Speaker 1: Good morning, Keeps, and welcome to wok Up Daily with
Speaker 1: your girl. Danielle Moody recording from La because I'm out
Speaker 1: here for a wonderful board meeting with the Miss Foundation,
Speaker 1: whose board I sit on. If you don't know anything
Speaker 1: about the Miss Foundation for Women, you should look them up.
Speaker 1: They are supporting an organization that supports women and girls
Speaker 1: of color in particular at this moment in time, and
Speaker 1: do wonderful grants to organizations that are working on behalf
Speaker 1: of women and girls of color in a range of
Speaker 1: different ways. Folks, let me start out by saying that,
Speaker 1: you know, the other day, I was on the plane
Speaker 1: traveling out here to California from New York, and I
Speaker 1: found myself completely and utterly off the grid, right. I
Speaker 1: decided not to pay for the Wi Fi on the plane,
Speaker 1: and I'm looking around and everybody's complying with the MASK mandates,
Speaker 1: and you know, all is moving well. Land in California.
Speaker 1: Decide to turn on Twitter after not being online for
Speaker 1: about five hours, and come to find out that the
Speaker 1: build back better. The three point five trillion dollar Infrastructure Bill,
Speaker 1: which was supposed to incorporate both buildings and roads and
Speaker 1: bridges and broadband and traditional ideas of what we believe
Speaker 1: as infrastructure, as well as what it takes to have
Speaker 1: human infrastructure, meaning you know that Americans are essentially cogs
Speaker 1: in the capitalistic machine, and what does it take to
Speaker 1: have workers right and to have people have the ability
Speaker 1: to enter into the workforce because they have things like
Speaker 1: paid family leave, paid medical leave, They have things like
Speaker 1: support in cost of childcare so that women don't have
Speaker 1: to leave the workforce in high numbers because guess what
Speaker 1: their employers would be supporting childcare. Because we know that
Speaker 1: even in heteronormative circumstances, right, that it is women right.
Speaker 1: Even if we want to believe that the world has changed,
Speaker 1: it has not, and the pandemic showed us this that
Speaker 1: it is. Oftentimes, when the sole responsibility of childcare ends
Speaker 1: up being on the family, it is women who end
Speaker 1: up having to leave the workforce to care for those children.
Speaker 1: And then we create a society in an environment that
Speaker 1: does not welcome them back in. And as a matter
Speaker 1: of fact, looks at any gaps that you may have
Speaker 1: on your resume, and if you were to dare to
Speaker 1: say that, oh, I had left my last job but
Speaker 1: then decided to have two beautiful children and then want
Speaker 1: to come back five years later. They look at that
Speaker 1: as if you are lazy, you are a problem, right,
Speaker 1: And what does that mean for your productivity down the road?
Speaker 1: Are you going to have to leave for parent teacher conferences?
Speaker 1: What if the kid gets sick, I might as well
Speaker 1: get somebody younger, cheaper, without kids, not married, who I
Speaker 1: can work to death. Right. So these are the types
Speaker 1: of issues that were a part of what the Biden
Speaker 1: administration was referring to as their human Infrastructure Bill. And
Speaker 1: come to find out that when I got off of
Speaker 1: my flight from New York to LA that Senator Mansion
Speaker 1: decided that, among other things, he was going to take
Speaker 1: out the medical leave, take out the paid family leave,
Speaker 1: take out the childcare costs, because you know what, he
Speaker 1: doesn't like the size of the infrastructure bill. It's just
Speaker 1: too big. And then also, guess what, even though the
Speaker 1: Democrats have created an opportunity for us to have a
Speaker 1: billionaire tax, you know, for these people who do not
Speaker 1: get taxed through income but get taxed through other means,
Speaker 1: to be able to pay their fair share and so
Speaker 1: that the burden doesn't fall on the rest of us
Speaker 1: middle class and lower income people and the poor that oh,
Speaker 1: he doesn't like that either, even though according to many
Speaker 1: reports and on Twitter, there are no fucking billionaires in
Speaker 1: West Virginia, but there are, of course billionaires the heads
Speaker 1: of corporations that are giving Joe Mansion his money and
Speaker 1: his leash apparently. So the reality is that we are
Speaker 1: getting nothing. We are getting nothing. And a couple of
Speaker 1: people had tweeted and said this at this point, what
Speaker 1: is happening is just cruel and disgusting, and I said, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I know that I say these things on
Speaker 1: a relative on a regular basis on woke AF, I
Speaker 1: talk about how disgusting, how despicable. And I realized that
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, that's really just me
Speaker 1: blowing off steam because it's not as if these people
Speaker 1: Joe Mansion, Kursten Cinema, who, by the way, was on
Speaker 1: the floor of the Senate and a denim vest, like
Speaker 1: first of all, A, it's not the nineties and b
Speaker 1: professionalism much and see, no, I'm not talking about respectability
Speaker 1: politics and as it pertains to dress. But what I'm
Speaker 1: saying is is that if she were not a white
Speaker 1: woman rocking a denim vest on the floor of the Senate.
Speaker 1: Then the amount of commentary that would have proceeded, how unprofessional,
Speaker 1: how uncouth, how not ready for prime time this person is.
Speaker 1: And you know, I got to tell you that it
Speaker 1: reeked of white privilege. It reeked, reeked of it, and
Speaker 1: it was disgusting. It was a disgusting display. But I digress.
Speaker 1: The fact is that many people are saying, well, you know,
Speaker 1: because they're already preparing themselves for the loss that we're
Speaker 1: getting ready to have, right because we're not getting the
Speaker 1: three point five trillion dollar deal. We're not getting the robust,
Speaker 1: transformative new deal that everybody kept talking about. No, we're not.
Speaker 1: And the reality is is that Joe Mansion is a
Speaker 1: piece of shit. And here's what one of our friends,
Speaker 1: a friend of the show and a member of WIKA
Speaker 1: Nation is Zach Bacantis had said. He said, even a compromise,
Speaker 1: build back better deal would be as historic and impactful
Speaker 1: as any initiative from the New Deal or Great Society,
Speaker 1: the most significant investment to fight climate change in human history,
Speaker 1: the greatest American investment in childcare since our founding. And
Speaker 1: my response, even though I appreciate Zach and understand the
Speaker 1: perspective right that you know, we oftentimes as Democrats, tell ourselves,
Speaker 1: don't let the perfect get in the way of the good.
Speaker 1: You know, something is better than nothing, right, But we
Speaker 1: set ourselves up in a way to continually have incremental
Speaker 1: change and mediocre progress with those sentiments. And I say
Speaker 1: that not because Zach was wrong, because he's not right.
Speaker 1: This will be one of the biggest things to have happened,
Speaker 1: but it won't have as many teeth, or if any
Speaker 1: at all, or a spine because all of the things
Speaker 1: that people were looking forward to in this bill that
Speaker 1: had yet to be written was the fact that it
Speaker 1: was going to address the needs that were made laid
Speaker 1: bare at the height of quarantine, right when people two
Speaker 1: million women were left the workforce because having to balance
Speaker 1: teaching their kids on zoom right, who are probably who
Speaker 1: were in elementary school or younger, as well as keep
Speaker 1: up with their day to day tasks at work became
Speaker 1: too much to bear. And so what were they going
Speaker 1: to sacrifice their children's learning, which we already know how
Speaker 1: much children lost right in learning during this time, or
Speaker 1: what were they going to do what they were given
Speaker 1: in a false choice? Right, That's the reality, and So
Speaker 1: my feeling, my feeling here is this, It's what kind
Speaker 1: of choices are we actually giving American workers right now?
Speaker 1: You have, and we've talked about this on the show,
Speaker 1: you have over eleven million people that have left the workforce.
Speaker 1: They keep talking about on mainstream media about how we
Speaker 1: have some type of workers shortage. No, we don't. We
Speaker 1: don't have a worker shortage in America. There are plenty
Speaker 1: of people to work. But do you know what they're
Speaker 1: recognizing that they don't want to work for peanuts, that
Speaker 1: they don't want to work forty hours a week and
Speaker 1: not be able to pay for prescription drugs, put food
Speaker 1: on the table, pay off their student loan debt. Coming
Speaker 1: up next, friends, is my conversation with Ruth Cooker, the
Speaker 1: author of the book The Public Insult Playbook, How abusers
Speaker 1: in power undermine civil rights for warm, When they go low,
Speaker 1: we go high. Is a great turn of a phrase
Speaker 1: and an admirable way to go through life, but did
Speaker 1: nothing to defeat the radical right or Trump in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: Stay tuned for that conversation and as always, let me
Speaker 1: know about what you think, folks. I am so excited
Speaker 1: to welcome to Okay f for the first time author
Speaker 1: Ruth Cooker, who has written the book The Public Insult Playbook,
Speaker 1: How abusers empower undermined Civil rights reform and how this
Speaker 1: book Ruth offers insights into how attacks have come to
Speaker 1: effect our contemporary public discourse right and the fact that
Speaker 1: you know, we all have moved from the space where
Speaker 1: Michelle Obama has said when they go low, we go high.
Speaker 1: And let me tell you something. When she made that
Speaker 1: point in that speech, I was excited, but I also said, Hmmm,
Speaker 1: I don't know if that works all the time. I
Speaker 1: don't know if choosing the high road works when people
Speaker 1: are invested in taking us to the sewer. So can
Speaker 1: you talk to us about why you wrote this book
Speaker 1: and why it's important in the moment that we are
Speaker 1: currently living in. Well. I started writing this book actually
Speaker 1: because I was inspired by my good friend Amy Robertson,
Speaker 1: who does disability rights activism, and she wrote this blog
Speaker 1: post which is always such a great way for people
Speaker 1: to just get out ideas. Right. You wrote this great
Speaker 1: blog post about how the political right in lawsuits being
Speaker 1: brought by disabled people were criticizing these people, insulting them
Speaker 1: when all they were trying to do was get access
Speaker 1: to like a restaurant, a hotel or whatever, and they
Speaker 1: would call them things like drive by litigators, which is
Speaker 1: such a shocking term because drive by we think of
Speaker 1: like school shootings or something right like guns and violence.
Speaker 1: And they were accusing these people who are trying to
Speaker 1: get into places that were inaccessible as drive by litigators,
Speaker 1: you know, they called them bounty hunters and all these insults,
Speaker 1: and shockingly, some judges accepted this characterization of these people
Speaker 1: who are just trying to access their basic civil rights.
Speaker 1: And so I started doing research in the disability area
Speaker 1: to see how this insult was having such effect and
Speaker 1: limiting people's abilities to utilize one of my favorite statutes
Speaker 1: to Americans, Disabilities Act. And then after I started doing
Speaker 1: the work in the disability context, a publisher approached me
Speaker 1: and said, you know, I think this is a good theme.
Speaker 1: Do you want to pursue it outside of disability context?
Speaker 1: To go, yeah, you're right, and I as you know,
Speaker 1: I wrote chapters on many other different topics that we
Speaker 1: can discuss, but it was the disability issue that really
Speaker 1: got me started because I was just so appalled by
Speaker 1: these insults are being flung at people just for trying
Speaker 1: to access their rights that they were entitled to. Do
Speaker 1: you think that, you know, just staying in the disability
Speaker 1: vein for a moment, do you think that that community
Speaker 1: is still very much marginalized in terms of the language
Speaker 1: that we use it like they are. They are readily
Speaker 1: a target by both the right and they by both sides,
Speaker 1: I say, and I say that not because I liked
Speaker 1: to both sides things to death, because I definitely do not,
Speaker 1: But I say it because the language that we use
Speaker 1: these days are important, right, And there used to be
Speaker 1: things that we would say that would reference a disability,
Speaker 1: but we were making the point of something not working right,
Speaker 1: And I still hear people use that language. So do
Speaker 1: you think that the reason why judges were signing with
Speaker 1: the opponents is because this is a community that is
Speaker 1: seen of as as a throwaway that we don't need
Speaker 1: to pay attention to. That is such a good point, Danielle.
Speaker 1: And one of the things I tried to do this
Speaker 1: year at the New Year's resolution I've completely failed is
Speaker 1: to stop using the word crazy every time something didn't
Speaker 1: make sense to me that I disliked it, that I
Speaker 1: thought it was wrong, Because of course I didn't mean crazy, right,
Speaker 1: I was just using that as a shorthand. And so
Speaker 1: in modern popular discourse, we all do it. And I'm
Speaker 1: like you, I never do the both sides stuff that
Speaker 1: really bothers me, but in this case, but everybody does it.
Speaker 1: Everybody uses shorthands when they are disability terms, when that's
Speaker 1: not actually what they're talking about. They're not talking about
Speaker 1: someone's mental health or whatever. And so many of them are, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: you know, terms that have to do with mental health disabilities,
Speaker 1: which we are talking about more and that's great, But
Speaker 1: at the same time, we haven't stopped using these really
Speaker 1: disparaging labels just all the time in common discourse, you know.
Speaker 1: And so I want to make the transition now to
Speaker 1: Republican and Donald Trump, particularly in the way that Donald
Speaker 1: Trump campaigned in twenty in twenty fifteen and twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: and how his approach, if one can call it that,
Speaker 1: how his approach has completely changed the landscape of what
Speaker 1: is and is not acceptable in politics. There used to
Speaker 1: be things that were quote unquote off limits, things that
Speaker 1: you would never hear a politician say out loud because
Speaker 1: their campaign would be dead on arrival. That is no
Speaker 1: longer the case, apparently there's nothing that is off you know,
Speaker 1: off limits. How did you see things begin to shift
Speaker 1: and how does that play into this playbook that you've
Speaker 1: put together. Well, Actually, what I try to do in
Speaker 1: the book is used Donald Trump as an example as
Speaker 1: little as possible, okay, because I think that we misunderstand
Speaker 1: the Donald Trump what I would like to call moment,
Speaker 1: but it's not a moment, right. What Donald Trump has
Speaker 1: done is get even us a poignant example of the
Speaker 1: effectiveness of hurling public insults when you're a member of
Speaker 1: the political right, and that you can do so with impunity.
Speaker 1: But the reason he could do it is because the
Speaker 1: mindset of accepting that kind of discourse was already present.
Speaker 1: He was smart enough to figure out that he could
Speaker 1: harmiss it. But he was just doing things that had
Speaker 1: happened before. And it's actually not true that politicians couldn't
Speaker 1: hurl insult. So then one of the examples that I've
Speaker 1: given the book, again going back to disability context, is
Speaker 1: that when the American Disabilities app was being considered by Congress,
Speaker 1: the right wing Republicans insisted the certain exceptions we put
Speaker 1: it in the statute that we put in the statute
Speaker 1: that it doesn't cover transvestites and pedia files and homosexuals,
Speaker 1: you know. And so even when Congress was passing a
Speaker 1: landmark civil right statute on behalf of people with disabilities,
Speaker 1: Congress was slurring people with disabilities at the same time.
Speaker 1: And and you know, and if you think about the
Speaker 1: racial civil rights movement, I mean, there have been slurs
Speaker 1: against black people forever, right, I mean, this is not
Speaker 1: a new phenomenon. And there have been politicians who have
Speaker 1: campaigned with Willie Horton ads and the like, Right, that's
Speaker 1: their way of using the public insul playbook. So Trump
Speaker 1: is an example, of course, and has he helped make
Speaker 1: it worse, absolutely, But I don't think I think we
Speaker 1: need to understand him as part of the broader phenomenon
Speaker 1: rather than the phenomenon itself. I mean, Ruth, how did
Speaker 1: we get from an error an era of political correctness, right,
Speaker 1: what was term as political correctness, to this current insult culture?
Speaker 1: How did how? Honestly? Because if it if Donald Trump
Speaker 1: is a symptom, right, which is what many people say,
Speaker 1: He's a symptom of a larger problem. A there was
Speaker 1: a degradation that was beginning in our body politic before
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, he just exacerbated that. But how did we
Speaker 1: move from this space where certain phrases, certain things were
Speaker 1: deemed as off limits to now everything being back on
Speaker 1: the table and more. Well, I think you know, one
Speaker 1: of the books that influenced me the most is Kendy's book.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think of the title tying to be
Speaker 1: Anti Racist. No, the other book, anyway, he has to
Speaker 1: he has many books, anyway. In one of his books
Speaker 1: he says that, but we need to understand about American
Speaker 1: history as we have had both racism and anti racism
Speaker 1: at the same time. We shouldn't see this as one
Speaker 1: movement winning. So during the so called political correctness error,
Speaker 1: if we want to call it, that, the political right
Speaker 1: was still perfectly in existence. Maybe their voices were more
Speaker 1: muted for a while, but they were still there. And
Speaker 1: we always have both in American history from the beginning. Right,
Speaker 1: we've always had both of those themes president in American society,
Speaker 1: and they vast late us to whose voice might be
Speaker 1: the loudest and most shaping public policy the most. But
Speaker 1: it were wrong to think that just because the political
Speaker 1: left for a time maybe was winning, the so called
Speaker 1: political correctness debates that we had really won anything. Isn't
Speaker 1: winning and losing, They're both currents are there at the
Speaker 1: same time. And that's why I argue in the book
Speaker 1: that when the political left has the dominant discourse, when
Speaker 1: we're winning the political fights, when we can get legislation
Speaker 1: through Congress, right, when we're at that particular moment, which
Speaker 1: we were, for example, during the Obama administration, we need
Speaker 1: to anticipate that the political right will be coming against
Speaker 1: us with this public installed playbook and put into place
Speaker 1: really strong structural reforms that will help deflect that strategy.
Speaker 1: We need to know that sturnity is always there and
Speaker 1: always will be there. And when we have those political
Speaker 1: moments when we have some power, let's make sure we
Speaker 1: use it in a way that's structural and so that
Speaker 1: the public insul playbook will be less effective against us.
Speaker 1: You know, I feel like our political norms, though, have
Speaker 1: been so eroded that I don't even you know, for me,
Speaker 1: somebody who is a student of political science has been
Speaker 1: in politics and in policy work for my entire career,
Speaker 1: I have never seen political norms eroded in such haste
Speaker 1: as they have been now. And so I'm wondering what
Speaker 1: are some of the ways you think that, in this
Speaker 1: heightened moment of tribalism, of nastiness, of cruelty, that this
Speaker 1: administration or other members of Congress would even begin to
Speaker 1: reinforce those eroded norms. What do those steps begin to
Speaker 1: look like. I don't think we're going to get back
Speaker 1: the norm's ability, assuming we ever had them. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's you know, that's and in some ways, that's sort
Speaker 1: of a pretense that people were faking it, and we
Speaker 1: accepted they're faking it, But now we know how they
Speaker 1: really felt. So maybe we should thank them for being
Speaker 1: more honest now. But yes, yes, thank you for taking
Speaker 1: your lids off that. But but you know, you keep
Speaker 1: keep giving national examples, and so do I. But as
Speaker 1: you know, the Black Lives Matter movement has really made
Speaker 1: some important inroads at the local government level, right, And
Speaker 1: so it may be that we're not going to get
Speaker 1: the package that we want Biden to get through Congress
Speaker 1: right now? Right three point five trillion, I've probably like
Speaker 1: six trillion, right, I bet you we could agree with
Speaker 1: me on that one. Right, But can we get some
Speaker 1: things done at the local government level where we can
Speaker 1: talk about what it means for them to be violence
Speaker 1: in the black community, you know, by the police. You know,
Speaker 1: can we talk about what can happen there? And as
Speaker 1: you know, what the Black Lives Matter movement has done
Speaker 1: so masterfully is to say, okay, that's great. You know,
Speaker 1: let's criminalize Derek Schouben's behavior. Let's go after him, but
Speaker 1: let's also ban chow colds, let's defund the police. Let's
Speaker 1: make structural reform at the local government level where maybe
Speaker 1: we can have real conversations. Right, maybe maybe tribalism works
Speaker 1: there because there's just more support for the progressive views
Speaker 1: and we can actually get in rows and instead of
Speaker 1: sitting around waiting for Congress to do something. I mean,
Speaker 1: if we're going to sit around wait for Congress criminal
Speaker 1: justice reform, you and I are going to be long
Speaker 1: dead by then, right, right, so you're younger than me,
Speaker 1: but but yet you we do see changes at the
Speaker 1: local government level. Right. It depends upon the community that
Speaker 1: you live in. And that's not enough. Obviously that's not enough,
Speaker 1: but it is something and we should at minimize it.
Speaker 1: And so, yeah, I don't think we should just sit
Speaker 1: around and wait for civility to return, because you know,
Speaker 1: one of the things I show in the book is
Speaker 1: that from the founding of our republic, we had on
Speaker 1: civil discourse in Congress. I mean there's this you know,
Speaker 1: dueling and all that stuff. Remember that, Yeah, oh yes, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: we were talking about mud slinging. Then right when you're
Speaker 1: when we were talking about local, state um and federal elections.
Speaker 1: You know, one of the things that you that is
Speaker 1: conjured in my mind as we're talking about you know,
Speaker 1: local levels, that I'm thinking right now, what has been
Speaker 1: happening at our school boards? Right? What has been happening
Speaker 1: across the country at our school board meetings? Like we
Speaker 1: you know, toxicity, to your point, isn't just at the
Speaker 1: federal level. It is actually marinated. It's way all the
Speaker 1: way down. And so you're seeing these school board meetings
Speaker 1: take place which were never points of major contention, right, Like,
Speaker 1: I'm not hallucinating that fact that school boards used to
Speaker 1: talk with the most contentious thing they were talking about
Speaker 1: is you know, more money or less money or you know,
Speaker 1: and and that was it. Now we're talking about, well,
Speaker 1: schools are years away from vaccinations and don't wear a mask,
Speaker 1: and these policies and harassing, these people, and so what
Speaker 1: does it look like to you if part of the
Speaker 1: pushback right now is that the people that are representing
Speaker 1: us at all different levels are not truly actually representing
Speaker 1: the people. And one of the one of the positive
Speaker 1: sides of this toxic moment that we're in is engaging
Speaker 1: more people to actually take up the mantle and want
Speaker 1: to run for office, but they feel like they can't
Speaker 1: do so because they're literally going to be putting maybe
Speaker 1: a literal or figurative target on their backs. What is
Speaker 1: your advice for those people that are saying, you know,
Speaker 1: I want to take the system back. I do want
Speaker 1: a return to civility or as close to that as
Speaker 1: we can get. Well, I mean, obviously that is great.
Speaker 1: I don't think, unfortunately, have any answers they are. I mean,
Speaker 1: one thing my research I think has shown is that
Speaker 1: it doesn't help for the political left to engage in
Speaker 1: mud slinging. That's what I call it, you know, the
Speaker 1: abusers in power, the political right, that's who I'm criticizing.
Speaker 1: As you may have noticed from time to time, when
Speaker 1: the political left tries to engage in some of that playbook,
Speaker 1: it actually doesn't work. It's I see the playbook as
Speaker 1: part of the protection of neoliberal mindsets capitalism, you know.
Speaker 1: And so if we think of things like bounty hunters,
Speaker 1: I mentioned that the disability community was accused of being
Speaker 1: bounty hunters right, and they tried to enforce the accessibility
Speaker 1: provisions of the ADA. Now, as your listeners know, right now,
Speaker 1: the state of Texas has bolden bounty hunters right to
Speaker 1: go after women who are having who want to have abortions.
Speaker 1: And guess what bounty hunters now is okay, when the
Speaker 1: political right wants to use that term, they're using they're
Speaker 1: leveraging that term to get something where it's the same
Speaker 1: people who criticize disability activists for also trying to get something,
Speaker 1: to try to get accessible structures. So I think we
Speaker 1: have no choice but to want stability by being part
Speaker 1: of the political left, because we don't have the choice
Speaker 1: of slinging insults. It's not going to work. There's no evidence.
Speaker 1: I couldn't find any evidence of the political left ever
Speaker 1: achieving anything through insults, but the political right is masterful
Speaker 1: at it and really has that tool. And so one
Speaker 1: of the things that I have found it's depressing, but
Speaker 1: I think is powerful, is that you know, as black
Speaker 1: men have been murdered, and of course others, but pretty
Speaker 1: sip his black men had been murdered, and the immediate
Speaker 1: thing is for the newspapers and else to talk about
Speaker 1: their criminal record and all this nest Right and the
Speaker 1: Black Lives Matter movement has been so good and immediately
Speaker 1: coming back and putting up pictures of these people in
Speaker 1: their high school graduation with gal yeah, or you know,
Speaker 1: with their children riding around them. Why because they're trying
Speaker 1: to counter that political right image. They anticipate it, and now,
Speaker 1: you know, it's not become harder, hasn't it. You know?
Speaker 1: We you know when we when we think of Trayvon
Speaker 1: Martin is a piece of candy, you know, and the
Speaker 1: way the mudslinging went against him as compared to how
Speaker 1: the media has had to handle George Floyd. It's a
Speaker 1: lot of years between those two events. I think that's
Speaker 1: about seven years between those two events, and a lot
Speaker 1: of things have happened in the middle. But so I
Speaker 1: think that we have learned that we need to make
Speaker 1: sure is that we present positive images and we don't
Speaker 1: accept this mud slinking. We don't accept these public insults,
Speaker 1: and we anticipate it, so we're ready with these positive
Speaker 1: images in the media, and so I think that's you know,
Speaker 1: that's that's real. That's been a very effective tactic. I
Speaker 1: was gonna, you know, I hear you on the effectiveness
Speaker 1: of it, because I think that in that example, it
Speaker 1: is incredibly important to change the narrative as well as
Speaker 1: the visuals right when we are talking about victims. I
Speaker 1: you know, I think about the ways in which we
Speaker 1: have changed how the media engages with victims of sexual assault,
Speaker 1: right where it is no longer acceptable to go through
Speaker 1: a person's background, what they were wearing, all of these
Speaker 1: different things and just have to tackle the issue at hand.
Speaker 1: I think I would I would hope, right, I don't
Speaker 1: think that it's going to be similar, but I would
Speaker 1: hope that that would be the case for victims, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, victims of police violence. Right that we're not
Speaker 1: talking about what it was that the police did not
Speaker 1: have access to and understanding that person before they gunned
Speaker 1: them down or you know, cut off their oxygen for
Speaker 1: eight minutes and forty six seconds, but instead taking things
Speaker 1: in this situation that we know m is it a
Speaker 1: hindrance though for the fact, for the left, for those
Speaker 1: that insults don't work on our behalf because it requires
Speaker 1: us to then have to be once again a lot
Speaker 1: more nimble and a lot more strategic than the right
Speaker 1: ever has to be. Yeah, you know, and you know,
Speaker 1: before you said, what do I say? These people who
Speaker 1: are lucting to run for school board, you know they're
Speaker 1: and I mean, to be involved in political activism is exhausting,
Speaker 1: and we all need to have our mental health resources,
Speaker 1: you know, friends, family, people who support us. It is exhausting.
Speaker 1: And when you know, I teach young people, Um, I
Speaker 1: teach people in their twenties, and and I understand that
Speaker 1: it is exhausting. I have children myself who are engaged
Speaker 1: in this kind of work. But you know it's worth
Speaker 1: being exhaustive for I mean, yeah, yeah, you know, it's
Speaker 1: sort of like this isn't maybe a bad analogy because
Speaker 1: I'm not good at sports. But you know, when when
Speaker 1: people used to say, when we have a medioc or
Speaker 1: black center fielder, we'll know this racial equality and professional baseball, right,
Speaker 1: it's not when we have the superstars. Yeah they always
Speaker 1: get to play, well, not always, but you know, more
Speaker 1: recently were able to play. But you know, black people
Speaker 1: are entitled to be as average as white people at
Speaker 1: the same pursuits, and you know, that's just the way
Speaker 1: it works. But before that, you have to be twice
Speaker 1: as qualified right to have those opportunities. And that's that's
Speaker 1: that's what it means to fight, and that means to
Speaker 1: stay in the fight. And I don't I don't think
Speaker 1: we're helping ourselves by misleading ourselves about that. It's hard
Speaker 1: to achieve progress. It's easier just to maintain the status
Speaker 1: quo word to even move backwards. So what do you say, then, Ruth,
Speaker 1: to the people that say we must fight fire with
Speaker 1: fire or that in this political climate you have democrats
Speaker 1: that are bringing, you know, a pen to a knife fight. Like,
Speaker 1: what what is your response and your books response to
Speaker 1: to those old adages. Yeah, I mean it's probably true.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, we could certainly find some evidence
Speaker 1: of the black panthers maybe helping to move the civil
Speaker 1: rights movement. And we shouldn't think of the civil rights
Speaker 1: movement as a monolithic development that only use civil disobedience.
Speaker 1: That there were some more aggressive voices, you know, within
Speaker 1: the black civil rights community arguing for other kinds of tactics.
Speaker 1: Um and so, um, you know, I do believe that
Speaker 1: we each have to ask ourselves what's the role we
Speaker 1: personally can play and make sure we're playing a role
Speaker 1: and doing something rather than you know, sitting and not
Speaker 1: doing something. Um but um, it's the road to civil
Speaker 1: rights progress is just it's really long, you know, and
Speaker 1: it's not getting any shorter. It's it's a it is
Speaker 1: a hard journey, and if you think about it, all
Speaker 1: the political right has to do is say no. They
Speaker 1: say no, said no to anti lynching laws. You know,
Speaker 1: they say they said no to civil rights laws. We
Speaker 1: have to overcome a filibuster right to get the Civil
Speaker 1: Rights Act. We couldn't overcome filibusters to get anti lynching
Speaker 1: laws many years ago. You know, it's easy to be
Speaker 1: in the political right because all you have to do
Speaker 1: is say no. You don't have to write legislation, you
Speaker 1: don't know, you just don't have to offer a platform.
Speaker 1: You don't have to you know, you don't. You don't
Speaker 1: have to offer anything. Right, where's the Affordable Care Act
Speaker 1: that they were going to rewrite. We've never even seen
Speaker 1: a draft of a bill. You know. They've never had
Speaker 1: an alternative because they don't need one. They just say no, no, no,
Speaker 1: And so it's harder to be part of the political
Speaker 1: left because it does take a pen right. It takes
Speaker 1: a pen to right legislation to get past, and it
Speaker 1: takes people in the streets to help create the momentum
Speaker 1: the legislation to get past. It takes a lot of
Speaker 1: people doing a lot of things. But you might say,
Speaker 1: to me, isn't it fascinating The political right doesn't even
Speaker 1: need a pen. All I mean is the red X mark.
Speaker 1: I mean, the last question you know for you on
Speaker 1: this is that if if all the right has to
Speaker 1: do is say no, and the left cannot co opt
Speaker 1: the tactics of the right because it doesn't work with
Speaker 1: our base, then what does the future of our body
Speaker 1: politic look like when insults and cruelty have become the
Speaker 1: norm and replace civility, and we are so far from
Speaker 1: that place right, So I guess I would argue that
Speaker 1: despite the incivility, it is possible for people in the
Speaker 1: political left to be the political majority. You know, we
Speaker 1: saw it in Obama's first term, the first two years
Speaker 1: of his term, when we had a supermajority in the
Speaker 1: United States, said it. I know, we don't have as
Speaker 1: many moments in US history, as you and I might
Speaker 1: like that are like that. But when we do have
Speaker 1: those moments, I think we need to be more creative
Speaker 1: in thinking about what we want to seek. And so
Speaker 1: you know, as you know, we didn't get immigration reformed
Speaker 1: during Obama's first two years, and we could have, and
Speaker 1: that is a real tragedy that we didn't do that.
Speaker 1: We wasted a lot of time trying to get bipartisan
Speaker 1: support for the Affordable Care Act that it never happened.
Speaker 1: It was going to have to be a party line
Speaker 1: vote all along. And so hopefully we learn from our
Speaker 1: experience of being the majority so that when we find
Speaker 1: ourselves a majority again, we're more efficient, right, We're more successful,
Speaker 1: We're more thinking about what's going to happen. And I
Speaker 1: have to be confident, I have to be optimistic that
Speaker 1: young people understand what we need to do to save
Speaker 1: our planets, to advance civil rights. I mean that we're
Speaker 1: really in a moment of crisis and that the Republicans
Speaker 1: just saying no, no, no is turned an off a
Speaker 1: lot of young people. And hopefully we will soon find
Speaker 1: ourselves in a supermajority again. We need that right to
Speaker 1: achieve the kind of structure reforms. It's important, but in
Speaker 1: the short term we can at least try to achieve
Speaker 1: change at the local government level, where we won't need
Speaker 1: to have the supermajorities that we need in the United
Speaker 1: States Congress. You know, I think that one of the
Speaker 1: things that we have seen, right that the last four
Speaker 1: years under Trump has shown us is that and what
Speaker 1: the last ten months under this new administration has also
Speaker 1: shown us is that, you know, what happens at the
Speaker 1: federal level is not the silver bullet. It is what
Speaker 1: it is how power is dispersed across the country and
Speaker 1: at all levels of our government, and that if we
Speaker 1: don't have our eyes in all of those places, then
Speaker 1: you can see how we can be caught out in
Speaker 1: the cold, as I think that we are now, because
Speaker 1: my fear is that we're not going to get the
Speaker 1: opportunity for a supermajority again. That if Democrats lose in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two and then again in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: we are done. That's a conversation I continue to have
Speaker 1: on Woke a f and I know that people consider
Speaker 1: it to be hyperbolic, but the writing is on the
Speaker 1: wall in so many different ways. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: Ruth for making the time to join us. Folks. The
Speaker 1: book is the public insult Playbook, How abusers in power
Speaker 1: undermine civil rights reform. I hope that you will come
Speaker 1: back and join us again. I would love to. This
Speaker 1: has been a real treat. I love your podcast. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much, thank you, thank you. That is it
Speaker 1: for me today. Dear friends on Woke f as always,
Speaker 1: power to the people and to all the people. Power,
Speaker 1: get woke and stay woke as fuck.