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 cmgee. 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 Darryll 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 years 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 an 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 The 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 it's truly an
Speaker 1: honor to speak with you. Your book, The Some of Us,
Speaker 1: is the type of book that I learned from that
Speaker 1: I think many Americans and many people around the world
Speaker 1: can learn from. I wrote this book because I felt
Speaker 1: like we were missing something in the great pursuit of
Speaker 1: a society. It should be to have progress, to have
Speaker 1: people have less want and more joy, people to have
Speaker 1: 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 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 pay?
Speaker 1: To keep the system as it has been. And once
Speaker 1: I started looking, the list just kept growing, and that
Speaker 1: made it clear to me that we have these self
Speaker 1: interested elites packaging marketing, selling this zero sum lie to
Speaker 1: most white Americans, and they're doing it for their own profit.
Speaker 1: But our side, when we only talk about racism as
Speaker 1: something that's good for white people, are kind of like
Speaker 1: helping out a little bit, right provocation. The agitation that
Speaker 1: made me feel like, Okay, maybe I do have something
Speaker 1: to add to this conversation was we haven't told the
Speaker 1: full story of what it has caused this entire country.
Speaker 1: You were specifically writing about white folks who think that
Speaker 1: they're going to lose, but as a man of color
Speaker 1: reading it, I also think men of color too have
Speaker 1: bought into this myth of the zero sum, and I
Speaker 1: think that as they've seen women of color organizing and
Speaker 1: advocating in some cases rising, they too have felt threatened
Speaker 1: as if they're losing. Yeah, but back to white folks,
Speaker 1: this is what I've been sort of saying, and I
Speaker 1: want to know whether I'm just wrong that white Americans
Speaker 1: typically compare their lot two people of color, and so,
Speaker 1: in other words, if their school has more resources in
Speaker 1: a way, their child's school is almost like a first
Speaker 1: class school. They're like, whoa, if we create equity, then
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be back in coach. Yeah. I don't want that.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna lose. My kid's gonna lose. But it seems
Speaker 1: to me that white Americans should be assessing themselves from
Speaker 1: other white people in the Western world. Yeah, and when
Speaker 1: they make that comparison, that's when they can see actually
Speaker 1: what they don't have, how they're in coach. That's right,
Speaker 1: And in fact, maybe in other societies in the Western world,
Speaker 1: everybody's just in first class. There's no little curtain that
Speaker 1: the flight attendant moves over right, and everyone gets food right,
Speaker 1: everyone has a leg room, you know, everybody gets to
Speaker 1: bring a bag. You know. This really comes from and
Speaker 1: is a feature of how brutally hierarchical our society is.
Speaker 1: In the first chapter of the Some of Us, I
Speaker 1: go back in our history. I am I I'm like
Speaker 1: somebody else here on this conversation. I'm not in the story,
Speaker 1: and but I felt like I had to go to
Speaker 1: the beginning to find out where this zero s worldview
Speaker 1: and this lie came from, whose interest it served, and
Speaker 1: why it sort of reanimated generation after generation, and as
Speaker 1: it turns out, it was created as a way to
Speaker 1: sort of discipline white Europeans in the colonial era to
Speaker 1: be satisfied with their lot in a society where wealth
Speaker 1: was still quite concentrated, and where because of chattel slavery
Speaker 1: in the plantation economy, there actually wasn't a lot of
Speaker 1: room a white person who was not a plantation owner.
Speaker 1: 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 W B. Depoys said, the
Speaker 1: psychological wages of whiteness rather than material wages, and those
Speaker 1: psychological wayses were knowing always that in a deeply unequal
Speaker 1: economy they could nonetheless count on being more than and
Speaker 1: better than Black people. Now, hang on for the amazing
Speaker 1: story 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: clansman 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 secure. 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, Jason, name me
Speaker 1: three black serial killers. He thought about it. You couldn't
Speaker 1: name anybody. You couldn't do it, I rattled off. Charles Manson,
Speaker 1: Jeffrey Dalmer, Henry Lee Lucas, John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy,
Speaker 1: David Berkowitz, son of Sam Albert de Salvo the Boston Strangler,
Speaker 1: and I said, son, you are a serial killer. And
Speaker 1: he said, Darrell, I've never killed anybody. I said, You're
Speaker 1: genus legent hasn't come out yet. He said, well, that's stupid,
Speaker 1: and I said, well, duh, it is stupid. And he
Speaker 1: got very, very quiet, and I could tell that the
Speaker 1: gears in his head were spinning super fast, probably burning
Speaker 1: a hole in there. And then he a moment later
Speaker 1: he changed the subject. But within five months this guy
Speaker 1: quit the Ku Klux Klan. Since that car ride thirty
Speaker 1: years ago, Darryl Davis has gone on to convince dozens
Speaker 1: of people to leave the Ku Klux Klan. Convincing someone
Speaker 1: else to change their mind their view of reality is
Speaker 1: one of the most elusive, coveted types of change, which
Speaker 1: is why Darryl's story feels so improbable. So how does
Speaker 1: he do it? I'm Maya Shunker. As a cognitive scientist,
Speaker 1: I've always been fascinated by how we change our minds
Speaker 1: and why we change our minds. On this show, I'll
Speaker 1: have intimate conversations with people who've navigated extraordinary change, and
Speaker 1: hopefully their stories will at us to think differently about
Speaker 1: change In our own lives. This is a slight change
Speaker 1: of plans, our construution, our construu. Daryl didn't set out
Speaker 1: to change anyone's mind. He was mostly just focused on
Speaker 1: his music. But one night his life took an unexpected
Speaker 1: turn when he was playing a show at a bar
Speaker 1: called the Silver Dollar Lounge. The Silver Dollar Lounge at
Speaker 1: the time was an all white lounge. And I say
Speaker 1: that not meaning that black people could not go in,
Speaker 1: but meaning that they did not go in by their
Speaker 1: own choice because they were not welcome there. And when
Speaker 1: you go somewhere where you're not welcome and alcohol all
Speaker 1: is being served, sometimes it is not made for a
Speaker 1: good combination, especially when you're outnumbered. So we took a
Speaker 1: break after the first set, and I was walking across
Speaker 1: the dance floor to go sit you with the bandmates
Speaker 1: when somebody approached me from behind and put their arm
Speaker 1: around my shoulder. No, I don't know anybody in this place,
Speaker 1: so I'm turning around to see who's touching me, and
Speaker 1: was this gentleman maybe fifteen eighteen years older than me.
Speaker 1: And he's all excited. He says, man, I sure like
Speaker 1: your piano playing. This is the first time I ever
Speaker 1: heard of black man play piano like Jerry Lee Lewis,
Speaker 1: and I told him. I said, well, Gerry Lee got
Speaker 1: it from the same place I did, from black blues
Speaker 1: and boogie woogie piano players. Oh no, no, no no, no,
Speaker 1: I never heard no black name play like that except
Speaker 1: for you. Jerry Lee invented that style. I said, look,
Speaker 1: I know Jerry Lee Lewis. He's a good friend of mine.
Speaker 1: He's told me himself where he learned how to play.
Speaker 1: The guy didn't buy that either, but he was so
Speaker 1: fascinated with me that he wanted me to come back
Speaker 1: to his table. He's going to buy me a drink,
Speaker 1: so I don't drink, but I agreed to have a
Speaker 1: cranberry juice. He bought it, paid the waitress, and then
Speaker 1: he took his glass and he clinked my glass and
Speaker 1: cheered me, and then he announces, you know, this is
Speaker 1: the first time IRA sat down with a black man
Speaker 1: and had a drink. So innocently. I asked him why,
Speaker 1: and he didn't answer me at first. I asked him again,
Speaker 1: and his buddy sitting next to him elbowed him and
Speaker 1: said tell him, tell him, And the guy looked at
Speaker 1: me and said I'm a member of the Ku Klux Klan.
Speaker 1: Well I burst out laughing at him because now I
Speaker 1: do not believe him. I thought he was putting the
Speaker 1: joke on me. I'm laughing. He goes inside his pocket,
Speaker 1: pulls out his wallet, flips through it, and hands me
Speaker 1: his clan membership card. I recognized the clan insignia, which
Speaker 1: is a red circle with a white cross and a
Speaker 1: red blood drop in the center of the cross, and
Speaker 1: I'm thinking myself, oh my goodness, you know this is
Speaker 1: for real. So I stopped laughing. But he was, you know,
Speaker 1: very friendly and very appreciative of my music and all excited.
Speaker 1: He gave me his phone number to, you know, to
Speaker 1: call him whenever I was to return to this bar
Speaker 1: with this band, and so I'd call him every six
Speaker 1: weeks and say, hey, man, you know I'm down there
Speaker 1: at the Silver Dollar this weekend, come on out. You say,
Speaker 1: it's so nonchalantly like so I called the guy. It
Speaker 1: is remarkable that you called this person. And you know,
Speaker 1: I don't think I'm alone in struggling to understand, you know,
Speaker 1: what was going through through your mind at this moment.
Speaker 1: If someone told me that they were in the freaking clan.
Speaker 1: I would certainly not call them back. In fact, I'd
Speaker 1: probably just flee the scene. And I think this is
Speaker 1: for pretty good reasons. Well, you know, I was questioning
Speaker 1: myself for a second, like what the heck am I
Speaker 1: doing 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: dancelore I'm music. You know they didn't come in robes hoods, right,
Speaker 1: you know, they came in regular street clothes. This goes
Speaker 1: on for a year, an entire year. Darrell would play
Speaker 1: a gig at this bar, and he would invite clan
Speaker 1: members to watch him play. This is one of those
Speaker 1: things that makes Darrell so unusual. I mean, for me,
Speaker 1: a huge part of what makes someone who they are
Speaker 1: is their belief system. And so if we share the
Speaker 1: same taste in music, that's fine, that's great. But if
Speaker 1: I then find out they're a flagrant racist, that's going
Speaker 1: to fully eclipse everything else about them. So how does
Speaker 1: Darrell look past that, he says, It's not like that.
Speaker 1: He wasn't looking past it. He wanted to learn from it. See,
Speaker 1: Darrell had spent his early childhood overseas in a school
Speaker 1: he describes as a United Nations for little kids. Race
Speaker 1: was always in the background, But when he moved back
Speaker 1: to the States when he was ten, he couldn't escape racism,
Speaker 1: and ever since then he's been interested in why people hate.
Speaker 1: I had had an experience at the age of ten
Speaker 1: where some racist people throw rocks and bottles at me
Speaker 1: during a parade in which I was the only black participant,
Speaker 1: and never having had this happened to me before, I
Speaker 1: was perplexed as to why people were doing this, And
Speaker 1: when later my parents explained that it was racism, my
Speaker 1: ten year old brain could not process the idea that
Speaker 1: someone who had never seen me before, who had never
Speaker 1: spoken with me, and knew nothing about me, would want
Speaker 1: to inflict pain upon me for no other reason than
Speaker 1: the color of my skin. You know, that just did
Speaker 1: not compete with me. Well later, when I realized this
Speaker 1: was true, there are people like that, I formed a
Speaker 1: question in my mind, which was, how can you hate
Speaker 1: me when you don't even know me, and some people
Speaker 1: would just say, well, Darrel, you know that's just the
Speaker 1: way it is. Well, no, it's not just the way
Speaker 1: it is. There has to be a reason behind it.
Speaker 1: Well it's always been that way. That was not good
Speaker 1: enough for me. I wanted to get to the nucleus
Speaker 1: of it. So Darrell dedicates himself to answering this question.
Speaker 1: He devours books about race and racism. He reads nearly
Speaker 1: every book that exists on the clan, but he's still unsatisfied,
Speaker 1: so he decides he wants to write his own book
Speaker 1: about the clan. All the books written on the clan
Speaker 1: except for mine, have been written by white authors. You know,
Speaker 1: white authors obviously have an easier time getting in contact
Speaker 1: with the clan and sitting down and not fearing any
Speaker 1: ramifications or whatever, or they might even join the clan undercover.
Speaker 1: A klansman would have a different perspective sitting there talking
Speaker 1: to a black person than he would a white person.
Speaker 1: And how do you feel that perspective would have been
Speaker 1: different because he's sitting there telling the person that he
Speaker 1: hates why he hates them, So now he's having to
Speaker 1: face me and face those same questions. You know that
Speaker 1: somebody would ask or even different questions that a white
Speaker 1: interviewer journalist would not ask, because they don't think of him,
Speaker 1: because they don't feel the things, the same things that
Speaker 1: I feel. As Darrell starts searching for his book, it
Speaker 1: suddenly dawns on him he already knows someone in the clan,
Speaker 1: that guy from the Silver Dollar Lounge. So he goes
Speaker 1: on a mission to track him down. It takes a while,
Speaker 1: but eventually he finds the guy's address and I knocked
Speaker 1: on the door, you know, unannounced, and he opens the
Speaker 1: door and sees He goes, Daryl, you know, what are
Speaker 1: you doing here? And look, he looked up and down
Speaker 1: the hallway to see if I brought anybody with me.
Speaker 1: So it was more of him that who was intimidated
Speaker 1: than me. And when he stepped out of his apartment,
Speaker 1: I stepped in. So he turns around, comes back in.
Speaker 1: So now we're standing inside his apartment and he says,
Speaker 1: you know what's going on? Are you still playing? What's
Speaker 1: going on? I said, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm still playing.
Speaker 1: But listen, I need to talk to you about the clan.
Speaker 1: He says, the clan. I said, yeah. He goes, well,
Speaker 1: I quit yeah, I quit a while back. I said, well,
Speaker 1: you know, where's all your clan stuff. He says, well,
Speaker 1: they came and got it. And I said, what do
Speaker 1: you mean they came and got your robe and 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. A 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
Speaker 1: yet very self importance. That yeah, but see, that's also
Speaker 1: what attracts people, because you know, they get titles, they
Speaker 1: feel important. Yes, it's a sense of self importance, you know,
Speaker 1: because they're not getting that from the society in which
Speaker 1: they live. So you know, this brotherhood, this gang, if
Speaker 1: you will, gives him those things. So at the time,
Speaker 1: Roger Kelly was the Grand Dragon state leader from Maryland.
Speaker 1: So I said, I'll tell you what you need to
Speaker 1: return this mask, right, He said, yeah. I said, give
Speaker 1: me Roger Kelly's phone number and his address and I'll
Speaker 1: go and return it for you. And he snatched that
Speaker 1: thing right out of my hand and said, in no way.
Speaker 1: And so I begged and pleaded with him. Well, he
Speaker 1: finally gave it to me on the condition that I
Speaker 1: not revealed him, mister Kelly where I got it, and
Speaker 1: he warned me. He said, Darrel, do not go to
Speaker 1: Roger Kelly's house. Roger Kelly will kill you. And I said, well,
Speaker 1: that's that's the whole reason why I need to talk
Speaker 1: to mister Kelly. I know, why would he kill me?
Speaker 1: What is going on in his mind when he sees me.
Speaker 1: I have to understand this. You did realize that you
Speaker 1: might not get the answer to the question if in
Speaker 1: fact the dangerous part happened first? Right, true, this is true,
Speaker 1: But but I was thinking, you know that I would
Speaker 1: I would prevail. I'm the eternal optimist if you will, Well,
Speaker 1: I am not the eternal optimist. And Darrell's decision feels
Speaker 1: incredibly risky. But anyway, he has a secretary, Mary, call
Speaker 1: and schedule the interview, and he gives her one important instruction,
Speaker 1: do not tell him that I'm black, and see if
Speaker 1: you would consent to sitting down and giving her boss
Speaker 1: an interview. I figured, you know, he might pick up
Speaker 1: in my voice that I'm black, and I didn't want
Speaker 1: him to hang up the phone say am I talking
Speaker 1: to you? And my whole project would have ended before
Speaker 1: they would get started. Roger Kelly agrees to meet for
Speaker 1: an interview one evening at a nearby motel. Darrel gets
Speaker 1: to the motel early with Mary. He's not sure if
Speaker 1: Roger will even agree to step foot in the room,
Speaker 1: but if he does, Daryl wants to be hospitable. He
Speaker 1: asked Mary to fill up the ice bucket and buy
Speaker 1: some sodas and then they start arranging the room. There's
Speaker 1: not much to arrange. There's the ice bucket, a table,
Speaker 1: two chairs, and Darrell's canvas bag which has his tape
Speaker 1: recorder and a Bible. The clan claims to be a
Speaker 1: Christian organization, and they claim that the Bible preaches are
Speaker 1: racial separation. Now, in my reading of the Bible, I
Speaker 1: have never seen anything like that in there. So I
Speaker 1: want to be able to pull up my Bible and
Speaker 1: hand it to him and say, here, MITCHA. Kelly, please
Speaker 1: show me chapter and verse where it says blacksom whites
Speaker 1: must be separate. So I'm all prepared, right right on time,
Speaker 1: right to the minute. Five fifteen knock, knock, knock on
Speaker 1: the door. In Walts what is known as the Grand Nighthawk.
Speaker 1: Nighthawk means bodyguard, security he's dressed in military camouflage and
Speaker 1: he has that clan patch on his chest on one side,
Speaker 1: on the other side of his chest or the initials
Speaker 1: KKK and embroidered on his cap and said Knights of
Speaker 1: the Ku Klux Klan, and on his hip. He had
Speaker 1: a semi automatic handgun in a holster. He comes in,
Speaker 1: mister Kelly is walking directly behind him, carrying a briefcase
Speaker 1: in a dark blue suit and tie. And the nighthawk
Speaker 1: turned the corner and saw me and just froze in
Speaker 1: his trap. So mister Kelly slammed into his back and
Speaker 1: knocked this guy forward. And now that they both are
Speaker 1: stumbling around trying to regain their balance, and they're like
Speaker 1: looking all around the room like somebody's not right here.
Speaker 1: And I'm just sitting at the table looking at their faces,
Speaker 1: and I could read their faces like a billboard. Their
Speaker 1: faces were saying to me, did the desk k give
Speaker 1: us the wrong room number? Do you do? Do we
Speaker 1: misunderstand something? Or is this an ambush? So you know,
Speaker 1: I saw the apprehension, and so I stood up and
Speaker 1: I displayed both of my palms to show I had
Speaker 1: nothing in my hands, and I walked forward. I extended
Speaker 1: my right hand and I said, Hi, mister Kelly, I'm
Speaker 1: Darrell Davis. I hope both of these conversations inspired thinking
Speaker 1: and conversation around issues of race. You can find more
Speaker 1: episodes of b Anti Racist and A Slight Change of
Speaker 1: Plans wherever you get your podcasts