WEBVTT - Pushkin Honors Juneteenth 0:00:15.250 --> 0:00:27.170 Pushkin high listeners at Jacob Weisberg here, I'm the CEO 0:00:27.210 --> 0:00:31.250 of Pushkin Industries. At Pushkin, we think of Juneteenth as 0:00:31.290 --> 0:00:34.130 an opportunity to reflect on the past and think about 0:00:34.130 --> 0:00:36.810 the future. How do we build a more just and 0:00:36.930 --> 0:00:40.890 equitable society. We strive to make podcasts that help to 0:00:40.890 --> 0:00:44.970 answer that question, and in honor of Juneteenth, we're highlighting 0:00:45.010 --> 0:00:48.930 two of them. Be Anti Racist is hosted by doctor 0:00:49.010 --> 0:00:54.530 Ibram X. Kendy, an author, professor, activist, and historian. His 0:00:54.650 --> 0:00:57.170 book How to Be an Anti Racist has become a 0:00:57.210 --> 0:01:01.850 guide for anyone interested in dismantling the structures that racism creates. 0:01:03.290 --> 0:01:05.890 The podcast gives him a chance to dive deep into 0:01:05.890 --> 0:01:09.690 issues like immigration, to sports, and voting rights with guests 0:01:09.690 --> 0:01:13.890 like Julian Castro and Jamel Hill. Who're going to You're 0:01:13.930 --> 0:01:17.370 An excerpt from a conversation doctor Kendy had recently with 0:01:17.490 --> 0:01:21.450 author and political analyst Heather cmgee. They focus on the 0:01:21.450 --> 0:01:24.770 economic costs of racism for everyone, not just those in 0:01:24.850 --> 0:01:28.010 black or brown communities, and how diversity can lead to 0:01:28.050 --> 0:01:32.650 economic prosperity for all. Then you'll hear a truly remarkable 0:01:32.690 --> 0:01:36.410 story of bridging racial divides Darrell Davis is a black 0:01:36.490 --> 0:01:40.490 jazz musician who has convinced hundreds of KKK members to 0:01:40.730 --> 0:01:44.210 leave the clan. It all started with one conversation in 0:01:44.290 --> 0:01:48.290 a jazz club because Darryll was interested in understanding people 0:01:48.370 --> 0:01:52.410 with wildly different views. Darrell appeared on A Slight Change 0:01:52.450 --> 0:01:56.650 of Plans, a podcast hosted by doctor Maya Shankar. Shankar 0:01:56.810 --> 0:01:59.810 is a cognitive scientist who's fascinated by what happens when 0:01:59.810 --> 0:02:02.970 we find ourselves at the brink of change, and she's 0:02:03.010 --> 0:02:06.090 got a knack for getting people, including Hillary Clinton and 0:02:06.170 --> 0:02:10.130 Tiffany Hattisch to open up to her years Doctor Kendy 0:02:10.290 --> 0:02:21.490 on Be Anti Racist Welcome to Be Anti Racist in 0:02:21.610 --> 0:02:25.730 Action podcasts where we discuss how to diagnose, dismantle, and 0:02:25.770 --> 0:02:30.010 abolish racism, how to save humanity from the divisiveness of 0:02:30.130 --> 0:02:34.730 racist ideas and the destructiveness of racist power and policy, 0:02:35.050 --> 0:02:38.330 How to free humanity through the unity of anti racist 0:02:38.370 --> 0:02:43.330 ideas and the constructiveness of anti racist power and policy. 0:02:44.130 --> 0:02:47.650 On b Anti Racist, we discuss how to make the 0:02:47.690 --> 0:02:52.050 impossible possible and how to bring into being what modern 0:02:52.170 --> 0:02:58.690 humans have never known, a just an equitable world. You ready, 0:02:59.650 --> 0:03:11.370 Let's roll in the night thirties and forties, the United 0:03:11.370 --> 0:03:14.650 States went on a nationwide building boom of public amenities 0:03:14.690 --> 0:03:19.650 funded by tax dollars, which in Montgomery, Alabama, included the 0:03:19.690 --> 0:03:23.810 Oak Park Pool, which was the grandest one for miles, 0:03:24.810 --> 0:03:29.810 except the Oak Park Pool was for whites only. When 0:03:29.810 --> 0:03:34.610 a federal court finally deemed this unconstitutional, the reaction of 0:03:34.650 --> 0:03:38.530 the town council was swift. They decided they would drain 0:03:38.810 --> 0:03:42.730 the public pool rather than let black families swim to 0:03:44.370 --> 0:03:51.530 They never rebuilt the pool. Racism has a cost for everyone. 0:03:52.690 --> 0:03:56.170 HEATHERN McGee is an expert in economic and social policy 0:03:56.450 --> 0:03:59.450 and the author of the best selling book The Some 0:03:59.650 --> 0:04:02.890 of Us, What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can 0:04:02.970 --> 0:04:08.570 prosper Together. Heather explodes one of the greatest racial myths 0:04:09.210 --> 0:04:13.010 that white people lose as people of color gain. She 0:04:13.170 --> 0:04:19.410 shows that as racism wins, we all lose. Heather is 0:04:19.450 --> 0:04:22.610 one of America's sharpest thinkers. The former president of the 0:04:22.690 --> 0:04:28.210 inequality focused think Take Demos and its drafted legislation, testified 0:04:28.250 --> 0:04:32.970 before Congress, and contributed regularly to new shows, including NBC's 0:04:33.090 --> 0:04:36.610 Meet the Press. She now chairs the board of Color 0:04:36.650 --> 0:04:42.370 of Change, the nation's largest online racial Justice Organization. I 0:04:42.530 --> 0:04:46.090 sat down with Heather McGee recently to learn how by 0:04:46.130 --> 0:04:50.410 investing in each other, we can all achieve better jobs, 0:04:50.610 --> 0:04:55.850 better health, better democracy, better schools, better neighborhoods for our kids, 0:04:56.210 --> 0:05:01.810 and so much more. Heather is always it's truly an 0:05:01.810 --> 0:05:06.330 honor to speak with you. Your book, The Some of Us, 0:05:07.090 --> 0:05:09.650 is the type of book that I learned from that 0:05:09.730 --> 0:05:12.530 I think many Americans and many people around the world 0:05:12.690 --> 0:05:16.250 can learn from. I wrote this book because I felt 0:05:16.290 --> 0:05:20.130 like we were missing something in the great pursuit of 0:05:20.130 --> 0:05:23.930 a society. It should be to have progress, to have 0:05:24.570 --> 0:05:28.890 people have less want and more joy, people to have 0:05:29.450 --> 0:05:34.970 more of the fruits of economic progress and technological progress, 0:05:35.050 --> 0:05:39.410 and for our problems to be solved generation after generation, right, 0:05:39.730 --> 0:05:45.290 And it felt like that progress slowing down, slash reversing. 0:05:45.970 --> 0:05:52.370 When some Americans imagine the transformation of this country, they 0:05:52.410 --> 0:05:55.410 imagine that they're going to lose if we actually create 0:05:55.570 --> 0:06:00.530 inequitable and just anti racist America. And it seems, as 0:06:00.570 --> 0:06:03.170 you've written, that that's based on a zero sum myth. 0:06:04.490 --> 0:06:08.490 So I left a career in economic policy to go 0:06:08.570 --> 0:06:13.250 out on the quixotic journey in some ways, to find 0:06:13.970 --> 0:06:16.970 the answer to the question of why can't we seem 0:06:16.970 --> 0:06:18.850 to have nice things? And what are the roots of 0:06:18.890 --> 0:06:22.530 our dysfunction? And it's there that I came upon this 0:06:22.810 --> 0:06:26.330 paradigm of the zero sum. It's a term that means 0:06:26.410 --> 0:06:30.290 there's no such thing as mutual progress when you have 0:06:30.970 --> 0:06:34.210 people who are in a competition with one another. If 0:06:34.330 --> 0:06:38.090 team A scores one more point, team B scores one 0:06:38.210 --> 0:06:41.410 less point, the points will always add up to zero, 0:06:41.490 --> 0:06:44.930 positive on one side, negative on the other. Progress for 0:06:45.330 --> 0:06:47.810 team A has to come at the expense of team B. 0:06:48.530 --> 0:06:54.210 There's a limited or fixed pie. And that idea resonated 0:06:54.250 --> 0:06:56.330 so deeply with me. It sort of gave a name 0:06:56.370 --> 0:06:59.770 and a description to something I had sensed my whole life, 0:07:00.450 --> 0:07:08.850 this fear that when white supremacy falls, that the world 0:07:09.130 --> 0:07:15.090 will become one that white people should fear. Therefore, racism 0:07:15.250 --> 0:07:18.250 is really great for white people, really terrible for people 0:07:18.250 --> 0:07:22.170 of color, and so their self interest is in preserving 0:07:22.250 --> 0:07:25.490 racism at all costs. And it's the at all costs 0:07:25.530 --> 0:07:29.250 piece that really felt so important for me to lay out, 0:07:29.250 --> 0:07:33.970 what are the costs of racism to our entire society, 0:07:33.970 --> 0:07:38.490 What exactly is the price white people are willing to pay? 0:07:38.850 --> 0:07:42.810 To keep the system as it has been. And once 0:07:42.850 --> 0:07:47.210 I started looking, the list just kept growing, and that 0:07:47.250 --> 0:07:49.930 made it clear to me that we have these self 0:07:49.970 --> 0:07:55.610 interested elites packaging marketing, selling this zero sum lie to 0:07:55.810 --> 0:07:59.690 most white Americans, and they're doing it for their own profit. 0:08:00.730 --> 0:08:04.650 But our side, when we only talk about racism as 0:08:04.690 --> 0:08:06.970 something that's good for white people, are kind of like 0:08:07.090 --> 0:08:10.850 helping out a little bit, right provocation. The agitation that 0:08:10.890 --> 0:08:12.810 made me feel like, Okay, maybe I do have something 0:08:12.850 --> 0:08:15.890 to add to this conversation was we haven't told the 0:08:15.930 --> 0:08:20.010 full story of what it has caused this entire country. 0:08:20.530 --> 0:08:24.210 You were specifically writing about white folks who think that 0:08:24.250 --> 0:08:26.890 they're going to lose, but as a man of color 0:08:26.970 --> 0:08:31.170 reading it, I also think men of color too have 0:08:31.330 --> 0:08:35.930 bought into this myth of the zero sum, and I 0:08:35.970 --> 0:08:40.610 think that as they've seen women of color organizing and 0:08:40.690 --> 0:08:44.730 advocating in some cases rising, they too have felt threatened 0:08:44.770 --> 0:08:47.570 as if they're losing. Yeah, but back to white folks, 0:08:48.050 --> 0:08:50.170 this is what I've been sort of saying, and I 0:08:50.210 --> 0:08:54.130 want to know whether I'm just wrong that white Americans 0:08:55.250 --> 0:09:00.770 typically compare their lot two people of color, and so, 0:09:00.850 --> 0:09:05.530 in other words, if their school has more resources in 0:09:05.570 --> 0:09:08.730 a way, their child's school is almost like a first 0:09:08.730 --> 0:09:11.610 class school. They're like, whoa, if we create equity, then 0:09:11.650 --> 0:09:14.250 I'm gonna be back in coach. Yeah. I don't want that. 0:09:14.290 --> 0:09:17.250 I'm gonna lose. My kid's gonna lose. But it seems 0:09:17.290 --> 0:09:21.370 to me that white Americans should be assessing themselves from 0:09:21.530 --> 0:09:25.010 other white people in the Western world. Yeah, and when 0:09:25.010 --> 0:09:29.050 they make that comparison, that's when they can see actually 0:09:30.050 --> 0:09:33.570 what they don't have, how they're in coach. That's right, 0:09:34.250 --> 0:09:37.490 And in fact, maybe in other societies in the Western world, 0:09:37.850 --> 0:09:40.810 everybody's just in first class. There's no little curtain that 0:09:40.850 --> 0:09:44.410 the flight attendant moves over right, and everyone gets food right, 0:09:44.490 --> 0:09:47.250 everyone has a leg room, you know, everybody gets to 0:09:47.290 --> 0:09:51.690 bring a bag. You know. This really comes from and 0:09:51.890 --> 0:09:55.570 is a feature of how brutally hierarchical our society is. 0:09:56.010 --> 0:09:57.970 In the first chapter of the Some of Us, I 0:09:58.050 --> 0:10:00.450 go back in our history. I am I I'm like 0:10:00.770 --> 0:10:03.130 somebody else here on this conversation. I'm not in the story, 0:10:03.170 --> 0:10:05.770 and but I felt like I had to go to 0:10:06.690 --> 0:10:09.890 the beginning to find out where this zero s worldview 0:10:09.930 --> 0:10:13.370 and this lie came from, whose interest it served, and 0:10:13.490 --> 0:10:17.210 why it sort of reanimated generation after generation, and as 0:10:17.210 --> 0:10:20.570 it turns out, it was created as a way to 0:10:20.690 --> 0:10:28.130 sort of discipline white Europeans in the colonial era to 0:10:28.810 --> 0:10:33.570 be satisfied with their lot in a society where wealth 0:10:33.730 --> 0:10:38.210 was still quite concentrated, and where because of chattel slavery 0:10:38.210 --> 0:10:40.730 in the plantation economy, there actually wasn't a lot of 0:10:40.810 --> 0:10:45.610 room a white person who was not a plantation owner. 0:10:46.250 --> 0:10:49.250 Their labor wasn't needed in the southern economy, right, Like, 0:10:49.290 --> 0:10:52.130 what do we need you for? Right? This myth of 0:10:52.130 --> 0:10:56.690 white supremacy was sold to white masses so that they 0:10:56.690 --> 0:10:59.490 could have, of course, as W B. Depoys said, the 0:10:59.570 --> 0:11:03.530 psychological wages of whiteness rather than material wages, and those 0:11:03.570 --> 0:11:08.650 psychological wayses were knowing always that in a deeply unequal 0:11:09.170 --> 0:11:14.410 economy they could nonetheless count on being more than and 0:11:14.530 --> 0:11:22.210 better than Black people. Now, hang on for the amazing 0:11:22.250 --> 0:11:29.290 story of Darryll Davis from a slight change of plans. So, 0:11:29.410 --> 0:11:31.970 I was riding in my car. I'm driving, and this 0:11:32.130 --> 0:11:36.050 clansman was sitting in my passenger seat, and we got 0:11:36.090 --> 0:11:40.090 on the topic of a crime, and he made the 0:11:40.170 --> 0:11:45.170 mention that black people are born with a gene that 0:11:45.210 --> 0:11:49.530 makes them violent. And I said, look, I'm as black 0:11:49.570 --> 0:11:53.410 as anybody you've ever seen. I have never done a 0:11:53.490 --> 0:11:56.650 drive by or a car jacking. How do you explain 0:11:56.770 --> 0:12:01.010 that this man did not hesitate one second? He answered 0:12:01.050 --> 0:12:04.370 me instantly, He said, your gene is latent. It hasn't 0:12:04.410 --> 0:12:09.810 come out yet. That's Darryll Davis, a blues musician. And yeah, 0:12:09.850 --> 0:12:12.490 you heard him right. He's driving in his car with 0:12:12.570 --> 0:12:15.610 a member of the Ku Klux Klan. You know, I 0:12:15.730 --> 0:12:19.010 was speechless. I was dumbfounded. And he's sitting next to 0:12:19.010 --> 0:12:21.890 me with all smug and secure. Huh. You see, you 0:12:21.890 --> 0:12:24.490 know you have nothing to say. And I thought about 0:12:24.490 --> 0:12:26.930 it for a moment. Rather than attack him, you say 0:12:27.090 --> 0:12:30.730 it's not true. It's not true. I said to him, 0:12:30.850 --> 0:12:34.090 I said, you know, white people have a gene within 0:12:34.170 --> 0:12:39.370 them that make them serial killers. And he said, why 0:12:39.410 --> 0:12:42.970 would you say that? I said, well, Jason, name me 0:12:43.050 --> 0:12:46.810 three black serial killers. He thought about it. You couldn't 0:12:46.850 --> 0:12:51.010 name anybody. You couldn't do it, I rattled off. Charles Manson, 0:12:51.250 --> 0:12:55.650 Jeffrey Dalmer, Henry Lee Lucas, John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy, 0:12:56.050 --> 0:13:00.010 David Berkowitz, son of Sam Albert de Salvo the Boston Strangler, 0:13:00.210 --> 0:13:03.730 and I said, son, you are a serial killer. And 0:13:03.850 --> 0:13:07.530 he said, Darrell, I've never killed anybody. I said, You're 0:13:07.570 --> 0:13:11.250 genus legent hasn't come out yet. He said, well, that's stupid, 0:13:11.650 --> 0:13:15.690 and I said, well, duh, it is stupid. And he 0:13:15.810 --> 0:13:20.130 got very, very quiet, and I could tell that the 0:13:20.210 --> 0:13:23.850 gears in his head were spinning super fast, probably burning 0:13:23.890 --> 0:13:26.730 a hole in there. And then he a moment later 0:13:26.890 --> 0:13:30.690 he changed the subject. But within five months this guy 0:13:31.010 --> 0:13:35.490 quit the Ku Klux Klan. Since that car ride thirty 0:13:35.570 --> 0:13:38.770 years ago, Darryl Davis has gone on to convince dozens 0:13:38.770 --> 0:13:42.290 of people to leave the Ku Klux Klan. Convincing someone 0:13:42.370 --> 0:13:45.450 else to change their mind their view of reality is 0:13:45.490 --> 0:13:48.970 one of the most elusive, coveted types of change, which 0:13:49.010 --> 0:13:52.690 is why Darryl's story feels so improbable. So how does 0:13:52.730 --> 0:13:56.930 he do it? I'm Maya Shunker. As a cognitive scientist, 0:13:57.090 --> 0:14:00.010 I've always been fascinated by how we change our minds 0:14:00.090 --> 0:14:03.090 and why we change our minds. On this show, I'll 0:14:03.130 --> 0:14:07.770 have intimate conversations with people who've navigated extraordinary change, and 0:14:07.850 --> 0:14:10.690 hopefully their stories will at us to think differently about 0:14:10.810 --> 0:14:14.050 change In our own lives. This is a slight change 0:14:14.050 --> 0:14:37.810 of plans, our construution, our construu. Daryl didn't set out 0:14:37.850 --> 0:14:40.770 to change anyone's mind. He was mostly just focused on 0:14:40.770 --> 0:14:44.090 his music. But one night his life took an unexpected 0:14:44.130 --> 0:14:46.210 turn when he was playing a show at a bar 0:14:46.410 --> 0:14:54.210 called the Silver Dollar Lounge. The Silver Dollar Lounge at 0:14:54.210 --> 0:14:56.770 the time was an all white lounge. And I say 0:14:56.850 --> 0:14:59.330 that not meaning that black people could not go in, 0:14:59.730 --> 0:15:01.810 but meaning that they did not go in by their 0:15:01.850 --> 0:15:05.050 own choice because they were not welcome there. And when 0:15:05.050 --> 0:15:09.250 you go somewhere where you're not welcome and alcohol all 0:15:09.370 --> 0:15:11.730 is being served, sometimes it is not made for a 0:15:11.730 --> 0:15:15.410 good combination, especially when you're outnumbered. So we took a 0:15:15.450 --> 0:15:18.090 break after the first set, and I was walking across 0:15:18.130 --> 0:15:20.370 the dance floor to go sit you with the bandmates 0:15:20.810 --> 0:15:23.810 when somebody approached me from behind and put their arm 0:15:23.850 --> 0:15:26.170 around my shoulder. No, I don't know anybody in this place, 0:15:26.410 --> 0:15:28.690 so I'm turning around to see who's touching me, and 0:15:28.930 --> 0:15:31.770 was this gentleman maybe fifteen eighteen years older than me. 0:15:32.330 --> 0:15:34.570 And he's all excited. He says, man, I sure like 0:15:34.610 --> 0:15:37.570 your piano playing. This is the first time I ever 0:15:37.570 --> 0:15:40.570 heard of black man play piano like Jerry Lee Lewis, 0:15:41.690 --> 0:15:43.290 and I told him. I said, well, Gerry Lee got 0:15:43.330 --> 0:15:46.170 it from the same place I did, from black blues 0:15:46.370 --> 0:15:48.850 and boogie woogie piano players. Oh no, no, no no, no, 0:15:49.130 --> 0:15:51.090 I never heard no black name play like that except 0:15:51.130 --> 0:15:54.090 for you. Jerry Lee invented that style. I said, look, 0:15:54.410 --> 0:15:56.530 I know Jerry Lee Lewis. He's a good friend of mine. 0:15:56.770 --> 0:15:58.650 He's told me himself where he learned how to play. 0:15:59.210 --> 0:16:01.330 The guy didn't buy that either, but he was so 0:16:01.410 --> 0:16:04.370 fascinated with me that he wanted me to come back 0:16:04.410 --> 0:16:06.170 to his table. He's going to buy me a drink, 0:16:06.650 --> 0:16:08.170 so I don't drink, but I agreed to have a 0:16:08.170 --> 0:16:11.210 cranberry juice. He bought it, paid the waitress, and then 0:16:11.250 --> 0:16:13.810 he took his glass and he clinked my glass and 0:16:13.930 --> 0:16:17.050 cheered me, and then he announces, you know, this is 0:16:17.050 --> 0:16:19.170 the first time IRA sat down with a black man 0:16:19.410 --> 0:16:22.930 and had a drink. So innocently. I asked him why, 0:16:23.570 --> 0:16:25.650 and he didn't answer me at first. I asked him again, 0:16:26.090 --> 0:16:28.170 and his buddy sitting next to him elbowed him and 0:16:28.170 --> 0:16:30.570 said tell him, tell him, And the guy looked at 0:16:30.570 --> 0:16:34.050 me and said I'm a member of the Ku Klux Klan. 0:16:35.490 --> 0:16:38.490 Well I burst out laughing at him because now I 0:16:38.570 --> 0:16:41.050 do not believe him. I thought he was putting the 0:16:41.130 --> 0:16:44.210 joke on me. I'm laughing. He goes inside his pocket, 0:16:44.330 --> 0:16:46.970 pulls out his wallet, flips through it, and hands me 0:16:47.450 --> 0:16:51.570 his clan membership card. I recognized the clan insignia, which 0:16:51.610 --> 0:16:53.810 is a red circle with a white cross and a 0:16:53.850 --> 0:16:56.650 red blood drop in the center of the cross, and 0:16:56.810 --> 0:16:58.850 I'm thinking myself, oh my goodness, you know this is 0:16:58.850 --> 0:17:02.210 for real. So I stopped laughing. But he was, you know, 0:17:02.410 --> 0:17:08.050 very friendly and very appreciative of my music and all excited. 0:17:08.610 --> 0:17:11.930 He gave me his phone number to, you know, to 0:17:11.930 --> 0:17:14.610 call him whenever I was to return to this bar 0:17:14.730 --> 0:17:17.130 with this band, and so I'd call him every six 0:17:17.170 --> 0:17:19.050 weeks and say, hey, man, you know I'm down there 0:17:19.050 --> 0:17:21.530 at the Silver Dollar this weekend, come on out. You say, 0:17:21.530 --> 0:17:24.690 it's so nonchalantly like so I called the guy. It 0:17:24.850 --> 0:17:28.130 is remarkable that you called this person. And you know, 0:17:28.130 --> 0:17:31.530 I don't think I'm alone in struggling to understand, you know, 0:17:31.530 --> 0:17:33.570 what was going through through your mind at this moment. 0:17:33.850 --> 0:17:37.010 If someone told me that they were in the freaking clan. 0:17:37.570 --> 0:17:41.370 I would certainly not call them back. In fact, I'd 0:17:41.410 --> 0:17:43.730 probably just flee the scene. And I think this is 0:17:43.770 --> 0:17:47.570 for pretty good reasons. Well, you know, I was questioning 0:17:47.610 --> 0:17:49.930 myself for a second, like what the heck am I 0:17:50.010 --> 0:17:53.930 doing sitting here with a klansman. But the guy was friendly. 0:17:54.290 --> 0:17:58.410 He disputed the things that I had in mind of 0:17:58.850 --> 0:18:01.810 the image over typical klansmen, and he wanted to share 0:18:01.850 --> 0:18:05.170 my music with some of his fellow clansmen and clanswomen. 0:18:05.530 --> 0:18:07.170 And they would, you know, get on the dancelore and 0:18:07.250 --> 0:18:09.690 dancelore I'm music. You know they didn't come in robes hoods, right, 0:18:09.850 --> 0:18:12.770 you know, they came in regular street clothes. This goes 0:18:12.810 --> 0:18:16.970 on for a year, an entire year. Darrell would play 0:18:17.010 --> 0:18:19.050 a gig at this bar, and he would invite clan 0:18:19.170 --> 0:18:22.010 members to watch him play. This is one of those 0:18:22.050 --> 0:18:26.010 things that makes Darrell so unusual. I mean, for me, 0:18:26.210 --> 0:18:28.530 a huge part of what makes someone who they are 0:18:29.010 --> 0:18:31.970 is their belief system. And so if we share the 0:18:31.970 --> 0:18:35.330 same taste in music, that's fine, that's great. But if 0:18:35.370 --> 0:18:38.970 I then find out they're a flagrant racist, that's going 0:18:39.010 --> 0:18:42.850 to fully eclipse everything else about them. So how does 0:18:42.970 --> 0:18:46.370 Darrell look past that, he says, It's not like that. 0:18:46.610 --> 0:18:50.770 He wasn't looking past it. He wanted to learn from it. See, 0:18:50.850 --> 0:18:54.650 Darrell had spent his early childhood overseas in a school 0:18:54.690 --> 0:18:58.650 he describes as a United Nations for little kids. Race 0:18:58.770 --> 0:19:01.570 was always in the background, But when he moved back 0:19:01.570 --> 0:19:05.130 to the States when he was ten, he couldn't escape racism, 0:19:05.170 --> 0:19:09.250 and ever since then he's been interested in why people hate. 0:19:09.690 --> 0:19:11.850 I had had an experience at the age of ten 0:19:12.450 --> 0:19:15.130 where some racist people throw rocks and bottles at me 0:19:15.210 --> 0:19:18.370 during a parade in which I was the only black participant, 0:19:18.970 --> 0:19:22.450 and never having had this happened to me before, I 0:19:22.570 --> 0:19:25.410 was perplexed as to why people were doing this, And 0:19:25.490 --> 0:19:28.410 when later my parents explained that it was racism, my 0:19:28.490 --> 0:19:31.810 ten year old brain could not process the idea that 0:19:31.930 --> 0:19:34.530 someone who had never seen me before, who had never 0:19:34.570 --> 0:19:37.170 spoken with me, and knew nothing about me, would want 0:19:37.210 --> 0:19:39.690 to inflict pain upon me for no other reason than 0:19:39.730 --> 0:19:42.370 the color of my skin. You know, that just did 0:19:42.450 --> 0:19:45.250 not compete with me. Well later, when I realized this 0:19:45.370 --> 0:19:47.970 was true, there are people like that, I formed a 0:19:48.050 --> 0:19:50.850 question in my mind, which was, how can you hate 0:19:50.890 --> 0:19:53.490 me when you don't even know me, and some people 0:19:53.530 --> 0:19:55.090 would just say, well, Darrel, you know that's just the 0:19:55.130 --> 0:19:57.210 way it is. Well, no, it's not just the way 0:19:57.250 --> 0:19:59.570 it is. There has to be a reason behind it. 0:19:59.970 --> 0:20:02.930 Well it's always been that way. That was not good 0:20:03.010 --> 0:20:04.610 enough for me. I wanted to get to the nucleus 0:20:04.650 --> 0:20:08.810 of it. So Darrell dedicates himself to answering this question. 0:20:09.370 --> 0:20:13.290 He devours books about race and racism. He reads nearly 0:20:13.330 --> 0:20:17.130 every book that exists on the clan, but he's still unsatisfied, 0:20:17.650 --> 0:20:20.050 so he decides he wants to write his own book 0:20:20.130 --> 0:20:23.370 about the clan. All the books written on the clan 0:20:24.130 --> 0:20:28.010 except for mine, have been written by white authors. You know, 0:20:28.250 --> 0:20:31.690 white authors obviously have an easier time getting in contact 0:20:31.690 --> 0:20:34.050 with the clan and sitting down and not fearing any 0:20:34.170 --> 0:20:37.610 ramifications or whatever, or they might even join the clan undercover. 0:20:38.010 --> 0:20:41.730 A klansman would have a different perspective sitting there talking 0:20:41.770 --> 0:20:44.130 to a black person than he would a white person. 0:20:45.010 --> 0:20:47.330 And how do you feel that perspective would have been 0:20:47.330 --> 0:20:50.250 different because he's sitting there telling the person that he 0:20:50.330 --> 0:20:53.850 hates why he hates them, So now he's having to 0:20:53.890 --> 0:20:57.010 face me and face those same questions. You know that 0:20:57.610 --> 0:21:00.690 somebody would ask or even different questions that a white 0:21:00.730 --> 0:21:04.530 interviewer journalist would not ask, because they don't think of him, 0:21:04.530 --> 0:21:06.410 because they don't feel the things, the same things that 0:21:06.490 --> 0:21:10.330 I feel. As Darrell starts searching for his book, it 0:21:10.450 --> 0:21:13.970 suddenly dawns on him he already knows someone in the clan, 0:21:14.530 --> 0:21:17.690 that guy from the Silver Dollar Lounge. So he goes 0:21:17.730 --> 0:21:20.450 on a mission to track him down. It takes a while, 0:21:20.610 --> 0:21:24.090 but eventually he finds the guy's address and I knocked 0:21:24.090 --> 0:21:26.810 on the door, you know, unannounced, and he opens the 0:21:26.850 --> 0:21:29.010 door and sees He goes, Daryl, you know, what are 0:21:29.010 --> 0:21:31.170 you doing here? And look, he looked up and down 0:21:31.210 --> 0:21:33.410 the hallway to see if I brought anybody with me. 0:21:33.850 --> 0:21:35.650 So it was more of him that who was intimidated 0:21:35.690 --> 0:21:39.130 than me. And when he stepped out of his apartment, 0:21:39.330 --> 0:21:42.250 I stepped in. So he turns around, comes back in. 0:21:42.450 --> 0:21:45.210 So now we're standing inside his apartment and he says, 0:21:45.250 --> 0:21:46.970 you know what's going on? Are you still playing? What's 0:21:46.970 --> 0:21:49.210 going on? I said, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm still playing. 0:21:49.370 --> 0:21:52.250 But listen, I need to talk to you about the clan. 0:21:52.890 --> 0:21:55.130 He says, the clan. I said, yeah. He goes, well, 0:21:55.170 --> 0:21:58.250 I quit yeah, I quit a while back. I said, well, 0:21:58.610 --> 0:22:01.090 you know, where's all your clan stuff. He says, well, 0:22:01.130 --> 0:22:03.090 they came and got it. And I said, what do 0:22:03.130 --> 0:22:04.850 you mean they came and got your robe and hood? 0:22:05.170 --> 0:22:07.530 You know, don't you own it? And he explained to me, 0:22:07.890 --> 0:22:10.290 when you joined the clan, if you have the money 0:22:10.290 --> 0:22:12.690 to pay for it, you can purchase your robin hood 0:22:12.890 --> 0:22:15.850 and it's yours to keep forever. If you cannot afford 0:22:15.850 --> 0:22:17.890 it at the time, you can still take it home 0:22:17.890 --> 0:22:20.170 with you, but you put a little extra money in 0:22:20.490 --> 0:22:23.170 every time you pay your dues until you pay it off, 0:22:23.290 --> 0:22:26.370 sort like layaway kind of thing. A bizarre financial lead 0:22:26.450 --> 0:22:29.810 system within the clan. Love it, yes, exactly, equal opportunity 0:22:29.850 --> 0:22:34.530 for everyone who's racist, that's right, okay, absolutely so. Anyway, 0:22:34.570 --> 0:22:38.170 he said that they came and got it, but when 0:22:38.170 --> 0:22:40.650 they came to get it, he could not find the mask, 0:22:41.290 --> 0:22:44.690 and he has since found it and he needed to 0:22:44.730 --> 0:22:46.970 return it. I said, what can I see it? So 0:22:47.050 --> 0:22:49.570 he goes down the hallway, comes back and hands me 0:22:49.650 --> 0:22:52.130 the mask. And I said to him, I said, do 0:22:52.170 --> 0:22:55.330 you know Roger Kelly. He goes, yeah, Roger was my 0:22:55.370 --> 0:22:57.930 grand dragon. I know him. And I said well, listen, 0:22:57.970 --> 0:22:59.730 I need you to hook me up with mister Kelly. 0:23:00.130 --> 0:23:01.810 I want you to interview him. I'm going to write 0:23:01.810 --> 0:23:04.290 a book on the clan. Now, let me explain how 0:23:04.370 --> 0:23:06.890 the hierarchy of the clan works. You understand these terms. 0:23:07.570 --> 0:23:09.890 We would call a state leader of governor. They call 0:23:10.010 --> 0:23:13.410 that the Grand Dragon a mayor. That person is known 0:23:13.450 --> 0:23:17.130 as the exalted Cyclops. Anybody on the great level is 0:23:17.410 --> 0:23:23.410 yet very self importance. That yeah, but see, that's also 0:23:23.530 --> 0:23:26.450 what attracts people, because you know, they get titles, they 0:23:26.450 --> 0:23:29.170 feel important. Yes, it's a sense of self importance, you know, 0:23:29.690 --> 0:23:32.130 because they're not getting that from the society in which 0:23:32.170 --> 0:23:35.250 they live. So you know, this brotherhood, this gang, if 0:23:35.250 --> 0:23:38.650 you will, gives him those things. So at the time, 0:23:38.770 --> 0:23:41.290 Roger Kelly was the Grand Dragon state leader from Maryland. 0:23:41.570 --> 0:23:43.450 So I said, I'll tell you what you need to 0:23:43.490 --> 0:23:46.770 return this mask, right, He said, yeah. I said, give 0:23:46.810 --> 0:23:49.810 me Roger Kelly's phone number and his address and I'll 0:23:49.810 --> 0:23:52.370 go and return it for you. And he snatched that 0:23:52.450 --> 0:23:54.330 thing right out of my hand and said, in no way. 0:23:55.090 --> 0:23:58.090 And so I begged and pleaded with him. Well, he 0:23:58.130 --> 0:24:00.370 finally gave it to me on the condition that I 0:24:00.490 --> 0:24:03.170 not revealed him, mister Kelly where I got it, and 0:24:03.810 --> 0:24:05.730 he warned me. He said, Darrel, do not go to 0:24:05.810 --> 0:24:09.250 Roger Kelly's house. Roger Kelly will kill you. And I said, well, 0:24:09.250 --> 0:24:11.770 that's that's the whole reason why I need to talk 0:24:11.770 --> 0:24:14.490 to mister Kelly. I know, why would he kill me? 0:24:15.090 --> 0:24:17.850 What is going on in his mind when he sees me. 0:24:18.250 --> 0:24:21.930 I have to understand this. You did realize that you 0:24:22.010 --> 0:24:23.730 might not get the answer to the question if in 0:24:23.810 --> 0:24:29.010 fact the dangerous part happened first? Right, true, this is true, 0:24:29.090 --> 0:24:32.690 But but I was thinking, you know that I would 0:24:32.730 --> 0:24:36.530 I would prevail. I'm the eternal optimist if you will, Well, 0:24:36.530 --> 0:24:40.170 I am not the eternal optimist. And Darrell's decision feels 0:24:40.210 --> 0:24:45.170 incredibly risky. But anyway, he has a secretary, Mary, call 0:24:45.250 --> 0:24:49.090 and schedule the interview, and he gives her one important instruction, 0:24:49.850 --> 0:24:53.010