Speaker 1: Pushkin high listeners at Jacob Weisberg Here, I'm the CEO
Speaker 1: of Pushkin Industries. At Pushkin, we think of Juneteenth as
Speaker 1: an opportunity to reflect on the past and think about
Speaker 1: the future. How do we build a more just and
Speaker 1: equitable society. We strive to make podcasts that help to
Speaker 1: answer that question, and in honor of Juneteenth, we're highlighting
Speaker 1: two of them. Be Anti Racist is hosted by doctor
Speaker 1: Ibram X Kendy, an author, professor, activist, and historian. His
Speaker 1: book How to Be an Anti Racist has become a
Speaker 1: guide for anyone interested in dismantling the structures that racism creates.
Speaker 1: The podcast gives him a chance to dive deep into
Speaker 1: issues like immigration, to sports, and voting rights with guests
Speaker 1: like Julian Castro and Jamel Hill. Who're going to You're
Speaker 1: An excerpt from a conversation doctor Kendy had recently with
Speaker 1: author and political analyst Heather cmghee. They focus on the
Speaker 1: economic costs of racism for everyone, not just those in
Speaker 1: black or brown communities, and how diversity can lead to
Speaker 1: economic prosperity for all. Then you'll hear a truly remarkable
Speaker 1: story of bridging racial divides. Darrell Davis is a black
Speaker 1: jazz musician who has convinced hundreds of KKK members to
Speaker 1: leave the clan. It all started with one conversation in
Speaker 1: a jazz club because Darrell was interested in understanding people
Speaker 1: with wildly different views. Darrell appeared on A Slight Change
Speaker 1: of Plans, a podcast hosted by doctor Maya Shankar. Shankar
Speaker 1: is a cognitive scientist who's fascinated by what happens when
Speaker 1: we find ourselves at the brink of change, and she's
Speaker 1: got a knack for getting people, including Hillary Clinton and
Speaker 1: Tiffany Hattisch to open up to her. Here's Doctor Kendy
Speaker 1: on Be Anti Racist Welcome to Be Anti Racist in
Speaker 1: Action podcasts where we discuss how to diagnose, dismantle, and
Speaker 1: abolish racism, how to save humanity from the divisiveness of
Speaker 1: racist ideas and the destructiveness of racist power and policy,
Speaker 1: How to free humanity through the unity of anti racist
Speaker 1: ideas and the constructiveness of anti racist power and policy.
Speaker 1: On b Anti Racist, we discuss how to make the
Speaker 1: impossible possible and how to bring into being what modern
Speaker 1: humans have never known, a just and equitable world. You ready,
Speaker 1: Let's roll in the night thirties and forties, the United
Speaker 1: States went on a nationwide building boom of public amenities
Speaker 1: funded by tax dollars, which in Montgomery, Alabama, included the
Speaker 1: Oak Park Pool, which was the grandest one for miles,
Speaker 1: except the Oak Park Pool was for whites only. When
Speaker 1: a federal court finally deemed this unconstitutional, the reaction of
Speaker 1: the town council was swift. They decided they would drain
Speaker 1: the public pool rather than let black families swim to
Speaker 1: They never rebuilt the pool. Racism has a cost for everyone.
Speaker 1: HEATHERN McGee is an expert in economic and social policy
Speaker 1: and the author of the best selling book To Some
Speaker 1: of Us, What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can
Speaker 1: Prosper Together. Heather explodes one of the greatest racial myths,
Speaker 1: that white people lose as people of color gain. She
Speaker 1: shows that as racism wins, we all lose. Heather is
Speaker 1: one of America's sharpest thinkers. The former president of the
Speaker 1: inequality focused think Take Demos and its drafted legislation, testified
Speaker 1: before Congress, and contributed regularly to new shows, including NBC's
Speaker 1: Meet the Press. She now chairs the board of Color
Speaker 1: of Change, the nation's largest online racial Justice organization. I
Speaker 1: sat down with Heather McGee recently to learn how by
Speaker 1: investing in each other we can all achieve better jobs,
Speaker 1: better health, better democracy, better schools, better neighborhoods for our kids,
Speaker 1: and so much more. Heather is always is truly an
Speaker 1: honor to speak with you. Your book, The Some of
Speaker 1: Us is the type of book that I learned from
Speaker 1: that I think many Americans and many people around the
Speaker 1: world can learn from. I wrote this book because I
Speaker 1: felt like we were missing something in the great pursuit
Speaker 1: of a society. It should be to have progress, to
Speaker 1: have people have less want and more joy, people to
Speaker 1: have more of the fruits of economic progress and technological progress,
Speaker 1: and for our problems to be solved generation after generation, right,
Speaker 1: And it felt like that progress was slowing down, slash reversing.
Speaker 1: When some Americans imagine the transformation of this country, they
Speaker 1: imagine that they're going to lose if we actually create
Speaker 1: inequitable and just anti racist America. And it seems, as
Speaker 1: you've written, that that's based on a zero sum myth.
Speaker 1: So I left a career in economic policy to go
Speaker 1: out on the quixotic journey in some ways to find
Speaker 1: the answer to the question of why can't we seem
Speaker 1: to have nice things? And what are the roots of
Speaker 1: our dysfunction? And it's there that I came upon this
Speaker 1: paradigm of the zero sum. It's a term that means
Speaker 1: there's no such thing as mutual progress when you have
Speaker 1: people who are in a competition with one another. If
Speaker 1: Team A scores one more point, team B scores one
Speaker 1: less point, the points will always add up to zero,
Speaker 1: positive on one side, negative on the other. Progress for
Speaker 1: team A has to come at the expense of team B.
Speaker 1: There's a limited or fixed pie. And that idea resonated
Speaker 1: so deeply with me. It sort of gave a name
Speaker 1: and a description to something I had sensed my whole life,
Speaker 1: this fear that when white supremacy falls, that the world
Speaker 1: will become one that white people should fear. Therefore, racism
Speaker 1: is really great for white people, really terrible for people
Speaker 1: of color, and so their self interest is in preserving
Speaker 1: racism at all costs. And it's the at all costs
Speaker 1: piece that really felt so important for me to lay out,
Speaker 1: what are the costs of racism to our entire society,
Speaker 1: What exactly is the price white people are willing to
Speaker 1: pay to keep the system as it has been. And
Speaker 1: once I started looking, the list just kept growing, and
Speaker 1: that made it clear to me that we have these
Speaker 1: self interested elites packaging marketing, selling this zero sum lie
Speaker 1: to most white Americans, and they're doing it for their
Speaker 1: own profit. But our side, when we only talk about
Speaker 1: racism as something that's good for white people, are kind
Speaker 1: of like helping out a little bit, right provocation. The
Speaker 1: agitation that made me feel like, Okay, maybe I do
Speaker 1: have something to add to this conversation was we haven't
Speaker 1: told the full story of what it has cost this
Speaker 1: entire country. You were specifically writing about white folks who
Speaker 1: think that they're going to lose, But as a man
Speaker 1: of color reading it, I also think men of color
Speaker 1: too have bought into this myth of the zero sum,
Speaker 1: and I think that as they've seen women of color
Speaker 1: organizing and advocating in some cases rising, they too have
Speaker 1: felt threatened as if they're losing. Yeah, but back to
Speaker 1: white folks, this is what I've been sort of saying,
Speaker 1: and I want to know whether I'm just wrong that
Speaker 1: white Americans typically compare their lot two people of color,
Speaker 1: and so, in other words, if their school has more
Speaker 1: resources in a way, their child's school is almost like
Speaker 1: a first class school. They're like, whoa, if we create equity,
Speaker 1: then I'm gonna be back in coach. Yeah. I don't
Speaker 1: want that. I'm gonna lose. My kid's gonna lose. But
Speaker 1: it seems to me that white Americans should be assessing
Speaker 1: themselves from other white people in the Western world. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and when they make that comparison, that's when they can
Speaker 1: see actually what they don't have, how they're in coach.
Speaker 1: That's right, And in fact, maybe in other societies in
Speaker 1: the Western world, everybody's just in first class. There's no
Speaker 1: little curtain that the flight attendant moves over. Right, everyone
Speaker 1: gets food, right, everyone has a leg room, you know,
Speaker 1: everybody gets to bring a bag. You know. This really
Speaker 1: comes from and is a feature of how brutally hierarchical
Speaker 1: our society is. In the first chapter of the Some
Speaker 1: of Us, I go back in our history. I am
Speaker 1: I am like somebody else here on this conversation. I'm
Speaker 1: not in the story, but I felt like I had
Speaker 1: to go to the beginning to find out where this
Speaker 1: zero s worldview and this lie came from, whose interest
Speaker 1: it served, and why it sort of reanimated generation after generation.
Speaker 1: And as it turns out, it was created as a
Speaker 1: way to sort of discipline white Europeans in the colonial
Speaker 1: era to be satisfied with their lot in a society
Speaker 1: where wealth was still quite concentrated, and where, because of
Speaker 1: chattel slavery in a plantation economy, there actually wasn't a
Speaker 1: lot of room a white person who was not a
Speaker 1: plantation owner. Their labor wasn't needed in the southern economy, right, Like,
Speaker 1: what do we need you for? Right? This myth of
Speaker 1: white supremacy was sold to white masses so that they
Speaker 1: could have, of course, as WB. Devoy said, the psychological
Speaker 1: wages of whiteness rather than material wages, and those psychological
Speaker 1: wayses were knowing always that in a deeply unequal economy
Speaker 1: they could nonetheless count on being more than and better
Speaker 1: than Black people. Now hang on for the amazing story
Speaker 1: of Darryll Davis from a slight change of plans. So,
Speaker 1: I was riding in my car. I'm driving, and this
Speaker 1: klansman was sitting in my passenger seat, and we got
Speaker 1: on the topic of a crime, and he made the
Speaker 1: mention that black people are born with a gene that
Speaker 1: makes them violent, and I said, look, I'm as black
Speaker 1: as anybody you've ever seen. I have never done a
Speaker 1: drive by or a car jacking. How do you explain
Speaker 1: that this man did not hesitate one second? He answered
Speaker 1: me instantly, He said, your gene is latent. It hasn't
Speaker 1: come out yet. That's Darryll Davis, a blues musician. And yeah,
Speaker 1: you heard him right. He's driving in his car with
Speaker 1: a member of the Ku Klux Klan. You know, I
Speaker 1: was speechless. I was dumbfounded. And he's sitting next to
Speaker 1: me with all smug and securely. Huh. You see, you
Speaker 1: know you have nothing to say. And I thought about
Speaker 1: it for a moment rather than attack him, you say
Speaker 1: it's not true. It's not true. I said to him,
Speaker 1: I said, you know, white people have a gene within
Speaker 1: them that make them serial killers. And he said, why
Speaker 1: would you say that. I said, well, face it, name
Speaker 1: me three black serial killers. He thought about it. He
Speaker 1: couldn't name anybody. You couldn't do it, I rattled off.
Speaker 1: Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dalmer, Henry Lee Lucas, John Wayne Gacy,
Speaker 1: Ted Bundy, David Burklew, son of Sam, Albert de Salvo
Speaker 1: the Boston Strangler. And I said, son, you are a
Speaker 1: serial killer. And he said, Darrell, I've never killed anybody.
Speaker 1: I said, your genus legend hasn't come out yet. He said, well,
Speaker 1: that's stupid, and I said, well, duh, it is stupid.
Speaker 1: And he got very, very quiet, and I could tell
Speaker 1: that the gears in his head were spinning super fast,
Speaker 1: probably you know, burning a hole in there. And then
Speaker 1: he a moment later he changed the subject. But within
Speaker 1: five months this guy quit the Ku Klux Klan. Since
Speaker 1: that car ride thirty years ago, Daryl Davis has gone
Speaker 1: on to convince dozens of people to leave the Ku
Speaker 1: Klux Klan. Convincing someone else to change their minds their
Speaker 1: view of reality is one of the most elusive, coveted
Speaker 1: types of change, which is why Darryl's story feels so improbable.
Speaker 1: So how does he do it? I'm Maya Shunker. As
Speaker 1: a cognitive scientist, I've always been fascinated by how we
Speaker 1: change our minds and why we change our minds. On
Speaker 1: this show, I'll have intimate conversations with people who've navigated
Speaker 1: extraordinary change, and hopefully their stories will get us to
Speaker 1: think differently about change in our own lives. This is
Speaker 1: a slight change of plans, our constitution, our constru Darrel
Speaker 1: didn't set out to change anyone's mind. He was mostly
Speaker 1: just focused on his music. But one night his life
Speaker 1: took an unexpected turn when he was playing a show
Speaker 1: at a bar called the Silver Dollar Lounge. The Silver
Speaker 1: Dollar Lounge at the time was an all white lounge.
Speaker 1: And I say that not meaning that black people could
Speaker 1: not go in, but meaning that they did not go
Speaker 1: in by their own choice because they were not welcome there.
Speaker 1: And when you go somewhere where you're not welcome and
Speaker 1: alcohol hall is being served, sometimes it does not make
Speaker 1: for a good combination, especially when you're out and numbered.
Speaker 1: So we took a break after the first set, and
Speaker 1: I was walking across the dance floor to go sit
Speaker 1: you with the bandmates when somebody approached me from behind
Speaker 1: and put their arm around my shoulder. No, I don't
Speaker 1: know anybody in this place, so I'm turning around to
Speaker 1: see who's touching me, and it was this gentleman, maybe
Speaker 1: fifteen eighteen years older than me, and he's all excited.
Speaker 1: He says, man, I sure like your piano playing. This
Speaker 1: is the first time I ever heard of black man
Speaker 1: play piano like Jerry Lee Lewis, and I told him.
Speaker 1: I said, well, Jerry Lee got it from the same
Speaker 1: place I did, from black blues and boogie woogie piano players.
Speaker 1: Oh no, no no, no, no, I never heard no black
Speaker 1: man play like that except for you. Jerry Lee invented
Speaker 1: that style. I said, look, I know Jerry Lee Lewis.
Speaker 1: He's a good friend of mine. He's told me himself
Speaker 1: where he had learned how to play. The guy didn't
Speaker 1: buy that either, but he was so fascinated with me
Speaker 1: that he wanted me to come back to his table.
Speaker 1: He's want to buy me a drink, so I don't drink,
Speaker 1: but I agreed to have a cranberry juice. He bought it,
Speaker 1: paid the waitress, and then he took his glass and
Speaker 1: he clinked my glass and cheered me, and then he announces,
Speaker 1: you know, this is the first time I ever sat
Speaker 1: down with a black man and had a drink. So innocently,
Speaker 1: I asked him why, and he didn't answer me at first.
Speaker 1: I asked him again, and his buddy sitting next to
Speaker 1: him elbowed him and said tell him, tell him, And
Speaker 1: the guy looked at me and said, I'm a member
Speaker 1: the Ku Klux Klan. Well I burst out laughing at
Speaker 1: him because now I do not believe him. I thought
Speaker 1: he was putting the joke on me. I'm laughing. He
Speaker 1: goes inside his pocket, pulls out his wallet, flips through it,
Speaker 1: and hands me his clan membership card. I recognized the
Speaker 1: clan insignia, which is a red circle with a white
Speaker 1: cross and a red blood drop in the center of
Speaker 1: the cross, and I'm thinking myself, oh my goodness, you
Speaker 1: know this is for real. So I stopped laughing. But
Speaker 1: he was, you know, very friendly and very appreciative of
Speaker 1: my music and all excited. He gave me his phone
Speaker 1: number to you know, to call him whenever I was
Speaker 1: to return to this bar with this band, and so
Speaker 1: I'd called him every six weeks and say, hey, man,
Speaker 1: you know I'm down there at the Silver Dollar this
Speaker 1: week and come on out. You say, it's so nonchalantly
Speaker 1: like so I called the guy. It is remarkable that
Speaker 1: you called this person. And you know, I don't think
Speaker 1: I'm alone in struggling to understand, you know, what was
Speaker 1: going through through your mind at this moment. If someone
Speaker 1: told me that they were in the freaking clan. I
Speaker 1: would certainly not call them back. In fact, I'd probably
Speaker 1: just flee the scene. And I think this is for
Speaker 1: pretty good reasons. Well, you know, I was questioning myself
Speaker 1: for a second, like what the heck am I doing
Speaker 1: sitting here with a klansman. But the guy was friendly.
Speaker 1: He disputed the things that I had in mind of
Speaker 1: the image over typical klansmen, and he wanted to share
Speaker 1: my music with some of his fellow clansmen and clanswomen.
Speaker 1: And they would, you know, get on the dancelore and
Speaker 1: danceloor I'm music. You know they didn't come in rope
Speaker 1: and hoods, right, you know, they came in regular street clothes.
Speaker 1: This goes on for a year, an entire year. Darrell
Speaker 1: would play a gig at this bar, and he would
Speaker 1: invite clan members to watch him play. This is one
Speaker 1: of those things that makes Darrell so unusual. I mean,
Speaker 1: for me, a huge part of what makes someone who
Speaker 1: they are is their belief system. And so if we
Speaker 1: share the same taste in music, that's fine, that's great.
Speaker 1: But if I then find out they're a flagrant racist,
Speaker 1: that's going to fully eclipse everything else about them. So
Speaker 1: how does Darrell look past that, he says, It's not
Speaker 1: like that. He wasn't looking past it. He wanted to
Speaker 1: learn from it. See, Darrell had spent his early childhood
Speaker 1: overseas in a school he describes as a United Nations
Speaker 1: for little kids. Race was always in the background, But
Speaker 1: when he moved back to the States when he was ten,
Speaker 1: he couldn't escape racism, and ever since then he's been
Speaker 1: interested in why people hate. I had had an experience
Speaker 1: at the age of ten where some racist people threw
Speaker 1: rocks and bottles at me during a parade in which
Speaker 1: I was the only black participant, and never having had
Speaker 1: this happened to me before, I was perplexed as to
Speaker 1: why people were doing this, And when later my parents
Speaker 1: explained that it was racism, my ten year old brain
Speaker 1: could not process the idea that someone who had never
Speaker 1: seen me before, who had never spoken with me, and
Speaker 1: knew nothing about me, would want to inflict pain upon
Speaker 1: me for no other reason than the color of my skin.
Speaker 1: You know, that just did not compete with me. Well later,
Speaker 1: when I realized this was true, there are people like that,
Speaker 1: I formed a question in my mind, which was, how
Speaker 1: can you hate me when you don't even know me,
Speaker 1: And some people would just say, well, Darrel, you know
Speaker 1: that's just the way it is. Well, no, it's not
Speaker 1: just the way it is. There has to be a
Speaker 1: reason behind it. Well it's always been that way. That
Speaker 1: was not good enough for me. I wanted to get
Speaker 1: to the nucleus of it. So Darrell dedicates himself to
Speaker 1: answering this question. He devours books about race and racism.
Speaker 1: He reads nearly every book that exists on the clan,
Speaker 1: but he's still unsatisfied, so he decides he wants to
Speaker 1: write his own book about the clan. All the books
Speaker 1: written on the clan except for mine, have been written
Speaker 1: by white authors. You know, white authors obviously have an
Speaker 1: easier time getting in contact with the clan and sitting
Speaker 1: down and not fearing any ramifications or whatever, or they
Speaker 1: might even join the clan undercover. A clansman would have
Speaker 1: a different perspective sitting there talking to a black person
Speaker 1: than he would a white person. And how do you
Speaker 1: feel that perspective would have been different because he's sitting
Speaker 1: there telling the person that he hates why he hates them.
Speaker 1: So now he's having to face me and face those
Speaker 1: same questions. You know that somebody would ask or even
Speaker 1: different questions that a white interviewer journalist would not ask
Speaker 1: because they don't think of him, because they don't feel
Speaker 1: the things the same things that I feel. As Darrell
Speaker 1: starts read searching for his book, it suddenly dawns on
Speaker 1: him he already knows someone in the clan, that guy
Speaker 1: from the Silver Dollar Lounge. So he goes on a
Speaker 1: mission to track him down. It takes a while, but
Speaker 1: eventually he finds the guy's address. And I knocked on
Speaker 1: the door, you know, unannounced, and he opens the door
Speaker 1: and sees me, goes, Darrel, you know, what are you
Speaker 1: doing here? And look, he looked up and down the
Speaker 1: hallway to see if I brought anybody with me. So
Speaker 1: it was more of him that who was intimidated than me.
Speaker 1: And when he stepped out of his apartment, I stepped in.
Speaker 1: So he turns around, comes back in. So now we're
Speaker 1: standing inside his apartment and he says, you know what's
Speaker 1: going on? Are you still playing? What's going on? I said, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm still playing. But listen, I need to talk to
Speaker 1: you about the clan. He says, the clan. I said, yeah.
Speaker 1: He goes well, I quit, Yeah, I quit a while back.
Speaker 1: I said, well, you know, where's all your clan stuff?
Speaker 1: He says, well, they came and got it. And I said,
Speaker 1: what do you mean they came and got your robin hood?
Speaker 1: You know, don't you own it? And he explained to me,
Speaker 1: when you joined the clan, if you have the money
Speaker 1: to pay for it, you can purchase your robin hood
Speaker 1: and it's yours to keep forever. If you cannot afford
Speaker 1: it at the time, you can still take it home
Speaker 1: with you, but you put a little extra money in
Speaker 1: every time you pay your dues until you pay it off,
Speaker 1: sort like layaway kind of thing. The bizarre financial lead
Speaker 1: system within the clan. Love it, yes, exactly, equal opportunity
Speaker 1: for everyone who's racist, that's right, okay, absolutely so. Anyway,
Speaker 1: he said that they came and got it, but when
Speaker 1: they came to get it, he could not find the mask,
Speaker 1: and he has since found it and he needed to
Speaker 1: return it. I said, what can I see it? So
Speaker 1: he goes down the hallway, comes back and hands me
Speaker 1: the mask and I said to him, I said, do
Speaker 1: you know Roger Kelly? He goes, yeah, Roger was my
Speaker 1: grand dragon. I know him. And I said, well, listen,
Speaker 1: I need you to hook me up with mister Kelly.
Speaker 1: I want you to interview him. I'm going to write
Speaker 1: a book on the clan. Now, let me explain how
Speaker 1: the hierarchy of the clan works. You understand these terms
Speaker 1: we would call a state leader of governor. They call
Speaker 1: that the Grand Dragon a mayor. That person is known
Speaker 1: as the exalted Cyclops. Anybody on the great level is Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's very self importance of these names, that's yeah. But
Speaker 1: see that's also what attracts people because you know, they
Speaker 1: get titles, they feel imported. Yes, it's a sense of
Speaker 1: self importance, you know, because they're not getting that from
Speaker 1: the society in which they live. So you know, this brotherhood,
Speaker 1: this gang, if you will, gives him those things. So
Speaker 1: at the time, Roger Kelly was the Grand Dragon state
Speaker 1: leader from Maryland. So I said, I'll tell you what
Speaker 1: you need to return this mask, right He said, yeah.
Speaker 1: I said, give me Roger Kelly's phone member and his
Speaker 1: address and I'll go and return it for you. And
Speaker 1: he snapped that thing right out of my hand and said,
Speaker 1: in no way. And so I begged and plead it
Speaker 1: with him. Well, he finally gave it to me on
Speaker 1: the condition that I not revealed him mister Kelly where
Speaker 1: I got it, and he warned me. He said, Darrel,
Speaker 1: do not go to Roger Kelly's house. Roger Kelly will
Speaker 1: kill you. And I said, well, that's that's the whole
Speaker 1: reason why I need to talk to mister Kelly. I know,
Speaker 1: why would he kill me? What is going on in
Speaker 1: his mind when he sees me. I have to understand this.
Speaker 1: You did realize that you might not get the answer
Speaker 1: to the question if, in fact the dangerous part happened first. Right, true,
Speaker 1: this is true, But but I was thinking, you know
Speaker 1: that I would I would prevail. I'm the eternal optimist
Speaker 1: if you will, Well, I am not the eternal optimist.
Speaker 1: And Darryll's decision feels incredibly risky. But anyway, he has
Speaker 1: a secretary Mary call and schedule the interview, and he
Speaker 1: gives her one important instruction, do not tell him that
Speaker 1: I'm black, and see if you would consent to sitting
Speaker 1: down and giving her boss an interview. I figured, you know,
Speaker 1: he might pick up in my voice that I'm black,
Speaker 1: and I didn't want him to hang up the phone,
Speaker 1: say am I talking to you, and my whole project
Speaker 1: would have ended before they ever got started. Roger Kelly
Speaker 1: agrees to meet for an interview one evening at a
Speaker 1: nearby motel. Darrel gets to the motel early with Mary.
Speaker 1: He's not sure if Roger will even agree to step
Speaker 1: foot in the room, but if he does, Darrel wants
Speaker 1: to be hospitable. He asked Mary to fill up the
Speaker 1: ice bucket and buy some sodas and then they start
Speaker 1: arranging the room. There's not much to arrange. There's the
Speaker 1: ice bucket, a table, two chairs, and Darrell's canvas bag
Speaker 1: which has his tape recorder and a Bible. The clan
Speaker 1: claims to be a Christian organization and they claim that
Speaker 1: the Bible preaches are racial separation. Now, in my reading
Speaker 1: of the Bible, I have never seen anything like that
Speaker 1: in there. So I want to be able to pull
Speaker 1: up my Bible and hand it to him and say, here,
Speaker 1: mister Kelly, please show me chapter and verse where it
Speaker 1: says blacksom whites must be separate. So I'm all prepared,
Speaker 1: right right on time, right to the minute. Five fifteen knock, knock,
Speaker 1: knock on the door. In Waltz, what is known as
Speaker 1: the Grand Nighthawk. Nighthawk means bodyguard security. He's dressed in
Speaker 1: military camouflage, and he has that clan patch on his
Speaker 1: chest on one side on the other side of his
Speaker 1: chest or the initials cakak and embroidered on his cap
Speaker 1: and said Knights of the ku Klux Klan, and on
Speaker 1: his hip. He had a semi automatic handgun in a holster.
Speaker 1: He comes in. Mister Kelly is walking directly behind him,
Speaker 1: carrying a briefcase in a dark blue suit and tie,
Speaker 1: and the Nighthawk turned the corner and saw me and
Speaker 1: just froze in his trap. So mister Kelly slammed into
Speaker 1: his back and knocked this guy forward. And now that
Speaker 1: they both are stumbling around trying to regain their balance,
Speaker 1: and they're like looking all around the room like somebody's
Speaker 1: not right here. And I'm just sitting at the table
Speaker 1: looking at their faces, and I could read their faces
Speaker 1: like a billboard. Their faces were saying to me, did
Speaker 1: the desk kirk give us the wrong room number? Do
Speaker 1: you do? Do we misunderstand something or is this an ambush?
Speaker 1: So you know, I saw the APPREHENDI and so I
Speaker 1: stood up and I displayed both of my palms to
Speaker 1: show I had nothing in my hands, and I walked forward.
Speaker 1: I extended my right hand and I said, Hi, mister Kelly.
Speaker 1: I'm Darryl Davis. I hope both of these conversations inspired
Speaker 1: thinking and conversation around issues of race. You can find
Speaker 1: more episodes of b Anti Racist and A Slight Change
Speaker 1: of Plans wherever you get your podcasts