WEBVTT - Race and Anti-Racism 0:00:11.880 --> 0:00:15.040 Welcome to Woke AF with me Danielle Moody. Since the 0:00:15.080 --> 0:00:17.680 beginning of the year, I have been bringing you conversations 0:00:17.720 --> 0:00:21.320 with thought leaders and changemakers in art, activism, wellness, and more. 0:00:21.560 --> 0:00:24.080 Starting next week, I'm going to be bringing you five 0:00:24.160 --> 0:00:27.560 new podcasts every single week from Monday through Friday, with 0:00:27.600 --> 0:00:29.960 more of a focus on my own thoughts and perspectives, 0:00:30.000 --> 0:00:33.159 while still sharing taste of my conversation with the amazing 0:00:33.200 --> 0:00:35.840 woke guests I talk with every week on my Patreon, 0:00:36.159 --> 0:00:39.200 which you can always support on patreon dot com slash 0:00:39.240 --> 0:00:42.200 woke AF to get the full Woke AF daily experience. 0:00:42.720 --> 0:00:45.200 To bring to a close these weekly shows, I wanted 0:00:45.240 --> 0:00:48.400 to share my full conversation with Emma Davery, author of 0:00:48.400 --> 0:00:50.960 the new book What White People Can Do Next. It 0:00:51.120 --> 0:00:53.440 is not a book for white people, but about white 0:00:53.479 --> 0:00:56.120 people and the how and why of their creation of 0:00:56.240 --> 0:00:59.080 race as a social construct in order to subjugate non 0:00:59.160 --> 0:01:03.880 white people enforced white supremacy. Our conversation went deep into 0:01:03.880 --> 0:01:06.520 the connection between the construction of race and the system 0:01:06.520 --> 0:01:09.840 of global capitalism, so you'll definitely want to listen closely 0:01:09.920 --> 0:01:16.959 to this half hour conversation. Emma, talk to me about 0:01:17.000 --> 0:01:21.720 what drove you to write this guide for non people 0:01:21.760 --> 0:01:25.880 of color. Okay, so first of all, I would say 0:01:25.959 --> 0:01:30.440 it is posing as a guide for non people of color, 0:01:31.200 --> 0:01:35.520 but that's not what it is. It's something while others 0:01:35.520 --> 0:01:38.800 have actually described it as a as a trojan horse. 0:01:39.319 --> 0:01:44.959 Quite a few of my black friends and peers were 0:01:44.959 --> 0:01:48.360 even a little bit you know side when the book 0:01:48.440 --> 0:01:51.200 was first was first announced. This has been a conversation 0:01:51.240 --> 0:01:54.560 that we've been having, like quite publicly. However, when they 0:01:54.600 --> 0:01:58.280 actually read the book, they were like, no, this book 0:01:58.360 --> 0:02:02.080 was not what I thought it was. And actually there's 0:02:02.120 --> 0:02:05.960 a lot in here for to be honest, like I 0:02:06.000 --> 0:02:09.760 wouldn't have the energy or the inclination to just write 0:02:09.760 --> 0:02:13.800 a guide book to white people to kind of try 0:02:13.800 --> 0:02:18.200 to teach them how to better recognize my humanity, which 0:02:18.200 --> 0:02:20.320 is something I kind of say in the beginning of 0:02:20.360 --> 0:02:26.239 the book. There are things that white people racialized as white, 0:02:26.320 --> 0:02:32.400 can implement that would lead us towards the world we 0:02:32.440 --> 0:02:35.360 need to be trying to create. But there are also 0:02:35.639 --> 0:02:42.000 ways of thinking and engaging and acting that actually everybody 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:45.600 could implement that there's ways that we can kind of 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:48.440 shift the ways in which we talk about certain issues 0:02:48.440 --> 0:02:51.680 and the way our solutions to them, You know that 0:02:51.760 --> 0:02:55.560 I think that I think it's powerful for everybody to 0:02:55.639 --> 0:03:00.600 think about. I taught African studies for over ten years 0:03:00.639 --> 0:03:05.040 at a university in the UK, and so I'm actually 0:03:05.240 --> 0:03:12.040 drawing on, you know, some African philosophies. I draw a 0:03:12.120 --> 0:03:15.560 lot on the Black radical tradition. You know, most of 0:03:15.639 --> 0:03:22.040 the sources and literature that I am drawing on and 0:03:22.080 --> 0:03:26.040 that I am grounded in, you know, from African studies 0:03:26.080 --> 0:03:29.560 and from the Black radical tradition, which I think puts 0:03:29.880 --> 0:03:32.720 this book slightly in contrast to a lot of the 0:03:32.800 --> 0:03:37.400 other more recent anti racist titles which are grounded more 0:03:38.000 --> 0:03:44.200 in current articulation of anti racism. That I a mainstream 0:03:44.280 --> 0:03:47.320 kind of anti racism that I'm a little bit critical 0:03:47.400 --> 0:03:50.000 of within the book, shall we say? So, I would 0:03:50.000 --> 0:03:53.760 say that I am located in a different intellectual tradition, 0:03:53.840 --> 0:03:55.960 I guess than a lot of the other anti racist 0:03:55.960 --> 0:03:59.000 literature that is popular at the moment. Do you think, 0:03:59.320 --> 0:04:01.440 you know, because there are so many things that have 0:04:01.600 --> 0:04:05.720 come into our lexicon, anti racism being one of them, 0:04:05.880 --> 0:04:09.280 right like, we have moved at least in the United States, 0:04:09.320 --> 0:04:12.160 and so I would love your thoughts as a person 0:04:12.440 --> 0:04:15.800 being from across the pond in the UK. You know 0:04:16.000 --> 0:04:21.359 how we moved from a place of we just wanted 0:04:21.400 --> 0:04:25.640 to tolerate people, right, then we wanted to accept them. 0:04:26.240 --> 0:04:29.040 Then we moved into a place where no, it's not 0:04:29.200 --> 0:04:33.440 enough to just you know, accept somebody's differences. Now we 0:04:33.560 --> 0:04:36.640 want you to not just not be a racist, right, 0:04:36.720 --> 0:04:39.960 we want you to be anti racist. Do you think 0:04:40.000 --> 0:04:43.680 that this progression is just a progression that is in 0:04:43.880 --> 0:04:47.280 name only? Do you think that it is possible in 0:04:47.320 --> 0:04:52.080 all honesty for someone to be anti racist? So I 0:04:52.120 --> 0:04:55.760 think in our current articulation of the problem, it is 0:04:55.800 --> 0:04:59.240 not possible. One of the things that I was concerned 0:04:59.279 --> 0:05:02.800 with and that I writing against is the fact that 0:05:02.880 --> 0:05:05.560 we are so we're now having finally, we're having this 0:05:05.680 --> 0:05:09.920 like mainstream conversation where racism and anti racism is high 0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:16.040 on the agenda. And yet within that conversation, what I 0:05:16.080 --> 0:05:20.560 felt was absent was the real kind of grappling with 0:05:20.600 --> 0:05:25.080 an understanding of the fact that race is a social construction, 0:05:25.680 --> 0:05:29.320 and that the idea of a white race and subsequently 0:05:29.360 --> 0:05:36.599 a black race was very intentionally created, engineered and kind 0:05:36.600 --> 0:05:42.320 of spread through law and legislation from whence it took 0:05:42.480 --> 0:05:44.760 root and became you know, kind of far more of 0:05:44.760 --> 0:05:49.960 a psychological attachment, but it was done. It's as recent 0:05:50.200 --> 0:05:54.799 as the seventeenth century. The first time we see whiteness 0:05:54.839 --> 0:05:58.760 introduced as the idea of a white race introduced is 0:05:58.800 --> 0:06:03.360 in the colonial Caribbean in Barbados, and quite shortly after 0:06:03.440 --> 0:06:08.640 that we see it in North America in places like Virginia. Sorry, 0:06:08.760 --> 0:06:11.320 and it's from from there. The idea, you know, spreads 0:06:11.760 --> 0:06:15.240 kind of throughout the world. But the reason that it 0:06:15.360 --> 0:06:21.480 is created and invented is explicitly to create and enshrine 0:06:22.120 --> 0:06:28.720 a notion of white superiority and to justify the subjugation 0:06:29.360 --> 0:06:33.640 of African people, people of African descent, that these colonial 0:06:33.640 --> 0:06:38.080 economies are becoming increasingly dependent on. It's in that period 0:06:38.120 --> 0:06:41.440 that we that we start to see all of these 0:06:41.600 --> 0:06:46.640 negative assumptions and ideas being attached to black to people 0:06:46.640 --> 0:06:50.919 who are racialized as black, and until we grapple with 0:06:51.480 --> 0:06:55.719 the real and also this is intimately connected to the 0:06:55.760 --> 0:07:01.320 beginning of the system of global capitalism that we currently 0:07:01.839 --> 0:07:05.840 still live under a version of, and so much of 0:07:05.880 --> 0:07:11.080 the liberal anti racist conversation seems like it's doubling down 0:07:11.240 --> 0:07:16.280 on the truth status of race, rather than grappling with 0:07:16.480 --> 0:07:20.560 the artificial nature of it and really helping people truly 0:07:20.680 --> 0:07:25.600 understand why and when the when and why these categories 0:07:25.600 --> 0:07:29.360 were created. Until we start to be able to see 0:07:29.400 --> 0:07:34.280 outside of race as a biological truth and reality, I 0:07:34.320 --> 0:07:37.600 think it will be impossible to actually have an anti 0:07:37.680 --> 0:07:42.160 racist world. Race as we understand it today was invented 0:07:42.240 --> 0:07:46.120 to justify racism. Until we fully understand that, we will 0:07:46.120 --> 0:07:49.160 continue to we will continue to have racism, you know. 0:07:49.520 --> 0:07:51.560 And again, what I think a lot of the mainstream 0:07:51.560 --> 0:07:54.640 conversation is also devoid of. What tends to be absent 0:07:55.160 --> 0:07:59.600 is that intimacy and that connection between the invention of 0:07:59.720 --> 0:08:05.000 race and capitalism. And so much of the current anti 0:08:05.080 --> 0:08:10.680 racist mainstream liberal discourse does not engage with capitalism. It 0:08:10.760 --> 0:08:13.040 acts as though racism is, you know, kind of occurring 0:08:13.120 --> 0:08:16.560 in a vacuum in which capitalism doesn't exist. So two 0:08:16.600 --> 0:08:19.880 of the things that I really wanted to have central 0:08:19.960 --> 0:08:23.160 in the book were when and why race was invented 0:08:23.200 --> 0:08:26.560 and that relationship between the invention of race and capitalism. 0:08:27.280 --> 0:08:30.000 You know, I think that it's really interesting because the 0:08:30.120 --> 0:08:33.920 reality is, I always go back to a Tony Morrison 0:08:34.040 --> 0:08:36.360 quote that I will butcher, but the essence of it 0:08:36.400 --> 0:08:40.600 being that racism is a distraction, right, and that when 0:08:40.679 --> 0:08:44.280 you are grappling with people to your earlier point, I'm 0:08:44.320 --> 0:08:47.160 not here to convince you of my humanity. Right like that, 0:08:47.480 --> 0:08:49.960 that is no longer a place where I find myself. 0:08:50.000 --> 0:08:53.440 When I was much younger, growing up in eastern Long 0:08:53.480 --> 0:08:56.640 Island in New York, in a ninety six percent white area, 0:08:56.679 --> 0:08:59.280 I had a different sentiment, right, because I just wanted 0:08:59.320 --> 0:09:03.080 to fit in. Right, As I have gotten older and 0:09:03.200 --> 0:09:06.040 thinking to myself, well, why am I sitting here explaining 0:09:06.080 --> 0:09:08.360 myself to you? It is a waste of my energy 0:09:08.360 --> 0:09:11.280 and is a waste of breath. I think. What is 0:09:11.440 --> 0:09:15.439 what I find problematic about where we are is that 0:09:15.520 --> 0:09:22.040 you are presenting a very intellectual and thoughtful argument about 0:09:22.080 --> 0:09:25.319 how we got the way we are, right, about how 0:09:25.480 --> 0:09:30.640 we arrived at this place where we have people literally 0:09:30.679 --> 0:09:33.160 and I have my friend that comes on the show 0:09:33.200 --> 0:09:35.320 all the time who wrote the book Dying of Whiteness. 0:09:35.640 --> 0:09:38.439 That is that we are at a place where around 0:09:38.440 --> 0:09:40.560 the world, not just in the United States, but we 0:09:40.600 --> 0:09:45.760 are dying of whiteness because we refuse to have a 0:09:45.920 --> 0:09:50.920 thoughtful conversation about why race was created in the first place, 0:09:51.280 --> 0:09:55.400 and that to have that conversation absent of the purpose 0:09:55.520 --> 0:09:59.320 of the creation, which was slavery to justify to justify 0:09:59.400 --> 0:10:03.360 the slave t And even now we have politicians in 0:10:03.920 --> 0:10:07.040 that are sitting members of Congress right now that say 0:10:07.120 --> 0:10:11.679 that that slavery wasn't necessary. Evil continue and that will 0:10:11.720 --> 0:10:15.679 continue with that narration. We're fighting right now in twenty 0:10:15.720 --> 0:10:19.520 two states in this country that have banned critical race theory. 0:10:19.720 --> 0:10:22.440 So we can't even get emma to where you want 0:10:22.520 --> 0:10:24.959 us to go because we are we are not even 0:10:25.000 --> 0:10:27.560 allowed to open the book. Is what they is what 0:10:27.640 --> 0:10:30.040 they have created in twenty two states here. And so 0:10:30.520 --> 0:10:34.720 I wonder, you know, at a time when we're still 0:10:34.720 --> 0:10:39.080 trying to convince people of the fact that racism exists, 0:10:39.120 --> 0:10:42.679 that white privilege is a thing, that everything is intertwined 0:10:42.720 --> 0:10:44.880 in this way where we're still it's like I'm trying 0:10:44.920 --> 0:10:47.640 to convince you that the sky is blue and yet 0:10:47.880 --> 0:10:50.760 the earth is on fire. Right, So I can't have 0:10:50.880 --> 0:10:55.360 any more complicated conversation about how we fix anything if 0:10:55.360 --> 0:10:59.040 I have to convince you that it exists. So you know, 0:10:59.440 --> 0:11:01.959 so how you how do you deal with the real 0:11:02.160 --> 0:11:04.720 like that reality. And obviously, I mean, you lay out 0:11:04.760 --> 0:11:08.120 so many things in your book, but I find myself, 0:11:08.320 --> 0:11:12.800 I guess, in this place of hopelessness because if I'm 0:11:12.800 --> 0:11:14.800 still trying to convince you of the thing that we're 0:11:14.880 --> 0:11:19.439 not we're not moving, we're not getting anywhere. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:11:19.480 --> 0:11:25.000 I completely hear that. Like, in many ways, with what 0:11:25.040 --> 0:11:30.000 I was writing, I wanted to create a compelling narrative 0:11:30.440 --> 0:11:35.079 as to why it would be in the best interests 0:11:35.160 --> 0:11:39.960 of most people in the world to actually really interrogate 0:11:40.040 --> 0:11:45.560 whiteness and for people who are racialized as white to 0:11:45.679 --> 0:11:49.360 come to understand that in many ways whiteness was invented 0:11:49.440 --> 0:11:54.440 to hoodwink many of them as well. Come on so 0:11:55.440 --> 0:11:58.800 interesting for me to explore as somebody who grew up 0:11:58.840 --> 0:12:04.240 in Ireland and as a white Irish mother, and Ireland 0:12:04.480 --> 0:12:08.880 has an interesting position in all of this, given that 0:12:09.000 --> 0:12:17.240 I think my early reckoning with racism and my early 0:12:17.640 --> 0:12:20.560 kind of radicalism I would say from a young age 0:12:20.760 --> 0:12:25.520 was in many ways a direct consequence of I spent 0:12:25.559 --> 0:12:27.200 the first I was born in Dublin, but I spent 0:12:27.240 --> 0:12:30.040 the first few years of my life in Atlanta, Georgia. 0:12:30.120 --> 0:12:33.760 My dad was studying at Morehouse. So I went from 0:12:34.000 --> 0:12:36.600 being in a very black environment for the first few 0:12:36.640 --> 0:12:40.280 years of my life to moving to Ireland. Back to 0:12:40.320 --> 0:12:43.960 Ireland in the mid nineteen eighties as a small child 0:12:44.720 --> 0:12:50.480 and being confronted with a very in your face and 0:12:50.720 --> 0:12:56.560 explicit form of racism that I think was actually quite 0:12:56.840 --> 0:13:00.440 quite unusual, I think in other like in the it's 0:13:00.440 --> 0:13:05.160 certainly never something I experienced in Atlanta. And I realized 0:13:05.200 --> 0:13:09.800 that the investment in white supremacy, you know, is far 0:13:09.880 --> 0:13:14.239 more entrenched in the United States than it is in Ireland. 0:13:14.960 --> 0:13:18.120 Yet in Ireland, where there hadn't really been the opportunity 0:13:18.760 --> 0:13:24.200 for the development of an institutionalized of more institutionalized racism 0:13:24.400 --> 0:13:28.240 because of the physical absence of black people or people 0:13:28.240 --> 0:13:31.360 of color from that environment. At that time it was 0:13:31.400 --> 0:13:34.960 like a ninety nine point nine percent country. Attitudes and 0:13:35.120 --> 0:13:38.680 ideas about black people had very much been imported from 0:13:38.720 --> 0:13:42.360 both America and the United States. So I came up 0:13:42.400 --> 0:13:47.160 against that in a very interpersonal and confrontational way from 0:13:47.200 --> 0:13:50.360 a young age, which is what really led me to, 0:13:50.960 --> 0:13:54.640 you know, to a very young interest in black history 0:13:54.679 --> 0:13:58.800 and African studies and whatnot. But I've always been interested 0:13:58.920 --> 0:14:04.080 in that position of the Irish as both colonized because 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:09.120 Ireland was colonized Britain by England for over eight hundred years, 0:14:09.520 --> 0:14:14.000 so Ireland as both colonized and as colonizer, and the 0:14:14.040 --> 0:14:17.720 way that Irish behaved, many of the Irish behaved when 0:14:17.760 --> 0:14:21.760 they went to the United States fleeing the famine in 0:14:21.800 --> 0:14:25.000 the mid in the mid nineteenth century, their level of 0:14:25.040 --> 0:14:30.080 investment in white supremacy, and rather than having any kind 0:14:30.120 --> 0:14:34.840 of you know, solidarity with black Americans who might have 0:14:34.920 --> 0:14:38.680 imagined there would be a natural sympathy between the two groups, 0:14:38.680 --> 0:14:42.840 there was quite quite the opposite. And you see again 0:14:42.920 --> 0:14:47.800 and again how the Irish, who are not immediately included 0:14:48.280 --> 0:14:51.880 as categorized as white, people who were not at first 0:14:51.880 --> 0:14:56.720 seen as being racialized as white, very much invested in 0:14:56.760 --> 0:15:00.480 the project of white supremacy in order to access the 0:15:00.560 --> 0:15:04.400 material benefits of that. So with that history and mind, 0:15:04.520 --> 0:15:07.680 I was interested in thinking about how the Irish came 0:15:07.720 --> 0:15:11.880 to be racialized as white and how I could kind 0:15:11.880 --> 0:15:15.160 of use that to explore these kind of contradictions and 0:15:15.240 --> 0:15:18.080 diseases which can still exist within whiteness. And I was 0:15:18.120 --> 0:15:22.080 really fascinated to see that or to learn that when 0:15:22.120 --> 0:15:25.440 you see whiteness. First. The idea of a white race 0:15:25.520 --> 0:15:28.880 first introduced, and it's through a series of slave codes 0:15:29.160 --> 0:15:32.920 in colonial Barbados in sixteen sixty one. The first time 0:15:32.960 --> 0:15:37.480 that happens is actually as a reaction against the number 0:15:37.520 --> 0:15:41.840 of uprisings that are happening between indentured Irish and Barbados. 0:15:42.200 --> 0:15:45.280 Indentured Irish and Barbados are not yet raciable. The idea 0:15:45.280 --> 0:15:47.960 of a white category doesn't exist yet. You have indentured 0:15:47.960 --> 0:15:51.000 Irish there, and as they cannot keep up with the 0:15:51.080 --> 0:15:54.000 labor demands, you are beginning to see more and more 0:15:54.200 --> 0:15:58.240 kidnapped Africans being brought into that to that place to 0:15:58.960 --> 0:16:02.480 meet those labor demands. And there a number a series 0:16:02.520 --> 0:16:07.880 of uprisings occur where the indentured Irish and the enslaved Africans, 0:16:08.040 --> 0:16:10.800 who do not yet see themselves as black or white 0:16:10.840 --> 0:16:14.960 people that concept hasn't been created yet, come together to 0:16:15.080 --> 0:16:19.880 attack the English landlords who they both see, who they 0:16:19.960 --> 0:16:25.000 both see as a common enemy. These uprisings are a 0:16:25.120 --> 0:16:29.680 real threat to the status quo and to the power 0:16:29.720 --> 0:16:33.800 balance because there's more, there are more Africans and indentured 0:16:33.840 --> 0:16:36.000 Irish in these in these spaces than there are these 0:16:36.160 --> 0:16:39.640 English and sometimes Scottish elites. So one of the things 0:16:39.680 --> 0:16:45.400 that this legislative concept of whiteness does is it gives 0:16:45.480 --> 0:16:50.520 those indentured Irish so they're still exploited in contrast to 0:16:50.600 --> 0:16:53.320 the other white right, but as provided that they are 0:16:53.400 --> 0:16:57.920 given someone else to exploit, then then they are creating 0:16:57.920 --> 0:17:01.320 a different they're creating a different peer right where they 0:17:01.320 --> 0:17:05.000 are no longer on the bodom exactly exactly. So there's 0:17:05.000 --> 0:17:08.399 a deep investment, you know, in that, and they're also 0:17:08.520 --> 0:17:11.679 dangled the promise, you know, now as white people, you 0:17:11.760 --> 0:17:16.199 two can access these things that the rich elite have, 0:17:16.359 --> 0:17:18.160 you know, and that's so complete an option that's shut 0:17:18.200 --> 0:17:23.080 down to people who become racialized as black. But it 0:17:23.160 --> 0:17:27.679 was so interesting that whiteness, the concept of whiteness, shut 0:17:27.760 --> 0:17:34.240 down those moments of coalition and solidarity which really could 0:17:34.400 --> 0:17:40.160 have upset the whole social order and created just created 0:17:40.200 --> 0:17:42.760 a completely different reality. And then you see the same 0:17:42.800 --> 0:17:46.280 thing happening in colonial Virginia where you have indentured English 0:17:46.359 --> 0:17:50.480 laborers and enslaved Africans again come together. There's a rebellion 0:17:50.560 --> 0:17:54.880 called Bacon's Rebellion, where they also attack the English elite, 0:17:55.240 --> 0:17:58.440 and very shortly after that the law met the English. 0:17:58.720 --> 0:18:02.520 White English lawmakers, who are now kind of understand themselves 0:18:02.520 --> 0:18:06.320 as white, introduce again these slave codes that create a 0:18:06.359 --> 0:18:08.879 situation where people who are now racialized as black have 0:18:09.080 --> 0:18:12.680 no recourse to justice or any sort of human rights, 0:18:12.760 --> 0:18:16.160 and white people who are really quite a motley crew 0:18:16.240 --> 0:18:20.800 of everybody from you know, Scottish, English, Irish, I think 0:18:20.840 --> 0:18:26.160 some Portuguese felons, land lords, a whole range of society 0:18:26.200 --> 0:18:29.760 who have no idea of themselves as am who have 0:18:29.840 --> 0:18:32.760 no concept of themselves as having any kind of shared identity. 0:18:33.119 --> 0:18:37.320 That motley crew becomes reimagined as white people, and even 0:18:37.320 --> 0:18:41.520 those on the lower rungs of that kind of whiteness 0:18:41.800 --> 0:18:44.600 start to see their fates and fortunes far more in 0:18:44.640 --> 0:18:47.960 alignment with other people racialized as white than they do 0:18:48.400 --> 0:18:51.160 with people who are racialized as black, who might actually 0:18:51.160 --> 0:18:56.600 have more kind of circumstantial shared experience of lifestyle with them. 0:18:56.600 --> 0:18:58.600 So whiteness one of the things that does is to 0:18:58.640 --> 0:19:01.280 shut down solidarity and code mission. I mean, I mean 0:19:01.359 --> 0:19:05.360 that that is literally the point, right that is that 0:19:05.480 --> 0:19:09.080 is literally the point is that if you can create 0:19:09.200 --> 0:19:14.000 this stratification of power right, and then you ensure that 0:19:14.040 --> 0:19:17.040 there is always going to be this underclass, what is 0:19:17.080 --> 0:19:20.080 perceived to be this underclass. And we can all agree, 0:19:20.200 --> 0:19:24.359 regardless of what country we are coming from, but we 0:19:24.400 --> 0:19:26.800 can all agree that the black and the brown belong 0:19:26.840 --> 0:19:29.600 on the bottom. Then you can build off of that. 0:19:29.880 --> 0:19:32.200 And I think that what's you know, what is so 0:19:33.359 --> 0:19:37.119 fascinating to me as I'm listening to you weave through 0:19:37.680 --> 0:19:43.200 centuries right of oppression, is that I'm thinking about you know. 0:19:43.920 --> 0:19:46.960 Lyndon B. Johnson said at one time that if you 0:19:47.000 --> 0:19:49.840 can teach the poorest white man that he is better 0:19:49.880 --> 0:19:52.800 than the best negro, then you can pick his pockets. 0:19:53.119 --> 0:19:56.280 That all of this, all of this comes back to 0:19:56.400 --> 0:20:01.760 it being steeped in what capitalism. If we were if 0:20:01.800 --> 0:20:06.280 we were to reimagine a system that wasn't a pyramid scheme, 0:20:06.359 --> 0:20:08.160 because that is how I see it, If we were 0:20:08.200 --> 0:20:11.600 to reimagine a system that was not a pyramid scheme, 0:20:12.040 --> 0:20:17.920 then it would we would recognize that everyone has been bamboozled. 0:20:18.119 --> 0:20:20.160 And that's why and that's why I think that your 0:20:20.160 --> 0:20:23.719 book is so important, because it is the recognition that 0:20:23.800 --> 0:20:27.119 everyone has been bamboozled by whiteness. Right, and that the 0:20:27.200 --> 0:20:31.400 only people, the only people that truly truly benefit are 0:20:31.440 --> 0:20:35.760 the wealthy, are the wealthy white elite, because everyone else, 0:20:36.000 --> 0:20:39.400 to your point, has much more in common in terms 0:20:39.440 --> 0:20:41.520 of just trying to put food on the table, just 0:20:41.760 --> 0:20:45.360 trying to keep their head above water then they do 0:20:45.520 --> 0:20:49.280 with those that they aspire to be. There is something 0:20:49.320 --> 0:20:51.800 in America, and I want to know if you sense 0:20:51.840 --> 0:20:55.840 it elsewhere as well, But there is there is this 0:20:56.720 --> 0:21:01.760 aspirational sense of being right. We don't fix our tax 0:21:01.880 --> 0:21:04.920 codes here because there's this belief that one day you're 0:21:04.960 --> 0:21:08.359 going to hit the lottery and you too will be rich, right, 0:21:08.440 --> 0:21:11.280 and so you want to pay less taxes when that miracle, 0:21:12.119 --> 0:21:15.960 you know, cease to happen. I think about it all 0:21:16.000 --> 0:21:21.080 the time that like for Americans, wealth is this aspirational thing, 0:21:21.520 --> 0:21:24.760 so they will follow whomever. It doesn't matter if they're bright, 0:21:24.920 --> 0:21:27.800 It doesn't matter if they're misogynists or racist like Donald 0:21:27.800 --> 0:21:31.000 Trump it has, it doesn't matter. There is something about 0:21:31.000 --> 0:21:35.080 this this shiny, bright thing of wealth that is like 0:21:35.240 --> 0:21:37.679 a moth to a flame. And I want to know 0:21:38.000 --> 0:21:42.119 if that because unless you can break that kind of hypnotism, 0:21:42.840 --> 0:21:45.760 I don't think that you get anywhere, right, because there's 0:21:45.800 --> 0:21:47.600 a I don't I don't think that you move anywhere. 0:21:47.600 --> 0:21:50.399 And I wonder if you see that same type of 0:21:50.440 --> 0:21:54.240 because I'm not as privian and well versed in international 0:21:54.480 --> 0:21:58.480 thoughts about race and racing. But do you see that 0:21:59.600 --> 0:22:05.160 that's sense of this aspirational desire? Yes, those tendencies are 0:22:05.800 --> 0:22:10.240 certainly amongst us, and they are very much used to 0:22:10.680 --> 0:22:15.359 manipulate people from acting according to their own best interests, 0:22:15.480 --> 0:22:19.560 you know, that idea of aspiration and being able to 0:22:20.080 --> 0:22:24.520 one day achieve the good life. So in this it's 0:22:24.560 --> 0:22:27.000 still voting against the things that would actually make your 0:22:27.040 --> 0:22:32.760 current material conditions better or even livable. However, they are 0:22:32.920 --> 0:22:37.320 not as pronounced here, and again it's different in Ireland 0:22:37.680 --> 0:22:42.719 as they are in the United States. In the United States, 0:22:42.840 --> 0:22:49.679 that tendency seems like turbocharged, you know, like actually far 0:22:50.000 --> 0:22:57.399 more deeply integral to to what America is and means, 0:22:57.920 --> 0:23:00.040 you know. So I think it's more pronounced in the 0:23:00.080 --> 0:23:04.480 United States. It definitely exists here, but I think it's 0:23:04.560 --> 0:23:08.160 yet more potent where you are. Yeah, we've just created 0:23:08.359 --> 0:23:12.880 we've concocted a series of tales in the United States 0:23:12.880 --> 0:23:17.280 that are grounded in white American exceptionalism, right, and this 0:23:17.359 --> 0:23:20.160 idea that you will pull yourself up from your bootstraps, 0:23:20.200 --> 0:23:23.000 that you can you know, you can arrive, you two 0:23:23.040 --> 0:23:25.680 can arrive at this place and it doesn't matter what 0:23:25.720 --> 0:23:29.280 your current reality is. It's living in the fantasy of 0:23:29.280 --> 0:23:32.320 what could be right. And I think that both the 0:23:33.240 --> 0:23:36.960 possibility of the thing right is both what draws people 0:23:36.960 --> 0:23:41.080 to America and also what can make you so disgusted 0:23:41.119 --> 0:23:44.080 with America right, because it's like the dangling of the 0:23:44.160 --> 0:23:47.080 carrot of Oh, there is possibility to have these things 0:23:47.520 --> 0:23:52.560 if you if you clear every single hurdle and obstacle 0:23:52.920 --> 0:23:55.760 that it's placed in your way as a person of color, 0:23:55.880 --> 0:23:58.200 as a woman, as a queer person, as a person 0:23:58.280 --> 0:24:01.159 with disabilities, Like if you can mate around all of this, 0:24:01.320 --> 0:24:04.640 then yes, yes, there's this possibility. Yeah. And also when 0:24:04.640 --> 0:24:07.439 other people are you know, like here in this country, 0:24:07.480 --> 0:24:10.200 I'd say, like inherited wealth is like a really big 0:24:10.240 --> 0:24:11.800 thing as it is in the United States, but there's 0:24:11.800 --> 0:24:15.199 actually like very little social mobility here. So one of 0:24:15.200 --> 0:24:17.240 the things that I talk about in the one of 0:24:17.280 --> 0:24:18.920 the things that I really look at in the book 0:24:18.960 --> 0:24:22.520 actually is again one of my frustrations with the current 0:24:22.760 --> 0:24:26.960 the kind of mainstream liberal iteration of anti racism is 0:24:26.960 --> 0:24:32.560 this almost criticization of interpersonal privilege, often at the expense 0:24:33.080 --> 0:24:37.640 of looking at things like inherited wealth, looking at things like, 0:24:38.080 --> 0:24:46.639 you know, for more structural wealth, power imbalances and types 0:24:46.680 --> 0:24:51.639 of inequalities that exist. So I have a chapter in 0:24:51.680 --> 0:24:54.560 the book that looks at the redistribute. It is called 0:24:55.040 --> 0:25:00.439 redistribute Resources. It thinking about inherited wealth and you know, 0:25:00.560 --> 0:25:05.320 forms of forms of taxation and how black people, and 0:25:05.359 --> 0:25:08.040 again this is more pronounced in the United States, have 0:25:08.280 --> 0:25:15.439 been locked out of opportunity to create wealth and to 0:25:15.640 --> 0:25:20.640 accumulate wealth in an intergenerational way, and to really think, 0:25:21.160 --> 0:25:24.439 to really put our energy towards tackling things like that. 0:25:24.480 --> 0:25:28.560 I talk about things like universal basic income and even reparations, 0:25:28.960 --> 0:25:32.439 and I think our energy would be better placed looking 0:25:32.440 --> 0:25:36.720 at those more structural processes. Then this, as I said, 0:25:36.800 --> 0:25:42.480 almost feticization of interpersonal privilege that just often plays out online. 0:25:42.520 --> 0:25:45.480 I think that's something of a distraction technique. Actually, I mean, 0:25:45.520 --> 0:25:48.320 I think, you know, frankly, all of it is such 0:25:48.320 --> 0:25:52.280 a deep distraction. And I appreciate your writing so much 0:25:52.359 --> 0:25:55.399 because I think that it offers us what we really 0:25:55.400 --> 0:25:58.400 where we should be, right, how we actually get there, 0:25:58.560 --> 0:26:03.200 I'm not I'm fuzzy on it, but you definitely present 0:26:03.560 --> 0:26:06.640 where we should be and how if we have these 0:26:06.680 --> 0:26:12.600 fundamental grapplings of the formation of race, understanding racism, the 0:26:12.720 --> 0:26:15.720 why behind it all, then we can actually begin to 0:26:15.760 --> 0:26:19.960 move forward. But to in this country we are living 0:26:20.000 --> 0:26:22.080 in the midst of I think one of the greatest 0:26:22.200 --> 0:26:25.560 gas lights I have ever seen, right, And it is 0:26:25.680 --> 0:26:30.840 just it is extraordinary the lengths that right wing white 0:26:30.920 --> 0:26:33.679 leaders are going to in this country right now to 0:26:34.200 --> 0:26:39.200 make it seem as if nothing of inequity, nothing of injustice, 0:26:39.359 --> 0:26:43.000 nothing of domestic terrorism ever happened, Right, It's just all 0:26:43.040 --> 0:26:45.840