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Speaker 1: Hey everyone, it's Sophia. Welcome to Work in Progress. Welcome

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Speaker 1: back to Work in Progress. Whip smarties. This week we

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Speaker 1: are joined by a scholar, an artist, a brilliant mind

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Speaker 1: who I can say with no hyperbole, absolutely changed my life.

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Speaker 1: Years ago I was invited to a convening of artists

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Speaker 1: and justice makers at Harvard by Professor Sarah Elizabeth Lewis.

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Speaker 1: She is the John L. Lobe Associate Professor of the

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Speaker 1: Humanities and Associate Professor of African American Studies at Harvard University.

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Speaker 1: She serves on the Standing Committee on American Studies and

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Speaker 1: Standing Committee on Women, Gender, and Sexuality. And at Harvard,

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Speaker 1: Professor Lewis pioneered the course Vision and Justice, the Art

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Speaker 1: of Race and American Citizenship, which she continues to teach.

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Speaker 1: It is now part of the university's core curriculum. Vision

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Speaker 1: Injustice has turned into a book series launched in partnership

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Speaker 1: with Aperture, and she was named an Andrew Carnegie Fellow

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Speaker 1: in twenty twenty two. I could spend another eight minutes

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Speaker 1: reading all of Professor Lewis's incredible honorariums and titles, and

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Speaker 1: about the journals that she contributes to In the board

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Speaker 1: services that she does. She is so incredibly accomplished. But

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Speaker 1: I want to get into this conversation because today she's

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Speaker 1: here to talk to us about her new book called

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Speaker 1: The Unseen Truth When Race Changed Site in America. This

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Speaker 1: book is a masterpiece of historical detective work, and in it,

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Speaker 1: Sarah exposes one of the most damaging lies in American history.

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Speaker 1: The Surprising catalyst occurred in the nineteenth century, overlapping with

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Speaker 1: the end of the US Civil War, and it really

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Speaker 1: is a mind blowing truth to learn. To acknowledge the

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Speaker 1: falsehood at the core of racial order has proved unthinkable

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Speaker 1: for generations in this country, especially back when Jim Crow

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Speaker 1: and segregation were taken hold. Site has become a form

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Speaker 1: of racial sculpture, and it has done incredible damage to

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Speaker 1: us in terms of creating hierarchy that makes everybody less

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Speaker 1: stable and more sick. This groundbreaking work shows us how

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Speaker 1: visual tactics have long secured a regime of hierarchy in

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Speaker 1: spite of false foundations, and in the book, Sarah offers

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Speaker 1: a way to begin to dismantle it, a way to

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Speaker 1: envision a better and brighter future, a way to envision

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Speaker 1: a world that works in the way so many a

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Speaker 1: stream that it would for everyone. So let's get into

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Speaker 1: a conversation with one of the most inspiring people that

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Speaker 1: I know enjoy. Hello, my friend, how are.

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Speaker 2: You being so well? So happy to be with you?

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Speaker 2: How are you?

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Speaker 1: I'm so happy to see you. How are things?

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Speaker 2: You know? I feel like I'm living on assignment with purpose.

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Speaker 2: I'm hmm, yeah, excited, stability, you know, yeah, how are

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Speaker 2: you feeling?

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Speaker 1: It feels great? Similarly, Yes, I I vacillate these days

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Speaker 1: between hope and heartache. You know, that's just where things are.

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Speaker 1: And there's so much that inspires me. And there's so much,

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Speaker 1: you know that I think breaks our hearts. And we

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Speaker 1: try to tip the seesaw more to the former than

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Speaker 1: the latter.

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Speaker 2: That's right, you know, it's this life. It's a really

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Speaker 2: race we pass overton to the next generation, right, And

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Speaker 2: I think, Yeah, something about teaching keeps me in that mindset,

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Speaker 2: so mindful that we might not make it to where

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Speaker 2: we fully want to go. I'm still invigraated by what

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Speaker 2: we're doing right now, having these conversations, doing the word. Yes,

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Speaker 2: see you doing on the road. You know that I'm doing.

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Speaker 2: It's we're doing, we're contributing, you know, yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 1: And I think it's really meaningful to try to contribute

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Speaker 1: positively too, absolutely, you know, And something that's not lost

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Speaker 1: on me, you know, when you talk about what we

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Speaker 1: may see in our lifetime and what we may not,

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Speaker 1: you know, maybe maybe the work we're doing, the fruits

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Speaker 1: of that labor will be enjoyed by our children or

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Speaker 1: by the our children, And it's really indicative of legacy

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Speaker 1: and history. And you know, when you think about the

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Speaker 1: generations of giants on whose shoulders we stand, it really

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Speaker 1: always brings me back to the way that you teach,

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Speaker 1: because I think for me, as an idealist and as

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Speaker 1: a person who believes in progress, there is a desire

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Speaker 1: for immediate change and immediate the immediate enactment of policies

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Speaker 1: that will be good to people. And you, I think

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Speaker 1: within idealism have to be pragmatic enough to understand that

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Speaker 1: people have been working on these projects for generations also,

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Speaker 1: and Vision and Justice is such an incredible curricula and

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Speaker 1: teaching tool on these ideas, so can you can can

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Speaker 1: you tell the listeners who are with us today about

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Speaker 1: that project, you know, what research practice led you to

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Speaker 1: found it and what the project itself is.

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Speaker 2: I think first, I would say we tend to consider

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Speaker 2: progress as driven by law and norms and policy change primarily.

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Speaker 2: And the research initiative and larger project came about when

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Speaker 2: I realized how foundational and critical the work of culture

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Speaker 2: had been and still is today in shifting the fundamental

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Speaker 2: narratives right that cement the work of law and policy.

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Speaker 2: It would have remained, though, I think, an abstract notion,

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Speaker 2: unless I hit on the understudied and just really forgotten

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Speaker 2: speech that Prederick Douglas gave anticipating that we might consider

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Speaker 2: the work of culture as a political tool today. It

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Speaker 2: is featuring the Civil War that stunned his audience, you know,

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Speaker 2: because he was known for speaking about the power of

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Speaker 2: law of combat, and there he was giving a speech

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Speaker 2: about the importance of pictures in the middle of his

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Speaker 2: nation severing conflict. And he persisted in making this argument

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Speaker 2: about not the power of one master folio artist, but

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Speaker 2: about the power of any work of art to transform

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Speaker 2: the critical imagination, the moral imagination to see and knew

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Speaker 2: what could be right. So he was thinking about the

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Speaker 2: technology of vision as fundamental for policy change in a

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Speaker 2: regime that had dehumanized right African Americans three fifths human beings.

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Speaker 2: So he was really prescient about how the gaze, about

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Speaker 2: how vision was the arena of contestation that had to

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Speaker 2: be dealt with for any law to an act real change.

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Speaker 2: And that's what began the work thinking of Douglas's speecheet

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Speaker 2: he writes at ami atic O for one hundred and

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Speaker 2: fifty years for Americans to understand what he means about,

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Speaker 2: you know, the importance of images of culture for justice.

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Speaker 2: And it allowed me to have a filter and a

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Speaker 2: frame to see the work of the landmark artist in

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Speaker 2: our generation anew from carry May Weens to Hank Willis

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Speaker 2: Thomas to Amy Sheryl who so many others and Gordon

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Speaker 2: Parks came before as not only you know, pathbreaking artists,

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Speaker 2: but as civic workers. So the initiative began with the

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Speaker 2: publication looking at these ideas Vision Injustice in twenty sixteen

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Speaker 2: and became a course as well at Harvard. I still

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Speaker 2: teach part of the core curriculum, and it has gone

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Speaker 2: on now to become a publication initiative, a civic initiative,

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Speaker 2: and I'm really enjoying it, you know.

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Speaker 1: So there we are, Yeah, incredible.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and you came to the convening, which I should say,

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Speaker 2: is a something we're going to launch again next year.

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Speaker 2: Oh good, Yeah, we'll have another in New York City

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Speaker 2: at the Ford Foundation.

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Speaker 1: Okay. The convening was so beautiful to me friends at home,

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Speaker 1: Sarah gathered around three hundred people, I think.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and well Sanders holds a thousand. Actually that's second.

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Speaker 1: Oh wow, the second day.

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Speaker 2: On the first day we were deliberately in this intimate

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Speaker 2: space for the performance that helped three and then the

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Speaker 2: next day was a thousand.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. And just to be in the presence of all

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Speaker 1: of these incredible artists and storytellers and culture makers was

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Speaker 1: so moving to me. And it was something that I

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Speaker 1: got to talk about with one of my favorite professors

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Speaker 1: from my time at USC, professor Christopher Smith, who was

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Speaker 1: an unbelievable teacher at Annenberg and who I studied with

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Speaker 1: in college, who is sadly no longer with us. But

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Speaker 1: I called him up to talk to him about your convening,

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Speaker 1: and I said, you know, as a kid who happened

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Speaker 1: to be in college, you know, I graduated high school

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Speaker 1: in the year two thousand. I grew up very entrenched

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Speaker 1: in the Southern California world of music and Tupac Shakor

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Speaker 1: and the explosion of that world, you know, Tupac and

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Speaker 1: Biggie and Little Kim and all these artists that put

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Speaker 1: hip hop, you know, out on the scene from New

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Speaker 1: York City subway art and run DMC to like taking

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Speaker 1: over the country. And I said, I never forgot he

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Speaker 1: we studied music, you know. His class Communications four ninety

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Speaker 1: nine was from Slave Songs to hip Hop, a legacy

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Speaker 1: of Black music in America. And one of the analysis

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Speaker 1: the media analysis days that we did. We were looking

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Speaker 1: at the way that hip hop in the two thousands

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Speaker 1: was transforming media culture and media literacy. And Little Kim

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Speaker 1: was photographed for the cover of Interview magazine in this

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Speaker 1: incredible power pose that now you'd see like Shakari Richardson in,

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Speaker 1: you know, on a Vogue cover, and they had painted

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Speaker 1: her skin in the Louis Vuitton logo all over her

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Speaker 1: body at scale. And he talked about what it meant

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Speaker 1: for an American populist that so often saw historic black

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Speaker 1: images of black bodies that had been abused and scarred,

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Speaker 1: particularly in eras of slavery, to see this artist and

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Speaker 1: this woman, this black woman as the embodiment of luxury

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Speaker 1: herself in her skin. And I was like, prefast, do

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Speaker 1: you know what this other professor is doing at Harvard?

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Speaker 1: And do you know Sarah? And oh my god, and

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Speaker 1: it was like this and he was like, are you

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Speaker 1: quoting my college class back to me fifteen years later?

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Speaker 1: I was like, obviously. And it was this moment where

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Speaker 1: I realized, A, you know, a how impactful he had

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Speaker 1: been in b I was like, I was thinking about

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Speaker 1: all your students who are going to call you up

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Speaker 1: and say, I've seen this thing, and I understand how

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Speaker 1: it ties to our history and I see two hundred

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Speaker 1: years ago and I see today, and I see I see,

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Speaker 1: I see, and the images of our culture and whose

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Speaker 1: stories get told in what framing are how we understand

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Speaker 1: how to see value in the world. Absolutely, absolutely, so

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Speaker 1: thank you for what you do. It matters so much

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Speaker 1: in the way that you know, my professor mattered to me,

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Speaker 1: and in the way that one of these days I'm

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Speaker 1: going to take a sabbatical and come and study with

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Speaker 1: you at Harvard and it's going to be great.

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Speaker 2: Oh oh, I love that, And maybe you can sit

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Speaker 2: in also on the class that it feel like was

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Speaker 2: sort of cosmically inspired by your former professor course on

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Speaker 2: Beyonce the visual art of Beyonce. Oh, yes, to really

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Speaker 2: consider precisely what you described. So yeah, any class always welcome.

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Speaker 2: I just adore you, so it would be a thrill.

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Speaker 1: And now a word from our sponsors who make the

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Speaker 1: show possible. So it's cool to me because one of

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Speaker 1: the things I learned at your convening is that Frederick

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Speaker 1: Douglas was so photographed. There you go the numbers of

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Speaker 1: images of this man and what those images represent, and

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Speaker 1: that the images do they add an almost to a

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Speaker 1: multiplication factor impact his words, his speeches, these things that

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Speaker 1: you talk about, you call him, you know, the inspiration

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Speaker 1: for Vision and Justice as a project, and you credit

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Speaker 1: Frederick Douglas and then your grandfather, and I'm curious how

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Speaker 1: they correlate for you, you know, in your individual identity

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Speaker 1: and also for your platform as a professor.

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Speaker 2: Thank you for that, And you're right, Frederick Douglas is

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Speaker 2: the most photographed American man. I want everyone listening to

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Speaker 2: know because it really asks us to consider why why

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Speaker 2: a man born into slavery he became, you know, an

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Speaker 2: orator and a leader who was so valued right that

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Speaker 2: Abraham Lincoln saw him as the most meritorious man in

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Speaker 2: the United States.

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Speaker 1: That's the quot you know.

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Speaker 2: It's to think of that, to think of how you

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Speaker 2: would have to fashion your being right to have that

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Speaker 2: transit in your life. It's extraordinary understood the representative force

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Speaker 2: of his image to change narratives about who counts and

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Speaker 2: who belongs in American society. Before the laws and the

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Speaker 2: norms caught up right with dignity, we know everyone's accorded

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Speaker 2: the equality we know in the United States. That fact

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Speaker 2: is discovered by colleagues of mine. He's also really fixated

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Speaker 2: on what my grandfather cared about, which is what we

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Speaker 2: lose when we leave out narratives such as his, What

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Speaker 2: we leave out when only stereotypes of a certain people

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Speaker 2: right fill the air. So my grandfather had that same realization.

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Speaker 2: He was in high school in the eleventh grade, nineteen

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Speaker 2: twenty six public school, New York City in Brooklyn, and

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Speaker 2: he just wants to know, simply, why don't the history

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Speaker 2: textbooks present the world the way it is? Why can't

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Speaker 2: we celebrate everyone? Where are African Americans, Asian, Maria and

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Speaker 2: Latin nextbooks Indigenous folks, and his teacher expelled him for

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Speaker 2: continuing to ask this question, and he was called impertinent

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Speaker 2: for not accepting that African Americans had done nothing to

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Speaker 2: merit inclusion in those textbooks. Now I didn't know anything

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Speaker 2: about this. It's not as if it was a grievance

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Speaker 2: he carried around and told me about. I only learned

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Speaker 2: that he died because, wow, you know, at his funeral,

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Speaker 2: I asked my mother, I said, why didn't he ever

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Speaker 2: have a college degree? Why didn't he have a high

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Speaker 2: school diploma? He was brilliant, you know, so I didn't understand.

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Speaker 2: And that's when she told me. And it was stunning

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Speaker 2: to me, because he had become an artist. He was

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Speaker 2: a jazz musician. He though in those paintings created the

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Speaker 2: very scenes he knew he should have been able to

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Speaker 2: find in those textbooks. Would have loved the course you

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Speaker 2: took at us, right, He then was creating and creating

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Speaker 2: the solution and effect. But at that moment, at that

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Speaker 2: age of nineteen in college, it made me think of

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Speaker 2: this central question that brings me to you today. What

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Speaker 2: is the role of art and culture justice? He instinctively

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Speaker 2: knew that there was more to it. Than simply, you know,

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Speaker 2: what he was being told to ignore it, to never

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Speaker 2: mind that there're no images right of the full model

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Speaker 2: of excellence of the world. But he knew it mattered.

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Speaker 2: And we today, I think, because of the force of

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Speaker 2: the image really put forward through the power of technology,

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Speaker 2: are living with the consequences of what Douglas anticipated and

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Speaker 2: my grandfather anticipated. So the Vision of Justice project and

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Speaker 2: other projects unseen truth and really grapple right with this.

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Speaker 1: So can you give us some examples, you know, perhaps

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Speaker 1: a highlight reel of ways that art and culture have

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Speaker 1: changed our perception of the world throughout history. Because what

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Speaker 1: I'm hearing you talk about is if there are people

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Speaker 1: who are not represented at all or in certain ways

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Speaker 1: in art, what we do is devalue them in our culture.

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Speaker 1: And so what examples would you want to give to

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Speaker 1: people at home to think about some of those moments

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Speaker 1: that have really shaped us.

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Speaker 2: I would, and I don't do it in my classes.

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Speaker 2: But now you're inspiring me to think of it differently.

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Speaker 2: Maybe I will now present it this way. I think

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Speaker 2: you could summarize it in three categories. I think the

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Speaker 2: ways in which images change our perceptions. First, if you're

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Speaker 2: going to look at the art of the United States.

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Speaker 2: It first to humanized the gays. This is through the

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Speaker 2: conditioning force of slavery some examples. Second, it normalized a

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Speaker 2: sense of who counts and who belongs around whiteness, right.

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Speaker 2: And finally, I dignified I think the gays ultimately and

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Speaker 2: democratized portraiture. How we see who counts and who belongs.

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Speaker 2: But the first stage is the one that we tend

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Speaker 2: to skip over because it's so difficult to grapple with.

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Speaker 2: But it's why they wanted to write. I mean, we

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Speaker 2: we understand that race is a fiction, right, but the

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Speaker 2: effects of it are deadly real. Wesley Lowry says this,

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Speaker 2: how do you force people to believe a lie? You

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Speaker 2: force people to believe that some people are better than others.

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Speaker 2: You have to cohere it through narrative, right, and you

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Speaker 2: do it through images. You do it through the work

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Speaker 2: of culture, you do it through stereotypes, and it starts

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Speaker 2: to legitimate the regime around right. So when you think

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Speaker 2: of the United States and the way in which citizenship

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Speaker 2: was defined through the naturalization acts, whiteness, being male, being

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Speaker 2: able to hold property, how do you how do you

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Speaker 2: validate this well through the force of culture, right, and

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Speaker 2: what that does is dehumanize a site. It transforms what

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Speaker 2: is in front of you right to cohere to that

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Speaker 2: idea in the second about normalizing who counts and who belongs,

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Speaker 2: I think, you know, if you just pick up your smartphone,

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Speaker 2: you have the best example of it. If you take

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Speaker 2: a photograph, people probably notice that it's harder to color balance,

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Speaker 2: you know, for a range of skin tones that aren't light.

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Speaker 2: And that's not simply a force of the technology or

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Speaker 2: a function a light works. That's a deliberate decision that

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Speaker 2: Kodak made, that Fuji made to cater to a particular market,

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Speaker 2: a lighter market. And it was only and there's a

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Speaker 2: great explainer on vox I encourage share listeners to check

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Speaker 2: out that takes people through quickly in two minutes. The

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Speaker 2: history of why that changed and when to try to

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Speaker 2: eliminate some of that bias. It was only Sophio when

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Speaker 2: chocolate manufacturers and furniture manufacturers started to complain that they

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Speaker 2: couldn't show the difference in the grains of their wood.

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Speaker 2: Kodak changed the chemical emulsion technology so that you and

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Speaker 2: I could be in the photograph and both look good

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Speaker 2: to a certain extent, right, that's the nineteen seventies Kodak Gold.

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Speaker 2: That was the film the result that resulted from those complaints.

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Speaker 2: And my father would only buy that film. He's much

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Speaker 2: lighter than I am with freckles and my mother's in between.

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Speaker 2: So we needed that just to capture a family picture.

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Speaker 2: So I knew as a five year old girl, something

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Speaker 2: was wrong right with how the image was normalizing. Some

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Speaker 2: people are not others, you know. And finally, I think

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Speaker 2: we're in this moment today when we are creating the

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Speaker 2: counter narratives to push back on these two stages. Right,

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Speaker 2: we have this in our presidential election. We have this

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Speaker 2: extraordinary work of the posisions. You're describing everyone, but the

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Speaker 2: image matters to dignify who counts and who belongs. So

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Speaker 2: those are the three categories.

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Speaker 1: I'd say, that's so beautiful. It's a fascinating thing when

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Speaker 1: you know, as I've done, you know, for curiosity calling

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Speaker 1: whatever it is, when you continue to pull out the

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Speaker 1: thread of these social issues and you understand that oppression,

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Speaker 1: as you said, is it's all made up. You know,

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Speaker 1: Racism is made up, Sexism is made up, and the

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Speaker 1: way that they are so inextricably linked. And I think

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Speaker 1: about you know, you talking about the film being changed

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Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy four, and women only receiving the kind

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Speaker 1: of autonomy over our bodies that men have always had

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Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy three, and the fact that we couldn't

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Speaker 1: even get a home loan on our own. I think

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Speaker 1: you couldn't take out a bank loan until nineteen eighty eight.

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Speaker 1: As a woman, You know these things, and you begin

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Speaker 1: to see, Oh, the ones calling this out, the folks

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Speaker 1: who are focused on the vision and the justice, aren't

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Speaker 1: being hysterical or hyperbolic. They're literally saying, don't you see

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Speaker 1: how it's been made to keep almost everyone out of

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Speaker 1: the inner circle of power?

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Speaker 2: Exactly. There's no need for it that kind of hysterics.

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Speaker 2: It's just pointing out the facts what took place. I

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Speaker 2: was really stunned recently to find in the archives in

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Speaker 2: what Drow Wilson's White House, when he's instantiating segregation period

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Speaker 2: racial idea of American life, that there were clerks, black

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Speaker 2: clerks who won Freeman Henry Morris Murray, I want a

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Speaker 2: salute did the work you're describing of pointing out through

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Speaker 2: the first book on racis and Aesthetics and Monuments that

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Speaker 2: these Confederate monuments were signaling, right, a racial regime, you know,

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Speaker 2: in nineteen sixteen. So he did it coolly, right in

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Speaker 2: a book, and let's just give people the guides that

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Speaker 2: they need to consider and go further with this analysis.

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Speaker 2: But he was an activist working alongside others to boys

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Speaker 2: founded the Niagara Movement. But that book and the work

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Speaker 2: of others like him or such a clear, i think,

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Speaker 2: model for how you can also push back. Yeah, evidence

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Speaker 2: based and data kind of driven, you know about that.

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Speaker 1: And to understand as well, who's driving these cultural conversations

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Speaker 1: and at times these cultural threats. You know, my dad's

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Speaker 1: family came here from Canada in the seventies. You know,

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Speaker 1: I don't have ties to white women who look like me,

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Speaker 1: who have generational family in the South. But I don't

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Speaker 1: love having to sit and know that it's women who

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Speaker 1: look like me that were the daughters of the Confederacy

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Speaker 1: that said, oh, we're going to get these statues made

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Speaker 1: to scare people. But if we don't learn that history,

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Speaker 1: how do we reckon with it today? How do we

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Speaker 1: begin to understand that these systems are systems they're ones

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Speaker 1: and zeros. They're coded to create disadvantage. And even some

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Speaker 1: of the folks who might look like me who think

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Speaker 1: they're not disadvantaged by this system are when you talk

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Speaker 1: about how the force of culture is often underestimated because

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Speaker 1: clture gets us to see what we don't know, that

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Speaker 1: we don't even know. Is it these these sorts of

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Speaker 1: stories that you reference, you know, the fact, for example,

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Speaker 1: that the Confederacy only lasted five years, Like you're not

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Speaker 1: celebrating American anything. Sorry, sorry, y'all. You know these If

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Speaker 1: we don't know the narrative, if we don't know the truth,

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Speaker 1: we can't understand that sometimes a narrative is trying to

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Speaker 1: create an illusion. Is it that sort of idea that

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Speaker 1: you're getting.

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Speaker 2: At, Yes, I would describe it this way. We often

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Speaker 2: have said that we need to have a conversation on

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Speaker 2: race in the United States. Before having any conversation on race,

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Speaker 2: we need exactly what you've described. You could co teach

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Speaker 2: alongside me at Harvard. The facts. We need, the facts,

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Speaker 2: we need the truth. It's it's similar to trying to

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Speaker 2: have a conversation about smoking and not knowing the facts

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Speaker 2: about you know, it's impact on health. So this is

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Speaker 2: and I don't know that people often even know where

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Speaker 2: to go to find the facts. And that's also what

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Speaker 2: so so deadly about recent censorship initiatives. Yes, the ACLU

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Speaker 2: has said that in forty states to date of our conversation,

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Speaker 2: forty states have laws in place that prohibit and limit

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Speaker 2: the teaching have race and gender in schools. So across

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Speaker 2: political lines too, you know, so if you don't know

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Speaker 2: the facts, you can't have a conversation right that issues

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Speaker 2: doue with race or gender. And that's that's why I

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Speaker 2: do think some of the foundational work that's happening in

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Speaker 2: political life is still going to center around the work

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Speaker 2: of education. You know, yes, teach in many ways. We

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Speaker 2: teach through these conversations too, and people in terms.

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Speaker 1: Of word and now a word from our sponsors, and

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Speaker 1: I think for people to understand that this is you know,

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Speaker 1: this is not old history. You know, Ruby Bridgers isn't

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Speaker 1: some phantom figure of two hundred years ago. You know,

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Speaker 1: she was a little girl in school, not much older

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Speaker 1: than my mother when my mother was in school. You know,

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Speaker 1: to begin to really recalibrate our understanding of time feels

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Speaker 1: like part of the quest here, and I guess I'm curious,

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Speaker 1: you know, having launched Vision Injustice, turning it into the curriculum,

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Speaker 1: making it into this incredible published work, following it through

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Speaker 1: so many years and iterations and into so many classrooms,

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Speaker 1: when did you realize you also wanted to write the

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Speaker 1: new book? When did you realize the un Seeing Truth

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Speaker 1: needed to be, you know, its own bound and published record.

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Speaker 1: Or was that always kind of the plan that you

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Speaker 1: would do one and then and then the next.

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Speaker 2: You know, it's a great question. I will say I was.

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Speaker 2: It required courage to the Unseen Truth, and that took time.

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Speaker 2: The Unseen Truth is a book I began at the

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Speaker 2: same time as the process of editing the Vision and

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Speaker 2: Justice volume and beginning to teach Vision and Justice. They're

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Speaker 2: parallel in terms of time, but they're in effect inverted

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Speaker 2: in a way in terms of the arguments they make.

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Speaker 2: If Vision and Justice is mainly focusing on the impact

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Speaker 2: of culture, visual culture probably defined on justice, the Unseen

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Speaker 2: Truth is looking at I think a little discussed phenomenon

433
00:29:54,560 --> 00:29:57,240
Speaker 2: that I felt urgently needs to be addressed, which is

434
00:29:57,680 --> 00:30:01,160
Speaker 2: how the use of race as a filter for understanding

435
00:30:01,200 --> 00:30:06,640
Speaker 2: society has just fundamentally changed how we see. So the

436
00:30:06,720 --> 00:30:12,440
Speaker 2: topic there is really vision itself, right, and that's the

437
00:30:12,480 --> 00:30:15,880
Speaker 2: blind spot. It's hard to analyze your own mode of seeing.

438
00:30:17,520 --> 00:30:20,080
Speaker 2: But I stumbled out across this case study that was

439
00:30:20,160 --> 00:30:24,040
Speaker 2: so shocking to me, and then I realized to my

440
00:30:24,240 --> 00:30:29,320
Speaker 2: colleagues that it felt as if I would be almost

441
00:30:29,440 --> 00:30:32,800
Speaker 2: like derelict in my duties as a scholar, and if

442
00:30:32,840 --> 00:30:36,760
Speaker 2: I just ignored it and continued to only Vision Justice project.

443
00:30:38,120 --> 00:30:39,400
Speaker 2: And I think you know that we don't talk about

444
00:30:39,440 --> 00:30:40,719
Speaker 2: that a lot, but as a scholar there's a lot

445
00:30:40,720 --> 00:30:44,120
Speaker 2: of integrity and fidelity to the archive you have to have.

446
00:30:44,160 --> 00:30:47,800
Speaker 2: If you come across something startling like that and I'll

447
00:30:47,840 --> 00:30:50,840
Speaker 2: tell you what it was and don't do anything about it,

448
00:30:50,880 --> 00:30:55,240
Speaker 2: you might sense that it might never be picked up again,

449
00:30:55,520 --> 00:31:00,040
Speaker 2: or it will be a couple of generations. So so

450
00:31:00,440 --> 00:31:05,240
Speaker 2: I came across this, these photographs and then related materials

451
00:31:05,280 --> 00:31:09,600
Speaker 2: about really the fiction of race in the United States.

452
00:31:09,760 --> 00:31:14,280
Speaker 2: It was a case study that wasn't, you know, directly

453
00:31:14,360 --> 00:31:15,920
Speaker 2: related to the work I was doing at the time,

454
00:31:16,000 --> 00:31:18,400
Speaker 2: But there were a set of photographs I came across

455
00:31:18,400 --> 00:31:23,040
Speaker 2: that showed a widely popular performance as big as any

456
00:31:23,120 --> 00:31:28,200
Speaker 2: we have today that P. T. Barnum, the circus impresario,

457
00:31:28,480 --> 00:31:30,960
Speaker 2: invented the notion of fame in the United States, the

458
00:31:31,000 --> 00:31:35,000
Speaker 2: first kind of con artist and effect too. And he

459
00:31:35,080 --> 00:31:37,280
Speaker 2: put on stage these women that looked in terms of

460
00:31:37,280 --> 00:31:41,040
Speaker 2: their hair like Angela Davis, massive afros alabaster, white skin,

461
00:31:41,840 --> 00:31:47,000
Speaker 2: and they were purported exemplars of white racial purity. What's

462
00:31:47,080 --> 00:31:50,400
Speaker 2: happening here? Well, why were these women so popular? This

463
00:31:50,440 --> 00:31:54,320
Speaker 2: looks strange. I don't understand. I don't understand, and so

464
00:31:54,480 --> 00:31:56,520
Speaker 2: I wanted to understand. And what I realized was that

465
00:31:56,600 --> 00:32:00,600
Speaker 2: he had hit on this moment in which, at the

466
00:32:00,680 --> 00:32:03,640
Speaker 2: end of the Caucasian War, at the same time as

467
00:32:03,640 --> 00:32:09,040
Speaker 2: a Civil War, reports about this region, the Caucus region,

468
00:32:09,520 --> 00:32:12,840
Speaker 2: the place from which we derived the term Caucasian for whiteness,

469
00:32:13,360 --> 00:32:16,920
Speaker 2: you know, was revealed to be anything but white at all. Right,

470
00:32:17,360 --> 00:32:20,360
Speaker 2: So what do you do in the face of a

471
00:32:20,440 --> 00:32:23,560
Speaker 2: myth that you've used to secure up the whole regime

472
00:32:23,600 --> 00:32:27,160
Speaker 2: of racial domination in the United States? You know? It

473
00:32:27,400 --> 00:32:31,719
Speaker 2: was so bewildering and concerning that even Woodrow Wilson, as

474
00:32:31,760 --> 00:32:34,720
Speaker 2: late as nineteen nineteen requests a report from his chiefest

475
00:32:34,760 --> 00:32:37,120
Speaker 2: Staff of the Army about the look of the women

476
00:32:37,160 --> 00:32:39,800
Speaker 2: from the region. He knows that this is all predico

477
00:32:40,520 --> 00:32:44,560
Speaker 2: lie and I then thought, okay, well that's nice, but

478
00:32:44,640 --> 00:32:48,560
Speaker 2: let's see But then realize many others were fixated, fascinated

479
00:32:48,600 --> 00:32:53,760
Speaker 2: with this and then had to write. Frederick Douglass understood

480
00:32:53,800 --> 00:32:56,880
Speaker 2: this opens one of his biographies with this fact. I

481
00:32:56,960 --> 00:33:00,920
Speaker 2: realized I had to write. I looked, I looked at

482
00:33:00,920 --> 00:33:04,480
Speaker 2: this material and realized that what hadn't been addressed because

483
00:33:04,480 --> 00:33:08,280
Speaker 2: people have to discussed the fiction of whiteness before, is

484
00:33:08,680 --> 00:33:10,880
Speaker 2: that we live with the consequences of what was done

485
00:33:10,920 --> 00:33:17,840
Speaker 2: to willfully disregard these fictions, right to cement them, to

486
00:33:17,920 --> 00:33:23,160
Speaker 2: codify them as fact, and to be so the book

487
00:33:23,360 --> 00:33:28,480
Speaker 2: really looks at the force of vision as a technology

488
00:33:28,520 --> 00:33:32,560
Speaker 2: for shoring up racial regimes in spite of these foundational

489
00:33:32,760 --> 00:33:34,080
Speaker 2: myths and fictions.

490
00:33:34,360 --> 00:33:34,560
Speaker 1: You know.

491
00:33:36,120 --> 00:33:39,440
Speaker 2: So it's a companion, it's you know, welcome to the

492
00:33:39,520 --> 00:33:43,360
Speaker 2: deep cut. Yeah, you want to go into it. And

493
00:33:43,400 --> 00:33:46,120
Speaker 2: the Justice Book on Random House that will come out next.

494
00:33:46,200 --> 00:33:49,120
Speaker 2: We'll continue to engage with the force and function of

495
00:33:49,160 --> 00:33:50,280
Speaker 2: culture for justice.

496
00:33:50,760 --> 00:33:55,640
Speaker 1: Wow. So you said that it took courage, and I

497
00:33:55,680 --> 00:34:00,720
Speaker 1: can see that that wave of who like the overwhelmed anxiety,

498
00:34:00,760 --> 00:34:03,760
Speaker 1: the excitement, but there's fear in that when you know

499
00:34:03,840 --> 00:34:06,160
Speaker 1: you have to be courageous to do something, you know,

500
00:34:06,320 --> 00:34:11,480
Speaker 1: it's scary, I think from the outside, and I realized

501
00:34:11,520 --> 00:34:13,239
Speaker 1: the irony is saying this as you know, a person

502
00:34:13,280 --> 00:34:15,400
Speaker 1: who from the outside looks like a successful gal on

503
00:34:15,440 --> 00:34:19,319
Speaker 1: TV from the outside, and then on the inside, I

504
00:34:19,360 --> 00:34:21,160
Speaker 1: go like, oh, it's all really hard, and I'm scared

505
00:34:21,160 --> 00:34:24,759
Speaker 1: all the time. But when I look at you, you

506
00:34:24,800 --> 00:34:26,960
Speaker 1: know one of my I would say, one of my

507
00:34:26,960 --> 00:34:29,680
Speaker 1: most accomplished friends, you know, tenured professor at Harvard and

508
00:34:29,800 --> 00:34:36,080
Speaker 1: published author and all of these wonderful accolades, and you know,

509
00:34:36,160 --> 00:34:40,799
Speaker 1: sort of defining characteristics of your professional life. Why did

510
00:34:40,840 --> 00:34:42,279
Speaker 1: it feel scary to do this?

511
00:34:42,920 --> 00:34:45,840
Speaker 2: Well, I should say, also hopefully soon to be tenured.

512
00:34:45,880 --> 00:34:46,680
Speaker 2: I come up next year.

513
00:34:46,719 --> 00:34:49,959
Speaker 1: But mostly ah, okay, I'm doing my math a little

514
00:34:49,960 --> 00:34:50,319
Speaker 1: bit wrong.

515
00:34:50,360 --> 00:34:52,480
Speaker 2: But oh no, no, it just COVID kicked it out

516
00:34:52,520 --> 00:34:57,680
Speaker 2: a bit. I just right, Okay, why did it take courage? Well,

517
00:34:58,280 --> 00:35:02,200
Speaker 2: I think you and I both are willing to disclose

518
00:35:02,560 --> 00:35:07,880
Speaker 2: the process behind what looks to others to be accomplishment,

519
00:35:08,239 --> 00:35:12,319
Speaker 2: and that's a lot of our bond. So I am

520
00:35:12,320 --> 00:35:17,120
Speaker 2: willing to disclose that. I think the driving force behind

521
00:35:17,160 --> 00:35:18,719
Speaker 2: a lot of the work I do is to consider

522
00:35:18,880 --> 00:35:22,080
Speaker 2: what we're failing to see and to look at the

523
00:35:22,120 --> 00:35:26,560
Speaker 2: role of failure productively in creative life. But when you

524
00:35:26,960 --> 00:35:31,200
Speaker 2: stumble across something the way that I did that points

525
00:35:31,239 --> 00:35:37,600
Speaker 2: to a massive societal failure, probably throw a stone in

526
00:35:37,640 --> 00:35:39,160
Speaker 2: any street you walk down. No one's going to know

527
00:35:39,200 --> 00:35:42,680
Speaker 2: about the fiction of whiteness related to the occasion war

528
00:35:42,760 --> 00:35:45,880
Speaker 2: and the regime that's created in the face of it.

529
00:35:46,400 --> 00:35:49,920
Speaker 2: You know, you realize that you're back to the metaphor

530
00:35:49,920 --> 00:35:52,560
Speaker 2: of kind of pulling the thread potentially going to unravel

531
00:35:53,719 --> 00:35:57,600
Speaker 2: the warm blanket that's been used to give people comfort

532
00:35:57,800 --> 00:36:01,279
Speaker 2: about their own identities right and about the regime of

533
00:36:01,320 --> 00:36:06,920
Speaker 2: the United States. So the question became, well, what where

534
00:36:07,080 --> 00:36:09,360
Speaker 2: is your allegiance? Who are you allegiant to? Is it

535
00:36:09,520 --> 00:36:15,520
Speaker 2: the truth? To convention and to your own position too.

536
00:36:15,600 --> 00:36:19,560
Speaker 2: I had to make peace with all kinds of potential

537
00:36:19,560 --> 00:36:22,759
Speaker 2: outcomes of writing The Unseen Truth before I could really

538
00:36:22,800 --> 00:36:24,879
Speaker 2: commit to putting the fire on the page. I knew

539
00:36:24,920 --> 00:36:27,600
Speaker 2: it needed to do justice to the project, to the

540
00:36:28,200 --> 00:36:33,120
Speaker 2: completely forgotten heroic early civil rights leaders that I was

541
00:36:33,120 --> 00:36:37,840
Speaker 2: alluding to in Widger Wilson's White House. And what really

542
00:36:37,880 --> 00:36:43,719
Speaker 2: did it though, Sophia was Yes, the models of the

543
00:36:43,760 --> 00:36:47,040
Speaker 2: extraordinary mentors I have around me, Neil Painter and hand

544
00:36:47,080 --> 00:36:49,680
Speaker 2: really escaped juniors make a Kincaid. I'm in her former

545
00:36:49,760 --> 00:36:53,000
Speaker 2: office now at Harvard. She does retired. But it was

546
00:36:53,239 --> 00:36:57,000
Speaker 2: this miracle of an experience, a near death car collision

547
00:36:58,280 --> 00:37:04,320
Speaker 2: three years ago now that forced me, after really just

548
00:37:04,400 --> 00:37:09,200
Speaker 2: embracing this gift of a second chance to live, that

549
00:37:09,360 --> 00:37:13,080
Speaker 2: just really forced me to well, see my life as

550
00:37:13,360 --> 00:37:16,480
Speaker 2: a contribution if I if it could be. And when

551
00:37:16,520 --> 00:37:19,080
Speaker 2: you go through an experience like that that says as

552
00:37:19,280 --> 00:37:21,480
Speaker 2: heinous as a car collision the kind that I was in,

553
00:37:23,280 --> 00:37:27,880
Speaker 2: it lowers your fears for other kinds of inventors. So

554
00:37:28,239 --> 00:37:32,560
Speaker 2: what first seemed daunting, really, you know, seems like nothing

555
00:37:32,760 --> 00:37:32,960
Speaker 2: in the.

556
00:37:32,960 --> 00:37:36,520
Speaker 1: Face of what I've been through, Yeah, became obvious. I'd

557
00:37:36,560 --> 00:37:41,319
Speaker 1: imagine you're making me think of something. You know, these

558
00:37:42,800 --> 00:37:46,840
Speaker 1: these illusions about what is true that you realize have

559
00:37:47,040 --> 00:37:50,280
Speaker 1: just been narratives defined by normally the people in power.

560
00:37:51,880 --> 00:37:56,960
Speaker 1: You know, we are struggling against the realities that we've

561
00:37:57,000 --> 00:37:59,959
Speaker 1: all been ringing the alarm bells about, you know, watching

562
00:38:00,840 --> 00:38:04,279
Speaker 1: women around our country suffer with these horrific bands on

563
00:38:04,440 --> 00:38:08,520
Speaker 1: healthcare that are you know, costing lives, costing fertility, just

564
00:38:08,680 --> 00:38:14,279
Speaker 1: absolutely destroying families. And it's the it's the fact that

565
00:38:14,640 --> 00:38:18,400
Speaker 1: a narrative that is antithetical to medical science could have

566
00:38:18,440 --> 00:38:20,440
Speaker 1: put us in this position is so shocking to me,

567
00:38:22,440 --> 00:38:25,600
Speaker 1: and it's making me think. You know, back when I

568
00:38:25,800 --> 00:38:28,880
Speaker 1: was years ago, similarly to you talking about ten year

569
00:38:29,040 --> 00:38:31,400
Speaker 1: COVID delayed everything, right, So I was supposed to go

570
00:38:31,520 --> 00:38:34,520
Speaker 1: do this show and play this really brilliant doctor and

571
00:38:34,680 --> 00:38:39,000
Speaker 1: I love medicine, and the delay of the lockdowns gave

572
00:38:39,080 --> 00:38:42,960
Speaker 1: me time to get really nerdy shocker on the research there,

573
00:38:43,760 --> 00:38:47,120
Speaker 1: and I thought, you know, I like to research in

574
00:38:47,200 --> 00:38:50,440
Speaker 1: ways that you know, might seem weird to people. Who

575
00:38:50,520 --> 00:38:52,400
Speaker 1: else likes to do that. I know someone likes to

576
00:38:52,480 --> 00:38:54,640
Speaker 1: do that. Bill Bryson is really He's one of those

577
00:38:54,680 --> 00:38:57,960
Speaker 1: guys pick a topic, goes deep. So I decided to

578
00:38:58,040 --> 00:39:02,120
Speaker 1: read his book The Body, about traveling around to learn

579
00:39:02,200 --> 00:39:04,080
Speaker 1: the ins and outs of you know, medical science and

580
00:39:04,200 --> 00:39:06,879
Speaker 1: history and good, the bad, and the ugly. And there's

581
00:39:06,920 --> 00:39:09,000
Speaker 1: a doctor that he visited who said, I'm going to

582
00:39:09,040 --> 00:39:14,439
Speaker 1: show you something and from cadavers in the hospital took

583
00:39:14,640 --> 00:39:19,640
Speaker 1: postage stamps, like postage stamp size pieces of flesh off

584
00:39:19,719 --> 00:39:22,160
Speaker 1: their arms and held them up to the light and

585
00:39:22,200 --> 00:39:25,200
Speaker 1: they were all translucent. And the doctor looked at Bill

586
00:39:25,239 --> 00:39:27,400
Speaker 1: Bryson and said, that's how real race is.

587
00:39:28,960 --> 00:39:29,000
Speaker 2: It.

588
00:39:29,160 --> 00:39:32,239
Speaker 1: And I've never been able to get the image out

589
00:39:32,280 --> 00:39:36,080
Speaker 1: of my head that this, this thing that we can't

590
00:39:36,239 --> 00:39:41,120
Speaker 1: detach ourselves from, if it's detached from us, ceases to

591
00:39:41,440 --> 00:39:46,480
Speaker 1: exist in any definable way. And it just strikes me

592
00:39:46,560 --> 00:39:52,360
Speaker 1: as so incredibly significant because it's an undeniable, undeniable medical

593
00:39:52,440 --> 00:39:55,759
Speaker 1: proof of exactly what you're talking about, that we've we've

594
00:39:55,880 --> 00:40:01,120
Speaker 1: made up meaning for what we could perhaps just look

595
00:40:01,160 --> 00:40:04,160
Speaker 1: at as beautiful uniqueness instead.

596
00:40:04,680 --> 00:40:09,080
Speaker 2: Right, It's such a powerful story, and it, for me

597
00:40:09,280 --> 00:40:11,920
Speaker 2: makes me think of this question, what is it going

598
00:40:11,960 --> 00:40:16,960
Speaker 2: to take for people to see that you have this

599
00:40:17,160 --> 00:40:22,280
Speaker 2: vivid moment and describing it. I know anyone watching listening

600
00:40:22,960 --> 00:40:27,760
Speaker 2: might now have that as theirs. I have one myself.

601
00:40:28,320 --> 00:40:31,960
Speaker 2: In writing the start of the vision, Justice italized what

602
00:40:32,120 --> 00:40:35,080
Speaker 2: emerged was just a memory, you know, from childhood about

603
00:40:35,160 --> 00:40:39,160
Speaker 2: that idea. Not understanding why I remember when I was

604
00:40:39,239 --> 00:40:42,279
Speaker 2: really young, I would in the summertime. I would just

605
00:40:42,520 --> 00:40:47,400
Speaker 2: love getting as dark as possible, I mean, just anytime.

606
00:40:48,120 --> 00:40:54,040
Speaker 2: And someone in my family, my black family, would teach

607
00:40:54,080 --> 00:40:55,880
Speaker 2: me about it, like, oh, Sarah loves getting dark. And

608
00:40:55,880 --> 00:40:59,240
Speaker 2: I remember people were just laughing at this family gathering,

609
00:40:59,280 --> 00:41:02,960
Speaker 2: and I thought, why is that funny? Why is it

610
00:41:03,000 --> 00:41:05,440
Speaker 2: funny that I would love the other end of the spectrum,

611
00:41:05,960 --> 00:41:09,360
Speaker 2: you know, And I realized how internalized a kind of

612
00:41:10,120 --> 00:41:12,840
Speaker 2: thinking was. That I was at a stage where I

613
00:41:12,880 --> 00:41:16,799
Speaker 2: didn't understand the history, but knew something was wrong, right, right, right,

614
00:41:17,160 --> 00:41:18,960
Speaker 2: So we all have these moments, and that just just

615
00:41:19,040 --> 00:41:20,879
Speaker 2: came to mind and talking to you. Actually don't write

616
00:41:20,920 --> 00:41:26,440
Speaker 2: about that, but it's often the visual moment, right, you know,

617
00:41:27,280 --> 00:41:31,320
Speaker 2: more than it is evidence that's presented, you know, in

618
00:41:31,400 --> 00:41:36,120
Speaker 2: a kind of linear way, and it's often then, I mean,

619
00:41:36,200 --> 00:41:39,719
Speaker 2: I think that there is a role that whether it's

620
00:41:41,560 --> 00:41:45,040
Speaker 2: the experiment you're describing, or whether it's an object that's

621
00:41:45,040 --> 00:41:47,839
Speaker 2: a work of culture, whether it's a painting perform that's

622
00:41:47,920 --> 00:41:53,360
Speaker 2: so depersonalized it lets you take a step back instead

623
00:41:53,360 --> 00:41:56,160
Speaker 2: of making something a debate, you know, to be trying

624
00:41:56,200 --> 00:41:59,520
Speaker 2: to do get out, it's an arena emerges where you're

625
00:42:00,040 --> 00:42:03,600
Speaker 2: you're analyzing something together and saying, isn't that interesting? So

626
00:42:04,600 --> 00:42:08,600
Speaker 2: I think the lack of personalization gives you enough distance

627
00:42:08,719 --> 00:42:14,399
Speaker 2: to revise your idea. I'm talking about this with Brian

628
00:42:14,440 --> 00:42:18,040
Speaker 2: Stephenson in a conversation recently, because that's you know, you

629
00:42:18,120 --> 00:42:21,920
Speaker 2: have you ask yourself, how did a lawyer who's argued

630
00:42:21,920 --> 00:42:26,719
Speaker 2: before the Supreme Court many times, who is our leader

631
00:42:26,760 --> 00:42:32,200
Speaker 2: in affecting criminal justice reform decide to devote over eight

632
00:42:32,320 --> 00:42:34,800
Speaker 2: years of his life to narrative work and building a

633
00:42:34,960 --> 00:42:39,920
Speaker 2: monument and of all places, Montgomery, Alabama, to honor the

634
00:42:41,000 --> 00:42:45,399
Speaker 2: named individuals whose lives were taken unjustly from lynching racial terror.

635
00:42:45,640 --> 00:42:45,759
Speaker 1: Right.

636
00:42:46,000 --> 00:42:48,960
Speaker 2: Why would a lawyer decide to do this? Well, he

637
00:42:49,120 --> 00:42:53,560
Speaker 2: understands the same point, right. These objects give you a

638
00:42:53,640 --> 00:43:00,040
Speaker 2: way to re educate yourself, recondition yourself, and that's I

639
00:43:00,040 --> 00:43:03,920
Speaker 2: think that It's a lot of what probably draws you

640
00:43:04,120 --> 00:43:07,439
Speaker 2: to this work. I'd imagine as an actor, as someone

641
00:43:07,480 --> 00:43:11,280
Speaker 2: who understands so powerfully, I'm sure just how the narratives

642
00:43:11,320 --> 00:43:14,880
Speaker 2: you're presenting and living out can alter alive. You know.

643
00:43:15,960 --> 00:43:18,440
Speaker 2: That's why I'm excited to speak to you about about

644
00:43:18,480 --> 00:43:19,160
Speaker 2: these ideas.

645
00:43:19,680 --> 00:43:24,719
Speaker 1: Yeah, like Wise, and now a word from our wonderful sponsors.

646
00:43:34,960 --> 00:43:41,040
Speaker 1: I'm curious about the experiences you had inside of the

647
00:43:41,239 --> 00:43:46,600
Speaker 1: art of this book, because it's historic and obviously so

648
00:43:46,760 --> 00:43:51,000
Speaker 1: evidenced based. And part of what makes I think a

649
00:43:51,120 --> 00:43:54,080
Speaker 1: great book or a great piece of art so impactful

650
00:43:54,200 --> 00:43:56,440
Speaker 1: is it's not just a data study. You know, we're

651
00:43:56,480 --> 00:43:59,400
Speaker 1: not just looking up a white paper here. We are

652
00:44:00,080 --> 00:44:05,719
Speaker 1: personalizing and contextualizing the human experience for people. And you're

653
00:44:05,760 --> 00:44:12,120
Speaker 1: not just educating your creating pathways to empathy. And it's

654
00:44:12,120 --> 00:44:15,880
Speaker 1: a heavy burden to bear to be the first to

655
00:44:16,880 --> 00:44:19,760
Speaker 1: create a new pathway. You know, you are, in essence,

656
00:44:19,840 --> 00:44:25,680
Speaker 1: laying a new road for us. How did you handle

657
00:44:27,000 --> 00:44:31,160
Speaker 1: individually for yourself? You know, because life is long and

658
00:44:31,239 --> 00:44:33,279
Speaker 1: you've got to take care of yourself. How did you

659
00:44:34,239 --> 00:44:38,320
Speaker 1: handle some of the more difficult discovery, some of the

660
00:44:38,480 --> 00:44:42,240
Speaker 1: things that were so hard to put on the page.

661
00:44:43,239 --> 00:44:46,760
Speaker 1: You know, what are your mechanisms of self care inside

662
00:44:46,840 --> 00:44:47,520
Speaker 1: of your work?

663
00:44:48,000 --> 00:44:51,000
Speaker 2: Well, I think first the way to lighten a load

664
00:44:51,080 --> 00:44:57,720
Speaker 2: for me is to remember your why. So I wrote

665
00:44:57,760 --> 00:45:01,080
Speaker 2: this for that young girl eight years you didn't understand why,

666
00:45:01,360 --> 00:45:05,080
Speaker 2: you know, getting dark was somehow this laughable thing in

667
00:45:05,120 --> 00:45:07,879
Speaker 2: the sum yeah, I wrote this for all those who

668
00:45:07,920 --> 00:45:12,200
Speaker 2: don't understand why we're in this quandary about race. The

669
00:45:12,360 --> 00:45:17,160
Speaker 2: why was important to maintain the fuel, especially when I

670
00:45:17,200 --> 00:45:19,520
Speaker 2: would come up against roadblocks all of a sudden it

671
00:45:19,680 --> 00:45:24,120
Speaker 2: was papers that were seemingly accessible were no longer accessible

672
00:45:24,200 --> 00:45:26,200
Speaker 2: when it was clear what I was writing about, you know,

673
00:45:26,320 --> 00:45:31,120
Speaker 2: and oh to find ways around that. Yeah, there's commitment

674
00:45:31,200 --> 00:45:35,080
Speaker 2: to maintaining this regime too, But it's not about culprits.

675
00:45:35,120 --> 00:45:39,239
Speaker 2: It's really about culture. So that let me depersonalize it.

676
00:45:39,400 --> 00:45:45,640
Speaker 2: I finding distance from from the work to through fellowship

677
00:45:45,680 --> 00:45:48,320
Speaker 2: on the path, the conversations we have, the way that

678
00:45:48,400 --> 00:45:54,040
Speaker 2: we can use just laughter. I mean, my god, you

679
00:45:54,239 --> 00:45:57,160
Speaker 2: have to, I think, lead with joy in your own life,

680
00:45:58,800 --> 00:46:01,919
Speaker 2: and the practice is really that sustained me. I would

681
00:46:01,960 --> 00:46:04,560
Speaker 2: love to hear yours too now or at some point,

682
00:46:04,640 --> 00:46:10,960
Speaker 2: but meditation non negotiab for me, at least, it's if

683
00:46:11,000 --> 00:46:14,000
Speaker 2: you can touch that inner ground. I think there's a

684
00:46:14,040 --> 00:46:17,640
Speaker 2: stability with how you move forward in the day and

685
00:46:18,719 --> 00:46:21,480
Speaker 2: then finding the practice that let you live out that joy.

686
00:46:21,640 --> 00:46:25,400
Speaker 2: For me, you know, it's dancing, it's running, it's embodying

687
00:46:25,680 --> 00:46:30,480
Speaker 2: a kind of forward motion. And yeah, I've got my

688
00:46:30,600 --> 00:46:35,680
Speaker 2: friends to thank for also just keeping it light when

689
00:46:36,040 --> 00:46:38,000
Speaker 2: they knew I was in heavy places. You know.

690
00:46:38,360 --> 00:46:42,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's I think sometimes the most profound when

691
00:46:42,640 --> 00:46:45,080
Speaker 1: things are hard, just to go out dancing with your friends,

692
00:46:46,239 --> 00:46:50,040
Speaker 1: go see some live music, to go, you know, for

693
00:46:50,200 --> 00:46:52,960
Speaker 1: me to go to a sporting event, to go see

694
00:46:53,000 --> 00:46:55,840
Speaker 1: an NWSL game or a w NBA game and just

695
00:46:56,120 --> 00:47:01,080
Speaker 1: scream and cheer and root for women. These these spaces

696
00:47:01,200 --> 00:47:06,160
Speaker 1: of high frequency excitement and joy remind me of what

697
00:47:06,360 --> 00:47:10,000
Speaker 1: we're here for. I just get a lot of healing

698
00:47:10,239 --> 00:47:13,960
Speaker 1: out of sort of community events like that. For sure.

699
00:47:14,440 --> 00:47:17,800
Speaker 2: Absolutely I was that word frequency, that's it. I was.

700
00:47:18,880 --> 00:47:20,680
Speaker 2: And even just you know, the dance party in your

701
00:47:20,719 --> 00:47:25,640
Speaker 2: own home that takes you there. But after the launch

702
00:47:25,680 --> 00:47:30,960
Speaker 2: of Brian Stephenson's Secret initiatives new monument, the Freedom Monument

703
00:47:31,000 --> 00:47:35,120
Speaker 2: Sculpture Park, there was this concert, you know, after all

704
00:47:35,200 --> 00:47:37,360
Speaker 2: the extraordinary panels. I was honored to be on a panel.

705
00:47:37,880 --> 00:47:41,360
Speaker 2: But I sat there and it was a crew of leaders,

706
00:47:41,480 --> 00:47:45,960
Speaker 2: right who need that space for respite and that frequency

707
00:47:46,120 --> 00:47:49,160
Speaker 2: lives right and Es Bronzos Balding and went and went

708
00:47:49,200 --> 00:47:53,279
Speaker 2: to Marsalis and many others. I was reminded in that

709
00:47:53,440 --> 00:47:57,040
Speaker 2: space right of where we need to go to maintain

710
00:47:57,120 --> 00:48:01,080
Speaker 2: that sustenance to continue on that next morning. So I

711
00:48:01,200 --> 00:48:03,800
Speaker 2: love that Brian always creates that space to do what

712
00:48:03,840 --> 00:48:04,920
Speaker 2: we're describing.

713
00:48:04,680 --> 00:48:09,440
Speaker 1: You know, in the midst of hard work. Yeah. Well,

714
00:48:09,640 --> 00:48:12,200
Speaker 1: and I'm glad to hear that you kept your joy

715
00:48:12,480 --> 00:48:17,919
Speaker 1: during it, because I know there were some shocking discoveries

716
00:48:18,040 --> 00:48:21,000
Speaker 1: in the book, and to be making those discoveries while

717
00:48:21,040 --> 00:48:25,200
Speaker 1: you're also writing about how we as a society have

718
00:48:25,360 --> 00:48:28,120
Speaker 1: to have this reckoning and figure out how we're going

719
00:48:28,200 --> 00:48:33,759
Speaker 1: to dismantle this not only false but really damaging to

720
00:48:34,040 --> 00:48:39,960
Speaker 1: all of us hierarchy. Are there you know a handful

721
00:48:40,040 --> 00:48:44,520
Speaker 1: of examples of sort of fascinating discovery that you would

722
00:48:44,560 --> 00:48:48,560
Speaker 1: want to give to listeners ahead of reading the book.

723
00:48:50,719 --> 00:48:54,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, I should say so. Much of the book attends

724
00:48:54,239 --> 00:48:58,520
Speaker 2: to the contemporary moment by looking at the roots how

725
00:48:58,560 --> 00:49:02,040
Speaker 2: we got there, whether it's racial profiling and the roots

726
00:49:02,080 --> 00:49:04,880
Speaker 2: of it and racial detailing, you know as I call it,

727
00:49:05,120 --> 00:49:10,200
Speaker 2: or censorship, and the curriculum debates and the roots of it,

728
00:49:10,360 --> 00:49:14,400
Speaker 2: and just plain old teaching in the United States right

729
00:49:14,600 --> 00:49:19,759
Speaker 2: forget reticized teaching. I think there's a lot that will

730
00:49:19,800 --> 00:49:26,680
Speaker 2: start a readers. I think the main takeaway that will

731
00:49:26,719 --> 00:49:32,200
Speaker 2: start with them is that we've cohered this regime not

732
00:49:32,440 --> 00:49:38,279
Speaker 2: only through declaration, speeches, stereotypes, other things, but you know,

733
00:49:38,400 --> 00:49:42,919
Speaker 2: fundamentally through omissions, through what we deliberately have taken out

734
00:49:43,400 --> 00:49:48,480
Speaker 2: of the record, hidden from view, right, secreted away so

735
00:49:48,600 --> 00:49:51,440
Speaker 2: that no one would question what's going on, who's in power,

736
00:49:51,640 --> 00:49:57,520
Speaker 2: and why they always look a certain way right. Pedagogy education,

737
00:49:57,760 --> 00:50:00,640
Speaker 2: the textbooks that were used, you know, for our parents,

738
00:50:02,440 --> 00:50:05,960
Speaker 2: in some cases parents, I think will really startle people. Frankly,

739
00:50:06,400 --> 00:50:10,520
Speaker 2: so what was being housed to off is accepted knowledge

740
00:50:10,560 --> 00:50:13,239
Speaker 2: about power in the world and who should wield it.

741
00:50:13,800 --> 00:50:17,520
Speaker 2: You know what's most instructive about that that chapter, chapter

742
00:50:17,600 --> 00:50:22,560
Speaker 2: four about teaching and schools and race, is that teachers,

743
00:50:23,000 --> 00:50:25,160
Speaker 2: you know, in the nineteenth century, early twentieth century, they

744
00:50:25,200 --> 00:50:28,759
Speaker 2: had to primarily read from scripts, so you were able

745
00:50:28,800 --> 00:50:33,120
Speaker 2: to look at exactly what's being taught, right, And I

746
00:50:33,200 --> 00:50:36,080
Speaker 2: think people will be shocked by just how normalized and

747
00:50:36,200 --> 00:50:40,279
Speaker 2: naturalized the idea of frankly, just white racial supremacy was

748
00:50:40,960 --> 00:50:45,640
Speaker 2: right being defined as simply the natural order of the world.

749
00:50:46,960 --> 00:50:52,759
Speaker 2: And I think through it they're seeing just how dominant

750
00:50:53,480 --> 00:50:57,920
Speaker 2: these racially biased narratives were such that it just was

751
00:50:58,000 --> 00:51:02,160
Speaker 2: like air around them. People a deeper understanding of the

752
00:51:02,360 --> 00:51:07,120
Speaker 2: need for activism and all a wife right, yeah, And

753
00:51:07,360 --> 00:51:10,839
Speaker 2: that I think will also create a different level of empathy, right,

754
00:51:12,360 --> 00:51:17,920
Speaker 2: this long standing struggle to achieve rights, human rights of

755
00:51:18,000 --> 00:51:23,240
Speaker 2: all kinds. And I hope is that recognizing the function

756
00:51:23,360 --> 00:51:29,640
Speaker 2: of silencing of what was being left out will encourage

757
00:51:29,640 --> 00:51:32,880
Speaker 2: people to use their voice, to speak up as you do,

758
00:51:34,120 --> 00:51:36,920
Speaker 2: to honor the ways in which their privilege allows them

759
00:51:36,960 --> 00:51:41,239
Speaker 2: to do so so many different rooms and spaces when

760
00:51:41,280 --> 00:51:46,680
Speaker 2: others could not, and to understand how how long overdue

761
00:51:47,360 --> 00:51:47,960
Speaker 2: this work is.

762
00:51:48,680 --> 00:51:54,760
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, it's a reframing, you know, it's a clearing

763
00:51:55,000 --> 00:51:58,800
Speaker 1: kind of of all the of all the garbage that

764
00:51:59,320 --> 00:52:03,759
Speaker 1: has been into our national house. How do you think

765
00:52:03,920 --> 00:52:13,000
Speaker 1: the work of reseeing pieces of history, perhaps, you know,

766
00:52:13,160 --> 00:52:17,000
Speaker 1: bringing all of our history to the table and actually

767
00:52:17,160 --> 00:52:22,240
Speaker 1: seeing the full picture can change the narrative.

768
00:52:22,400 --> 00:52:27,520
Speaker 2: Now, any work we do in politics, any work we

769
00:52:27,640 --> 00:52:34,160
Speaker 2: do to change laws, it's fundamentally about altering perspectives, right,

770
00:52:34,840 --> 00:52:39,240
Speaker 2: ensuring that they are correct, and seeing the fundamental value

771
00:52:39,320 --> 00:52:39,680
Speaker 2: of all.

772
00:52:40,520 --> 00:52:40,719
Speaker 1: Yeah.

773
00:52:41,920 --> 00:52:45,120
Speaker 2: So when it comes to the work of vision, it

774
00:52:45,320 --> 00:52:49,640
Speaker 2: is the first priority, right, or any work that comes

775
00:52:50,040 --> 00:52:53,080
Speaker 2: to do with politics. Now, reseeing I love the term

776
00:52:53,160 --> 00:52:57,839
Speaker 2: you've used. There, that's the goal. But the book, really,

777
00:52:58,160 --> 00:53:02,360
Speaker 2: you know, addresses how we get there. The long history

778
00:53:02,760 --> 00:53:08,240
Speaker 2: of race and formation, construction, fabrication in the United States

779
00:53:08,600 --> 00:53:13,719
Speaker 2: has actually been about unseeing. There was this moment when

780
00:53:13,760 --> 00:53:19,560
Speaker 2: Americans understood the fiction of race and racial hierarchy and

781
00:53:19,680 --> 00:53:24,680
Speaker 2: chose to disregard it. There was this willful unseeing, and

782
00:53:25,600 --> 00:53:28,760
Speaker 2: that is what's been hidden in how we teach history.

783
00:53:31,239 --> 00:53:33,520
Speaker 2: We live with a culture that was built up around

784
00:53:33,600 --> 00:53:36,080
Speaker 2: it such that we don't even realize how many things

785
00:53:36,120 --> 00:53:39,520
Speaker 2: have been deliberately taken out from our view. So to

786
00:53:39,680 --> 00:53:43,359
Speaker 2: re see, well, that's the work, and that's where time

787
00:53:43,640 --> 00:53:46,440
Speaker 2: plays a role. Right. I have to slow down enough

788
00:53:46,560 --> 00:53:50,040
Speaker 2: to be able to pull threads, to go down different

789
00:53:50,120 --> 00:53:53,160
Speaker 2: pathways that don't necessarily seem to be what you should,

790
00:53:53,280 --> 00:53:55,680
Speaker 2: but in so doing you find the very roots of

791
00:53:55,719 --> 00:53:58,440
Speaker 2: the thing you were addressing. Time is not something we're

792
00:53:58,520 --> 00:54:04,320
Speaker 2: great at just engaging with endurance. What it takes to

793
00:54:04,640 --> 00:54:07,560
Speaker 2: have a perspective to access the facts.

794
00:54:08,280 --> 00:54:12,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, because it requires an investment into longevity. That's it,

795
00:54:14,719 --> 00:54:19,399
Speaker 1: you know, I realized I made a joke years ago

796
00:54:19,520 --> 00:54:22,120
Speaker 1: that being cast on a TV show is sort of

797
00:54:22,200 --> 00:54:24,839
Speaker 1: like being in an arranged marriage. You know, you meet

798
00:54:24,920 --> 00:54:27,200
Speaker 1: people and they're supposed to be your most intimate people.

799
00:54:27,239 --> 00:54:30,239
Speaker 1: You're supposed to know each other's ticks, know how to communicate,

800
00:54:30,400 --> 00:54:33,280
Speaker 1: never offend each other. Be there, be professional, be family,

801
00:54:33,480 --> 00:54:35,880
Speaker 1: spend seventeen hours a day together and good luck to you.

802
00:54:36,760 --> 00:54:40,320
Speaker 1: And what I realized as I sort of started to

803
00:54:40,360 --> 00:54:43,239
Speaker 1: extrapolate on that idea that there are all of these

804
00:54:43,320 --> 00:54:46,880
Speaker 1: sort of versions of these long commitments we make, I

805
00:54:47,000 --> 00:54:51,840
Speaker 1: was like, oh, democracy is my marriage. That is the

806
00:54:51,960 --> 00:54:55,640
Speaker 1: relationship of my lifetime. That is the thing I will

807
00:54:55,800 --> 00:55:01,200
Speaker 1: invest in and do the work, you know, all the education,

808
00:55:01,360 --> 00:55:03,759
Speaker 1: all the willingness to fight. It's the couple's therapy. It's like,

809
00:55:03,840 --> 00:55:04,920
Speaker 1: I'm not going to give up on you.

810
00:55:05,640 --> 00:55:06,720
Speaker 2: I refuse.

811
00:55:07,880 --> 00:55:11,600
Speaker 1: It's that thing. And and and it is also a

812
00:55:11,640 --> 00:55:14,080
Speaker 1: love story. I think you know. That's that's the re

813
00:55:14,280 --> 00:55:17,719
Speaker 1: seeing for me is the political process and our potential

814
00:55:17,800 --> 00:55:23,520
Speaker 1: to use it for harm reduction and then use it

815
00:55:23,719 --> 00:55:28,560
Speaker 1: for joy building. It's a It's a love story to me,

816
00:55:30,360 --> 00:55:33,640
Speaker 1: And it isn't lost on me that this idea of

817
00:55:33,800 --> 00:55:38,040
Speaker 1: reseeeing and this this idea of the generations of us

818
00:55:38,120 --> 00:55:43,960
Speaker 1: who have had to love this place enough since Frederick Douglas,

819
00:55:44,960 --> 00:55:47,400
Speaker 1: are now on this precipice of are we going to

820
00:55:47,560 --> 00:55:52,759
Speaker 1: elect our first black South Asian female president? You know,

821
00:55:53,560 --> 00:55:55,400
Speaker 1: is that the reason to elect her? Of course not,

822
00:55:55,560 --> 00:55:55,880
Speaker 1: it is not.

823
00:55:56,320 --> 00:55:56,719
Speaker 2: It is not.

824
00:55:59,600 --> 00:56:04,600
Speaker 1: Her. Her capability for leadership is not about her gender

825
00:56:04,760 --> 00:56:08,280
Speaker 1: or her race. However, her ascension to the vice presidency

826
00:56:08,320 --> 00:56:10,439
Speaker 1: of the United States, her being the most qualified person

827
00:56:10,480 --> 00:56:16,200
Speaker 1: who's ever run for this office, that she has become

828
00:56:16,360 --> 00:56:21,400
Speaker 1: that despite all of these designations that normally hold people

829
00:56:21,920 --> 00:56:27,160
Speaker 1: out of rooms of power. And I think a lot

830
00:56:27,200 --> 00:56:29,600
Speaker 1: about the ways we see the narrative of this election,

831
00:56:30,680 --> 00:56:34,200
Speaker 1: and how lucky we are that your book is out

832
00:56:34,520 --> 00:56:41,120
Speaker 1: now because it can help us re see some of

833
00:56:41,239 --> 00:56:45,279
Speaker 1: those stereotypes, some of those misconceptions that, like you said,

834
00:56:45,320 --> 00:56:47,279
Speaker 1: are just in the air we breathe, and we don't

835
00:56:47,280 --> 00:56:49,480
Speaker 1: even realize they're in our lungs and in our bodies

836
00:56:49,520 --> 00:56:55,040
Speaker 1: and in our brains. They feel unconscious, but unconscious untruths

837
00:56:55,120 --> 00:56:59,439
Speaker 1: can be really dangerous to us. So I've thought about

838
00:56:59,480 --> 00:57:01,320
Speaker 1: this a lot in advance of our interview, but I

839
00:57:01,440 --> 00:57:04,120
Speaker 1: know that you've thought about it a lot more, and

840
00:57:04,239 --> 00:57:07,240
Speaker 1: I'm curious how you see the next you know, thirty

841
00:57:07,280 --> 00:57:07,800
Speaker 1: eight days.

842
00:57:09,440 --> 00:57:13,240
Speaker 2: Well, I think what's put before us is this question

843
00:57:13,480 --> 00:57:15,600
Speaker 2: of who we want to be and whether we have

844
00:57:15,719 --> 00:57:25,320
Speaker 2: the will to seize it. The answer in the end,

845
00:57:25,880 --> 00:57:28,360
Speaker 2: I do think we will have I know who my

846
00:57:28,520 --> 00:57:32,680
Speaker 2: hope is so much presidential candidate, but we will have

847
00:57:32,960 --> 00:57:38,880
Speaker 2: the president we deserve. And I say that deliberately because

848
00:57:39,600 --> 00:57:46,320
Speaker 2: there has been for so long this virus within the

849
00:57:46,400 --> 00:57:51,880
Speaker 2: American body politic right, that's been the residue of the Confederacy.

850
00:57:53,200 --> 00:57:56,720
Speaker 2: All of the narratives that should have been extinguished, you know,

851
00:57:57,400 --> 00:58:00,600
Speaker 2: in a slavery, that have been maintained through the legacy

852
00:58:00,640 --> 00:58:04,800
Speaker 2: of Junger, rural segregation, all of these narratives that are

853
00:58:04,880 --> 00:58:11,000
Speaker 2: embodied really you know, in a verge conservative politics. We

854
00:58:11,120 --> 00:58:13,920
Speaker 2: have an opportunity to finally expunge it. It's like a

855
00:58:14,040 --> 00:58:16,240
Speaker 2: virus that comes to the surface of the body, you know,

856
00:58:16,720 --> 00:58:19,439
Speaker 2: you have an opportunity to get rid of it. Yeah,

857
00:58:20,320 --> 00:58:23,320
Speaker 2: so we'll get I think who we deserve, if we deserve,

858
00:58:23,840 --> 00:58:27,560
Speaker 2: if we have so attached ourselves to that virus that

859
00:58:27,680 --> 00:58:31,160
Speaker 2: we can't let it go, well we'll have the opportunity

860
00:58:31,280 --> 00:58:35,480
Speaker 2: I think we deserve to contend with it finally, and

861
00:58:35,840 --> 00:58:38,040
Speaker 2: that if not my hope, but I think there is

862
00:58:38,080 --> 00:58:41,000
Speaker 2: an opportunity in that. I should say that now prior

863
00:58:41,080 --> 00:58:46,400
Speaker 2: to the election, and frankly, you know, living under his

864
00:58:46,600 --> 00:58:50,680
Speaker 2: presidency is what created the urgency behind the Vision and

865
00:58:50,800 --> 00:58:56,560
Speaker 2: Justice project. I could see how it animated myself as students.

866
00:58:58,200 --> 00:59:01,240
Speaker 2: My hope is that we have civic and political will

867
00:59:03,000 --> 00:59:05,880
Speaker 2: to do away with the fictions that we've come to

868
00:59:05,960 --> 00:59:06,240
Speaker 2: live with.

869
00:59:07,040 --> 00:59:11,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, an elect commelers to be.

870
00:59:11,240 --> 00:59:18,440
Speaker 2: Present, so, but the the democracy we live in, you know,

871
00:59:18,480 --> 00:59:22,920
Speaker 2: it's a representational democracy. And because the tension at the

872
00:59:23,000 --> 00:59:27,480
Speaker 2: foundation of a country between slavery and freedom is so unspeakable,

873
00:59:28,280 --> 00:59:33,280
Speaker 2: it's always required more than the force of an election

874
00:59:33,680 --> 00:59:39,360
Speaker 2: or the transformation of laws. It's always required. I think

875
00:59:39,560 --> 00:59:43,080
Speaker 2: the work of representation itself, of culture, of these narratives,

876
00:59:43,120 --> 00:59:46,560
Speaker 2: of these images, and it's it's why, even regardless of

877
00:59:46,560 --> 00:59:49,040
Speaker 2: the outcome, I can still look at the image of

878
00:59:49,160 --> 00:59:53,080
Speaker 2: who our candidates are and think, my god, it's extraordinary

879
00:59:54,680 --> 00:59:56,760
Speaker 2: that we've arrived at a point where we can have

880
00:59:57,040 --> 01:00:01,160
Speaker 2: changed the image of who can lead the nation. I

881
01:00:01,240 --> 01:00:05,200
Speaker 2: think that in and of itself is a revolution rank.

882
01:00:05,480 --> 01:00:09,240
Speaker 2: So I actually don't focus as much on the outcome

883
01:00:09,280 --> 01:00:11,040
Speaker 2: of the election as you might might think I do.

884
01:00:11,920 --> 01:00:15,920
Speaker 2: I try to seize my levels of optimism about the

885
01:00:16,000 --> 01:00:21,040
Speaker 2: fact that we've arrived even here right as an indication

886
01:00:21,200 --> 01:00:23,480
Speaker 2: of where we potentially could go.

887
01:00:24,280 --> 01:00:28,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's really beautiful. So what do you what is

888
01:00:28,120 --> 01:00:33,600
Speaker 1: your hope? Because you know, the the world around us

889
01:00:33,760 --> 01:00:37,360
Speaker 1: is the inspiration, as you said, the galvanizing force, you know,

890
01:00:37,480 --> 01:00:42,760
Speaker 1: to write these pieces, to create this, this pathway to

891
01:00:42,840 --> 01:00:45,880
Speaker 1: knowledge for so many of us. What is your hope

892
01:00:45,920 --> 01:00:48,680
Speaker 1: for the book and what people will take away from it?

893
01:00:49,680 --> 01:00:54,880
Speaker 2: My hope is that we can all understand how to

894
01:00:54,960 --> 01:01:00,320
Speaker 2: love the United States without feeling the need to lie

895
01:01:00,360 --> 01:01:04,680
Speaker 2: about it, right mm hmmm, That we can finally face

896
01:01:06,120 --> 01:01:11,120
Speaker 2: the contradictions at its founding and stay even despite of

897
01:01:11,480 --> 01:01:14,640
Speaker 2: that we've been able to create all of this. What

898
01:01:14,880 --> 01:01:18,760
Speaker 2: does that say about who we are? My hope is

899
01:01:18,840 --> 01:01:25,919
Speaker 2: that we strengthen our willingness to see hard truths mm hmm,

900
01:01:27,200 --> 01:01:30,840
Speaker 2: and to do away with with the fictions yeah, and

901
01:01:30,960 --> 01:01:32,919
Speaker 2: buried underneath them. Yes.

902
01:01:34,280 --> 01:01:38,680
Speaker 1: And for you, you know, as we look at this

903
01:01:38,920 --> 01:01:41,480
Speaker 1: last quarter of the year and then what's to come beyond,

904
01:01:41,640 --> 01:01:47,000
Speaker 1: and you think about what brings you joy, what inspires

905
01:01:47,080 --> 01:01:50,480
Speaker 1: you as you know, an artist, a teacher, what feels

906
01:01:50,560 --> 01:01:54,040
Speaker 1: like you're work in progress as you look out at

907
01:01:54,080 --> 01:01:54,680
Speaker 1: the horizon.

908
01:01:56,560 --> 01:02:01,280
Speaker 2: You know, I love this idea of life is an

909
01:02:01,360 --> 01:02:06,240
Speaker 2: endless pursuit that you up until the end. So as

910
01:02:06,280 --> 01:02:09,120
Speaker 2: I'm talking to you about this completed book, I am

911
01:02:09,240 --> 01:02:13,680
Speaker 2: finishing Vision Injustice, the next book, and thinking through what

912
01:02:14,120 --> 01:02:17,560
Speaker 2: I haven't yet done that I really must. I love

913
01:02:17,880 --> 01:02:21,640
Speaker 2: being around because of teaching at Harvard, so many of

914
01:02:21,680 --> 01:02:24,320
Speaker 2: my colleagues who are decades older than I am, and

915
01:02:25,000 --> 01:02:28,520
Speaker 2: just seeing how much of a constant pursuit their lives

916
01:02:28,560 --> 01:02:32,440
Speaker 2: still are. There was a yeah when I was with

917
01:02:32,920 --> 01:02:36,400
Speaker 2: an artist and she was giving a work in progress talk,

918
01:02:36,840 --> 01:02:40,240
Speaker 2: work in progress talk, you know, he was eighty six,

919
01:02:40,400 --> 01:02:42,880
Speaker 2: and he said, you know, I just want to show

920
01:02:42,920 --> 01:02:45,959
Speaker 2: you my work from the last six months. I thought,

921
01:02:46,600 --> 01:02:51,680
Speaker 2: what a beautiful way to see the onward pursuit, the

922
01:02:51,800 --> 01:02:53,600
Speaker 2: fact that no matter where you are, there's still much

923
01:02:53,640 --> 01:02:56,560
Speaker 2: more to do, so that you don't need to reflect

924
01:02:56,560 --> 01:03:01,360
Speaker 2: on what happened decades ago. I think of all the

925
01:03:01,440 --> 01:03:03,440
Speaker 2: work that is inco hate that I still want to

926
01:03:03,520 --> 01:03:06,200
Speaker 2: work through and craft into a book. Is what's kind

927
01:03:06,240 --> 01:03:10,280
Speaker 2: of giving me joy and exciting me to harness even

928
01:03:10,320 --> 01:03:15,160
Speaker 2: more energy to go forward, you know, yeah, yeah, And

929
01:03:15,840 --> 01:03:20,000
Speaker 2: and these prompts, the questions and conversations like this one

930
01:03:20,080 --> 01:03:23,760
Speaker 2: that are so soulful, you know, a reminder of why

931
01:03:23,800 --> 01:03:26,040
Speaker 2: we do it. We are not just living for ourselves.

932
01:03:26,120 --> 01:03:28,080
Speaker 2: We have this ethos in the United States that still

933
01:03:28,200 --> 01:03:32,560
Speaker 2: isn't questioned enough of individualism as a collective society. We

934
01:03:32,640 --> 01:03:34,720
Speaker 2: all have to do our part and harness our gifts

935
01:03:35,200 --> 01:03:37,760
Speaker 2: and deliver upon them, you.

936
01:03:37,800 --> 01:03:43,920
Speaker 1: Know, yeah, yeah, yeah, amazing, amazing. Well, I like that.

937
01:03:44,240 --> 01:03:48,640
Speaker 1: To be able to harness and deliver is so special.

938
01:03:50,040 --> 01:03:53,200
Speaker 2: I think when you're with artists at a certain stage

939
01:03:53,240 --> 01:03:57,960
Speaker 2: of their career. I'm thinking here of like Wynton Marcella,

940
01:03:58,080 --> 01:04:02,280
Speaker 2: seeing him teach and ah and jazz is such as

941
01:04:02,280 --> 01:04:07,400
Speaker 2: an American form, such a treasure for us because it

942
01:04:07,600 --> 01:04:14,080
Speaker 2: allow us for that collective impulse, individual expression. And you know,

943
01:04:14,160 --> 01:04:17,840
Speaker 2: I would see in him so often that glee nearly

944
01:04:17,920 --> 01:04:20,480
Speaker 2: when he would see someone's gift rising in them. You know,

945
01:04:20,520 --> 01:04:24,440
Speaker 2: a young student who could just finally improvise and deliver

946
01:04:25,720 --> 01:04:31,240
Speaker 2: their own unique signature right in the world through something

947
01:04:31,280 --> 01:04:34,880
Speaker 2: that you could receive as music. And I think that's

948
01:04:35,360 --> 01:04:38,479
Speaker 2: that's a lot of what I've come to treasure about

949
01:04:38,520 --> 01:04:41,400
Speaker 2: the teaching experience too. You know, you know when someone's

950
01:04:41,480 --> 01:04:44,760
Speaker 2: got that kernel of a gorgeous talent and you see

951
01:04:44,800 --> 01:04:50,920
Speaker 2: it bloom as I see you just innovate and transform

952
01:04:51,080 --> 01:04:53,880
Speaker 2: how you work as a leader, it just gives me

953
01:04:54,000 --> 01:04:56,360
Speaker 2: so much joy. I just hope we all revel as

954
01:04:56,440 --> 01:05:00,760
Speaker 2: we see everyone becoming their full cell. I think that's

955
01:05:00,800 --> 01:05:02,200
Speaker 2: how we advance as a society.

956
01:05:05,280 --> 01:05:10,480
Speaker 1: To give yourself permission to grow and and sort of

957
01:05:10,560 --> 01:05:15,920
Speaker 1: shape shift is really something because it can be, you know,

958
01:05:16,200 --> 01:05:20,080
Speaker 1: so scary, but I think it's also the glory is

959
01:05:20,120 --> 01:05:24,880
Speaker 1: on the other side, right exactly, And you never know.

960
01:05:25,080 --> 01:05:31,120
Speaker 2: What will come from that pivot, that transformation to affects

961
01:05:31,160 --> 01:05:34,400
Speaker 2: the house of life other than your own. And it's

962
01:05:34,440 --> 01:05:39,200
Speaker 2: only a matter of overcoming that that fear really skilling

963
01:05:39,280 --> 01:05:43,000
Speaker 2: and you know all the other related dynamics. Yeah, it's

964
01:05:43,040 --> 01:05:47,000
Speaker 2: often fear that's the only barrier. M Yeah.

965
01:05:47,920 --> 01:05:52,560
Speaker 1: Well, you have inspired so many people to be more fearless.

966
01:05:53,240 --> 01:05:54,200
Speaker 1: So thank you for that.

967
01:05:55,520 --> 01:05:57,600
Speaker 2: I'm looking at someone who has done the same.

968
01:05:57,760 --> 01:06:02,480
Speaker 1: So you for that, really, thank you, thank you, absolutely,

969
01:06:02,560 --> 01:06:04,760
Speaker 1: this was so wonderful. Thanks for coming on the show.

970
01:06:05,120 --> 01:06:15,720
Speaker 2: It's an honor. Thank you for having me. Yeah. Oh