Speaker 1: Push it. Joan is going in eighth grade. I mean,
Speaker 1: do you even remember eighth grade in terms of what
Speaker 1: what you are? Oh? Man? Uh? First day of eighth grade. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, we felt like we were the big shots
Speaker 1: of the school, this public high school in Hyde Park.
Speaker 1: And we have a new teacher that walks into the
Speaker 1: classroom on the very first day. His name is mister Leon.
Speaker 1: I'll never forget him. And he walks into He walks
Speaker 1: into the classroom by slamming the door as hard as
Speaker 1: he can behind him and and pulling off this like
Speaker 1: blackboard jungle bullshit where he starts screaming at us. Wait
Speaker 1: in that movie. Now he's he's a white guy, and
Speaker 1: you know, and the class is, you know, very multiracial,
Speaker 1: and the first thing out of his mouth is, hey, kiddos,
Speaker 1: I'm not a racist. I hate everybody. That's nuts. That's
Speaker 1: a greeting to us. That was our multi racial education.
Speaker 1: I'm Khalil Jibron 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 as in I'm not a racist. Some of
Speaker 1: my best friends are dot dot dot dot dot. In
Speaker 1: this show, we wrestle with the challenges and the absurdities
Speaker 1: of a deeply divided and unequal country. And on today's episode,
Speaker 1: we're gonna look closely at how the teaching of American history,
Speaker 1: specifically the history of race and racism, helps explain the
Speaker 1: actual country we live in. You know, as you say
Speaker 1: at the start of every episode, I'm the historian, so
Speaker 1: you're the perfect partner for this, that's right. That Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: occasionally my expertise will matter in this conversation. How about that?
Speaker 1: All right? All right, one oh one, that's our class.
Speaker 1: The bell is ringing. Here we are at the start
Speaker 1: of another school year, and along with our kids going
Speaker 1: back to classes and all our anxiety and uncertainty about
Speaker 1: the coronavirus, there's also this assault on what can be
Speaker 1: taught in classrooms not a schools, and a flashpoint issue
Speaker 1: how to teach and discuss race in America's classrooms. Tonight
Speaker 1: we look at our children's history lessons in the curricula
Speaker 1: at the center of controversy. Yeah, I mean, it's a
Speaker 1: it's an incredible moment because after everything that's happened over
Speaker 1: the past eighteen months. You know, there's this great opportunity
Speaker 1: to finally, you know, reckon with our past and socialize
Speaker 1: a whole generation of kids about like what our country
Speaker 1: is and what it can be. And yet in so
Speaker 1: many states, at least twelve states have actually banned the
Speaker 1: teaching of race and racism, and at least another seventeen
Speaker 1: are trying to pass legislation. It's crazy. So these legislative
Speaker 1: acts have centered as their primary target a more expansive
Speaker 1: understanding of how racism has evolved in America and the
Speaker 1: justification for this in these laws. I've looked at several
Speaker 1: of them. In the case of Iowa in particular, says
Speaker 1: these are quote unquote divisive concepts, and because they're divisive
Speaker 1: concepts and because they traffic in what they say is
Speaker 1: race stereotyping, then at the end of the day, they're
Speaker 1: basically saying, if people feel uncomfortable with you talking about
Speaker 1: any kind of racism or it implies that white people
Speaker 1: have done things to black people, that feels like a stereotype.
Speaker 1: It's out of bounds. And it has created a situation
Speaker 1: where teachers have been targeted by administration, by school boards
Speaker 1: in such a way that it's creating a chilling effect
Speaker 1: in the classroom. Yeah, so you said twelve states have
Speaker 1: passed laws restricting the teaching of racism. Twenty nine states
Speaker 1: in total are at least considering similar bands. That's crazy.
Speaker 1: You mentioned the Iowa one, but I saw that in Florida,
Speaker 1: the States school Board voted unanimously to ban the teaching
Speaker 1: of the sixteen nineteen Project and critical race theory. In Alabama,
Speaker 1: the school superintendent proposed a resolution where you can't teach
Speaker 1: concepts that quote oppress others. And one part of that
Speaker 1: resolution they say the United States is not inherently racist,
Speaker 1: and also the state of Alabama is not inherently racist. Right. Yeah, Oklahoma,
Speaker 1: you can't teach the myth of meritocracy. You know, Texas,
Speaker 1: you can't teach political activism. There's an Arizona law that
Speaker 1: you quote. You can't teach any form of blame or
Speaker 1: judgment on the basis of race, ethnicity, or sex. Conservatives
Speaker 1: are arguing now that if you teach about racism, then
Speaker 1: in fact, you are the racist. I know, it's crazy.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about why this was so controversial, the
Speaker 1: sixteen nineteen project, and why there was such a backlash
Speaker 1: against it and why it made people so uncomfortable. Let's
Speaker 1: talk first about the sixteen nineteen Project. Yeah, that's exactly
Speaker 1: where we need to start, because it's it's because of
Speaker 1: its publication two years ago that this current round of
Speaker 1: attacks you know, first got got started. It was fuel
Speaker 1: for that fire. Yeah, yeah, this is really where the
Speaker 1: story we're telling today begins. So I know a lot
Speaker 1: of listeners will have read the sixteen nineteen Project, but
Speaker 1: for those who haven't, I mean, this was an incredible
Speaker 1: project born out of the imagination of Nicole Hannah Jones.
Speaker 1: So I've been thinking about the year sixteen nineteen since
Speaker 1: I was in high school and across that date in
Speaker 1: a book called Before the Mayflower, and I just was
Speaker 1: struck by how people of African descent had been here
Speaker 1: that long and I never knew that data, never heard
Speaker 1: about it. So as the anniversary was approaching the four
Speaker 1: hundredth year, I thought that this was a time to
Speaker 1: actually assess what is that legacy been and to bring
Speaker 1: this year sixteen nineteen to most American households where it
Speaker 1: was probably going to pass without them knowing. She's an
Speaker 1: investigative journalist and senior writer for the New York Times magazine.
Speaker 1: She wanted to commemorate the four hundredth anniversary of the
Speaker 1: sort of official arrival of twenty or thirty enslaved Africans
Speaker 1: to Jamestown, Virginia in sixteen nineteen. Right, So this this
Speaker 1: project was published in August of twenty nineteen, and she
Speaker 1: assembled this incredible group of journalists and historians. Incredible group
Speaker 1: of historians because you were one of those historians. I mean, really,
Speaker 1: they were incredible. Right. I did write an essay on sugar,
Speaker 1: the long history of sugar as the basis for European
Speaker 1: conquest and settler colonialism. That is, you know, Europeans coming
Speaker 1: here and staying, particularly in North America, so you know,
Speaker 1: everything in this effort to center the presence of black
Speaker 1: people as an indispensable part of the American story that
Speaker 1: basically you can't understand the country today without understanding all
Speaker 1: these connections that go back to the very beginning. So
Speaker 1: this was published first in the New York Times magazine
Speaker 1: that filled up an entire issue. Yes, that's right. So
Speaker 1: the magazine for this issue dedicated the entire magazine, which
Speaker 1: is unusual. So there were several essays on history there
Speaker 1: were creative writing, there was graphics, and the magazine itself
Speaker 1: became a kind of cultural touchstone for a broader conver station,
Speaker 1: you know, tied to Black Lives Matter, tied to racial reckonings,
Speaker 1: and there were lines around the building when the magazine
Speaker 1: was selling the print edition aside from what people got
Speaker 1: in their Sunday newspaper. You know, I know you're downplaying
Speaker 1: your role in it, but I'm really I'm really proud
Speaker 1: of you. I mean, you're you're a major contributor for this,
Speaker 1: and this is now in book form and you're in
Speaker 1: a best seller. Well, James Patterson, I'm not sure I
Speaker 1: can take credit for that, but but but I can't
Speaker 1: say that Nicole's work, the editor's work, did win a
Speaker 1: Pulitzer Prize, and that's a certainly a really big deal.
Speaker 1: And what a visionary she is for this, I mean,
Speaker 1: to really to really sort of demand of us to
Speaker 1: to take a different historical look on the country and
Speaker 1: to think about our origin stories in our beginnings, and then,
Speaker 1: as you said, forcing us to see everything that comes
Speaker 1: after through it through a different lens. Yeah, that's right. So,
Speaker 1: of course, when I saw Nichols call for for people
Speaker 1: like me to contribute. I jumped at it and I'm happy,
Speaker 1: you know, continue to be proud of this work. And
Speaker 1: you know, with the book coming out soon this fall,
Speaker 1: it's it's incredible and we'll see we'll see not only
Speaker 1: people responding positively to it, but we'll also see, you know,
Speaker 1: more backlash against the significance of this work. So in
Speaker 1: September twenty twenty, Donald Trump tweets, of course, and what
Speaker 1: a great thing not to say that anymore, like did
Speaker 1: you see Donald Trump? Sat? But right? Trump responds to
Speaker 1: a tweet about California teaching the sixteen nineteen project and
Speaker 1: its schools, and he says that the Department of Education
Speaker 1: will look into it and it will defund the state
Speaker 1: if he if he finds evidence of that. M Yeah,
Speaker 1: of course he has no he has no authority whatsoever
Speaker 1: exactly right states control education. So what he does is
Speaker 1: he goes on to issue an executive order that bands
Speaker 1: diversity train in federal agencies and also in companies that
Speaker 1: do business with the federal government. So he doesn't mean
Speaker 1: just diversity and inclusion training. He actually says something that
Speaker 1: isn't true. He says, you can't talk about America as
Speaker 1: irredeemably racist and sexist. But nobody who does diversity training
Speaker 1: talks about America as irredeemably racist and sexist. They might
Speaker 1: talk about the problem of racism and sexism, but this
Speaker 1: irredeemable aspect, this notion that there's nothing we can do
Speaker 1: about it, is the boogeyman in the conversation. And that's
Speaker 1: a thing that gets people so riled up. And that's
Speaker 1: why he's had such support for this, had such support,
Speaker 1: And now it's continuing and we finally nail Trump and
Speaker 1: we catch him on saying something that isn't true. This
Speaker 1: is the journalistic moment. Some of my best friends are
Speaker 1: we did it, good work, but no. But it's such
Speaker 1: a subtle thing because if you keep saying that something
Speaker 1: that's not happening, then reasonable people can be upset about.
Speaker 1: And that's why this thing is metastic. So then he
Speaker 1: takes it further. Of course, at the start of the
Speaker 1: school year last year, so in September twenty twenty, the
Speaker 1: Trump administration announces that they're going to form something called
Speaker 1: the seventeen seventy six Commission, a Patriotic Education Commission. It's
Speaker 1: a direct response to the sixteen nineteen project, and Trump
Speaker 1: goes on to say, he says, quote, they're a crusade
Speaker 1: against American history, which is what we're talking about today.
Speaker 1: And he says, instead, what the country must focus on,
Speaker 1: what classrooms must focus on, is quote the legacy of
Speaker 1: seventeen seventy six. So forget about that sixteen nineteen. Let's
Speaker 1: go back to this declaration, back to everything that every
Speaker 1: school child has already learned about the basic story of
Speaker 1: the American Revolution. Yeah, there's a larger, sort of an
Speaker 1: ah historical attack going on that sort of wrapped up
Speaker 1: in this idea of critical race theory, and there's a
Speaker 1: sort of fewer at the start of the school year
Speaker 1: that we're you know, who's teaching this. We talked about
Speaker 1: this at the top of the episode, but that's really
Speaker 1: part of what's going on here, right, Yeah, Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: I think we owe it to our listeners to actually
Speaker 1: define what critical race theory is. Yeah, let's do it. So,
Speaker 1: first of all, it is, strictly speaking, a legal theory
Speaker 1: and historical approach that began in the nineteen eighties, led
Speaker 1: by at the time a Harvard law professor, an African
Speaker 1: American man named Derek Bell and also by a African
Speaker 1: American legal scholar, Kimberly Crenshaw. And the basic approach to
Speaker 1: critical race theory then and now was to literally understand
Speaker 1: the legal history of racism, which means, ultimately critical race
Speaker 1: theory was very, very much interested in the limits of
Speaker 1: the law to wrestle with the problem of racism, going
Speaker 1: back to the beginning all the way up to the present,
Speaker 1: even including affirmative action and antidiscrimination law. And why is
Speaker 1: this important? This is important because what critical race theory
Speaker 1: as a legal concept did, and it's still relevant, is
Speaker 1: we still have limitations in our law with respect to
Speaker 1: dealing with the consequences of structural racism. The fact that
Speaker 1: any company might actually choose, let's just say, a preferential approach,
Speaker 1: even a reparative or reparations approach to redress its own
Speaker 1: history of discrimination is actually illegal in our law. And
Speaker 1: critical race theorists wanted to point that out because it
Speaker 1: wanted to say, we have very limited tools legally to
Speaker 1: deal with this massive structure of racism and inequality, and
Speaker 1: that's it. That's what critical race theory is. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I was going to say, this is a pretty obscure
Speaker 1: academic take and discipline looking at structural racism. It's not listen,
Speaker 1: it's not something you're a historian of this, it's it's
Speaker 1: not a term that I was especially familiar with before
Speaker 1: the right started throw it in my face and saying
Speaker 1: it's everywhere, that's right, that's right. So it has become
Speaker 1: a catch all for absolutely any discussion of race or
Speaker 1: racism anywhere, from kindergarten to an old folks nursing home
Speaker 1: where someone might show up have to talk about the
Speaker 1: disproportionate deaths of covid if impacting black and brown residence
Speaker 1: of nursing homes, as my uncle Javan, who was eighty
Speaker 1: died in one in Chicago. Like, that's how ridiculous the
Speaker 1: notion that critical race theory is everywhere and is infecting
Speaker 1: everybody and is a poisonous, toxic ideology unleashed on the
Speaker 1: innocent American public. When we come back, we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about how historian Khalil Jabron Muhammad got swept up
Speaker 1: in these attacks and how we should be teaching history.
Speaker 1: All right, Khalil, So you've been busy teaching outside of
Speaker 1: the classroom as well, and really, you know, I'm thinking
Speaker 1: about after the murder of George Floyd, there was a
Speaker 1: surge of interest in how racism has persisted in the
Speaker 1: country and what we should do about it. You know,
Speaker 1: they're that video that was spread around of the police
Speaker 1: officer in Minneapolis kneeling on the neck of George Floyd
Speaker 1: was sort of an undeniable depiction of injustice and the
Speaker 1: two tier society in America. And so after that there
Speaker 1: were like, you know, books like how to be an
Speaker 1: Anti Racist by our fellow Pushkin podcaster Ibram Kendy and
Speaker 1: White Fragility by Robin D'Angelo. They were flying off the shelves,
Speaker 1: and businesses and corporations were also like, well, we need
Speaker 1: to do something, and some of them made statements, you know,
Speaker 1: they put banners, but they also invited in some scholars
Speaker 1: and others to instruct them about about racism in the country.
Speaker 1: That's where you come in. My friend, you went into
Speaker 1: some of these corporations and I wanted to ask you, like,
Speaker 1: can you tell us what actually did you talk about?
Speaker 1: So the basic ask was help our employees understand what
Speaker 1: is systemic racism? Okay, what is the history of it?
Speaker 1: And that covers everything in the most simple definition from
Speaker 1: the history of colonization, the conquest of indigenous people, to
Speaker 1: the enslavement of people of African descent, to the period
Speaker 1: after slavery of formal segregation in jem Crowe, to a
Speaker 1: history of redlining, to a history of education segregation, to
Speaker 1: a history of financial services and predatory lending, and everything
Speaker 1: we now know both as academics and more increasingly the
Speaker 1: public about what is actually systemic racism. And so that's
Speaker 1: a huge list that you just said, and you certainly
Speaker 1: didn't talk about all of those in each session. I
Speaker 1: pretty much did okay well time as our listeners, as
Speaker 1: our listeners will will will pick up on this show,
Speaker 1: we cover a lot of ground here. Yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: a pretty it's a it's a heavy lift. But the
Speaker 1: point is to socialize the basic idea that structural racism
Speaker 1: is not a fantasy of some cabal of radical academics,
Speaker 1: but in fact is the history of this nation, and
Speaker 1: the degree to which we want to change the present
Speaker 1: of our nation is the degree to which we have
Speaker 1: to come to terms with the history of the nation.
Speaker 1: And so is what you're teaching. You know, this is
Speaker 1: it like a forty five minute lecture that you're giving
Speaker 1: at a corporation. Is it sort of a thumbnail of
Speaker 1: what you might teach over an entire semester. That's a
Speaker 1: great yep. That's a short answer. Is absolutely. As one
Speaker 1: of my colleagues, a former student of mine, sat at
Speaker 1: Harvard a couple of years ago. She said, Man, Khalil,
Speaker 1: if you could take what you taught me over sixteen
Speaker 1: weeks into a two hour lecture, we could change the world.
Speaker 1: And uh. And that's that's the that's a tall ask
Speaker 1: and it's impossible in a way, but that really is
Speaker 1: the invitation for raising public awareness around these issues. But
Speaker 1: you were recently put on blast for these courses for
Speaker 1: what you what you said in front of some of
Speaker 1: these compresentations, in front of the companies ye for the presentations,
Speaker 1: and you were actually talked about recently by Bill O'Reilly
Speaker 1: critical race theory seminars. Let me give you an example.
Speaker 1: So a recent one featured a guy named Khalil Mohammad.
Speaker 1: He is the great grandson of Nation of Islam founder
Speaker 1: Elijah Mohammad. Pretty bad guy. Elijah Mohammad, pretty bad guy,
Speaker 1: ask Malcolm X. Okay, so his grandson, and you shouldn't
Speaker 1: demonize a grandson because his grandfather was a bad guy.
Speaker 1: Teaches at the Kennedy School at Harvard, my alma mater,
Speaker 1: and he is demanding, is Khalil Mohammad that an American
Speaker 1: Express have reduced costs for black customers. So therefore got
Speaker 1: an American Express court and you will black your interest
Speaker 1: rate below then white last racist. Wow, so you're getting
Speaker 1: attacked by the right wing. What is it you're actually
Speaker 1: doing in these courses that you've done at different businesses?
Speaker 1: What are you what are you teaching there? What are
Speaker 1: you saying? Because clearly you're touching a nerve. Yeah. Sure,
Speaker 1: So this isn't even about one company because the this
Speaker 1: the guy who wrote an article that Bill O'Reilly looked at,
Speaker 1: a guy named Christopher Ruffo, has now sort of found
Speaker 1: social media evidence of a talk I gave out another company.
Speaker 1: So in terms of the actual content, it's the same
Speaker 1: because the history doesn't change. And what I essentially said
Speaker 1: is if you ex company want to be committed to
Speaker 1: racial equity, as you have said in your public statement,
Speaker 1: then you have to decide whether or not your business
Speaker 1: practices are exacerbating or alleviating racial disparities and structural racism
Speaker 1: in American society, and that is the part of the
Speaker 1: conversation that takes the history and then offers a way
Speaker 1: of thinking about what comes next. Let's just talk for
Speaker 1: a second about Elijah Mohammad, like he was wrong. It's
Speaker 1: not your grandfather, it's your great grandfather. But let's you know,
Speaker 1: that's an interesting thing to bring up, you know, as
Speaker 1: a way to identify you. Yeah. Yeah, well listen, first
Speaker 1: of all, it's not a secret, so there's no reveal there.
Speaker 1: My entire career has been shaped by this biographical note.
Speaker 1: I'm very proud of my legacy as the great grandson
Speaker 1: of Elijah Mohammad. The nation of Islam in it today,
Speaker 1: beginning in the forties, fifties, sixties, and certainly helped to
Speaker 1: shape Malcolm X change a lot of black people's lives,
Speaker 1: built a lot of black businesses, was a source of pride,
Speaker 1: was a source of black history. And that's that's the
Speaker 1: absurdity of the way that someone like Bill O'Reilly is
Speaker 1: trying to weaponize who he was, who Malcolm X was,
Speaker 1: and the issues that we face today. Yeah. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: were talking about history and what's being taught. There's also
Speaker 1: this incredible denial of history. There's a denial of truth
Speaker 1: and fact that leads to then those norms are also
Speaker 1: denying them. And there's a sense of you know, there's
Speaker 1: something that seems almost incredibly infantile about it, Like if
Speaker 1: you close your eyes and say it's not there, then
Speaker 1: it's not there. Now it's it's it's way more sinister
Speaker 1: than that, as you said, like it has these implications. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but but you know this is that feeling that it's
Speaker 1: spreading everywhere is what makes people think suddenly, like it's
Speaker 1: in all of our schools, and you know, we talked
Speaker 1: about the states that we're considering laws banning critical race theory,
Speaker 1: and not just in our schools. Now, it's in our
Speaker 1: fortune five hundred companies, which you're purportedly guilty of, you know,
Speaker 1: helping to propagate and permeate. Yeah. So you know, all
Speaker 1: these media hits basically are trying to discredit people like
Speaker 1: me for essentially teaching about the history of race and racism.
Speaker 1: And because I'm now kind of in the crosshairs of
Speaker 1: conservative media, I get these crazy emails and racist phone
Speaker 1: calls from people threatening my life. These people are problems
Speaker 1: with white people, don't you big problems, don't you you're racist? Motherfuckers?
Speaker 1: What you are? Okay, that's what you are? Ilf fly
Speaker 1: halfway across the country. You fly halfway across the country
Speaker 1: and you call me a racist to my face? What
Speaker 1: do you think, Khalil, you get the balls to do them?
Speaker 1: So obviously that guy hasn't listened to our show yet,
Speaker 1: Like now that you're talking to that just goes to
Speaker 1: show you, man, how the bad a shape we're in, right,
Speaker 1: Like the idea that I don't know white people or
Speaker 1: talk to white people, like black people are twelve percent
Speaker 1: of the population. You can't you can't live past five
Speaker 1: as a black person and not have a conversation with
Speaker 1: white person. But anyway, yeah, here I am talking to you. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So kind of the brilliance of these people is also
Speaker 1: to co opt the very language that helps us to
Speaker 1: situate ourselves in history, helps us to be able to
Speaker 1: say we've actually learned something from the past. And that's
Speaker 1: what makes this so difficult. And that's that is the
Speaker 1: situation we face today in part a legacy of how
Speaker 1: how or a job of history we've actually done. I
Speaker 1: would really love to hear you talk more about why
Speaker 1: the sixteen nineteen project and critical race theory sort of
Speaker 1: with your own sense of teaching history is so effective.
Speaker 1: You know, what is the way that you want to
Speaker 1: teach history? What is the way that you want American
Speaker 1: history taught? Yeah? Yeah, Well, well I appreciate that because
Speaker 1: it is the work that I've been doing for a
Speaker 1: quarter century. And from my vantage point, history is always
Speaker 1: debatable as to how much evidence in weight or it
Speaker 1: should say interpretive weight you put on a point. So,
Speaker 1: and I'll say that that the sense of myth and
Speaker 1: reality are always in tension. When we're talking about a
Speaker 1: country's history, it's tied up with our national identity. So
Speaker 1: there's always this tension, this conflict between what we mythologize
Speaker 1: and what was real, what really happened. Yeah, no, absolutely,
Speaker 1: And so to answer the question, I think first we
Speaker 1: have I have to say that in the quarter century,
Speaker 1: I've taught a lot of student who opted into my
Speaker 1: class and expressed to me at the undergraduate level. At
Speaker 1: the graduate level, I remember teaching a group of future
Speaker 1: teachers like, oh my god, I can't believe I never
Speaker 1: learned any of this. And again that and what is this?
Speaker 1: This is that the problem was much more deeply entrenched
Speaker 1: in the soil of the nation at every moment in
Speaker 1: the past, from the colonial period to the national period
Speaker 1: to the Belling period, and that in each of these moments,
Speaker 1: when we look at the scale and scope of a slavery,
Speaker 1: for example, as as a form of anti black racism,
Speaker 1: that that it was, in many ways the economic basis
Speaker 1: of America's wealth. And so even something like that as
Speaker 1: a as a truth, right, it's not. It's not make believe.
Speaker 1: Slavery created wealth in the nation, that gave America a
Speaker 1: head start in the world. Um, and he lasted so long.
Speaker 1: It lasted longer here than our European cousins, so to speak.
Speaker 1: And as such, what most students were learning was like,
Speaker 1: slavery happened, it was really bad, and thank god it's
Speaker 1: over because Abraham Lincoln free the slaves. Like that's the
Speaker 1: very glib take on it. But that is, in a
Speaker 1: sense what students have been learning. So there's no detail
Speaker 1: to it, and there's no sense of the stakes of
Speaker 1: why we had a civil war in the first place
Speaker 1: that was fought actually over slavery, according to the Confederate
Speaker 1: Bills of sedition or should say secession. So because in
Speaker 1: that way. And I'll just give a data point. This organization,
Speaker 1: the Southern Poverty Law Center, looked at the quality of
Speaker 1: teaching about slavery in a twenty eighteen report, and they
Speaker 1: found that when students were asked the question how much
Speaker 1: did they understood that slavery was the central cause of
Speaker 1: the Civil War? Take a guess on what percentage of
Speaker 1: the students said that was true. Thirty one eight percent
Speaker 1: is za nuts eight percent. Again, to analogize, imagine anywhere
Speaker 1: else in the world where there was a third of
Speaker 1: the population denying the impact of this massive system of
Speaker 1: oppression towards people. It just would be unacceptable. It is
Speaker 1: not debatable as to the central role of slavery in
Speaker 1: the Civil War as a matter of fact, but it
Speaker 1: is debatable in the matter of our national memory and
Speaker 1: our political culture. And of course the people who still
Speaker 1: waive Confederate flags and say this is about heritage and
Speaker 1: not hate. Yeah, yeah, And you know that I appreciate this, professor,
Speaker 1: because I feel like I'm getting a Harvard credit right here,
Speaker 1: figured your mama. I'm thinking about on the what critics say, like,
Speaker 1: can that be over emphasized? You know? And this is
Speaker 1: sort of this is the devil's outcot point, like, can
Speaker 1: that be stressed too much where you're then a louding
Speaker 1: all other aspects of American history. Yeah, so on the
Speaker 1: one hand, we have gone too far forever, right, there's
Speaker 1: never been a golden age of getting this history in
Speaker 1: the way that is balanced, and so let's just take
Speaker 1: that as a given. That's the status quo. And so
Speaker 1: when I look at the critiques, it seems to me
Speaker 1: that the critiques are not trying to find a middle
Speaker 1: ground to say, Okay, let's do this both end. Let's
Speaker 1: let's actually get the history right, that is the history
Speaker 1: of race and racism as a central category of the
Speaker 1: American story. Let's just ban talk about race and racism
Speaker 1: because it's a divisive concept. I mean, so we can't
Speaker 1: even really get at some kind of balance. And if
Speaker 1: we were to get at some kind of balance, I
Speaker 1: think that we would all benefit from that. In other words,
Speaker 1: black people also don't like I mean, you've heard these
Speaker 1: stories before. Black people don't like feeling like they're nothing
Speaker 1: but victims, that they've only experienced oppression, And certainly, as
Speaker 1: a teacher of African American history alongside slavery. I'm telling
Speaker 1: the story of Negro spirituals. I'm telling the story of
Speaker 1: the birth of jazz. I'm telling the story of the
Speaker 1: political genius of African Americans in the reconstruction period that
Speaker 1: helped to deliver public education to the South for the
Speaker 1: first time. But the only way that you can actually
Speaker 1: appreciate the agency and the resistance is to know with
Speaker 1: clarity what people overcame. It cannot be abstracted. So look,
Speaker 1: something like the sixteen nineteen project is not only important
Speaker 1: as a cultural milestone in having kind of America's newspaper
Speaker 1: of record lead an effort to say we know that
Speaker 1: we haven't gotten our history right a at all levels
Speaker 1: of society. That if we were to compare the United
Speaker 1: States to other parts of the world that have had
Speaker 1: to reckon with what happened in those countries, whether it
Speaker 1: was a party in South Africa or the Holocaust in Germany,
Speaker 1: Americans would look at these places and think it was
Speaker 1: absurd that they had a distorted version of that past,
Speaker 1: and we would hold them accountable. And yet here we
Speaker 1: know that teachers were not allowed to talk about slavery
Speaker 1: and Jim Crowe as evidence of white supremacy for the
Speaker 1: entire period of the twentieth century, because that's what the
Speaker 1: evidence shows. I mean, I talked about being childish, but
Speaker 1: you know, like I'm rubber and your glue kind of
Speaker 1: like back and forth whether nothing you can do, and
Speaker 1: so then I'm going to throw it back on you.
Speaker 1: You're the historian. You were speaking to these groups. You know,
Speaker 1: you're dealing in hard facts. So you have history. What
Speaker 1: do you do well? I think it means that for me,
Speaker 1: and what I advise people is you have to say
Speaker 1: the course. And so just like when black civil rights
Speaker 1: workers were marching in towns and lesions of white families
Speaker 1: came out like they did in Little Rock, Arkansas, outside
Speaker 1: of Central High School, we want to keep our schools white.
Speaker 1: There is a way in which this moment helps us
Speaker 1: to use that history as a way of saying, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: these folks don't really want to change America, because if
Speaker 1: we got our history right, we would have a different America. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: At the Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama, as you enter,
Speaker 1: there's a quote by Maya Angelou. History, despite its wrenching pain,
Speaker 1: cannot be unlived. But if faced with courage, need not
Speaker 1: be lived again. The brainchild of the lawyer and activist
Speaker 1: Brian Stevenson, the Legacy Museum is about as wrenchingly painful
Speaker 1: a bit of American history as one could ever imagine.
Speaker 1: It covers the painful history of lynchings in the country,
Speaker 1: and so saying lynchings did not happen or not wrestling
Speaker 1: with that terrible history doesn't make it not so. And
Speaker 1: the idea that that we have to look back on
Speaker 1: even these most painful parts of our history is part
Speaker 1: of who we are and to ensure that to try
Speaker 1: not to ensure, but to to maybe make possible that
Speaker 1: we don't we don't do terrible things again and uh,
Speaker 1: and that memorial is just a powerful testament to how
Speaker 1: we as a nation have yet again an opportunity to
Speaker 1: learn from our past in ways that will ensure that
Speaker 1: future generations will not repeat those mistakes. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: think about. You know, what truly makes America exceptional is
Speaker 1: that we are this multi racial and multi ethnic democracy
Speaker 1: and those same things are what make this country so
Speaker 1: fraught and problematic because that is our history also of
Speaker 1: oppression and of conquest, and that you don't get the
Speaker 1: exceptional part of that without thinking about the difficulty. And
Speaker 1: you don't. You don't. You don't reach a true multiracial
Speaker 1: democracy unless you wrestle with that past. That's right, because
Speaker 1: if we do change our history, and we do create
Speaker 1: more awareness about the history of structural racism in this
Speaker 1: country for all Americans, for all adults, the country is
Speaker 1: likely to change. And that's a good thing. That would
Speaker 1: be a really good thing. Well, we're going to keep
Speaker 1: on moving forward together, Khalil. Maybe mister Leon is still around,
Speaker 1: Maybe so, and he's gonna say, I'm not a racist.
Speaker 1: I love everybody. Oh, I love the thought of that.
Speaker 1: I love you, love you too. And some of my
Speaker 1: best friends are is a production of Pushkin Industries. The
Speaker 1: show is written and hosted by me Khalil Dubron Mohammed
Speaker 1: and my best friend Ben Austin. It's produced by Sheer
Speaker 1: Vincent and edited by Karen Shakerji. Our engineer is Martin Gonzalez,
Speaker 1: our associate editor is Keishell Williams, and our showrunner is
Speaker 1: Sasha Matthias. Our executive producers are Lee Taal Molad and
Speaker 1: Nia Lobell At Pushkin. Thanks to Heather Fane, Carl Migliori,
Speaker 1: John Schnars and Jacob Weisberg. Our theme song, Little Lily,
Speaker 1: is by fellow chicagoan Avery R. Young, from his amazing
Speaker 1: album Tubman. You will definitely want to check out more
Speaker 1: of his music at its website, avery R. Young dot com.
Speaker 1: You can find Pushkin on all social platforms at Pushkin pods,
Speaker 1: and you can sign up for our newsletter at Pushkin
Speaker 1: dot fm. To find more Pushkin podcasts, listen on the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen.
Speaker 1: If you love this show and we hope you do
Speaker 1: and others from Pushkin Industries, consider becoming a Pushnick. Pushnick
Speaker 1: is a podcast subscription that offers bonus content and uninterrupted
Speaker 1: listening for four dollars and ninety nine cents a month.
Speaker 1: Look for Pushnick exclusively on Apple podcast subscriptions. By the way,
Speaker 1: Stephanie told me that this dress is like an AKA
Speaker 1: dress at one of their annual conventions, and so all
Speaker 1: the moopie Akas from Spellman. Whoever sees these little video
Speaker 1: clips gonna be like, hey, wait a minute, I mean
Speaker 1: they all have the same day, all have the same dress.
Speaker 1: So even though it's not AKA colors, no, it is
Speaker 1: come on, man, come on, I raised you better than that.