Speaker 1: Pushing. Well, y'all, y'all actually read the book. After man,
Speaker 1: we don't play. We don't play. Here are some of
Speaker 1: my best friends are my goodness, yeah, y'all not faking.
Speaker 1: I'm Khalil Jibrad Muhammad and I'm Ben Austin. We're two
Speaker 1: best friends, one black, one white. I'm a historian and
Speaker 1: I'm a journalist. And this is some of my best
Speaker 1: friends are. Some of my best friends are dot dot dot.
Speaker 1: In this show, we wrestle with the challenges and the
Speaker 1: absurdities of a deeply divided and unequal country. And this
Speaker 1: week we're talking about the political history of interracial friendships.
Speaker 1: Come on, man, our story. This is our story, political history,
Speaker 1: all right. So a little while ago, we each got
Speaker 1: a book in the mail. Yeah. This book is by
Speaker 1: an author, a political scientist named Saladein Ambar. The books
Speaker 1: titled Stars and Shadows the Politics of Interracial Friendship from
Speaker 1: Jefferson to Obama, The whole Gamut of Black and White
Speaker 1: Friendship in the History of the United States, Alpha to
Speaker 1: the Omega. And you know, we get this book in
Speaker 1: the mail and the first thing we think about is
Speaker 1: are we in it? That's right? Yeah, because I mean
Speaker 1: how could we not be. I mean, who's had an
Speaker 1: interracial friendship for thirty six years that you know, you
Speaker 1: at least weren't sleeping with the other person. I was
Speaker 1: leafing through it. I was looking through it. And so
Speaker 1: this book totally intrigued us. We start going to the
Speaker 1: table of contests and looking what's in it and these
Speaker 1: pairings of black and white friendships from the last two
Speaker 1: hundred years. Yeah, it was. It was surprising. I mean,
Speaker 1: first of all, I didn't even know about some of
Speaker 1: these relationships. And then others which I knew about, like
Speaker 1: Benjamin Bannaker, the famous black mathematician, had a correspondence with
Speaker 1: Thomas Jefferson. It was like holding Thomas Jefferson's feet to
Speaker 1: the fire, like, dude, you know, you got to show
Speaker 1: up for black people. And then the most famous black
Speaker 1: intellectual W. E. B. Du Boys is celebrating his relationship
Speaker 1: with the most famous philosopher of the time, a guy
Speaker 1: named William James. And I was like, hum, I was
Speaker 1: a little surprised, And we were also dubious about this book.
Speaker 1: I mean got to admit, you know that in many
Speaker 1: of these cases, these people were not especially close friends,
Speaker 1: and you know, so much of the premise of our show,
Speaker 1: like here we have the show where we're interracial friends,
Speaker 1: is that those kind of connections alone are not the
Speaker 1: thing that are going to bring about structural change in
Speaker 1: the country. That's right, that's right. So we had soliden
Speaker 1: on the show. He goes by Dean because now he's
Speaker 1: one of our friends as well, and you know, like
Speaker 1: we had to talk to him about this, and one
Speaker 1: of the things he points out that like, even when
Speaker 1: there's not a lot of there there in the friendship,
Speaker 1: what he's interested in is the politics of it, which
Speaker 1: is in a way sort of like friendship as symbolism.
Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah, And because that cuts against the grain
Speaker 1: in many ways of our show, we're poking fun of that,
Speaker 1: you know, like some of our best friends are. He's
Speaker 1: making kind of a stronger argument that actually, in that
Speaker 1: symbolism suggests the possibility of something of structural change, of
Speaker 1: what he calls democratic possibilities. So let's talk to him. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: so let's talk to Dean. Heyy, welcome, welcome, We are
Speaker 1: so excited, Professor Salah Dean, I'm bar is on. Some
Speaker 1: of my best friends are then, yes, yes, this is
Speaker 1: a conversation we have been dying to have about interracial friendships. Yep,
Speaker 1: right up our alley. Yes, I appreciate you guys building
Speaker 1: a podcast around this book, so thank you very much.
Speaker 1: That was very kind of you. The heart of our
Speaker 1: podcast is that we built this idea that friendships are
Speaker 1: important but then not going to get us to the
Speaker 1: promised land. I wanted us to start this conversation with
Speaker 1: you being sort of talking about the inspiration for the book,
Speaker 1: because I have to say, when I saw the title
Speaker 1: and I skimmed the cover of the book before I
Speaker 1: read it, I thought, no, I'm not convinced, Like, what's
Speaker 1: this guy talking about like interracial friendships and like political
Speaker 1: projects and something about democracy? So I'm packed that a
Speaker 1: little bit. You know, what is this book really about?
Speaker 1: I was a little bit concerned too, to be honest
Speaker 1: with you. And you know, the last thing I wanted
Speaker 1: was to write a book where people thought, well, we
Speaker 1: could just friend our way out of white supremacy, right,
Speaker 1: and there we go, hintred we could just you know,
Speaker 1: just be friends. Why can't we get along? That was
Speaker 1: the last thing I was hoping for. If you really
Speaker 1: look at the two books I wrote Before this, I
Speaker 1: wrote a book called Malcolm x At for Union, Politics
Speaker 1: of Global Race Relations, and that book really spoke to
Speaker 1: sort of my upbringing, my conversion Islam during my teen years,
Speaker 1: and how that influenced me politically. And I was very
Speaker 1: much drawn like a lot of people growing up in
Speaker 1: New York were who were black. Anyway, to Malcolm's teachings,
Speaker 1: you dropped some nuggets there. So so grew up in
Speaker 1: New York, came of age sometime assuming in the late
Speaker 1: eighties as a teenager when Malcolm was becoming a kind
Speaker 1: of avatar for black resistance to the world drugs and
Speaker 1: all that deal. Yeah, this is the era of public enemy. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the power all of that man. And did
Speaker 1: you have did you have white friends at the time
Speaker 1: or people who were Latino or Asian? Was was your
Speaker 1: crew integrated? Well yes and no. So it's you know,
Speaker 1: I kind of lived a bit of a double life,
Speaker 1: you know. I was about to say. The next book
Speaker 1: I wrote was about Mario Cuomo for New York and
Speaker 1: because he was because he's really a black dude. Maybe
Speaker 1: maybe maybe, but you know, Mario and his Italian heritage
Speaker 1: spoke to my own because my mom's family, you know,
Speaker 1: comes from sicily her side. Um. And so you know,
Speaker 1: the point about Malcolm was, I think I needed to reaffirm,
Speaker 1: you know, who Malcolm meant to me, what my blackness
Speaker 1: meant to me. But also moving on to you know, Mario,
Speaker 1: I had to focus on or I was drawn to
Speaker 1: focusing on that side of my heritage as well. And
Speaker 1: then I think this is a kind of this book
Speaker 1: is in many ways a kind of synthesis, you know,
Speaker 1: of me dealing with both ends of uh, you know,
Speaker 1: that sort of psychological backdrop to who I am as
Speaker 1: a human being. And so I think I was grappling,
Speaker 1: frankly with some of my own questions about identity and
Speaker 1: who I am in the world. In Stars and Shadows,
Speaker 1: the book that we read, you look at ten different friendships.
Speaker 1: They're spanning two hundred years of American history, starting with
Speaker 1: Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Bannaker and going all the way
Speaker 1: to Obama and Biden. And on the way you've got
Speaker 1: James Baldwin and Marlon Brando. You've got Angela Davis and
Speaker 1: Gloria Steinham. You've got a lot of different relationships in there.
Speaker 1: And don't forget the ultimate Black and Jewish relationship doctor
Speaker 1: Martin Luther King Junior and Rabbi Joshua Heschel. Boy, how
Speaker 1: could I forget on? Man? Yeah? Man? Right? You know,
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways, the book is also a
Speaker 1: history of America and a history of race and racism
Speaker 1: told through these these relationships. I thought we could pause
Speaker 1: for a second though, and like actually try to talk
Speaker 1: a little bit more about what friendship really means in
Speaker 1: this context, and to talk about like the terms we're using,
Speaker 1: like what is an interracial friendship? And how are we
Speaker 1: talking about it here? Well, you know, I've tried to
Speaker 1: go back to, you know, the French revolutionary ideal of
Speaker 1: Herne Tay because I think unlike ordinary you know, daily
Speaker 1: friendship among ordinary citizens, for Tony Tay had political implications.
Speaker 1: You know, Benjamin Bannaker had a lot of white friends.
Speaker 1: All his friends were white. He was a free black
Speaker 1: man in rural Maryland. He was a farmer, and he
Speaker 1: was surrounded by whites and they were his friends and
Speaker 1: he got along, but you know, he was not involved
Speaker 1: in a political project with them. And I think what
Speaker 1: happened with Jefferson and he is that he got involved
Speaker 1: in a political project. So Dean, what you mean by
Speaker 1: political project is that Jefferson had written a racist book
Speaker 1: called Notes on the State of Virginia that essentially said
Speaker 1: black people were fundamentally inferior to white people. And here
Speaker 1: Bannaker is, who's helped build the nation's capital and is
Speaker 1: now sending Jefferson and almanac, and he's like, dude, if
Speaker 1: we're inferior, how can I be this incredible scientist and mathematician.
Speaker 1: That's right. In other words, he wanted to use an
Speaker 1: attempted friendship, in his case, a connection he was trying
Speaker 1: to make, you know, signing his letter using the language
Speaker 1: of my brethren, and you know, your humble, obedient servant,
Speaker 1: Jefferson responds back to him. He's using a kind of
Speaker 1: breakthrough of social relations to make a political statement. And
Speaker 1: I think these ten case studies are about taking with
Speaker 1: what one has on a private level. And I think
Speaker 1: maybe you guys can speak to this better than most.
Speaker 1: You had your friendship, it was what it was. But
Speaker 1: now when when it's a podcast becomes part of a
Speaker 1: public form, man, you know, it involves something a little heavier.
Speaker 1: It becomes it's not just you know, two guys getting
Speaker 1: bagels or hanging out or listening to music or whatever
Speaker 1: y'all do. Yeah, well, you definitely nailed us on the
Speaker 1: bagels and the music that is a hangout. Come on
Speaker 1: man then used to deliver bagels. But let's let's let's
Speaker 1: talk about this work because you you know, in some ways,
Speaker 1: i'm you know, it's interesting to about why these relationships
Speaker 1: are so difficult in America. And you know, you cite
Speaker 1: this study during the Obama years that you said, three
Speaker 1: quarters of white people don't have a black friend, and
Speaker 1: two thirds of black people don't have a white friend,
Speaker 1: and that is the state of America. And even even
Speaker 1: your book's title Stars and Shadows, it comes from Mark
Speaker 1: Twain's Huckleberry Finn. Right, Huck and Jim are on the
Speaker 1: raft and there it's nighttime and they look up and
Speaker 1: all they have to navigate by our stars and shadows.
Speaker 1: And so you think about Huck and Jim on the raft,
Speaker 1: about their friendship and they're bond, you could call it
Speaker 1: if it's not a friendship, but that it exists really
Speaker 1: only on the raft and the raft of this idea
Speaker 1: of being, you know, between two shores of not being
Speaker 1: in America, of being this liminal space, and that's really
Speaker 1: the only realm in which they can have this connection. Man,
Speaker 1: that was deep. You see us the word liminal? Man,
Speaker 1: You know, I han't heard uson's grad school. Man. So
Speaker 1: that's I'm here with two professors. I'm trying to like
Speaker 1: punch above my weight. So yeah, man, of course you're
Speaker 1: punching outside your way class, but we're gonna give you
Speaker 1: a chance to catch up with us. Look, we've been
Speaker 1: in this relationship for thirty five years, and I'm beginning
Speaker 1: to wonder are we even in an interracial relationship or friendship?
Speaker 1: What the hell's going on? So when we come back
Speaker 1: from the break, we're gonna actually nail this thing down.
Speaker 1: What is an interracial friendship? Welcome back to some of
Speaker 1: my best friends are We're talking with saladein Ambar, who
Speaker 1: goes by Dean. So, Dean, what is an interracial friendship?
Speaker 1: Let's define this. I think, you know, these interracial friendships
Speaker 1: carry great possibilities in part because they involve, you know,
Speaker 1: a kind of spiritual dimension to life, because they involved
Speaker 1: matters of the heart, you know. And I think that
Speaker 1: because because of what they overcome, I mean, why would
Speaker 1: that be different than another relationship? Well, I think back
Speaker 1: to your point about we're in America, you know, UM,
Speaker 1: and and pretty much any multi racial society that has
Speaker 1: and all of them have been tanked, if not driven
Speaker 1: by white supremacy these several hundred years now. UM, you know,
Speaker 1: place a premium on um, you know, following suit with
Speaker 1: what is alike rather than what is different. There's a
Speaker 1: kind of stress and inherent stress, I would say, involved
Speaker 1: in these kinds of relationships and connections that don't take
Speaker 1: place in the same way that they do in ordinary friendships,
Speaker 1: which it can be stress stressful enough, you know, if
Speaker 1: people are being truly honest with themselves. Well, this is
Speaker 1: something that I want to just take a moment to
Speaker 1: discuss a bit further. And that is in your ten
Speaker 1: case studies. And this is not a criticism so much
Speaker 1: as an observation. Man, most of these cats weren't actually friends. Yeah, Like,
Speaker 1: what would you call it if it's a well, I
Speaker 1: would call it a relationship, right, because I can think
Speaker 1: of a thousand different scenarios, particularly in my professional work,
Speaker 1: where I am connected to someone and that through that
Speaker 1: connection we make something happen, and it might even be
Speaker 1: something of some political important to happen, but I wouldn't
Speaker 1: necessarily call those folks friends. And I'm curious for you,
Speaker 1: how important was it that people see these as friendships
Speaker 1: rather than as connections, relationships somewhat even transactional. It's a
Speaker 1: great point. I think the key to is the politics
Speaker 1: of inter racial friendship. So you take two boys and
Speaker 1: William James at Harvard. You know, these are not people
Speaker 1: who are hanging out. They're not getting the bagels and
Speaker 1: go and you know, going to the jazz spot, right
Speaker 1: And I think this is to your point, Khalila, you know,
Speaker 1: the authenticity and depth of the friendships if they were
Speaker 1: friends at all, it's in ordinary terms, we would not
Speaker 1: describe the boys and James as friends. But the boys
Speaker 1: uses that language. He goes out of his way to
Speaker 1: call James my friend. He you know, extols his relationship
Speaker 1: and connection with him for many years because in part,
Speaker 1: the boys has a political project in mind here. He
Speaker 1: first of all, he wants to connect himself and black
Speaker 1: intellect to the greatness that James represented. So that's an important,
Speaker 1: you know, project of his own right there. He wants
Speaker 1: to situate himself as a social equal with James, an
Speaker 1: intellectual equal. With James, but also um by extension in
Speaker 1: proxy all other black folk in the country. I think
Speaker 1: that's his political project, and he goes out of his
Speaker 1: way to talk about James in those terms. James does
Speaker 1: not call the boys his friend ever. He has a
Speaker 1: letter that he just says, some mulatto grad student I have.
Speaker 1: He writes a letter to his brother. That's right, and
Speaker 1: so well, y'all, y'all actually read the book. We don't play.
Speaker 1: We don't know. Some of my best friends are my goodness. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll not faking it. You're appreciate it. So but I
Speaker 1: think that's the point though. Okay, can we just talk
Speaker 1: for a minute about the friendship between the writer James
Speaker 1: Baldwin and the actor Marlon Brando. I could have been somebody.
Speaker 1: I could have been a contender, Yes, Marlon Brando and
Speaker 1: James Baldwin probably was the most intimate, you know, meaningful
Speaker 1: relationship on a personal level that you know, most likely lovers,
Speaker 1: and they were friends with benefits. Absolutely, Yeah, that was
Speaker 1: a very powerful and real connection and friendship. You know,
Speaker 1: You're right. Most of these would not be described conventionally
Speaker 1: as friendships. These are not always people socially hanging out,
Speaker 1: but all of them. I think the key is that
Speaker 1: all of them have some of the parties, or if not,
Speaker 1: both of them make the effort to use their friendship,
Speaker 1: however lightly regarded it was, or held by either party,
Speaker 1: to make some kind of democratic statement. Yeah, I got
Speaker 1: a question for you, Khalil about that. You know, in
Speaker 1: a way, that's a definition of not a friendship, like
Speaker 1: if there's a use value to it. And it makes
Speaker 1: me think about like after George Floyd and you know,
Speaker 1: all the sort of concern that white people had in America,
Speaker 1: they're thinking about their white privilege. It was really a
Speaker 1: reckoning and and you know, this sort of permeated much
Speaker 1: of the culture. I don't know if that was like,
Speaker 1: that's not friendship, or maybe is that the moving toward
Speaker 1: I think that what's interesting about how Dean just explained
Speaker 1: this is there's something in the performance of the reaching
Speaker 1: out in the midst of George Floyd that creates the
Speaker 1: possibility for something more substantial. Hey, you're someone I know.
Speaker 1: Can we talk about this as friends might? And so
Speaker 1: the relationships may be superficial, but it's the invitation for
Speaker 1: a deeper reflection that I think that Dean, you would say,
Speaker 1: creates quote unquote democratic possibilities. I think so. Look, stagecraft
Speaker 1: is important in politics. It's very important in a multiracial democracy.
Speaker 1: And stagecraft, you mean the appearance of something as a
Speaker 1: public good or a positive or a relationship. Even when
Speaker 1: Lincoln calls out to Douglas in the White House, when
Speaker 1: the guards in that their third meeting after the second
Speaker 1: inaugural address, when they're escorting Douglas out of the White House,
Speaker 1: Lincoln calls out to him, there's my friend Douglas. Now
Speaker 1: they were not homies. They had two meetings prior to that,
Speaker 1: two meetings and a letter. That's it. But you know,
Speaker 1: when Lincoln calls out, there's my friend Douglas. That's for
Speaker 1: the white guards. That's for the white attendees at the
Speaker 1: inaugural ceremony and ball. That's for white America. Look, y'all,
Speaker 1: when this thing is over, when this war ends, we
Speaker 1: just can't, you know, have a de facto in name
Speaker 1: only kind of citizenship for these folks. We have to
Speaker 1: be their friends and that stagecraft. But we need it,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, yeah, you need it. That story reminds
Speaker 1: me of this powerful New York leader introducing me to
Speaker 1: a bunch of very wealthy white people, and in a
Speaker 1: way that was like Khalil's demand, Like I came to
Speaker 1: despise the term because this, like this euphemism of like
Speaker 1: he's a smart, articulate black person as you the man,
Speaker 1: or he's the man. Also felt like it not only
Speaker 1: cheapened me as kind of a set piece in a
Speaker 1: stage production, but also was not for my benefit. It
Speaker 1: didn't actually credential me in any way. It just it
Speaker 1: just said he's okay, Like he's okay in this space. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if we're talking about a low end project or not
Speaker 1: even a personal project or something that is connected to
Speaker 1: self affirmation or being seen as cool, this is hard work.
Speaker 1: This is you know, um, the tendency to fall over
Speaker 1: into the cheap and the profane and the silly with respect.
Speaker 1: It sounds like American popular culture. Yeah, it's right there,
Speaker 1: right there. You know. Someone asked me, well, it's like
Speaker 1: Kanye and Trump, right well exactly. I mean, someone said,
Speaker 1: well you should do Beyonce and what if Paul Trow.
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't know if that's the book
Speaker 1: I'm talking about here, but you know, so when we
Speaker 1: come back, we're going to talk about two more of
Speaker 1: these high profile interracial friendships, two of them in which
Speaker 1: the symbolism, you know it matters in a different kind
Speaker 1: of way. Yeah, yeah, like breaking the color barrier. Yeah,
Speaker 1: welcome back to some of my best friends. Are we
Speaker 1: are talking about interracial friendships, and we are going to
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties for a very special friendship. Who are
Speaker 1: your favorite people? Well, who are favorite person? I love
Speaker 1: her as a person as I think she's And that's
Speaker 1: Ella Fitzgerald. Wow, that's Marilyn Monroe. Given big ups to
Speaker 1: Ella Fitzgerald. That's the friendship we want to talk about next.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us about that story of like why
Speaker 1: why it appealed to you? Well? What went down is
Speaker 1: that Marilyn Monroe and Ella Fitzgerald had a kind of
Speaker 1: casual friendship and connection. You know, it was not a
Speaker 1: you know, a kind of acquaintance ship, you know, boring
Speaker 1: on a friendship. And Marilyn Monroe is like every other
Speaker 1: would be singer patterning herself off of Ella Fitzgerald. Why
Speaker 1: wouldn't you. She's listening to tons of her music, trying
Speaker 1: records and trying to learn, you know, her secrets. So
Speaker 1: she has profound respect for for Ella, and ultimately she
Speaker 1: hears that Ella will not be is not being booked
Speaker 1: by Charlie Morrison, the owner of this mccambo club in Hollywood.
Speaker 1: And the reason why she's not being booked is not
Speaker 1: because she's black. It's because she's not sexy enough for
Speaker 1: Charlie and for the white patrons who attend the Macombo Club.
Speaker 1: They've had you know, the earth, the kids, and other
Speaker 1: black women perform who fit the bill. So the point
Speaker 1: is that, you know, so much of what transpires in
Speaker 1: terms of how it's interpreted, is that somehow Marilyn uses
Speaker 1: her stature to get Ella into the club because she
Speaker 1: was opposed to racism. Well, Marilyn knew why she wasn't
Speaker 1: being admitted into the club. It wasn't, again a color barrier.
Speaker 1: It was a kind of you know, stereotype of women
Speaker 1: and the kinds of women who should be allowed to
Speaker 1: perform based on their looks. So you know, Marilyn does
Speaker 1: stick her neck out. She does, you know, say hey,
Speaker 1: you know, if you let Ella into the club, I'm
Speaker 1: going to use my cache to have and tell all
Speaker 1: my Hollywood friends to start to the Macombo. And right
Speaker 1: away this gets a ton of publicity, like it's all
Speaker 1: in the news, like Marilyn Monroe, and she's the actor,
Speaker 1: and Fitzgerald is the acted upon like Merl Monroe is
Speaker 1: kind of this white savior who gets talked about in
Speaker 1: this way of getting her this gig and crossing the
Speaker 1: color line. Yes, and you know, it becomes a white
Speaker 1: savior story. I mean, I think I include a bunch
Speaker 1: of headlines and Ella Saved by Maryland. Literally, these are
Speaker 1: some of the kinds of titles for stories that go on.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't make Marilyn Monroe any less courageous. And
Speaker 1: what she did, she did stick her neck out of
Speaker 1: another other people, other white performers would not have done
Speaker 1: that and did not do what she did. So I think,
Speaker 1: you know, we can't devalue her her politics, which were
Speaker 1: pretty extraordinary for the time, and often undervalue because of
Speaker 1: her beauty and her presentation and her esthetic by the
Speaker 1: same tope, And I think that story is interesting to
Speaker 1: me because of what it says about us, you know today,
Speaker 1: right right, yeah, Yeah, that's one of the things that
Speaker 1: you write about in the story, and that is that
Speaker 1: there are children's books being written today published in twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: You say that highlight this relationship, and of course there's
Speaker 1: been an explosion of books since George Floyd. This isn't
Speaker 1: one of the well, a couple of them that I
Speaker 1: looked at weren't necessarily post Floyd, but they were part
Speaker 1: of a moment of people searching for some example, some representation,
Speaker 1: something symbolic. Yeah, yeah, I mean it really speaks to
Speaker 1: why these stories are so appealing, even if there's not
Speaker 1: a lot there, Like this is really about the idea
Speaker 1: of it more than the substance, and in a way,
Speaker 1: the substance is not as important as what, like, what
Speaker 1: we're trying to pull through. It says that we want,
Speaker 1: you know, to be validated for knowing the story as
Speaker 1: much as for the actual story. Right. We don't care
Speaker 1: if this if we get the story right, we want
Speaker 1: to you know, frame the story in a certain way
Speaker 1: that we can be validated. And it's okay to know that,
Speaker 1: you know, Marilyn didn't save Ella. Her career was pretty
Speaker 1: off the hook at that point. She was doing great,
Speaker 1: you know, that's right. Yeah, I was doing just great.
Speaker 1: They both were, but you know, she didn't get saved.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, she's playing plenty of other venues,
Speaker 1: and she was doing all right. I was thinking about
Speaker 1: why Ella Fitzgerald and Marilyn Monroe's story is so alluring
Speaker 1: for us today and maybe especially for white people, you know,
Speaker 1: at a time when we're thinking a lot about being
Speaker 1: fair and anti racist. And one of the things that
Speaker 1: struck me is that it didn't really like what Marilyn
Speaker 1: Monroe did. If we want to emulate that it doesn't
Speaker 1: demand very much of us, then I hadn't thought about it,
Speaker 1: and quite as stark a term as you just describe.
Speaker 1: But it also means that it's so much easier to
Speaker 1: actually do the kind of work that people like Marylyn did.
Speaker 1: In this instance of saying, hey, look out for the singer.
Speaker 1: She's amazing and I'm not coming back until you do,
Speaker 1: the low hanging fruit almost makes the condemnation of the
Speaker 1: slow pace of anti racist change even more revealing, Like
Speaker 1: it in so many of these instances, it didn't even
Speaker 1: demand much for someone to actually do something meaningful to
Speaker 1: create the space of possibility. All right, So let's talk
Speaker 1: about one more inter racial friendship, perhaps the most consequential
Speaker 1: of all time. President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe
Speaker 1: Biden man the most important of all time. Wow, So
Speaker 1: we want to know give us your take on these guys.
Speaker 1: Was this a hard chapter to write? I mean, how
Speaker 1: were you thinking about putting them into this story? How
Speaker 1: did you want the reader to come away taking something
Speaker 1: substantive about Barack Obama's the first black president and Joe
Speaker 1: Biden as his vice president. You know that moment when
Speaker 1: Barack Obama puts that Presidential Medal of Freedom around you know,
Speaker 1: Joe Biden's neck, and Biden, you know, is holding can't
Speaker 1: hold back the tears. That's a powerful moment, in part
Speaker 1: because it says, you know, what's possible, and also I
Speaker 1: think what's fearful for many white Americans? You know, I
Speaker 1: don't know who fear the loss of them? You know,
Speaker 1: rooted in demographic change, The idea that we're going to
Speaker 1: have a sequence or series of black or multiracial presidents,
Speaker 1: you know, leaders, etc. Conferring these honors is somewhat problematic
Speaker 1: to them. So I think that that was that was
Speaker 1: one of the critical elements to draw the contrast to
Speaker 1: what had come before, all right, and so digging into
Speaker 1: the actual substance of Joe Biden's and Barack Obama's friendship.
Speaker 1: You know, it starts out kind of rocky. I mean
Speaker 1: you you cite this moment in the Senate when Barack
Speaker 1: Obama is listening to Joe Biden like go on and on,
Speaker 1: and he's he's talking about how bored he is. And
Speaker 1: when Biden drops out of the president election in two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight, he has one of these lines which
Speaker 1: is like, exactly what you fear, like your white friend
Speaker 1: or you're just waiting for them to say something offensive.
Speaker 1: First short of main stream African American who is articulate
Speaker 1: and bright and clean and my looking guy, man, Joe,
Speaker 1: I mean you said the first sort of mainstream African
Speaker 1: American who is articulate and bright and damn clean. Come on, man,
Speaker 1: I actually love it. I'm gonna tell you why. Well,
Speaker 1: this is you know, he's bright and clean, uh and
Speaker 1: new uh inarticulate, inarticulate. It's the clean that is like
Speaker 1: he's really I know, I know he's not as using
Speaker 1: the butters and he's got all the butters. You know,
Speaker 1: he's looking clean. Biden's language there, I'm not surprised by.
Speaker 1: I'm not necessarily even hurt by. I understand where it
Speaker 1: comes from. And I look at Biden's life in the
Speaker 1: arc of his political life and personality and who he
Speaker 1: is in the world, who he's been, And I'm also
Speaker 1: not struck in a way by it, because I think
Speaker 1: Biden it just comes from who he is as a
Speaker 1: what is he close to eighty year old white man
Speaker 1: now in life? And I'm you know, I'm not excusing it.
Speaker 1: I'm saying I understand it, and I'm not informed by
Speaker 1: it in the same way I would be. But then
Speaker 1: I hear um other political leaders speak, you know, who
Speaker 1: are younger, who are you know whose heart is not
Speaker 1: in the right place. You're also deemed pointing to like
Speaker 1: the dynamic and a lot of these friendships. And I'm
Speaker 1: speaking from the white side here, but you know, you're
Speaker 1: we're friends up to an extent, and you're you're imagining,
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, he's gonna say something fucked up or
Speaker 1: you know, you know, that's just who he is. But
Speaker 1: apart from that, he's cool. And so what you just
Speaker 1: said about Biden, of like, I know where he comes from,
Speaker 1: I know all that stuff. It is exactly the kind
Speaker 1: of limits on full friendship that we often fear in
Speaker 1: these in these dynamics. Yes, I mean, damn, it can't
Speaker 1: just be mister Rogers and John Brown as the only
Speaker 1: white people in American political history. It'd be a narrow
Speaker 1: list of folks you could really get with if if
Speaker 1: you set the bar where it really should be. Frankly,
Speaker 1: you know, I take into account the difficulty factor of
Speaker 1: being a white person living in a white supremacist society,
Speaker 1: who's told you all these wonderful things about you, etc.
Speaker 1: I have a degree of difficulty measure that I'm applying
Speaker 1: to who you are as a human being. In the
Speaker 1: same way that I think black folks deserve credit for
Speaker 1: surviving and thriving. You're greating us on a curve what
Speaker 1: you're saying a little bit, A little bit relatives and
Speaker 1: all kind of folk included, Yes, a little bit. Sure. Well.
Speaker 1: That's the thing that I think is interesting about your
Speaker 1: discussion of Barack and Joe, because you use the term
Speaker 1: in this chapter about performance art, and you talk about
Speaker 1: how much it mattered. I mean, there's this famous scene
Speaker 1: of President Obama and Vice President Biden walking or jogging
Speaker 1: at the White House with both of their jackets off,
Speaker 1: and you know, they're both looking vigorous and strong, and
Speaker 1: yet submerged underneath this genuine working relationship that you know,
Speaker 1: by all accounts over eight years was productive. Is this
Speaker 1: kind of tortured underbelly of like Joe Biden's own history
Speaker 1: from anti bussing to the crime Bill to his role
Speaker 1: in Anita Hill. And I'm not here to relitigate so
Speaker 1: much as to say, there's that tension between what you
Speaker 1: so aptly described as this shared history of loss between
Speaker 1: the two of them and this genuine relation relationship. And
Speaker 1: yet at what costs because it seems like all that
Speaker 1: other stuff wasn't actually part of their legislative agenda. Right, No,
Speaker 1: And look, Barack Obama himself, with all of his blackness,
Speaker 1: is still you know, again to a certain percentage of
Speaker 1: black political followers, thinkers, you know, problematic in his own
Speaker 1: way from the standpoint of what he was able to
Speaker 1: or not able to accomplish in his presidency visa v
Speaker 1: You know, black folks, teaching our sons to treat women
Speaker 1: with respect and to realize responsibility does not end at
Speaker 1: conception that what makes them a man does not the
Speaker 1: ability to have a child, but to raise one. You know,
Speaker 1: every day in this in the United States, there are
Speaker 1: you know, there's a certain percentage black folks who go
Speaker 1: to the office every day. Maybe they're supervised, they supervised,
Speaker 1: you know, white workers who who have to take orders
Speaker 1: from them, and they you know, and that's its own
Speaker 1: kind of head all at times for them. And here
Speaker 1: was Joe Biden, who didn't say boo, you know, to
Speaker 1: do anything really to hurt Obama. He never stabbed Obama
Speaker 1: in the back. He was loyal as the day as long,
Speaker 1: loyal as a dog, you know, And and black folk
Speaker 1: looked at that, particularly the older you were and are
Speaker 1: as an African American in this country, that relationship resonated
Speaker 1: with you big time because you remember what it was
Speaker 1: like to go into a workplace and be the only
Speaker 1: one and then have and maybe be the first of
Speaker 1: your generation to have leadership roles where where whites were,
Speaker 1: you know, um, your subordinates. And to see Biden, you know,
Speaker 1: act gracefully towards Obama and never throw him under the bus.
Speaker 1: So I think those things matter to black folk. Hey,
Speaker 1: before we go, so Khalil and I are an interracial friendship.
Speaker 1: Do you have any questions for us? You know, as
Speaker 1: far as a question for you guys, I think, um,
Speaker 1: when one is maybe a about your own relationship and
Speaker 1: having begun this podcast, has it changed the way you've
Speaker 1: thought about it? Or is it do you even want
Speaker 1: to be involved in like a kind of or see
Speaker 1: yourself involved in a political project or is that kind
Speaker 1: of cheapen what you have? Or is this podcast sort
Speaker 1: of intentionally, you know, part of an idea of you know,
Speaker 1: moving the country forward. Yeah, I mean we started out
Speaker 1: this conversation by saying, you know, the our show is
Speaker 1: almost premised on this idea that here we are a
Speaker 1: black guy and a white guy. That's not going to
Speaker 1: get us to the promised Land. And did you get
Speaker 1: us a podcast? And and and as you write, as
Speaker 1: you write like those are steps that are important. It
Speaker 1: is not the thing. But you know, we believe in
Speaker 1: the ideal of a multiracial democracy. How could you not like,
Speaker 1: how could you not feel like that's something where we
Speaker 1: have to try to strive for in some way? And
Speaker 1: you know, so so these kinds of conversations, these kinds
Speaker 1: of connections are not the fruition, but it's certainly, like,
Speaker 1: you know, a small way to start moving forward, to
Speaker 1: have to at least have dialogue absolutely, Dean. You know,
Speaker 1: we wanted this podcast to be a post Trump conversation
Speaker 1: about how did we get there and this notion of
Speaker 1: individualism and proximity to one another, And we came of
Speaker 1: age as MTV babies, and we grew up in an
Speaker 1: integrated community, largely middle class. I will add, but with
Speaker 1: all those markings of the possibility of a change country,
Speaker 1: the country in some ways, by so many measures, is
Speaker 1: as worse as it was before the Civil Rights era,
Speaker 1: and in other instances, when we talk about mass incarceration,
Speaker 1: it's worse than it was in a Civil rights era.
Speaker 1: So clearly we wanted to be able to talk about
Speaker 1: our coming of age story and to talk about this
Speaker 1: relationship as a window onto all the things we were
Speaker 1: deliberately not taught in school, that we were not encouraged
Speaker 1: to think about, and to ultimately reflect on that in
Speaker 1: a productive way at this moment to say, we got
Speaker 1: a lot of work to do to understand the actual
Speaker 1: history and the present of this crazy country we live in.
Speaker 1: And in that sense, I think your book is, you know,
Speaker 1: is an invitation to that history. You Actually, that's what
Speaker 1: I love about the book, that it's more than just
Speaker 1: this meditation on the politics of friendship. It's actually set
Speaker 1: a way of saying, at these particular crossroads, these relationships
Speaker 1: were fraught, and yet they were symbolically meaningful, and there
Speaker 1: were opportunities to take that symbolism and make its substantive
Speaker 1: going forward. Well, we are so grateful to have had
Speaker 1: you on this show. We certainly count you as one
Speaker 1: of our best friends. Thank you so much, Dean for
Speaker 1: being your conversation with us. Appreciate you. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for having me. Really truly has been been a pleasure.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Yeah, thank you, Dean. Well, that was a
Speaker 1: great conversation. It was, I mean, I definitely learned a lot.
Speaker 1: I was surprised at how convincing Solidine was in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways. So yeah, So I have a question
Speaker 1: for you. Who are you in the book? Who do
Speaker 1: you identify with? Definitely Frederick Douglas. I mean, come on,
Speaker 1: you know, handsome, articulate, clean, boom boot certain certainly like
Speaker 1: the commitment Douglas head to speak in truth to power.
Speaker 1: So that's that's who I most identify with. And all right,
Speaker 1: you asked me, so I'm asking you. How about you?
Speaker 1: Marilyn Monroe? Uh oh, really using my sexuality for good.
Speaker 1: Oh boy, we're in trouble. No wonder that didn't didn't
Speaker 1: end sistific races in America. All right, man, all right,
Speaker 1: I love you, all right, I love you too, man.
Speaker 1: Some of My Best Friends Are is a production of
Speaker 1: Pushkin Industries. The show is written and hosted by me
Speaker 1: Khalil Jibrad Muhammed and my best friend Ben Austin. It's
Speaker 1: produced by John Assanti and Lucy Sullivan. Our editor is
Speaker 1: Jasmine Morris, our engineer is Amanda ka Wang, and our
Speaker 1: executive producer is Mio Lobell. At Pushkin thanks to Leta Mullad,
Speaker 1: Julia Barton, Heather Faine, Carly Migliori, John Schnars, Gretta Khne,
Speaker 1: and Jacob Weisberg. Our theme song, Little Lily, is by
Speaker 1: fellow chicagoan the brilliant Avery R. Young, from his album Tubman.
Speaker 1: You definitely want to check out his music at his
Speaker 1: website Avery R. Young dot com. You can find Pushkin
Speaker 1: on all social platforms at Pushkin pods, and you can
Speaker 1: sign up for our newsletter at pushkin dot fm. To
Speaker 1: find more Pushkin podcasts, listen on the iHeartRadio app Apple
Speaker 1: podcasts wherever you like to listen. Hell, you know nobody
Speaker 1: you like You know nobody. I'm gonta know you would
Speaker 1: like Al