16:42.200 like oh, well, you know, and just pull out some 0:16:42.360 --> 0:16:45.640 obscure shit as to why this wasn't about race, as 0:16:45.680 --> 0:16:47.840 to why it was just a madman. Oh he was 0:16:48.000 --> 0:16:50.280 just crazy. Oh it was just this, Oh it was 0:16:50.440 --> 0:16:55.000 just that. Because they're not they're not willing and or 0:16:56.160 --> 0:16:59.800 equipped to do the heavy lifting around race and racism, 0:17:00.080 --> 0:17:02.800 so it is so much easier to excuse it, to 0:17:02.880 --> 0:17:04.080 make it be something else. 0:17:04.480 --> 0:17:06.480 Well, I mean, I wrote a book about guns, So 0:17:06.560 --> 0:17:08.160 I do think it's a cumbent on me to get 0:17:08.160 --> 0:17:10.680 the terminology right. Like I do think that's a fair critique. 0:17:11.240 --> 0:17:13.880 It's just more that when you're just reading for your 0:17:13.920 --> 0:17:17.520 one thing, you don't see the bigger things. And conversely, 0:17:17.600 --> 0:17:22.879 now here's my provocation for our conversation. Conversely, like my 0:17:22.960 --> 0:17:25.800 publisher told me, I should name this book Killing for Whiteness, 0:17:27.000 --> 0:17:29.840 like I should make it much more overtly about race, 0:17:30.000 --> 0:17:31.680 like the title of the book. And I'm like, first 0:17:31.720 --> 0:17:33.640 of all, I don't want to be the guy who 0:17:33.640 --> 0:17:35.919 wrote dying of Whiteness and then killing like I don't know, 0:17:36.119 --> 0:17:39.760 it's like I'll never get you know, I'll never that's like, 0:17:40.320 --> 0:17:42.120 you know, so I didn't want to be that guy. 0:17:42.119 --> 0:17:44.400 But I also, as you know from the book, there 0:17:44.440 --> 0:17:47.280 are a lot of things that are really complicated about 0:17:47.359 --> 0:17:49.760 race happening in the book. It wasn't just a story. 0:17:50.040 --> 0:17:53.320 In other words, after the waffle house shooting happened, the 0:17:53.440 --> 0:17:56.439 story was hijacked by Sean King and other people I 0:17:56.440 --> 0:17:58.719 write about this in the book to say this is 0:17:58.840 --> 0:18:01.840 just overt racism. Shooter was racist. And what I argue 0:18:01.840 --> 0:18:05.119 in the book is there's a much more nuanced story 0:18:05.160 --> 0:18:07.440 about race and guns happening that's kind of why I 0:18:07.480 --> 0:18:10.320 want people to read the book, because the story isn't 0:18:10.359 --> 0:18:12.960 just the shooter was racist. It's actually a much bigger 0:18:13.000 --> 0:18:18.080 story about what kind of bodies code as protectors and 0:18:18.080 --> 0:18:23.720 what kind of bodies code as criminals, About how somebody 0:18:23.720 --> 0:18:26.520 who codes as a protector, even if they're telling people 0:18:26.520 --> 0:18:29.679 they're going to be a mess shooter, the system rewards 0:18:29.720 --> 0:18:32.280 that particular body. So it's a much bigger story. So 0:18:32.680 --> 0:18:34.880 I didn't want it to be like some simplistic thing. 0:18:35.160 --> 0:18:38.720 I expressly didn't mention race in the title because I 0:18:38.800 --> 0:18:43.040 wanted people to like under see how the story unfolded. 0:18:43.119 --> 0:18:45.359 And let me just say the point is, if I 0:18:45.400 --> 0:18:48.760 would have said, like, this is about gun racism, I 0:18:48.800 --> 0:18:53.360 would have sold a zillion more copies, because there are 0:18:53.440 --> 0:18:57.600 just like racism is its own way of reading also, 0:18:57.760 --> 0:19:00.119 and so it's also sometimes I feel like harder to 0:19:00.960 --> 0:19:03.760 complicate that story. And this isn't me complaining as an author. 0:19:03.800 --> 0:19:05.880 I'm just telling you what it's been interesting to see. 0:19:06.040 --> 0:19:09.000 I'm wondering though, like I mean, I guess then, is 0:19:09.040 --> 0:19:14.280 there a sense of regret on your stops? Are more 0:19:14.359 --> 0:19:18.159 people likely than not to get the picture of what 0:19:18.200 --> 0:19:20.920 it is that you're painting, or do you feel like now, 0:19:21.400 --> 0:19:25.280 in hindsight, you should have had a more race focused 0:19:25.320 --> 0:19:29.640 title to lend itself greater sense of clarity. 0:19:29.800 --> 0:19:30.200 I don't. 0:19:30.280 --> 0:19:33.400 I'm happy I left it ambiguous. I guess I'm struggling 0:19:33.480 --> 0:19:35.560 now with I mean for me the book that there 0:19:35.560 --> 0:19:36.760 are two main stories in the book. 0:19:36.800 --> 0:19:37.560 The main story of the. 0:19:37.520 --> 0:19:40.560 Book is about the waffle House mass shooting, the story 0:19:40.560 --> 0:19:43.960 of what happened, the story of how a naked white 0:19:43.960 --> 0:19:46.879 man with an ar fifteen ended up in South Nashville 0:19:48.040 --> 0:19:51.560 killing for young adults of color and injuring for others, 0:19:52.000 --> 0:19:57.120 And how for me that story complicated the narrative about 0:19:57.200 --> 0:20:00.000 race and guns that I understood going into the story, 0:20:00.080 --> 0:20:03.919 which is about the racism of the shooter, and I 0:20:04.000 --> 0:20:08.480 understood race to be a much more disturbing and more 0:20:08.600 --> 0:20:12.840 diffuse story about the race of the system, the race 0:20:12.920 --> 0:20:16.560 of all these things. So half the stories about the 0:20:16.600 --> 0:20:19.040 story of the waffle House mass shooting. The other half 0:20:19.040 --> 0:20:23.159 of the story is about how that recognizing that that 0:20:23.280 --> 0:20:26.399 the story I was telling about whiteness and guns was 0:20:26.440 --> 0:20:30.639 too simplistic made me rethink a bunch of stuff about 0:20:30.680 --> 0:20:34.919 liberal gun control that liberal gun control similarly had a 0:20:34.960 --> 0:20:39.160 bunch of assumptions embedded about what our policies were meant 0:20:39.200 --> 0:20:42.000 to do, who we were trying to regulate, what it 0:20:42.040 --> 0:20:45.400 meant to involve the government, for example, all these other things. 0:20:45.440 --> 0:20:49.639 So I started rethinking policies for example, like background checks 0:20:49.640 --> 0:20:52.960 that ask people to put their name in a government database, 0:20:53.040 --> 0:20:55.760 or red flag laws that invite the cops into your 0:20:55.760 --> 0:20:57.960 home to do a welfare check on your relatives. I 0:20:58.000 --> 0:21:02.720 started rethinking the race implications of who was being policed 0:21:03.280 --> 0:21:05.800 by gun control policies. It turns out a lot of 0:21:05.800 --> 0:21:10.120 these policies were racialized in a very different way. They 0:21:10.119 --> 0:21:13.520 were actually targeting communities of color also because those were 0:21:13.560 --> 0:21:15.560 the people who were showing up on background checks more 0:21:15.600 --> 0:21:17.800 and other things like that. So I was trying to 0:21:17.840 --> 0:21:21.480 tell to interweave these two stories. It's a nightmare. I 0:21:21.480 --> 0:21:23.600 should have written a book about puppies like I started 0:21:23.640 --> 0:21:26.639 out to do. But I will say it's interesting for 0:21:26.680 --> 0:21:29.320 me when I go on tour, which one of those 0:21:29.359 --> 0:21:31.720 two stories people pick up on, And I guess it's 0:21:31.760 --> 0:21:35.160 just been interesting that either people resonate with the story 0:21:35.160 --> 0:21:38.800 of the waffle house shooting or they bring me to 0:21:38.960 --> 0:21:43.240 task for critiquing liberal gun control. But it's I don't 0:21:43.280 --> 0:21:45.600 know the books about both, and I always want to 0:21:45.600 --> 0:21:47.879 say the books about both. So I'm glad I didn't 0:21:47.880 --> 0:21:50.720 say this is a book about gun racism because I 0:21:50.760 --> 0:21:52.760 want people to think about it. But I do agree 0:21:52.760 --> 0:21:55.639 that it takes ten years from now somebody's going to 0:21:55.640 --> 0:22:00.760 pick it up and be like, hey, wait a minute. 0:22:02.840 --> 0:22:06.800 The problem that we are having, I think collectively, is 0:22:06.840 --> 0:22:12.080 that no one wants to shift their perspective, because in 0:22:12.200 --> 0:22:16.320 order to shift perspective and pivot into a new course 0:22:16.320 --> 0:22:19.320 of action, you have to admit that something wasn't working. 0:22:20.040 --> 0:22:24.280 And I think that whether it be progressives who are like, no, 0:22:24.440 --> 0:22:26.560 we're going to continue doing the same thing over and 0:22:26.600 --> 0:22:30.679 over again and eventually we'll wear them down, whereas the 0:22:30.760 --> 0:22:33.760 trump Ist they just don't care. They're just blow up 0:22:33.840 --> 0:22:38.639 whatever system. I think that the reason why we can't 0:22:38.840 --> 0:22:41.439 attack Trumpism for what it is, and the reason why 0:22:42.200 --> 0:22:46.280 we falter on a lot of issues, is because we're 0:22:46.920 --> 0:22:52.720 not interested in making the pivots in action to match 0:22:52.840 --> 0:22:56.119 the time and to match the energy that the opposition 0:22:56.200 --> 0:22:59.200 is giving us. Right like, we keep trying to appeal 0:22:59.440 --> 0:23:02.640 to people's moral center, We keep trying to appeal to well, 0:23:02.760 --> 0:23:05.639 history will remember you. We keep trying to like do 0:23:05.760 --> 0:23:10.160 these things, and what you're offering is a big pause 0:23:10.640 --> 0:23:16.119 to say, actually, you know, we've been doing this for 0:23:16.240 --> 0:23:20.480 some decades now, and you know, while we can continue 0:23:20.520 --> 0:23:22.760 to say we need red flag laws and we need 0:23:22.840 --> 0:23:26.480 these things, we know that that's not actually going to 0:23:26.640 --> 0:23:29.000 change the outcome of a lot of the violence that 0:23:29.040 --> 0:23:32.199 we are seeing. So what they want to do is 0:23:32.280 --> 0:23:34.680 nibble around the edges and say, well, at least if 0:23:34.720 --> 0:23:37.880 we get some win, that's better than no win at all. 0:23:38.119 --> 0:23:42.560 And your perspective is like, what actually, like, we're wasting 0:23:42.720 --> 0:23:46.520 time and energy because we could shift a conversation and 0:23:46.600 --> 0:23:49.639 a narrative that gets us actually what we want instead 0:23:49.640 --> 0:23:51.560 of a little bit of what doesn't even matter. 0:23:51.960 --> 0:23:54.760 Here's a way I think that's brilliant. That's absolutely brilliant. 0:23:54.760 --> 0:23:58.159 And the way I would rearticulate that maybe is that 0:23:58.200 --> 0:24:02.600 we live in a world where people's people's implicit and 0:24:02.680 --> 0:24:06.560 explicit biases, no matter what they are, are reinforced all 0:24:06.600 --> 0:24:08.760 the time. In other words, you can select what news 0:24:08.800 --> 0:24:11.040 you want, you can select what feed you want, and 0:24:11.119 --> 0:24:15.080 so people are not often challenged about their own narratives 0:24:15.080 --> 0:24:17.240 that you don't have to be and it's just a 0:24:17.400 --> 0:24:20.440 risk to challenge those narratives, which I knew writing the book. 0:24:20.480 --> 0:24:23.119 I knew the minute I started researching the shooting. I 0:24:23.160 --> 0:24:25.280 was like, oh man, this is going to take me 0:24:25.320 --> 0:24:27.760 someplace that's going to actually challenge what I thought I 0:24:27.840 --> 0:24:30.480 knew and what's the role of that. I mean, on 0:24:30.480 --> 0:24:33.120 the one hand, you can see why there's a good 0:24:33.119 --> 0:24:36.080 reason to not challenge those narratives. Right we live in 0:24:36.119 --> 0:24:42.400 a zero sum, winner take all electoral system. The algorithms 0:24:42.440 --> 0:24:46.600 of social media reinforce a kind of conformity. And if 0:24:46.640 --> 0:24:49.080 you're saying, like gosh, I thought differently about this, that 0:24:49.280 --> 0:24:52.879 just not monetized in our social media world. There's a 0:24:52.960 --> 0:24:55.560 million reasons. I mean, you don't want to judge or 0:24:55.600 --> 0:24:58.400 a politician who gets in office and then says, man, 0:24:58.440 --> 0:25:01.359 I totally changed my mind about like this key issue, 0:25:01.560 --> 0:25:04.680 Like we live in a world where not rethinking those 0:25:04.720 --> 0:25:08.720