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Speaker 1: If in this moment of crisis, in this moment of

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Speaker 1: conflict and controversy, in this moment where democracy is being threatened,

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Speaker 1: we remain silent. I don't think it's just apathetic. I

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Speaker 1: don't think it's just cowardly. I think it's dishonorable. And

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Speaker 1: So if we are Americans committed to a future, if

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Speaker 1: we are Americans who believe in freedom, of quality and justice,

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Speaker 1: we have to now speak out. We have to do things,

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Speaker 1: and we have to be prepared. That may mean things

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Speaker 1: get uncomfortable, but we have behind us generations who did

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Speaker 1: those uncomfortable things to make this nation the nation that

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Speaker 1: it is in hopes that we would continue that struggle.

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Speaker 1: And so that's what I'm embracing in this moment.

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Speaker 2: Hi everyone, I'm Kitty Curic, and this is next question.

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Speaker 2: I've probably interviewed thousands of people over the years, but

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Speaker 2: whenever anyone asked me who my favorite is, I don't

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Speaker 2: even have to think about it. It's Brian Stephen. He

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Speaker 2: has an extraordinary presence in a way of taking the

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Speaker 2: most painful and confounding issues we face as a country

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Speaker 2: and helping us see them with clarity, perspective, and even

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Speaker 2: a sense of hope. Brian is the founder of the

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Speaker 2: Equal Justice Initiative, where he has spent decades taking on

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Speaker 2: some of the hardest work imaginable, challenging racial injustice, mass incarceration,

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Speaker 2: and the death penalty. His work has given voice and

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Speaker 2: dignity to people who are too often forgotten. It also

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Speaker 2: inspired the creation of the Legacy Sites in Montgomery, Alabama,

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Speaker 2: which forced us to confront our history honestly while pointing

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Speaker 2: us toward healing and hope. And of course, his best

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Speaker 2: selling memoir Jess Mercy, has become a touchstone for so

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Speaker 2: many people around the world. We really covered a lot

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Speaker 2: of ground in this conversation. We talked about the troubling

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Speaker 2: things we're seen in this country right now, the progress

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Speaker 2: that's been made or being reversed, the regressions that are

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Speaker 2: just as real, and where we go from here. I

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Speaker 2: hope you enjoy our time together as much as I did.

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Speaker 2: Brian Stevenson. I am so thrilled to have you here.

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Speaker 2: Thank you so much for coming by.

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Speaker 1: It's good to be with you.

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Speaker 2: And there's so many things I want to talk to

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Speaker 2: you about, because I can't tell you how many times

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Speaker 2: I've thought about you and how you might be reacting

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Speaker 2: to a whole host of things that are happening in

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Speaker 2: this country under the Trump administration. I also think back

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Speaker 2: on when I really got to know you and what

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Speaker 2: the environment was in this country, and that was around

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Speaker 2: twenty eighteen, I think, and there was a sense then

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Speaker 2: that this country might be finally coming to terms with

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Speaker 2: its past and confronting racial injustice head on. And now,

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Speaker 2: just what seven years later, we're seeing a retreat and

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Speaker 2: even a reversal, not only from policy issues like DEI

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Speaker 2: and police reform, but from even acknowledging our country's history

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Speaker 2: of systemic racism. I have one question for you, Brian,

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Speaker 2: what the hell is going on? And I really have

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Speaker 2: been looking forward to talking to you and almost having

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Speaker 2: a therapy session with you, if you will well, I.

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Speaker 1: Think your question frames the moment we're in really perfectly.

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Speaker 1: Throughout most of American history, we have been silent about

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Speaker 1: the harms of our history, about all of the damage

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Speaker 1: that was done, about the false narratives that we embraced

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Speaker 1: to justify the displacement of millions of Native people when

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Speaker 1: Europeans arrived. You know, there were millions of indigenous peoples

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Speaker 1: here before Europeans arrived, we wanted their land, We wanted

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Speaker 1: this and so even though we created a constitution that

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Speaker 1: talked about equality and liberty and justice for all, we

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Speaker 1: didn't apply those concepts to Native people. We instead created

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Speaker 1: this narrative of racial difference. And I think that was

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Speaker 1: like an infection that took root in America and behind

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Speaker 1: that kind of misguided narrative where we said that Native

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Speaker 1: people are savages. Indigenous peoples are not like the rest

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Speaker 1: of us, so we don't have to extend to them

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Speaker 1: a quality liberty and justice, and we can force them

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Speaker 1: off their land, and we can reduce their population, we

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Speaker 1: can do all of these terrible things. That same narrative

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Speaker 1: was used to justify two hundred and forty six years

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Speaker 1: of slavery. And I continue to believe that the great

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Speaker 1: evil of slavery wasn't the forced labor, the bondage, the violence,

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Speaker 1: the cruelty that was horrific. I think the greatest evil

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Speaker 1: of slavery was the narrative that was created to justify enslavement.

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Speaker 1: Because people who enslaved other people didn't want to think

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Speaker 1: of themselves as immoral or indecent or unchristian. And how

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Speaker 1: do you think of yourself as a decent person when

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Speaker 1: you see mothers being pulled away from their screaming children,

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Speaker 1: knowing those mothers will never see those children again because

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Speaker 1: you chose to sell them. How do you think of

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Speaker 1: yourself as decent when you see the cruelty and the violence. Well,

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Speaker 1: you need a narrative, and we created a false narrative

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Speaker 1: that black people aren't as good as white people, that

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Speaker 1: black people are less capable, less worthy, less human, less evolved,

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Speaker 1: and that narrative of racial difference was the great evil

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Speaker 1: of slavery in America, and it outlasted the Civil War.

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Speaker 1: The North wan the Civil War, but the South wan

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Speaker 1: the narrative war. Because after the Civil War, even our

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Speaker 1: commitment to use law to protect formally enslaved people failed.

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Speaker 1: The Fourteenth Amendment, which guaranteed equal protection to formally enslaved people,

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Speaker 1: the Fifteenth Amendment, which guaranteed the right to vote, were

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Speaker 1: quickly abandoned by our US Supreme Court and other court

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Speaker 1: legal institutions who sided with states' rights over the US Constitution.

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Speaker 1: And that's what led to that century of violence and lynching.

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Speaker 1: It's what led to Jim Crow, It's what led to

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Speaker 1: racial segregation. It led to the silence about this history

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Speaker 1: and our textbooks and schools. It led to bias against

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Speaker 1: other immigrant groups when they came to this country. Asian people,

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Speaker 1: even ethnic minorities like the Irish and the Italians were

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Speaker 1: initially targeted until they adopted whiteness or adopted an identity

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Speaker 1: that wasn't other, wasn't racially different. And that was our

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Speaker 1: history and continued to be our history. And I think

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Speaker 1: the consequences of that are really painful. We did horrific

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Speaker 1: things to black and brown people. Millions of black people

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Speaker 1: had to flee their homes in the first half of

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Speaker 1: the twentieth century because of terror of violence that raged

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Speaker 1: uncontrolled throughout the American South. They went to Chicago and

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Speaker 1: Cleveland and Detroit and Los Angeles and Oakland, not as

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Speaker 1: immigrants looking for new economic opportunities, but as refugees and

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Speaker 1: exiles from terror of violence in the American South. And

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Speaker 1: they weren't entirely welcome in those places, and they were

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Speaker 1: put in what you could call the equivalent of a

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Speaker 1: refugee camp. And we see the footprints of those camps

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Speaker 1: in South Side of Chicago and East Saint Louis and

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Speaker 1: poor neighborhoods across the urban north and West. They abandoned

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Speaker 1: lands that they owned, and therefore were denied the opportunity

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Speaker 1: to create wealth for their children and their grandchildren. And

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Speaker 1: we have a wealth gap in America today that is

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Speaker 1: rooted in the displacement of millions of black families who

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Speaker 1: could have used their land to create wealth, but were

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Speaker 1: denied that because we didn't commit to their constitutional rights.

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Speaker 1: In the fifties and sixties, you began to see some

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Speaker 1: organizing to push back against that, and the heroic Civil

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Speaker 1: rights movement tore down the legal architecture of racial segregation,

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Speaker 1: of that narrative of racial difference, but the idea was

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Speaker 1: still with us, the practice was still with us.

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Speaker 2: The cultural conditioning.

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Speaker 1: The cultural conditioning. That's exactly right, and so for the

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Speaker 1: last sixty and seventy years we've been continuing to experience

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Speaker 1: those harms. And when women and people of color got

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Speaker 1: into the workforce, got into places they had historically been excluded,

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Speaker 1: and they outperform their white male counterparts, they should have

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Speaker 1: been promoted, they should have been celebrated. But because of

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Speaker 1: these narratives, we didn't trust women and people of color

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Speaker 1: to have the leadership positions they deserve because they were

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Speaker 1: more skilled, and we denied them those opportunities, and so

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Speaker 1: then we began to realize that that wasn't right, that

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Speaker 1: wasn't fair, and that was the genesis behind DEI. That's

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Speaker 1: when we started to say, oh, you know what wrong

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Speaker 1: to not put the most skilled person in the position

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Speaker 1: of leadership just because she's a woman, or because this

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Speaker 1: person is black or brown. And that was an effort

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Speaker 1: to begin repairing the harm that is connected to this

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Speaker 1: narrative of racial difference.

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Speaker 2: But I think Brian, a lot of people thought, well,

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Speaker 2: don't put the less skilled person just because they are

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Speaker 2: a minority in that position. I think that's how so

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Speaker 2: many people interpreted that's right.

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Speaker 1: DEI efforts, that's right, And I think we have to

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Speaker 1: fault the corporate bodies and the institutions that started implementing

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Speaker 1: these policies because what they should have said is we

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Speaker 1: have done wrong. We've had lots of women in our workforce,

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Speaker 1: We've had lots of people of color in our workforce

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Speaker 1: who were more skilled, and yet they were passed over

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Speaker 1: for promotion. They weren't given leadership opportunities because of their race,

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Speaker 1: because of their gender. We made that mistake, we did

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Speaker 1: something wrong, and now to repair that by committing to

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Speaker 1: correcting that cultural conditioning. But they didn't want to admit

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Speaker 1: that they had done things in a bad way. They

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Speaker 1: didn't want to say we backed it poorly. I got

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Speaker 1: on a plane recently and I was sitting next to

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Speaker 1: someone and the pilot came on. The pilot was a woman,

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Speaker 1: the co pilot was a black man. And the person

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Speaker 1: sitting next to me turned to me and said, oh,

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Speaker 1: my god, did you see who the pilot and co

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Speaker 1: pilot is? And I said I did. He said, Wow,

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Speaker 1: this is going to be a really scary flight. You know,

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Speaker 1: they're not skilled and qualified to fly this plane.

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Speaker 2: Come on, someone said that to you.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, that's exactly right. What And I said to him,

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Speaker 1: I said, oh, sir, when I saw that woman and

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Speaker 1: I saw that pilot, I actually relaxed because I knew

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Speaker 1: that they were likely more skilled than most other pilots,

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Speaker 1: because for an airline to give them this opportunity, they

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Speaker 1: had to outperform their counterpoints. That's been my experience is

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Speaker 1: that you actually have to do a little bit better

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Speaker 1: when you're a person of color, when you're a woman,

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Speaker 1: and so I actually feel more comfortable than I would

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Speaker 1: ordinarily feel.

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Speaker 2: And what did he say?

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Speaker 1: He just looked at me. He said, well, I never

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Speaker 1: thought about it like that. But that is the consequence

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Speaker 1: of corporate institutions not saying we failed, we did something wrong,

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Speaker 1: we did discriminate, we did not give the most skilled

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Speaker 1: person the job because of their gender and their race,

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Speaker 1: and now we're going to commit to doing that. And

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Speaker 1: so instead of it being presented as a gimme to unqualified,

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Speaker 1: less skilled people because of their race and gender, it

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Speaker 1: was actually a remedy for harm that was done to

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Speaker 1: people because of their race and gender. And we don't

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Speaker 1: like owning up to the mistakes we made. And that's

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Speaker 1: the same thinking that was shaping other cultural institutions, educational bodies.

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Speaker 1: Textbook writers should have said, we failed, we did something

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Speaker 1: wrong by not talking honestly the history of America, and

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Speaker 1: now we're going to try to correct that by having

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Speaker 1: more comprehensive, more inclusive language and text and our books.

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Speaker 1: We've disfavored people because of their race and gender. We

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Speaker 1: skipped that part and we embraced this moment of response

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Speaker 1: without acknowledging the harm. Twenty twenty was a very powerful

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Speaker 1: example of that. You saw police violence manifesting in ways

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Speaker 1: it made it undeniable that there's a problem. When ab

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Speaker 1: at Arbury was shot while jogging, when Breonna Taylor was killed,

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Speaker 1: when George Floyd was killed, people were saying, we've got

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Speaker 1: to do something about this. And I wanted police departments

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Speaker 1: to say, you're right, We've got a lot of officers

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Speaker 1: that presume people are dangerous and guilty because of their race,

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Speaker 1: because of their color. You're right, we need to fix

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Speaker 1: a problem we have presuming dangerous and gilt based on race.

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Speaker 1: But instead we just talked about, you know, we're going

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Speaker 1: to do this, We're going to do that. And then

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Speaker 1: as the cultural environment shifted, there was this big push

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Speaker 1: against it, and people thought people who didn't deserve things

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Speaker 1: were getting things that they don't deserve, when in fact

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Speaker 1: we were addressing long standing problems that have long existed.

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Speaker 1: I went to Harvard Law School. I've got a lot

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Speaker 1: of degrees and awards. I've won cases at the US

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Speaker 1: Supreme Court, and I've been in courtrooms representing clients, getting

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Speaker 1: there early, sitting at defend's council's table where the judge

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Speaker 1: will walk in and immediately get mad at me. The

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Speaker 1: judge will look at me and say, hey, hey, you

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Speaker 1: get back out there in the hallway. I don't want

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Speaker 1: any defendant sitting in my courtroom without their lawyer, and

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Speaker 1: I have to stand up and say, well, I'm sorry,

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Speaker 1: your honor, I am the lawyer. I didn't introduce myself.

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Speaker 1: My name is Brian Stevenson. I have to try to

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Speaker 1: de escalate this situation, and I was doing that recently.

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Speaker 1: I was in a courtroom in the Midwest and the

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Speaker 1: judge started laughing, but it wasn't an apologetic laugh and

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Speaker 1: it kind of angered me. And the prosecutor started laughing.

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Speaker 1: They thought it was so funny, and I was sitting

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Speaker 1: They're getting angry, and then I thought, oh no, Brian,

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Speaker 1: you can't get angry. You need to smile. You may

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Speaker 1: need to laugh. And I felt that way because my

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Speaker 1: client was not going to be able to leave that county.

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Speaker 1: I was able to leave that county and never come

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Speaker 1: back based on the way I was treated if I

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Speaker 1: chose to do that, but my client was going to

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Speaker 1: have to stay there. So when they were laughing, I

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Speaker 1: smiled and then I eventually chuckled. Client came in. We

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Speaker 1: did the hearing, but I remember sitting in my car

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Speaker 1: after that hearing, thinking, Wow, here I am this middle

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Speaker 1: aged black man. I'm in my best suit actually argue

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Speaker 1: the case of the Supreme Court that we were trying

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Speaker 1: to implement. I got all of these degrees and awards,

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Speaker 1: and I'm still required to laugh at my own humiliation

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Speaker 1: to do justice for my client. That's not right. That's

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Speaker 1: not fair. And I'm getting old enough to know that.

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Speaker 1: When you have to constantly navigate presumptions of dangerousness and

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Speaker 1: guilt because of your color, when you have to tell

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Speaker 1: your children how to survive or police encounter, what to

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Speaker 1: do and what not to do, how they can't do

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Speaker 1: the things that their white friends can do because they're

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Speaker 1: going to be burdened with this presumption. When you have

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Speaker 1: to constantly navigate this world, it's exhausting. And I want

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Speaker 1: something better. I want something better for everybody. And that's

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Speaker 1: why the commitment to truth telling, the commitment to building

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Speaker 1: institutions that help us understand the harms of history, is

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Speaker 1: such a priority. It's why we were making necessary progress

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Speaker 1: in twenty eighteen, and I think some people again misinterpreted it.

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Speaker 1: You know, we opened our sites and I talk a

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Speaker 1: lot about this, and I think sometimes when people hear

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Speaker 1: me talking about slavery and lynching and segregation, they think

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Speaker 1: I want to punish America for this history. Have no

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Speaker 1: interest in punishment. My interest is liberation. My interest is

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Speaker 1: getting us to get to the point where we are

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Speaker 1: unburdened by this history. I want the children of my

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Speaker 1: grandchildren and their children to be born into ay where

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Speaker 1: they or not presumed dangerous or guilty because of their race.

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Speaker 1: I want us to get to the point where we're

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Speaker 1: not breathing in the pollution created by this long history

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Speaker 1: of racial injustice that we just haven't addressed and so

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Speaker 1: it's still with us. I want us to get past

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Speaker 1: that fear that is everywhere because we have these unaddressed

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Speaker 1: problems created by our history.

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Speaker 2: Hi. Everyone, it's me Katie Couric. You know, lately, I've

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Speaker 2: been overwhelmed by the whole wellness industry, so much information

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Speaker 2: out there about flaxy, pelvic floor serums and anti aging.

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Speaker 2: So I launched a newsletter It's called Body and Soul

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Speaker 2: to share expert approved advice for your physical and mental

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Speaker 2: health and guess what is free. Just sign up at

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Speaker 2: Katiecuric dot com slash body and soul. That's k A

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Speaker 2: T I E C O U R see dot com

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Speaker 2: slash body and soul. I promise it will make you

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Speaker 2: happier and healthier. Addressing these problems, though, Brian, for some Americans,

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Speaker 2: I think sent them into this shame spiral and a

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Speaker 2: feeling that, hey, this was a long time ago and

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Speaker 2: this has nothing to do with me. So I think

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Speaker 2: there was a shame element that people felt was imposed

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Speaker 2: on them, that they rejected, and then I think that

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Speaker 2: morphed into demonizing these efforts, this acknowledgment and a deeper

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Speaker 2: understanding about our past with the word woke, and that

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Speaker 2: has become obviously not even a talk whistle, but a

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Speaker 2: loud signal that the pendulum had simply swung too far.

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Speaker 2: And I'm curious to get your thoughts on that the

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Speaker 2: rejection or discomfort people felt, and if there were instances

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Speaker 2: where this evolution and this deeper understanding could have been

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Speaker 2: less jarring or offensive for people. I know that's a

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Speaker 2: strange question because it was neither jarring nor offensive for me,

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Speaker 2: and I am grateful for everything that I've learned and experienced,

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Speaker 2: But I'm just thinking about what I've heard people say yeah.

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Speaker 1: I think what was jarring for people is that throughout

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Speaker 1: most of our history people have never really had to

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Speaker 1: encounter this. But it's also not unprecedented. In the nineteenth century,

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Speaker 1: when abolitionists began saying slavery is moral, it is unacceptable,

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Speaker 1: it has to end. In the regions of this country

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Speaker 1: where the whole economic infrastructure was built on enslavement and

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Speaker 1: the forced labor of people who had been abducted and kidnapped,

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Speaker 1: that was a moment of crisis, and so they started

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Speaker 1: banning books on abolition. They made it illegal for enslaved

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Speaker 1: people to be in possession of literature about abolition. Even

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Speaker 1: white people in the South could be arrested and prosecuted

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Speaker 1: if they were in possession of these materials. They just

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Speaker 1: could not accept a world where the basic economic infrastructure

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Speaker 1: would be attacked, and then with that led to war.

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Speaker 1: When we got on the other side of that, people

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Speaker 1: in Congress passed all of these laws, civil rights laws.

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Speaker 1: There was a Ku Klux Klan Act that was passed

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Speaker 1: to protect formerly enslaved people from mob violence and lynching violence.

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Speaker 1: But it was again a narrative. People were rejecting and

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Speaker 1: instead of saying we reject all of the bigoted thinking

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Speaker 1: that supported enslavement. People tried to hold on to it,

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Speaker 1: and they were rewarded by retreating from those laws, and

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Speaker 1: so a new narrative emerged that you know, nothing that

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Speaker 1: bad was done by the Confederacy who rebelled against this country.

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Speaker 1: The insurrectionists who led that weren't bad people. It wasn't treason,

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Speaker 1: it was something else. And that loss caused narrative, and

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Speaker 1: those people were empowered, and then we created this codified

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Speaker 1: racial hierarchy. That same resistance that we're seeing was also

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Speaker 1: on display in the nineteen fifties and sixties when black

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Speaker 1: people in Montgomery said it's not right that we have

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Speaker 1: to give up our seats on buses to white people

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Speaker 1: because we're black, And they said it's not right that

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Speaker 1: we don't get to vote in this country when we

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Speaker 1: are citizens and have had that right for one hundred years,

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Speaker 1: and they started marching and engaging in non violent protests.

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Speaker 1: There was a sense that, oh, this is a crisis.

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Speaker 1: We've got to do everything we can to stop this,

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Speaker 1: and ultimately those voices of change, the abolitionists during the

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Speaker 1: time of slavery, those who fought against lynching, those who

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Speaker 1: fought against racial segregation in Jim Crow prevailed, and I

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Speaker 1: want to say right here we will prevail again in

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Speaker 1: this moment of resistance. But right now we're in the

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Speaker 1: heat of the battle. Those same voices that are saying, oh,

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Speaker 1: you can't talk about slavery, you can't talk about lynching,

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Speaker 1: you can't talk about segregation, are, in my judgment, replicating

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Speaker 1: the behaviors of people in power that go all the

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Speaker 1: way back to the time of enslaving. It's no different

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Speaker 1: than those who enslaved other people saying no, we can't

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Speaker 1: have abolitionism, we can't have an end to slavery. It's

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Speaker 1: no different than those who did nothing. When white mobs

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Speaker 1: formed outside of churches and schools, in jails and pulled

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Speaker 1: people out and tortured them on the courthouse lawn. That

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Speaker 1: was lawlessness. It was the opposite of public safety. It

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Speaker 1: was terrorism that we tolerated for decades. When people said

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Speaker 1: we're not going to ride these buses, We're going to

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Speaker 1: boycott the buses. They were saying, no, you can't do that,

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Speaker 1: and they use threats and violence. They arrested people. Doctor

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Speaker 1: King was arrested for driving thirty miles an hour in

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Speaker 1: a twenty five mile an hour zone. This is nineteen

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Speaker 1: fifty six. He's a young twenty some year old, twenty

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Speaker 1: six year old preacher. Then they started arresting people because

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Speaker 1: they were saying this is wrong. Those civil rights protesters

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Speaker 1: like John Lewis were getting arrested and beaten. That was

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Speaker 1: a violent response to trying to get us where we're

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Speaker 1: trying to go. So I think we have to understand

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Speaker 1: that history as we understand what's been happening over the

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Speaker 1: last decade. So finally, in twenty fifteen, for the first time,

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Speaker 1: we create a museum in the Smithsonian Complex that's about

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Speaker 1: the history of African Americans. And it can't be an

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Speaker 1: honest museum if it doesn't talk about that period of enslavement,

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Speaker 1: if it doesn't talk about terror, violence, if it doesn't

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Speaker 1: talk about pggregation, if it doesn't talk about those hardships.

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Speaker 1: And then we started seeing other cultural institutions, and then

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Speaker 1: people started talking about how do we recover, how do

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Speaker 1: we repair? And I don't think that is inherently jarring,

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Speaker 1: it's not inherently problematic, But when you've been silent forever,

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Speaker 1: when you've never had to do it, it can feel

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Speaker 1: that way, and so I don't think it was a mistake.

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Speaker 1: I don't think there were errors made. I think we

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Speaker 1: just didn't help people understand the things that they need

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Speaker 1: to understand, and we're still in the early stages of that.

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Speaker 1: I mean, for me, I think about this from a

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Speaker 1: faith perspective, and I think faith communities have a larger

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Speaker 1: role to play in this moment than they have embraced.

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Speaker 1: But in my faith tradition, as a Christian, you can't

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Speaker 1: come to my church and say I want heaven and

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Speaker 1: redemption and salvation, but I'm not going to admit to

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Speaker 1: ever doing anything wrong. I'm not going to acknowledge any sin.

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Speaker 1: The clergy in my church will lovingly tell you that

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Speaker 1: it doesn't work like that, that you can't actually experience redemption.

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Speaker 1: You can't experience all of the beautiful things if you're

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Speaker 1: unwilling to repent, to confess, and you shouldn't feel bad

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Speaker 1: about confession. You shouldn't feel bad about repentance because that's

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Speaker 1: what opens up.

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Speaker 2: Your heart and that should feel cleansed.

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Speaker 1: You should feel clean. That's how you get to experience

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Speaker 1: grace and mercy. It's the beautiful transition that allows you

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Speaker 1: to walk out anew different changed and we haven't done that.

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Speaker 1: We've denied people in this country that moment of transformation,

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Speaker 1: and individuals have had it, communities have had it, a

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Speaker 1: lot of people have had it, and they feel energized

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Speaker 1: by it. I look at Germany. I just got back

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Speaker 1: from Berlin two weeks ago. It's a nation that ultimately,

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Speaker 1: not immediately, but ultimately said we have to repent, we

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Speaker 1: have to confess, we have to acknowledge that we were

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Speaker 1: the villain of the twentieth century and we did something horrific.

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Speaker 1: And when you go to Berlin, you can't go to

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Speaker 1: two hundred meters without seeing markers and stones and monuments

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Speaker 1: dedicated to the victims of the Holocaust.

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Speaker 2: I know they are everywhere.

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Speaker 1: Everywhere. They have memorials for Jewish victims, for gay victims,

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Speaker 1: for the Roma, and for the Centi. And there's this

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Speaker 1: reckoning with that past. In Germany, every student is required

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Speaker 1: to study the Holocaust. You can't graduate.

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Speaker 2: And I think it's even in elementary school, and.

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Speaker 1: Even in elementary school. When I was at the Holocaust,

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Speaker 1: when I saw elementary students coming to that space, and

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Speaker 1: there are no Adolf Hitler monuments in Berlin. There are

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Speaker 1: no statutes honoring the Nazis. They're not naming military bases

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Speaker 1: after the perpetrators of the Holocaust. There's a reckoning and

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Speaker 1: because of that, we see Germany as an ally. I

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Speaker 1: encourage people to go or Brilliant, it's a beautiful city.

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Speaker 1: We see them as someone we can work with, even

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Speaker 1: though not that long ago they were gripped in this

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Speaker 1: politics of fear and anger, this narrative of hatred and violence.

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Speaker 1: But there's been redemption. And I live in a region

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Speaker 1: and you know, this region where our landscape is still

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Speaker 1: littered with iconography celebrating the perpetrators of that narrative of

432
00:26:25,960 --> 00:26:29,000
Speaker 1: racial difference, of that ideology of white supremacy, of that

433
00:26:29,160 --> 00:26:30,560
Speaker 1: hate and violence.

434
00:26:30,640 --> 00:26:32,840
Speaker 2: Montgomery, Alabama, Montgomery, Alabama.

435
00:26:33,800 --> 00:26:37,560
Speaker 1: And I think because we haven't reckoned, we're still held back.

436
00:26:37,600 --> 00:26:41,600
Speaker 1: And so what I think we have to help people

437
00:26:41,680 --> 00:26:45,280
Speaker 1: understand is that you don't have to fear truth telling.

438
00:26:46,320 --> 00:26:48,680
Speaker 1: And it's interesting because in most areas of our life,

439
00:26:49,040 --> 00:26:53,359
Speaker 1: we know that truth is important in relationships, personal relationships.

440
00:26:54,240 --> 00:26:57,640
Speaker 1: You know, in a marital relationship, if you make a mistake,

441
00:26:58,040 --> 00:27:00,720
Speaker 1: if you say something you shouldn't say, you hurt your

442
00:27:00,760 --> 00:27:03,960
Speaker 1: partner in any kind of way. The only way you

443
00:27:04,080 --> 00:27:06,639
Speaker 1: get past that is by talking about it. You have

444
00:27:06,760 --> 00:27:10,160
Speaker 1: to say I'm sorry, I didn't realize I made a mistake,

445
00:27:10,960 --> 00:27:13,800
Speaker 1: and you have to get to the point where there's forgiveness.

446
00:27:13,800 --> 00:27:16,240
Speaker 1: If you show me to people in a loving relationship

447
00:27:16,280 --> 00:27:18,240
Speaker 1: for fifty years, I'll show you two people who have

448
00:27:18,320 --> 00:27:21,159
Speaker 1: learned how to apologize to one another to get past

449
00:27:21,600 --> 00:27:26,240
Speaker 1: the inevitable mistakes and hardships. It's how you build something stronger.

450
00:27:26,960 --> 00:27:29,080
Speaker 1: And I do believe that the truth sets you free,

451
00:27:29,359 --> 00:27:32,639
Speaker 1: allows you to get to a place. And I am persuaded,

452
00:27:33,240 --> 00:27:36,360
Speaker 1: and I think what I and others are trying to do.

453
00:27:36,560 --> 00:27:39,480
Speaker 1: I am persuaded there's something better waiting for us in America.

454
00:27:39,600 --> 00:27:42,520
Speaker 1: I don't think our best days are behind us. I

455
00:27:42,560 --> 00:27:47,200
Speaker 1: think there's something that feels more like freedom, more like equality,

456
00:27:47,880 --> 00:27:51,040
Speaker 1: more like justice, more like healthy living, more like a

457
00:27:51,040 --> 00:27:54,040
Speaker 1: healthy community, And it's waiting for us. But we won't

458
00:27:54,080 --> 00:27:58,560
Speaker 1: get there if we're still burdened and bound by the

459
00:27:58,640 --> 00:28:01,000
Speaker 1: history of harm, that we won't let go, that we

460
00:28:01,040 --> 00:28:02,160
Speaker 1: won't acknowledge.

461
00:28:02,640 --> 00:28:05,239
Speaker 2: Why is it so hard? You know? I agree with

462
00:28:05,320 --> 00:28:09,879
Speaker 2: your assessment of Berlin. You look at places like Rwanda.

463
00:28:09,960 --> 00:28:17,639
Speaker 2: Why is it so difficult for Americans to acknowledge these

464
00:28:18,760 --> 00:28:22,159
Speaker 2: painful chapters? And then there's the other side of the

465
00:28:22,200 --> 00:28:25,960
Speaker 2: coin of people who say, Okay, we get it, we

466
00:28:26,160 --> 00:28:30,080
Speaker 2: get it, let's move on, which is something that I

467
00:28:30,200 --> 00:28:34,439
Speaker 2: hear from people. And how do you balance those two things, Brian?

468
00:28:34,720 --> 00:28:41,000
Speaker 2: The need to understand, value, appreciate, accept and learn from

469
00:28:41,240 --> 00:28:45,800
Speaker 2: your past mistakes, but also taking that and moving forward

470
00:28:46,240 --> 00:28:50,640
Speaker 2: and not focusing on it so much that the moving

471
00:28:50,720 --> 00:28:52,400
Speaker 2: forward part is difficult to do.

472
00:28:52,760 --> 00:28:55,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I do think it's important to understand the

473
00:28:55,800 --> 00:28:58,880
Speaker 1: differences between America and most of the places that we

474
00:28:59,040 --> 00:29:04,800
Speaker 1: now acknowledge as having gone through transitional justice. In South Africa,

475
00:29:05,080 --> 00:29:08,240
Speaker 1: a black majority took over. It was no longer a

476
00:29:08,280 --> 00:29:11,160
Speaker 1: country ruled by a white minority, and so you had

477
00:29:11,200 --> 00:29:15,160
Speaker 1: a truth and reconciliation process because that black majority realized

478
00:29:15,160 --> 00:29:17,840
Speaker 1: it was important to create space for the victims of

479
00:29:17,880 --> 00:29:21,920
Speaker 1: apartheid to give voice to their harm. In Rwanda, there

480
00:29:21,920 --> 00:29:24,640
Speaker 1: was a military intervention and so the victims of that

481
00:29:24,720 --> 00:29:29,680
Speaker 1: genocide became empowered, and so that powerful genocide museum was

482
00:29:29,720 --> 00:29:33,880
Speaker 1: something that a new order was able to facilitate. The

483
00:29:33,960 --> 00:29:37,320
Speaker 1: Nazis lost the war and because the Nazis lost the

484
00:29:37,360 --> 00:29:44,880
Speaker 1: war and the Allies insisted on some confrontation of that history. Eventually,

485
00:29:44,960 --> 00:29:47,720
Speaker 1: not immediately because there was resistance to truth telling in

486
00:29:47,760 --> 00:29:52,440
Speaker 1: Germany in the nineteen sixties and seventies, but eventually things changed.

487
00:29:52,480 --> 00:29:56,240
Speaker 1: But there was a shift in power, and the wrongdoers,

488
00:29:56,280 --> 00:29:59,320
Speaker 1: as it were, the people who were directly responsible for

489
00:29:59,400 --> 00:30:03,360
Speaker 1: that injury and harm, lost power, and a new regime

490
00:30:03,480 --> 00:30:06,000
Speaker 1: came in and it became easier for them to facilitate

491
00:30:06,000 --> 00:30:11,360
Speaker 1: it because they disassociated themselves from that prior regime. That

492
00:30:11,400 --> 00:30:15,160
Speaker 1: hasn't happened in America. It could have happened after the

493
00:30:15,160 --> 00:30:19,400
Speaker 1: Civil War had we made reconstruction work. But because we

494
00:30:19,560 --> 00:30:23,800
Speaker 1: retreated from reconstruction and our courts gave in to states' rights,

495
00:30:24,360 --> 00:30:28,000
Speaker 1: the very same architects that had tried to preserve slavery

496
00:30:28,960 --> 00:30:33,360
Speaker 1: that evolved enslavement, evolved into this world order that looked

497
00:30:33,400 --> 00:30:37,320
Speaker 1: very much like slavery. We created constitutions that literally said

498
00:30:37,320 --> 00:30:41,240
Speaker 1: they were about white supremacy. We created and mandated racial hierarchy.

499
00:30:42,000 --> 00:30:44,560
Speaker 1: And then even after the Civil Rights movement, when we

500
00:30:44,600 --> 00:30:49,360
Speaker 1: had a moment in the nineteen sixties to finally transition ourselves,

501
00:30:49,440 --> 00:30:54,080
Speaker 1: there was no real denunciation of segregationists. There was no

502
00:30:54,600 --> 00:30:59,120
Speaker 1: repudiation of Jim Crow and white supremacy. We didn't distance

503
00:30:59,240 --> 00:31:04,280
Speaker 1: ourselves from this that We just tried to accommodate those

504
00:31:04,320 --> 00:31:07,600
Speaker 1: who had been resistant. We tried to kind of make

505
00:31:07,640 --> 00:31:10,200
Speaker 1: them feel okay, and that was the priority.

506
00:31:10,360 --> 00:31:12,880
Speaker 2: What do you mean accommodate those who had been resistant?

507
00:31:13,040 --> 00:31:18,200
Speaker 1: Well, I think you know. Every Southern legislator in Congress

508
00:31:18,320 --> 00:31:21,040
Speaker 1: voted against the Civil Rights Act of nineteen sixty four,

509
00:31:21,600 --> 00:31:26,800
Speaker 1: most every Southern voted against the Voting Rights Act. And

510
00:31:28,080 --> 00:31:32,520
Speaker 1: we didn't say, how can you represent this country if

511
00:31:32,600 --> 00:31:34,920
Speaker 1: you're going to deny the right to vote to US citizens.

512
00:31:35,680 --> 00:31:39,480
Speaker 1: We had the Justice Department become the institution in power

513
00:31:39,520 --> 00:31:43,640
Speaker 1: to enforce these things, and they were constantly saying, you

514
00:31:43,680 --> 00:31:46,000
Speaker 1: can't do that, you can't do that in the seventies

515
00:31:46,000 --> 00:31:48,400
Speaker 1: and the eighties and the nineties. But we never made

516
00:31:48,400 --> 00:31:51,200
Speaker 1: it so that people felt like it was wrong to

517
00:31:51,320 --> 00:31:54,480
Speaker 1: resist implementation of the Voting Rights Act or Civil Rights Act.

518
00:31:55,200 --> 00:31:58,160
Speaker 1: My school didn't integrate until a decade after Brown Versus

519
00:31:58,200 --> 00:32:01,200
Speaker 1: Board of Education. Schools and Bama didn't integrate until the

520
00:32:01,240 --> 00:32:04,800
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies, and rather than embrace integration, As you know,

521
00:32:05,480 --> 00:32:08,200
Speaker 1: most white parents pulled their kids out of those schools

522
00:32:08,240 --> 00:32:11,360
Speaker 1: and put them in all white private academies with the

523
00:32:11,400 --> 00:32:14,640
Speaker 1: hope that they could shield them from integration that goes

524
00:32:14,680 --> 00:32:17,800
Speaker 1: on today. The schools in Montgomery, Alabama are as racially

525
00:32:17,880 --> 00:32:21,640
Speaker 1: segregated today as they were seventy years ago. There was

526
00:32:21,680 --> 00:32:26,640
Speaker 1: that resistance even then, And sometimes I joke because if

527
00:32:26,640 --> 00:32:29,400
Speaker 1: we really wanted that moment to turn into something like

528
00:32:29,440 --> 00:32:31,400
Speaker 1: what we've seen in other countries, we would have thought

529
00:32:31,400 --> 00:32:34,480
Speaker 1: about it differently. I think it would have been appropriate.

530
00:32:34,800 --> 00:32:38,880
Speaker 1: Fred Gray, an amazing lawyer, my friend and mentor, still

531
00:32:38,920 --> 00:32:42,320
Speaker 1: actively practicing law in his nineties, and who was of

532
00:32:42,360 --> 00:32:45,560
Speaker 1: course one of the critical lawyers around Browner versus Gaale,

533
00:32:45,600 --> 00:32:48,440
Speaker 1: the case that involved in Montgomery bus boycott, all of

534
00:32:48,480 --> 00:32:51,400
Speaker 1: those litigations. I keep saying to mister gres and mister Gray,

535
00:32:51,400 --> 00:32:53,720
Speaker 1: we need to get back to nineteen sixty five. We

536
00:32:53,720 --> 00:32:55,480
Speaker 1: need to get in a time machine, and we have

537
00:32:55,560 --> 00:32:58,520
Speaker 1: to make some different arguments, because I think what we

538
00:32:58,560 --> 00:33:01,760
Speaker 1: should have demanded of the states that had violated the

539
00:33:01,840 --> 00:33:05,840
Speaker 1: rights of African Americans for so long is something remedial

540
00:33:06,160 --> 00:33:07,920
Speaker 1: like I don't think it would have been wrong to

541
00:33:07,960 --> 00:33:11,200
Speaker 1: say in nineteen sixty five, then all of these states

542
00:33:11,200 --> 00:33:14,640
Speaker 1: that had disenfranchised almost all of the black population. You

543
00:33:14,800 --> 00:33:17,880
Speaker 1: have to automatically register black people when they become eighteen

544
00:33:17,920 --> 00:33:21,440
Speaker 1: years of age. You have to do something that acknowledges

545
00:33:21,720 --> 00:33:26,240
Speaker 1: the harm of a century of violence and disenfranchisement, not

546
00:33:26,480 --> 00:33:29,080
Speaker 1: just for them, but for you, so that you're not

547
00:33:29,240 --> 00:33:32,440
Speaker 1: confused about the fact that what happened over the last

548
00:33:32,440 --> 00:33:38,440
Speaker 1: century was wrong, was unconstitutional, was un American. And now

549
00:33:38,440 --> 00:33:42,760
Speaker 1: to get to something better, we need to do something remedial.

550
00:33:42,880 --> 00:33:45,400
Speaker 1: If I make a mistake and bump into somebody on

551
00:33:45,440 --> 00:33:48,560
Speaker 1: the street and they fall and injure themselves, I can't

552
00:33:48,560 --> 00:33:52,160
Speaker 1: just keep walking and feel good about myself. I first

553
00:33:52,240 --> 00:33:54,240
Speaker 1: have to say I'm so sorry. Please know I did

554
00:33:54,280 --> 00:33:56,040
Speaker 1: not intend to run into you. If I hear that

555
00:33:56,080 --> 00:33:58,960
Speaker 1: they're really injured, I want to keep up with them,

556
00:33:59,000 --> 00:34:01,080
Speaker 1: and I'm doing that for them, but I'm also doing

557
00:34:01,080 --> 00:34:06,080
Speaker 1: it for me. And we never created that opportunity in

558
00:34:06,120 --> 00:34:08,640
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties for all of these effects. They didn't

559
00:34:08,640 --> 00:34:10,759
Speaker 1: want it, so we were going to have to push them.

560
00:34:11,040 --> 00:34:13,120
Speaker 1: But because we didn't do that, we didn't just continue.

561
00:34:13,160 --> 00:34:16,520
Speaker 1: And then not that much later, they were trying to say, oh,

562
00:34:16,520 --> 00:34:18,920
Speaker 1: we don't need that Voting Rights Act anymore. Shelby County

563
00:34:18,960 --> 00:34:20,480
Speaker 1: is a twenty thirteen case that went to the US

564
00:34:20,520 --> 00:34:22,600
Speaker 1: Supreme Court where they were arguing, oh, we don't need that.

565
00:34:22,680 --> 00:34:25,960
Speaker 1: It's been oppressive, it's unfair to us. That just says

566
00:34:26,000 --> 00:34:29,640
Speaker 1: we're still rooted in that idea. So in that regard,

567
00:34:30,040 --> 00:34:32,520
Speaker 1: we have not done what these other countries have done

568
00:34:32,600 --> 00:34:36,279
Speaker 1: because we have not been required to do it. And

569
00:34:36,480 --> 00:34:41,160
Speaker 1: too many people have tried to embrace that history as

570
00:34:41,160 --> 00:34:43,200
Speaker 1: if something there was nothing wrong with it, which is

571
00:34:43,200 --> 00:34:47,080
Speaker 1: why I do react in a negative way when I

572
00:34:47,120 --> 00:34:51,040
Speaker 1: hear someone say make America great again. It's that last

573
00:34:51,080 --> 00:34:54,560
Speaker 1: word that gives me problems. Make America great, I'm all

574
00:34:54,600 --> 00:34:58,719
Speaker 1: for it again is what confuses me, because what is

575
00:34:58,800 --> 00:35:02,359
Speaker 1: the era of greatness that we're somehow trying to get

576
00:35:02,400 --> 00:35:06,640
Speaker 1: back to. Hopefully not the pre civil rights era when

577
00:35:06,640 --> 00:35:09,799
Speaker 1: black people were humiliated on a daily basis. Hopefully not

578
00:35:10,000 --> 00:35:13,440
Speaker 1: the first half of the twentieth century when millions of

579
00:35:13,480 --> 00:35:15,960
Speaker 1: black people were fleeing their homes and lands because of

580
00:35:16,040 --> 00:35:20,160
Speaker 1: mob violence and racial terror violence. Hopefully not the nineteenth

581
00:35:20,200 --> 00:35:24,200
Speaker 1: century when four million black people were enslaved living in

582
00:35:24,239 --> 00:35:28,880
Speaker 1: horrific conditions being brutalized and violated. I need to understand

583
00:35:28,880 --> 00:35:32,960
Speaker 1: what that again is referring to. But because we're romanticizing

584
00:35:33,000 --> 00:35:38,440
Speaker 1: our past and we're glorifying our past, we're not disconnecting

585
00:35:38,520 --> 00:35:40,040
Speaker 1: from that harm of history.

586
00:35:40,320 --> 00:35:42,840
Speaker 2: But I also feel like in many ways we're erasing

587
00:35:42,920 --> 00:35:45,919
Speaker 2: our past. If you look at what the administration is doing,

588
00:35:46,000 --> 00:35:53,319
Speaker 2: whether it's in national parks, military installations, libraries, museums, schools.

589
00:35:54,280 --> 00:35:59,520
Speaker 2: The recent discussion about removing that photo, that very very

590
00:35:59,560 --> 00:36:03,400
Speaker 2: famous photo of the slave with welts all over his

591
00:36:03,600 --> 00:36:06,800
Speaker 2: back that I think is currently at a civil rights

592
00:36:07,120 --> 00:36:11,719
Speaker 2: monument or a civil rights location in Georgia. What is

593
00:36:11,800 --> 00:36:14,719
Speaker 2: going on? Yeah, what is going on? Did you predict this?

594
00:36:14,880 --> 00:36:19,720
Speaker 2: You're such a student of history. Did you say it's coming?

595
00:36:20,360 --> 00:36:22,800
Speaker 1: I sort of did. I mean, you know the reason,

596
00:36:22,920 --> 00:36:25,759
Speaker 1: you know, I spent my career as a lawyer. As

597
00:36:25,800 --> 00:36:28,360
Speaker 1: I mentioned, I'm a product of brown versus board of education.

598
00:36:28,400 --> 00:36:30,920
Speaker 1: I grew up in a community where black children couldn't

599
00:36:30,960 --> 00:36:33,880
Speaker 1: go to the public schools. I was in a community

600
00:36:33,880 --> 00:36:36,440
Speaker 1: where very few of the adults had high school degrees,

601
00:36:37,000 --> 00:36:39,879
Speaker 1: not because they weren't smart or hard working, but there

602
00:36:39,880 --> 00:36:42,480
Speaker 1: were literally no high schools were black people in our

603
00:36:42,560 --> 00:36:46,000
Speaker 1: county when my dad and his generation were coming up,

604
00:36:46,800 --> 00:36:50,560
Speaker 1: and it took lawyers coming into our community to open

605
00:36:50,640 --> 00:36:53,279
Speaker 1: up the public schools. If you took a vote in

606
00:36:53,320 --> 00:36:56,840
Speaker 1: the mid sixties when I was a little boy about

607
00:36:56,840 --> 00:36:59,120
Speaker 1: whether kids like Brian could go to the public schools

608
00:36:59,120 --> 00:37:01,360
Speaker 1: because the county was a eighty percent white and twenty

609
00:37:01,400 --> 00:37:04,640
Speaker 1: percent black, we would have lost the vote. People weren't

610
00:37:04,680 --> 00:37:08,360
Speaker 1: going to vote to integrate the schools. It took the

611
00:37:08,440 --> 00:37:13,120
Speaker 1: rule of law. It took lawyers enforcing the Supreme Court's decision,

612
00:37:13,560 --> 00:37:16,839
Speaker 1: and without Brown versuspot of education, without those rulings from

613
00:37:16,920 --> 00:37:21,200
Speaker 1: the court, we would not have had that civil rights revolution.

614
00:37:22,120 --> 00:37:25,160
Speaker 1: And so I became a lawyer because I wanted to

615
00:37:25,239 --> 00:37:29,560
Speaker 1: use that saying power to help other disfavored people, marginalize

616
00:37:29,560 --> 00:37:32,920
Speaker 1: people who we still have in this country. And I

617
00:37:33,000 --> 00:37:36,440
Speaker 1: spent the first part of my career representing people on

618
00:37:36,520 --> 00:37:39,640
Speaker 1: death row, children prosecuted as adult, people who had been

619
00:37:40,040 --> 00:37:43,279
Speaker 1: wrongly convicted and unfairly sentenced, because I knew that the

620
00:37:43,520 --> 00:37:47,920
Speaker 1: law would protect them in ways that the legislature might not,

621
00:37:48,320 --> 00:37:51,799
Speaker 1: that politics might not because of the way politics plays out.

622
00:37:52,320 --> 00:37:55,160
Speaker 1: And we've had a lot of success. But about twelve

623
00:37:55,280 --> 00:37:58,840
Speaker 1: thirteen years ago, I remember distinctly waking up one day

624
00:37:59,080 --> 00:38:01,319
Speaker 1: we had lost a case that I thought we could

625
00:38:01,360 --> 00:38:04,439
Speaker 1: have won five years earlier, a decade earlier. I could

626
00:38:04,480 --> 00:38:08,440
Speaker 1: sense that many courts were getting tired of trying to

627
00:38:09,239 --> 00:38:12,799
Speaker 1: insist on full compliance with the law, full compliance with

628
00:38:12,840 --> 00:38:16,200
Speaker 1: the Constitution, full compliance with equal protection. And I remember

629
00:38:16,239 --> 00:38:20,480
Speaker 1: waking up thinking, you know what, I'm worried that we

630
00:38:20,600 --> 00:38:22,480
Speaker 1: might not be able to win Brown versus Board of

631
00:38:22,640 --> 00:38:27,080
Speaker 1: Education today. I'm not sure today our court would do

632
00:38:27,160 --> 00:38:34,320
Speaker 1: something that disruptive on behalf of a disfavored, politically marginalized,

633
00:38:34,360 --> 00:38:38,840
Speaker 1: politically disempowered group of people. And that made me worry.

634
00:38:38,920 --> 00:38:40,920
Speaker 1: And what that made me recognize is that we were

635
00:38:40,920 --> 00:38:43,879
Speaker 1: going to have to get outside the courts and begin

636
00:38:44,000 --> 00:38:48,120
Speaker 1: doing what I call narrative work to help us understand

637
00:38:48,360 --> 00:38:51,600
Speaker 1: why it's important that we believe in equality, why it's

638
00:38:51,600 --> 00:38:54,560
Speaker 1: important that we believe in fairness, Why it's important that

639
00:38:54,600 --> 00:38:58,640
Speaker 1: we reject racial bigotry, that we reject violence, that we

640
00:38:58,680 --> 00:39:02,960
Speaker 1: reject hatred. The war by part, I'd assumed, and it

641
00:39:03,000 --> 00:39:06,760
Speaker 1: was becoming clear that even in our legal system, people

642
00:39:06,800 --> 00:39:09,799
Speaker 1: were retreating from that, and that was the genesis of

643
00:39:09,880 --> 00:39:12,480
Speaker 1: the narrative work. That was why we started issuing those reports.

644
00:39:12,520 --> 00:39:16,120
Speaker 1: It's why we built a National Memorial to Peace and Justice.

645
00:39:16,120 --> 00:39:18,960
Speaker 1: It's why we built a legacy museum, It's why we

646
00:39:19,040 --> 00:39:22,080
Speaker 1: built Freedom Monument, Sculpture Park. It's why right now I'm

647
00:39:22,120 --> 00:39:27,160
Speaker 1: really focused on creating an infrastructure and cultural institutions that

648
00:39:27,239 --> 00:39:30,040
Speaker 1: tell the truth because I think we are in a

649
00:39:30,160 --> 00:39:33,799
Speaker 1: narrative struggle in America, and we are either going to

650
00:39:33,880 --> 00:39:36,960
Speaker 1: embrace the politics of fear and anger that have led

651
00:39:37,000 --> 00:39:41,080
Speaker 1: to so much division and I think inequality and injustice

652
00:39:41,239 --> 00:39:44,880
Speaker 1: over our history, or we're going to have to embrace

653
00:39:45,000 --> 00:39:49,040
Speaker 1: something more hopeful, something that we haven't quite seen yet,

654
00:39:49,160 --> 00:39:52,640
Speaker 1: but we can imagine that gets us to a healthier place.

655
00:39:53,239 --> 00:39:55,400
Speaker 1: And the book banning that you're talking about, in the

656
00:39:55,400 --> 00:39:58,839
Speaker 1: erasing that you're taught, it's just a classic strategy. It's

657
00:39:58,880 --> 00:40:03,040
Speaker 1: what people with pass have always done when they're threatened

658
00:40:03,080 --> 00:40:06,879
Speaker 1: by ideas that I don't think they can actually compete with.

659
00:40:07,640 --> 00:40:10,600
Speaker 1: It's going to be hard to persuade me that people

660
00:40:11,400 --> 00:40:15,720
Speaker 1: actually believe that inequality is better than equality, that freedom

661
00:40:15,800 --> 00:40:21,040
Speaker 1: is better than isolation and bondage, that treating people fairly

662
00:40:21,680 --> 00:40:25,200
Speaker 1: is better than only treating some people fairly. And that's

663
00:40:25,280 --> 00:40:32,960
Speaker 1: the ideology behind equality, racial justice, treating people as human beings.

664
00:40:33,320 --> 00:40:37,520
Speaker 1: You know, you don't have to be you know, LGBTQ.

665
00:40:37,760 --> 00:40:40,200
Speaker 1: Nobody's going to force you to adopt an identity that

666
00:40:40,239 --> 00:40:43,040
Speaker 1: you don't want. But it doesn't mean that people who

667
00:40:43,120 --> 00:40:47,000
Speaker 1: have that identity should be mistreated, should be the objects

668
00:40:47,000 --> 00:40:51,040
Speaker 1: of hatred and scorn, and should be threatened and menaced.

669
00:40:51,400 --> 00:40:53,919
Speaker 1: I don't think that's consistent with an ideology that most

670
00:40:53,920 --> 00:40:57,720
Speaker 1: people want. But if we can turn it into something else,

671
00:40:58,440 --> 00:41:01,680
Speaker 1: banning and erasure, is it a classic strategy. It was

672
00:41:01,719 --> 00:41:05,080
Speaker 1: what again and slavers did in the nineteenth century when

673
00:41:05,120 --> 00:41:09,160
Speaker 1: confronted with the threat of abolition. It's what the Lost

674
00:41:09,239 --> 00:41:13,320
Speaker 1: Cause narrative was all about. Was about erasing any idea

675
00:41:13,440 --> 00:41:16,719
Speaker 1: that the Civil War was about slavery or about racial hierarchy.

676
00:41:17,400 --> 00:41:19,520
Speaker 1: It's what the Civil rights movement, you know, the White

677
00:41:19,560 --> 00:41:22,960
Speaker 1: Citizens Council that formed all over the country. They persuaded

678
00:41:23,040 --> 00:41:26,400
Speaker 1: themselves that this wasn't because a racial bigotry. It's because

679
00:41:26,640 --> 00:41:28,879
Speaker 1: this is our right, this is our states rights. It's

680
00:41:28,920 --> 00:41:32,680
Speaker 1: because of the god you know, sanctioned order between the

681
00:41:32,800 --> 00:41:35,680
Speaker 1: races and they some of them wanted to believe that

682
00:41:35,680 --> 00:41:37,640
Speaker 1: that's what black people wanted, and it's that kind of

683
00:41:38,080 --> 00:41:44,440
Speaker 1: false narrative. So censure, censoring, and erasure a book banning.

684
00:41:44,680 --> 00:41:47,640
Speaker 1: It's just a classic strategy. And I think what's scary

685
00:41:47,680 --> 00:41:50,840
Speaker 1: to me, that's what the Nazis did in the nineteen thirties.

686
00:41:50,840 --> 00:41:55,120
Speaker 1: When you're unhappy and don't want transparency, you try to

687
00:41:55,160 --> 00:41:57,279
Speaker 1: ban people from seeing what you do, which is why

688
00:41:57,360 --> 00:42:01,320
Speaker 1: journalists have been such a critical part of the struggle

689
00:42:01,360 --> 00:42:03,120
Speaker 1: for justice in so many parts of the world.

690
00:42:03,200 --> 00:42:06,040
Speaker 2: And the journalists are being threatened, they are and they're

691
00:42:06,080 --> 00:42:13,320
Speaker 2: being silenced, or they're being plowed and they're being canceled. Yeah,

692
00:42:13,360 --> 00:42:18,799
Speaker 2: how concerned are you, just as someone who deeply understands

693
00:42:18,800 --> 00:42:26,080
Speaker 2: and appreciates the Constitution these threats to free speech and

694
00:42:26,160 --> 00:42:31,279
Speaker 2: what many of view as corporate corruption that we're witnessing

695
00:42:32,520 --> 00:42:33,440
Speaker 2: now in America.

696
00:42:33,520 --> 00:42:37,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, it's absolutely disheartening to see so many companies

697
00:42:37,480 --> 00:42:41,200
Speaker 1: that were so proudly proclaiming their commitment to DEI so

698
00:42:41,400 --> 00:42:45,640
Speaker 1: quickly eradicate any of that. To see so many academic

699
00:42:45,719 --> 00:42:52,759
Speaker 1: institutions retreat from the kind of commitment to diversity within

700
00:42:52,800 --> 00:42:55,319
Speaker 1: the classroom as if somehow diversity is a bad thing,

701
00:42:55,680 --> 00:42:59,600
Speaker 1: And you know, I think anybody who experienced that realizes that,

702
00:43:00,239 --> 00:43:02,200
Speaker 1: you know, it's not that that person got a seat

703
00:43:02,239 --> 00:43:04,840
Speaker 1: that belonged to somebody else. Is that you will learn

704
00:43:04,960 --> 00:43:08,799
Speaker 1: things you cannot learn. If everybody in your classroom is

705
00:43:09,040 --> 00:43:11,680
Speaker 1: just like you, You're not going to learn really important

706
00:43:11,719 --> 00:43:15,919
Speaker 1: things about the human experience. If everybody is the same race,

707
00:43:15,960 --> 00:43:18,040
Speaker 1: and the same gender, and the same idea and the

708
00:43:18,080 --> 00:43:20,719
Speaker 1: same faith, you're going to miss out on a lot

709
00:43:20,760 --> 00:43:24,440
Speaker 1: of the understanding that you need to function in a

710
00:43:24,520 --> 00:43:27,000
Speaker 1: world that is very, very diverse.

711
00:43:42,560 --> 00:43:46,960
Speaker 2: What about this whole notion, Brian, that universities have turned

712
00:43:46,960 --> 00:43:50,160
Speaker 2: into what is the word that they always use in

713
00:43:50,200 --> 00:43:55,319
Speaker 2: doctrination camps that I heard David Brooks say in an

714
00:43:55,320 --> 00:43:59,120
Speaker 2: interview that eighty two percent of college students and I'd

715
00:43:59,160 --> 00:44:01,920
Speaker 2: like to find out where you got this statistic feel

716
00:44:01,960 --> 00:44:05,680
Speaker 2: they have to kind of not lie but not speak

717
00:44:05,760 --> 00:44:11,279
Speaker 2: honestly about their political beliefs for fear of being canceled

718
00:44:11,400 --> 00:44:16,399
Speaker 2: or mocked or thought of less than I'm curious how

719
00:44:16,440 --> 00:44:18,239
Speaker 2: you would look at that situation.

720
00:44:19,560 --> 00:44:23,160
Speaker 1: I don't think there's any question that not just on

721
00:44:23,400 --> 00:44:28,880
Speaker 1: colleges and campuses. We have made honest discourse harder in America.

722
00:44:29,160 --> 00:44:32,400
Speaker 1: I think that actually relates more to social media and

723
00:44:32,440 --> 00:44:35,319
Speaker 1: the way in which we've created a new hierarchy of

724
00:44:35,360 --> 00:44:39,160
Speaker 1: who succeeds, who becomes the most influential. We've created this

725
00:44:39,320 --> 00:44:42,880
Speaker 1: currency where the more you shun, the more you cancel,

726
00:44:43,040 --> 00:44:46,920
Speaker 1: the more you disparage, the more you ridicule and critique

727
00:44:47,000 --> 00:44:50,680
Speaker 1: those with whom you disagree, the more power you get.

728
00:44:51,239 --> 00:44:53,440
Speaker 2: And do you think that's on both sides?

729
00:44:53,600 --> 00:44:57,959
Speaker 1: Oh? I do, absolutely, I absolutely do, And I mean

730
00:44:58,520 --> 00:45:00,840
Speaker 1: I don't think a decade ago I would have predicted

731
00:45:01,520 --> 00:45:07,080
Speaker 1: that the Republican Party would become so singular in its

732
00:45:07,160 --> 00:45:11,759
Speaker 1: perspective on a range of complex issues. But you have

733
00:45:11,880 --> 00:45:15,040
Speaker 1: to kind of point out that that is largely what

734
00:45:15,280 --> 00:45:19,799
Speaker 1: has happened. And I don't believe that many of those

735
00:45:19,840 --> 00:45:23,200
Speaker 1: folks who make the votes they make believe that that's

736
00:45:23,280 --> 00:45:26,000
Speaker 1: the right thing to do. But because of the threat,

737
00:45:26,160 --> 00:45:30,960
Speaker 1: the menace, the culture we have created around only one perspective,

738
00:45:32,040 --> 00:45:34,160
Speaker 1: they give into that. I think the same thing can

739
00:45:34,280 --> 00:45:37,799
Speaker 1: happen in a classroom and did happen in classrooms. But

740
00:45:37,920 --> 00:45:40,799
Speaker 1: I don't think that's the problem. I think that's the

741
00:45:40,960 --> 00:45:45,560
Speaker 1: symptom of the larger problem that we haven't been curious

742
00:45:45,600 --> 00:45:50,160
Speaker 1: about the truth, the complete truth. And I think on

743
00:45:50,239 --> 00:45:55,920
Speaker 1: the whole, academic institutions have been moving toward more complex,

744
00:45:56,040 --> 00:46:00,839
Speaker 1: more nuanced presentations of history and understanding and art and

745
00:46:00,920 --> 00:46:03,880
Speaker 1: literature and all these sorts of things, and some people

746
00:46:03,960 --> 00:46:06,799
Speaker 1: experience that as canceling because they can't just walk in

747
00:46:06,800 --> 00:46:08,600
Speaker 1: and say, well, i'm the son of so and so

748
00:46:08,680 --> 00:46:11,520
Speaker 1: and so I get to lead this. People are like, well, yeah,

749
00:46:11,560 --> 00:46:13,560
Speaker 1: we don't care who you're the son of. We need

750
00:46:13,600 --> 00:46:15,319
Speaker 1: to know what you can do. And that's a more

751
00:46:15,360 --> 00:46:19,200
Speaker 1: complicated world than the world that some people might have

752
00:46:19,320 --> 00:46:22,919
Speaker 1: experienced before. But I don't think that's dishonest. I don't

753
00:46:22,920 --> 00:46:25,560
Speaker 1: think that's unhealthy. I actually think that is how you

754
00:46:25,680 --> 00:46:29,160
Speaker 1: make progress. Have there been excesses, of course, of course.

755
00:46:29,320 --> 00:46:32,960
Speaker 1: I remember in twenty twenty people were saying all kinds

756
00:46:32,960 --> 00:46:37,920
Speaker 1: of things that were not rooted in what I believe

757
00:46:38,480 --> 00:46:42,239
Speaker 1: is a genuine understanding. I mean, people were saying, well,

758
00:46:42,680 --> 00:46:44,560
Speaker 1: we're not going to be non violent anymore, We're going

759
00:46:44,600 --> 00:46:46,600
Speaker 1: to embrace violence. You know. I think a lot of

760
00:46:46,600 --> 00:46:51,960
Speaker 1: that happened, But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't be

761
00:46:52,239 --> 00:46:55,160
Speaker 1: engaged in that truth telling, and so for me, the

762
00:46:55,239 --> 00:46:58,120
Speaker 1: retreat of these institutions. And so to get to the

763
00:46:58,160 --> 00:47:00,080
Speaker 1: first part of your question, you know, how do we

764
00:47:00,880 --> 00:47:03,320
Speaker 1: respond in this? And I think this is true for journalists,

765
00:47:03,360 --> 00:47:08,279
Speaker 1: it's true for corporate leadership, it's true for academics. I

766
00:47:08,320 --> 00:47:10,359
Speaker 1: think we have to stick to our truth. I don't

767
00:47:10,360 --> 00:47:14,319
Speaker 1: think we can let threat and menace and intimidation silence us.

768
00:47:14,360 --> 00:47:14,720
Speaker 1: I don't.

769
00:47:14,960 --> 00:47:16,040
Speaker 2: But that's not happening.

770
00:47:16,280 --> 00:47:19,560
Speaker 1: Well, it's not happening a lot of places, but there

771
00:47:19,600 --> 00:47:22,360
Speaker 1: are some places that are doing it. Not every law

772
00:47:22,360 --> 00:47:26,839
Speaker 1: firm gave in to the mandate that they abandon any

773
00:47:26,880 --> 00:47:30,320
Speaker 1: pro bono work on behalf of immigrant communities or migrant

774
00:47:30,320 --> 00:47:33,160
Speaker 1: communities or people. A lot of law firms said, no,

775
00:47:33,239 --> 00:47:35,759
Speaker 1: we're not with that. Perkins, Cooey and Seattle said we're

776
00:47:35,800 --> 00:47:38,359
Speaker 1: going to resist, and a lot of law firms join

777
00:47:38,440 --> 00:47:41,040
Speaker 1: them in that resistance. A lot didn't, but a lot

778
00:47:41,120 --> 00:47:45,319
Speaker 1: said no. Harvard eventually said no, we're not going to

779
00:47:45,440 --> 00:47:51,200
Speaker 1: sign your agreement. A lot did, but some didn't. I

780
00:47:51,239 --> 00:47:56,239
Speaker 1: can speak for our cultural institution, the Legacy Sites in Montgomery, Alabama,

781
00:47:56,520 --> 00:47:59,920
Speaker 1: we are not going to retreat one inch in the

782
00:48:00,120 --> 00:48:03,200
Speaker 1: full and honest telling of American history. We're going to

783
00:48:03,200 --> 00:48:06,040
Speaker 1: actually do more to help people understand the harms of slavery,

784
00:48:06,040 --> 00:48:08,560
Speaker 1: the harms of lynching, the harms of segregation, the harms

785
00:48:08,560 --> 00:48:13,480
Speaker 1: of racial injustice and racial inequality. And I think journalists

786
00:48:14,200 --> 00:48:20,480
Speaker 1: can't give in to that censorship. It'll be uncomfortable, it

787
00:48:20,520 --> 00:48:25,440
Speaker 1: will get really challenging, But that's the way justice has

788
00:48:25,480 --> 00:48:26,440
Speaker 1: always prevailed.

789
00:48:26,719 --> 00:48:30,120
Speaker 2: It's not really the journalists, it's their corporate overlords.

790
00:48:30,320 --> 00:48:33,200
Speaker 1: Understood, understood, And that may mean we have to find

791
00:48:33,280 --> 00:48:36,560
Speaker 1: other vehicles for journalism. We have to find other platforms

792
00:48:36,560 --> 00:48:39,400
Speaker 1: for truth telling. We may not be able to remain

793
00:48:39,520 --> 00:48:42,719
Speaker 1: under a tent that is so corrupted by threat and

794
00:48:42,840 --> 00:48:46,759
Speaker 1: menace and intimidation that it's a greed and greed that

795
00:48:46,800 --> 00:48:48,680
Speaker 1: it's no longer a place where you can be an

796
00:48:48,680 --> 00:48:50,800
Speaker 1: honest journalist. I felt that way about a lot of

797
00:48:50,880 --> 00:48:55,200
Speaker 1: the institutions that I encountered along the way. But that

798
00:48:55,239 --> 00:48:59,080
Speaker 1: doesn't mean we can't be truth tellers. And I think

799
00:48:59,160 --> 00:49:03,600
Speaker 1: this is an when truth tellers have to step forward.

800
00:49:03,719 --> 00:49:06,279
Speaker 1: That's what the fifty thousand people who decided not to

801
00:49:06,360 --> 00:49:09,160
Speaker 1: ride the buses in Montgomery, Alabama, were. They said, we

802
00:49:09,239 --> 00:49:11,520
Speaker 1: have a truth, and the truth is that it's wrong

803
00:49:12,280 --> 00:49:15,160
Speaker 1: for you to exclude us and to humiliate us because

804
00:49:15,160 --> 00:49:18,080
Speaker 1: of our color. And we don't have money, we don't

805
00:49:18,080 --> 00:49:21,360
Speaker 1: have power, we don't have corporate backing, we don't have

806
00:49:21,400 --> 00:49:24,160
Speaker 1: a government that will intervene on us. But we have

807
00:49:24,400 --> 00:49:27,200
Speaker 1: our bodies and we're going to use these bodies and

808
00:49:27,280 --> 00:49:31,040
Speaker 1: stay off of your buses. And they did it for

809
00:49:31,200 --> 00:49:34,840
Speaker 1: over a year, walking three miles a day in the morning,

810
00:49:34,920 --> 00:49:37,799
Speaker 1: working ten hours, walking three miles at night, and that

811
00:49:37,920 --> 00:49:43,080
Speaker 1: resolution ultimately prevailed. The civil rights movement the nineteen fifties

812
00:49:43,080 --> 00:49:45,799
Speaker 1: and sixties didn't have corporate sponsors. Everybody talks like they

813
00:49:45,800 --> 00:49:47,600
Speaker 1: were on the side of doctor King, but nobody was

814
00:49:47,600 --> 00:49:50,720
Speaker 1: on the side of doctor King or very few people

815
00:49:50,760 --> 00:49:53,920
Speaker 1: in power. They didn't have corporate backers, and the church,

816
00:49:54,280 --> 00:49:57,200
Speaker 1: the White Church, was largely against them. There were people

817
00:49:57,200 --> 00:50:00,839
Speaker 1: who were high profile supporters. They use what they had

818
00:50:00,920 --> 00:50:03,680
Speaker 1: and they didn't have very much. And I just feel

819
00:50:03,719 --> 00:50:05,640
Speaker 1: like I stand on the shoulders of people who did

820
00:50:05,680 --> 00:50:08,560
Speaker 1: so much more with so much less. They had to

821
00:50:08,560 --> 00:50:10,600
Speaker 1: face such a greater threat. They would go places and

822
00:50:10,600 --> 00:50:13,600
Speaker 1: they'd be on their knees praying for the right to vote,

823
00:50:13,680 --> 00:50:17,399
Speaker 1: and they'd get beaten and battered and bloodied, and they'd

824
00:50:17,440 --> 00:50:20,400
Speaker 1: go home, wipe the blood all, change their clothes, and

825
00:50:20,440 --> 00:50:23,200
Speaker 1: go back and do it again. And if they could

826
00:50:23,280 --> 00:50:27,399
Speaker 1: do that, I don't get to say I can't do

827
00:50:27,560 --> 00:50:29,320
Speaker 1: what I have to do in this moment.

828
00:50:29,600 --> 00:50:32,520
Speaker 2: Do you think the civil rights movement could happen today?

829
00:50:32,760 --> 00:50:37,080
Speaker 2: It seems like there are very few people with that

830
00:50:37,280 --> 00:50:43,200
Speaker 2: level of courage and commitment to fight for something that important.

831
00:50:43,560 --> 00:50:45,960
Speaker 2: There seems to be a lot of apathy.

832
00:50:46,440 --> 00:50:50,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it'll be a different movement today. But yes,

833
00:50:50,040 --> 00:50:52,279
Speaker 1: I absolutely do think it can happen. You know, in

834
00:50:52,320 --> 00:50:55,200
Speaker 1: twenty twenty when people took to the streets, wasn't just

835
00:50:55,320 --> 00:50:59,840
Speaker 1: black people. I think a lot of older white American

836
00:51:00,080 --> 00:51:03,800
Speaker 1: and young They were just appalled that we're still seeing

837
00:51:04,560 --> 00:51:08,080
Speaker 1: this kind of abuse of people and they wanted it

838
00:51:08,120 --> 00:51:13,120
Speaker 1: to end. And I don't think you absolutely have to

839
00:51:13,200 --> 00:51:16,840
Speaker 1: manifest your concerns in that way, but you do have

840
00:51:16,920 --> 00:51:19,680
Speaker 1: to manifest them. I mean, we have come apathetic. You're

841
00:51:19,680 --> 00:51:22,160
Speaker 1: absolutely right. I mean it was interesting to me in

842
00:51:22,200 --> 00:51:25,400
Speaker 1: the last two elections talking to people who so it

843
00:51:25,440 --> 00:51:28,000
Speaker 1: doesn't matter I don't like this person and I don't

844
00:51:28,080 --> 00:51:31,160
Speaker 1: like that person. I'm disgusted with this and that it's

845
00:51:31,200 --> 00:51:34,239
Speaker 1: just interesting. I come from a political tradition because you know,

846
00:51:34,280 --> 00:51:38,799
Speaker 1: my great grandparents were enslaved, couldn't have the chance to vote.

847
00:51:38,880 --> 00:51:41,600
Speaker 1: My grandparents had to deal with terror of violence. My

848
00:51:41,719 --> 00:51:44,640
Speaker 1: parents lived through Jim Crow and segregation. I just grew

849
00:51:44,719 --> 00:51:47,880
Speaker 1: up so excited about the opportunity to finally have the

850
00:51:47,960 --> 00:51:50,880
Speaker 1: right to vote. I would never dream of not voting.

851
00:51:51,760 --> 00:51:54,960
Speaker 1: And even if I have to choose between bad and worse,

852
00:51:55,560 --> 00:51:57,640
Speaker 1: I'm going to go vote for bad because that's better

853
00:51:57,680 --> 00:52:01,120
Speaker 1: than worse. My opportunity to get to someplace better will

854
00:52:01,160 --> 00:52:04,680
Speaker 1: be increased with this outcome rather than that outcome. I've

855
00:52:04,680 --> 00:52:09,399
Speaker 1: never been so privileged to expect, so entitled to think

856
00:52:09,920 --> 00:52:12,480
Speaker 1: that I'm going to have just the perfect person. And

857
00:52:12,600 --> 00:52:14,719
Speaker 1: until I have that perfect person, I'm not going to

858
00:52:14,760 --> 00:52:18,040
Speaker 1: exercise my right to vote. I've never been so privileged

859
00:52:18,080 --> 00:52:21,279
Speaker 1: to think that I get to have only vote for

860
00:52:21,320 --> 00:52:23,839
Speaker 1: the people who have everything aligned with my values. I've

861
00:52:23,840 --> 00:52:26,839
Speaker 1: never been that privileged. It's always been a struggle, and

862
00:52:27,080 --> 00:52:29,960
Speaker 1: justice is a constant struggle. So we have to get

863
00:52:30,040 --> 00:52:33,120
Speaker 1: past that apathy, and we are going to have to

864
00:52:33,120 --> 00:52:36,200
Speaker 1: find our courage. I think a lot of people felt

865
00:52:36,600 --> 00:52:38,879
Speaker 1: that it wasn't going to be a problem for them,

866
00:52:39,680 --> 00:52:43,440
Speaker 1: whoever won the election. And what's interesting to me is

867
00:52:43,440 --> 00:52:46,640
Speaker 1: seeing all of these communities of people who thought they

868
00:52:46,640 --> 00:52:51,320
Speaker 1: were insulated from the consequences of some of these narratives.

869
00:52:51,960 --> 00:52:55,560
Speaker 1: The federal workforce, hundreds of thousands of whom have now

870
00:52:55,640 --> 00:53:01,400
Speaker 1: lost their jobs, cultural leaders, people engage in aspects of

871
00:53:01,400 --> 00:53:06,520
Speaker 1: American society and the health construct and the sciences, some

872
00:53:06,600 --> 00:53:11,360
Speaker 1: of those academic institutions. No one thought that farmers, exactly,

873
00:53:11,880 --> 00:53:15,320
Speaker 1: people who do business on an international scale now contending.

874
00:53:16,120 --> 00:53:19,680
Speaker 1: And so it was apathy that made you think that

875
00:53:19,719 --> 00:53:22,239
Speaker 1: it wasn't going to be consequential. Now, when you're experiencing

876
00:53:22,280 --> 00:53:25,640
Speaker 1: these things, the question is are you still apathetic or

877
00:53:25,680 --> 00:53:28,720
Speaker 1: are you now motivated to do something, to say something,

878
00:53:29,440 --> 00:53:33,520
Speaker 1: to contribute to something that is more consistent with these values.

879
00:53:33,560 --> 00:53:36,920
Speaker 2: And on the cusp of our two hundred and fiftieth anniversary,

880
00:53:37,640 --> 00:53:41,600
Speaker 2: I think people didn't realize how fragile democracies are.

881
00:53:41,719 --> 00:53:44,560
Speaker 1: It is absolutely right. I mean, I think this is

882
00:53:44,640 --> 00:53:49,200
Speaker 1: a very critical moment in American history, and for two

883
00:53:49,239 --> 00:53:53,279
Speaker 1: reasons I'm not sure are well understood. One. Throughout my lifetime,

884
00:53:53,560 --> 00:53:58,080
Speaker 1: we always had a court that was going to always

885
00:53:58,120 --> 00:54:01,880
Speaker 1: put the rule of law in the constitution over ideology,

886
00:54:02,200 --> 00:54:04,239
Speaker 1: and I think a lot of people are now questioning

887
00:54:04,719 --> 00:54:05,799
Speaker 1: whether that's still true.

888
00:54:05,840 --> 00:54:08,000
Speaker 2: And are you questioning, Oh, I absolutely am?

889
00:54:08,160 --> 00:54:11,680
Speaker 1: I absolutely am. I mean, for a court that has

890
00:54:11,719 --> 00:54:15,880
Speaker 1: talked so much about wanting to get to a colorblind society,

891
00:54:16,239 --> 00:54:18,960
Speaker 1: something I think that is kind of misguided. But I

892
00:54:19,040 --> 00:54:23,000
Speaker 1: get it to just two weeks ago, and upholding the

893
00:54:23,040 --> 00:54:31,040
Speaker 1: administration's immigration raids to legitimate the use of race, national

894
00:54:31,120 --> 00:54:37,160
Speaker 1: origin language as a basis for stopping someone to commit

895
00:54:37,200 --> 00:54:43,720
Speaker 1: these raids is pretty devastating because it is completely inconsistent

896
00:54:44,280 --> 00:54:49,360
Speaker 1: with that idea that the Constitution does not tolerate bias

897
00:54:49,400 --> 00:54:52,040
Speaker 1: based on race. I think what the Court did two

898
00:54:52,080 --> 00:54:56,200
Speaker 1: weeks ago is an echo of what the Court did

899
00:54:56,800 --> 00:55:00,200
Speaker 1: in the nineteen forties in a case called Kamatso when

900
00:55:00,239 --> 00:55:02,280
Speaker 1: the government said we're going to round up every person

901
00:55:02,320 --> 00:55:05,360
Speaker 1: of Japanese ancestry and we're going to put them in

902
00:55:05,480 --> 00:55:08,760
Speaker 1: concentration camps. We're going to put them in these camps.

903
00:55:08,880 --> 00:55:12,480
Speaker 1: And it was wrong, it was bigoted, it was unjust,

904
00:55:12,480 --> 00:55:15,560
Speaker 1: and the Supreme Court gave in to it because the

905
00:55:15,600 --> 00:55:20,520
Speaker 1: prevailing political ideology was all about retribution against the Japanese

906
00:55:20,520 --> 00:55:23,719
Speaker 1: for their attack on Pearl Harbor. They gave in. And

907
00:55:23,760 --> 00:55:27,360
Speaker 1: what's fascinating is forty years later, fifty years later, the

908
00:55:27,400 --> 00:55:28,880
Speaker 1: court was prepared to say, oh, you know what, that

909
00:55:29,000 --> 00:55:31,120
Speaker 1: was wrong. We made a mistake. We should not have

910
00:55:31,200 --> 00:55:35,360
Speaker 1: done that. And now I think just two weeks ago,

911
00:55:35,480 --> 00:55:39,360
Speaker 1: by saying it is appropriate for these agents to consider race,

912
00:55:40,120 --> 00:55:44,680
Speaker 1: identity language as a basis for detaining someone, stopping someone

913
00:55:45,360 --> 00:55:48,680
Speaker 1: as part of this immigration rate, we have legitimated that

914
00:55:48,840 --> 00:55:53,640
Speaker 1: kind of racial bias. We've given the government the opportunity

915
00:55:53,680 --> 00:55:59,279
Speaker 1: to consider race in detention, arrest, suspension and all of

916
00:55:59,320 --> 00:56:03,640
Speaker 1: these things. And Justice Soto Mayor wrote a powerful discent.

917
00:56:04,480 --> 00:56:07,200
Speaker 1: So the first thing that troubles me is that without

918
00:56:07,239 --> 00:56:10,279
Speaker 1: a court to constrain and hold on to the parameters

919
00:56:10,280 --> 00:56:13,759
Speaker 1: of democracy, we become much much more vulnerable than we

920
00:56:13,800 --> 00:56:17,719
Speaker 1: would otherwise, Which means that the other way which we

921
00:56:17,760 --> 00:56:21,359
Speaker 1: hold on to our democracy has to be expressed through

922
00:56:21,400 --> 00:56:25,319
Speaker 1: our vote, through our willingness to get out and make

923
00:56:25,400 --> 00:56:29,440
Speaker 1: our perspective clearly known. And even there you're seeing all

924
00:56:29,560 --> 00:56:32,680
Speaker 1: kinds of manipulation. I mean, this whole thing we're seeing

925
00:56:32,719 --> 00:56:37,120
Speaker 1: where states are being asked to manipulate their congressional districts

926
00:56:37,120 --> 00:56:40,280
Speaker 1: in such a way to guarantee that one party wins

927
00:56:40,719 --> 00:56:43,320
Speaker 1: and the other party loses. I mean, that's no different

928
00:56:43,960 --> 00:56:46,759
Speaker 1: than the poll tests and the literacy tests that were

929
00:56:46,880 --> 00:56:48,880
Speaker 1: used by states for decades in the first half of

930
00:56:48,920 --> 00:56:51,920
Speaker 1: the twentieth century. If you were against that and against

931
00:56:51,960 --> 00:56:54,960
Speaker 1: the racial bigotry behind that, you have to be against this.

932
00:56:55,320 --> 00:56:58,440
Speaker 1: It's no different than what happened after Reconstruction when we

933
00:56:58,800 --> 00:57:04,160
Speaker 1: disenfranchised black people through threat and violence, intimidation, and so yes,

934
00:57:04,239 --> 00:57:06,600
Speaker 1: this is going to be a gut check for our democracy.

935
00:57:07,400 --> 00:57:09,960
Speaker 1: I think we have to be hopeful that we will prevail.

936
00:57:10,320 --> 00:57:14,640
Speaker 1: And I am hopeful, and I think my hope rests

937
00:57:14,960 --> 00:57:17,400
Speaker 1: not in what I see in front of me, but

938
00:57:17,440 --> 00:57:23,200
Speaker 1: it rests in what I feel pushing behind me. I've

939
00:57:23,240 --> 00:57:25,000
Speaker 1: been talking about this. I was just at Harvard. It

940
00:57:25,040 --> 00:57:26,760
Speaker 1: was very honored. They gave me a ward, and I

941
00:57:26,800 --> 00:57:29,360
Speaker 1: told them that when I went to Harvard Law School.

942
00:57:30,000 --> 00:57:32,960
Speaker 1: On the first day, they put us in groups to

943
00:57:33,000 --> 00:57:34,920
Speaker 1: try to make us comfortable, and the student group leader

944
00:57:35,000 --> 00:57:38,280
Speaker 1: was supposed to just orient you, and my group leader

945
00:57:38,320 --> 00:57:41,680
Speaker 1: took twelve us out and she asked the students, why

946
00:57:41,680 --> 00:57:44,200
Speaker 1: are you in law school? And all of my classmates

947
00:57:44,200 --> 00:57:46,040
Speaker 1: started talking about why they were in law school, and

948
00:57:46,120 --> 00:57:48,440
Speaker 1: each one of them started talking about how they were

949
00:57:48,480 --> 00:57:51,200
Speaker 1: the son or the daughter, or the grandson or the granddaughter,

950
00:57:51,280 --> 00:57:53,760
Speaker 1: or the nephew or the niece of a lawyer. And

951
00:57:53,800 --> 00:57:56,640
Speaker 1: I started squirming because I knew I wasn't related to

952
00:57:56,680 --> 00:57:59,840
Speaker 1: any lawyers. And after the six or seventh student in

953
00:58:00,040 --> 00:58:02,840
Speaker 1: both these family connections, I really started to panic. And

954
00:58:02,880 --> 00:58:06,040
Speaker 1: then I realized something I hadn't even realized until that moment.

955
00:58:06,120 --> 00:58:08,200
Speaker 1: What I realized was that not only was I not

956
00:58:08,280 --> 00:58:12,600
Speaker 1: related to a lawyer, I realized I'd never even met

957
00:58:12,600 --> 00:58:14,920
Speaker 1: a lawyer. And by the time they got to me,

958
00:58:15,640 --> 00:58:18,440
Speaker 1: I felt so diminished. I didn't answer the question. I

959
00:58:18,480 --> 00:58:20,320
Speaker 1: told a joke. I just tried to get out of there.

960
00:58:20,800 --> 00:58:23,040
Speaker 1: And afterward I called my mom. I said, Mom, I

961
00:58:23,040 --> 00:58:26,080
Speaker 1: don't belong in this law school. And my mother, of course,

962
00:58:26,120 --> 00:58:27,840
Speaker 1: one of these beautiful mothers, she said, what are you

963
00:58:27,880 --> 00:58:30,560
Speaker 1: talking about. You belong wherever you go. You're the smartest

964
00:58:30,560 --> 00:58:32,120
Speaker 1: person in the world. You could do anything you want

965
00:58:32,120 --> 00:58:33,600
Speaker 1: to do. Now you go back there and you tell

966
00:58:33,640 --> 00:58:36,120
Speaker 1: them why you're really in law school, and I felt

967
00:58:36,120 --> 00:58:37,880
Speaker 1: better after I talked to my mom, but I knew

968
00:58:37,880 --> 00:58:41,000
Speaker 1: I couldn't organize another meeting with these law students, and

969
00:58:41,080 --> 00:58:43,440
Speaker 1: so I just went on about my business. But two

970
00:58:43,480 --> 00:58:47,840
Speaker 1: weeks later, I still felt the weight of the dishonesty

971
00:58:48,400 --> 00:58:51,479
Speaker 1: I had engaged on my first day. So I found

972
00:58:51,520 --> 00:58:53,040
Speaker 1: some of the students in the group. I said, hey,

973
00:58:53,160 --> 00:58:55,000
Speaker 1: can we have a little meeting. I just want to

974
00:58:55,000 --> 00:58:56,920
Speaker 1: tell you something about the person. It was so awkward,

975
00:58:57,000 --> 00:58:59,160
Speaker 1: it was so challenging, but they were kind and they

976
00:58:59,200 --> 00:59:01,840
Speaker 1: allowed me to have this meeting. And what I told

977
00:59:01,920 --> 00:59:04,320
Speaker 1: them I said on the first day of law school,

978
00:59:04,320 --> 00:59:06,600
Speaker 1: I wasn't fully honest. I didn't tell you why I'm

979
00:59:06,600 --> 00:59:08,680
Speaker 1: in law school. And I said, I'm not related to

980
00:59:08,720 --> 00:59:11,720
Speaker 1: a lawyer. I've never even met a lawyer. But my

981
00:59:11,960 --> 00:59:17,640
Speaker 1: great grandfather was enslaved in Caroline County, Virginia. And even

982
00:59:17,640 --> 00:59:20,800
Speaker 1: though my great grandfather was enslaved, he had this hope

983
00:59:20,840 --> 00:59:24,080
Speaker 1: of freedom, and it was so powerful. It weighed on

984
00:59:24,160 --> 00:59:28,000
Speaker 1: him so much he risked his life to learn to read.

985
00:59:28,520 --> 00:59:30,560
Speaker 1: It was against the law. It was illegal for enslaved

986
00:59:30,560 --> 00:59:32,600
Speaker 1: people to learn to read or write. You could be sold,

987
00:59:32,600 --> 00:59:35,560
Speaker 1: you could be killed if you were discovered trying to

988
00:59:35,600 --> 00:59:37,720
Speaker 1: learn to read and write. And my great grandfather had

989
00:59:37,720 --> 00:59:40,280
Speaker 1: a hope of freedom so powerful he learned to read

990
00:59:40,320 --> 00:59:42,600
Speaker 1: in the eighteen fifties. He didn't know civil war was

991
00:59:42,640 --> 00:59:45,600
Speaker 1: coming in a decade, but he learned to read and write.

992
00:59:45,960 --> 00:59:49,440
Speaker 1: And after emancipation, my grandmother told me that once a

993
00:59:49,440 --> 00:59:52,280
Speaker 1: week my great grandfather would allow people from the community

994
00:59:52,280 --> 00:59:54,200
Speaker 1: who didn't know how to read to come over to

995
00:59:54,280 --> 00:59:56,560
Speaker 1: their house and he would stand on the porch and

996
00:59:56,600 --> 01:00:00,360
Speaker 1: he would read the newspaper to them. And she said

997
01:00:00,400 --> 01:00:02,760
Speaker 1: she'd love the fact that her father knew how to read,

998
01:00:02,880 --> 01:00:05,560
Speaker 1: and people would be so grateful and so happy. They

999
01:00:05,600 --> 01:00:08,280
Speaker 1: would bring food and bring gifts just because he was

1000
01:00:08,320 --> 01:00:10,200
Speaker 1: helping them to know what was going on. And my

1001
01:00:10,200 --> 01:00:12,960
Speaker 1: grandmother said, as a little girl, she wanted to learn

1002
01:00:13,000 --> 01:00:15,240
Speaker 1: to read, and so whenever he would start reading, she

1003
01:00:15,280 --> 01:00:17,680
Speaker 1: would push her siblings aside. She would sit next to him,

1004
01:00:18,000 --> 01:00:19,880
Speaker 1: and she said she would wrap her arms around his

1005
01:00:20,000 --> 01:00:22,040
Speaker 1: leg and put her head next to her leg, because

1006
01:00:22,040 --> 01:00:24,439
Speaker 1: she thought you learned to read by touching somebody while

1007
01:00:24,480 --> 01:00:26,600
Speaker 1: they read. And he figured out what she would say.

1008
01:00:26,640 --> 01:00:28,520
Speaker 1: He said, no, Victoria, that's not how you learned to read.

1009
01:00:28,600 --> 01:00:31,320
Speaker 1: I'll teach you how to read, and he taught my

1010
01:00:31,400 --> 01:00:34,000
Speaker 1: grandmother to be a reader. My grandmother worked as a

1011
01:00:34,040 --> 01:00:36,800
Speaker 1: domestic her whole life. She'd cleaned other people's houses and

1012
01:00:37,000 --> 01:00:40,360
Speaker 1: did domestic work, but she was a reader. She had

1013
01:00:40,400 --> 01:00:45,880
Speaker 1: ten children. She demanded that all of her children be readers.

1014
01:00:45,920 --> 01:00:48,320
Speaker 1: When I would go visit my grandmother, sometimes she would

1015
01:00:48,360 --> 01:00:50,360
Speaker 1: come out on the porch with a stack of books

1016
01:00:50,760 --> 01:00:52,760
Speaker 1: and she would make you read something before she let

1017
01:00:52,800 --> 01:00:55,560
Speaker 1: you in the house. She was very tactical. She said, Ryan,

1018
01:00:55,600 --> 01:00:56,840
Speaker 1: what do you want me to make you for dessert?

1019
01:00:56,880 --> 01:00:58,720
Speaker 1: And I'd come up with something it didn't even make sense.

1020
01:00:58,720 --> 01:01:01,000
Speaker 1: She said, okay. She'd go in the kitchen. It would

1021
01:01:01,000 --> 01:01:03,240
Speaker 1: smell so good. She said, okay, Brian, come on, it's ready,

1022
01:01:03,640 --> 01:01:05,520
Speaker 1: And there she'd be with those stack of books, and

1023
01:01:05,560 --> 01:01:08,160
Speaker 1: I'd have to read something to get that good smell

1024
01:01:08,200 --> 01:01:11,440
Speaker 1: in dessert in the kitchen. As I said, I grew

1025
01:01:11,480 --> 01:01:15,560
Speaker 1: up in a really poor, racially segregated community. You did

1026
01:01:15,600 --> 01:01:18,080
Speaker 1: not see a lot of hope outside the door. Most

1027
01:01:18,080 --> 01:01:20,760
Speaker 1: of the adults worked in the poultry plants. People had

1028
01:01:21,200 --> 01:01:25,360
Speaker 1: out houses, didn't have running water. It just wasn't a hopeful.

1029
01:01:25,440 --> 01:01:28,280
Speaker 1: You didn't see a lot of that, But my mom

1030
01:01:29,000 --> 01:01:33,880
Speaker 1: went into debt when we were like small kids, eight nine,

1031
01:01:33,880 --> 01:01:35,960
Speaker 1: ten years old. She went into debt. I'm not sure

1032
01:01:35,960 --> 01:01:37,880
Speaker 1: she ever was able to pay for these things. My

1033
01:01:37,960 --> 01:01:41,480
Speaker 1: mom went into debt and bought us the World Book Encyclopedia,

1034
01:01:42,200 --> 01:01:46,240
Speaker 1: and we had those books in our house. And I

1035
01:01:46,320 --> 01:01:48,560
Speaker 1: told my classmates, I said, I never met a lawyer,

1036
01:01:48,800 --> 01:01:51,480
Speaker 1: never kind of related to a lawyer, but I read

1037
01:01:51,520 --> 01:01:54,920
Speaker 1: all about the lawyers in the World Book Encyclopedia. And

1038
01:01:55,000 --> 01:01:56,600
Speaker 1: you know, I can't lie. As a ten year old,

1039
01:01:56,640 --> 01:01:59,040
Speaker 1: I didn't always understand because you know, Christmas comes along,

1040
01:01:59,040 --> 01:02:00,880
Speaker 1: you go outside and your They're like, well, I got

1041
01:02:00,880 --> 01:02:03,240
Speaker 1: a bicycle, I got a basketball, I got a baseball.

1042
01:02:03,280 --> 01:02:05,200
Speaker 1: I'd have to say, well, I got Volume G of

1043
01:02:05,240 --> 01:02:08,680
Speaker 1: the World Book Encyclopedia. But I told them, I'm in

1044
01:02:08,720 --> 01:02:11,280
Speaker 1: law school because I read about the lawyers and the

1045
01:02:11,320 --> 01:02:14,760
Speaker 1: World Book Encyclopedia, and I read that they could help

1046
01:02:14,840 --> 01:02:19,160
Speaker 1: people who are experiencing harm, they could open doors for

1047
01:02:19,240 --> 01:02:21,960
Speaker 1: people who are being excluded, they could do something about

1048
01:02:22,000 --> 01:02:25,919
Speaker 1: bigotry and discrimination. And because I've seen that, that's why

1049
01:02:25,960 --> 01:02:30,800
Speaker 1: I'm in law school. And in many ways, I feel

1050
01:02:31,320 --> 01:02:35,439
Speaker 1: the hope of the enslaved behind me. When I talk

1051
01:02:35,520 --> 01:02:41,040
Speaker 1: about slavery in our cultural institutions, I think, actually it's wrong.

1052
01:02:41,960 --> 01:02:45,080
Speaker 1: I think memory and truth telling is what we owe

1053
01:02:45,360 --> 01:02:48,000
Speaker 1: the ten million black people who were enslaved for two

1054
01:02:48,080 --> 01:02:50,760
Speaker 1: hundred and forty six years in this country, the ten

1055
01:02:50,760 --> 01:02:54,480
Speaker 1: million black people who endured the immense suffering and constant

1056
01:02:54,560 --> 01:02:58,640
Speaker 1: sorrow of slavery, we owe them the truth of their story.

1057
01:02:58,680 --> 01:03:01,400
Speaker 1: And when we try to diminish it, when we try

1058
01:03:01,440 --> 01:03:04,040
Speaker 1: to center it, when we say stop talking about it,

1059
01:03:04,520 --> 01:03:07,320
Speaker 1: not only is what we're doing dishonest, I think it's unjust,

1060
01:03:07,760 --> 01:03:09,680
Speaker 1: and if I care about justice, I have to lift

1061
01:03:09,680 --> 01:03:12,880
Speaker 1: that up. And I feel them behind me, those people

1062
01:03:12,920 --> 01:03:15,640
Speaker 1: we're trying to bring attention to, who are the victims

1063
01:03:15,680 --> 01:03:18,480
Speaker 1: of terror, of isolence and lynching, those people who fled there.

1064
01:03:18,880 --> 01:03:22,320
Speaker 1: I feel them behind me. The people I grew up with,

1065
01:03:22,360 --> 01:03:26,760
Speaker 1: who had to endure the humiliation and degradation of segregation.

1066
01:03:27,560 --> 01:03:29,960
Speaker 1: I feel them behind me. And so when I have

1067
01:03:30,080 --> 01:03:33,560
Speaker 1: to speak and people say be quiet, when I have

1068
01:03:33,640 --> 01:03:37,320
Speaker 1: to stand up and people say sit down, I've gotten

1069
01:03:37,320 --> 01:03:38,880
Speaker 1: to a point in my life when I don't ever

1070
01:03:38,920 --> 01:03:44,400
Speaker 1: feel like I'm standing alone. I don't. I don't even

1071
01:03:44,440 --> 01:03:48,960
Speaker 1: think i'm speaking just for myself, and I think we

1072
01:03:49,120 --> 01:03:51,600
Speaker 1: all have to tap into it. You don't have to

1073
01:03:51,640 --> 01:03:54,120
Speaker 1: be African American, no matter what your background are. Most

1074
01:03:54,160 --> 01:03:58,480
Speaker 1: of us are where we are because generations of people

1075
01:03:58,920 --> 01:04:03,200
Speaker 1: family non family, have lifted us up, have put us

1076
01:04:03,200 --> 01:04:05,680
Speaker 1: in positions where we could do things to make the

1077
01:04:05,680 --> 01:04:09,800
Speaker 1: world better, to do things better, to create something healthier.

1078
01:04:10,600 --> 01:04:13,480
Speaker 1: And I think we dishonor them if in this moment

1079
01:04:13,520 --> 01:04:16,560
Speaker 1: of crisis, in this moment of conflict and controversy, in

1080
01:04:16,600 --> 01:04:20,320
Speaker 1: this moment where democracy is being threatened, we remain silent.

1081
01:04:20,920 --> 01:04:23,320
Speaker 1: I don't think it's just apathetic. I don't think it's

1082
01:04:23,560 --> 01:04:27,640
Speaker 1: just cowardly. I think it's dishonorable. And so if we

1083
01:04:27,720 --> 01:04:30,920
Speaker 1: are Americans committed to a future, if we are Americans

1084
01:04:30,960 --> 01:04:33,640
Speaker 1: who believe in freedom, of quality and justice, we have

1085
01:04:33,680 --> 01:04:36,920
Speaker 1: to now speak out. We have to do things, and

1086
01:04:37,000 --> 01:04:40,360
Speaker 1: we have to be prepared. That may mean things get uncomfortable,

1087
01:04:41,040 --> 01:04:44,720
Speaker 1: but we have behind us generations who did those uncomfortable

1088
01:04:44,720 --> 01:04:48,360
Speaker 1: things to make this nation the nation that it is

1089
01:04:49,160 --> 01:04:51,360
Speaker 1: in hopes that we would continue that struggle. And so

1090
01:04:51,880 --> 01:04:54,120
Speaker 1: that's what I'm embracing in this moment, That's what I'm

1091
01:04:54,320 --> 01:04:56,040
Speaker 1: holding on to in this moment.

1092
01:04:56,880 --> 01:05:01,560
Speaker 2: That's so moving, and I so appreciate you saying that,

1093
01:05:02,120 --> 01:05:04,680
Speaker 2: because so many people say to me, what can I do?

1094
01:05:04,840 --> 01:05:08,880
Speaker 2: What can I do? And they really feel powerless and

1095
01:05:08,920 --> 01:05:12,959
Speaker 2: they feel at a loss, and they know what they're

1096
01:05:12,960 --> 01:05:17,680
Speaker 2: witnessing is wrong and scary and bad for this country,

1097
01:05:18,200 --> 01:05:20,600
Speaker 2: but they don't know how or where to channel it.

1098
01:05:21,600 --> 01:05:23,320
Speaker 1: The one thing I like to tell people, too, is

1099
01:05:23,360 --> 01:05:27,160
Speaker 1: that learning is an action item. When you educate yourself,

1100
01:05:27,480 --> 01:05:30,400
Speaker 1: you're actually doing something. And there's so much we need

1101
01:05:30,440 --> 01:05:34,760
Speaker 1: to know about what democracy requires, about what history can

1102
01:05:34,840 --> 01:05:38,000
Speaker 1: help us with that I think will be important as

1103
01:05:38,000 --> 01:05:41,600
Speaker 1: we prepare to meet this moment. And no one can

1104
01:05:41,640 --> 01:05:46,840
Speaker 1: actually prevent you from learning. At EJI my organization, we

1105
01:05:46,920 --> 01:05:49,880
Speaker 1: have something called a History of Racial Injustice. It's a

1106
01:05:49,920 --> 01:05:53,000
Speaker 1: calendar and every day we put out something that just

1107
01:05:53,120 --> 01:05:55,800
Speaker 1: documents parts of our history where we fail, where we

1108
01:05:55,840 --> 01:05:58,360
Speaker 1: didn't do what we should have done. And I think

1109
01:05:58,360 --> 01:06:00,960
Speaker 1: we need to learn that history. We need to know

1110
01:06:01,040 --> 01:06:05,240
Speaker 1: that language. It facilitates conversation that we won't otherwise be

1111
01:06:05,360 --> 01:06:08,360
Speaker 1: capable of having. It allows us to rebut some of

1112
01:06:08,400 --> 01:06:11,560
Speaker 1: the bigotry and some of the misrepresentations of who we are,

1113
01:06:12,440 --> 01:06:16,200
Speaker 1: and it's a very small thing, but I think at

1114
01:06:16,200 --> 01:06:20,240
Speaker 1: a minimum, we should commit to learning our past and

1115
01:06:20,320 --> 01:06:22,640
Speaker 1: understanding our history so we are better prepared for the

1116
01:06:22,680 --> 01:06:26,080
Speaker 1: moment we're in and better prepared to create a healthier future.

1117
01:06:25,880 --> 01:06:36,560
Speaker 2: And perhaps inspired by absolutely who came before us. Hi everyone,

1118
01:06:36,600 --> 01:06:39,000
Speaker 2: it's me Katie Couric. You know, if you've been following

1119
01:06:39,040 --> 01:06:41,680
Speaker 2: me on social media, you know I love to cook,

1120
01:06:41,800 --> 01:06:45,080
Speaker 2: or at least try, especially alongside some of my favorite

1121
01:06:45,120 --> 01:06:48,920
Speaker 2: chefs and foodies like Benny Blanco, Jake Cohen, Lighty Hoyk,

1122
01:06:49,080 --> 01:06:53,440
Speaker 2: Alison Roman and Ininagarten. So I started a free newsletter

1123
01:06:53,520 --> 01:06:57,400
Speaker 2: called good Taste to share recipes, tips and kitchen mustaves.

1124
01:06:57,760 --> 01:07:01,360
Speaker 2: Just sign up at Katiecuric dot com slash good Taste.

1125
01:07:01,680 --> 01:07:04,080
Speaker 2: That's k A t I E c o U r

1126
01:07:04,200 --> 01:07:08,480
Speaker 2: I c dot com slash good Taste. I promise your

1127
01:07:08,520 --> 01:07:20,760
Speaker 2: taste buds will be happy you did. I want to

1128
01:07:20,800 --> 01:07:23,760
Speaker 2: ask you about a couple of other issues that of course,

1129
01:07:24,480 --> 01:07:27,040
Speaker 2: when I read or think about these things, I'm always

1130
01:07:27,080 --> 01:07:34,240
Speaker 2: like ww bs s, what would Brian Stephenson say? And

1131
01:07:34,760 --> 01:07:39,040
Speaker 2: one is this cultural whiplash that we've seen when it

1132
01:07:39,120 --> 01:07:44,120
Speaker 2: comes to mass incarceration and crime in general, and I've

1133
01:07:44,120 --> 01:07:47,200
Speaker 2: seen this shift all the work that you've done with

1134
01:07:47,320 --> 01:07:52,800
Speaker 2: mass incarceration and minimum mandatory sentencing, and I see the

1135
01:07:52,840 --> 01:07:57,400
Speaker 2: country moving in this direction of we're not being tough

1136
01:07:57,520 --> 01:08:04,120
Speaker 2: enough on criminals, prisons are revolving door, We're seeing people

1137
01:08:04,160 --> 01:08:08,840
Speaker 2: who should be in prison committing crimes, who have been

1138
01:08:08,920 --> 01:08:12,120
Speaker 2: in and out and in and out. And I'm curious

1139
01:08:12,680 --> 01:08:18,360
Speaker 2: how you see that arc of history unfolding, Brian, because

1140
01:08:19,400 --> 01:08:22,200
Speaker 2: I saw Ben Shapiro on Bill Maher the other night

1141
01:08:22,640 --> 01:08:24,519
Speaker 2: and I was like, I wish Brian was here to

1142
01:08:24,600 --> 01:08:27,360
Speaker 2: debate him. But he said, you know, people say we

1143
01:08:27,479 --> 01:08:31,679
Speaker 2: can't incarcerate ourselves out of this problem, but we can,

1144
01:08:32,120 --> 01:08:36,080
Speaker 2: he said, And I'd love you to share with us

1145
01:08:36,280 --> 01:08:40,760
Speaker 2: how you see this kind of about face and this

1146
01:08:40,840 --> 01:08:45,320
Speaker 2: focus on crime. And for example, the situation in Charlotte

1147
01:08:45,360 --> 01:08:47,400
Speaker 2: that got a lot of attention, the twenty three year

1148
01:08:47,439 --> 01:08:50,599
Speaker 2: old Ukrainian immigrant who was fatally stabbed on a light

1149
01:08:50,720 --> 01:08:53,280
Speaker 2: rail train by a man with the significant history of

1150
01:08:53,360 --> 01:08:56,320
Speaker 2: arrests who struggled with mental illness, and a lot of

1151
01:08:56,360 --> 01:09:00,879
Speaker 2: people are seizing on that case as evidence that criminal

1152
01:09:00,960 --> 01:09:05,080
Speaker 2: justice reform has gone too far. So tell us what

1153
01:09:05,120 --> 01:09:06,400
Speaker 2: you're thinking about this.

1154
01:09:07,080 --> 01:09:10,519
Speaker 1: I mean I think unfortunately, over the last seventy years,

1155
01:09:10,560 --> 01:09:13,719
Speaker 1: one thing that's become really clear is that bad crimes

1156
01:09:13,720 --> 01:09:16,360
Speaker 1: have resulted in bad policy. So if you focus on

1157
01:09:16,360 --> 01:09:19,680
Speaker 1: one crime and that's going to be your justification for

1158
01:09:19,720 --> 01:09:21,920
Speaker 1: a whole new set of policies, those policies are going

1159
01:09:21,960 --> 01:09:23,960
Speaker 1: to be flawed because you need a bigger picture.

1160
01:09:24,080 --> 01:09:25,320
Speaker 2: Okay, what do you mean by that.

1161
01:09:25,479 --> 01:09:29,799
Speaker 1: Well, throughout most of the twentieth century, we had fewer

1162
01:09:29,800 --> 01:09:32,360
Speaker 1: than three hundred thousand people in our jails and prisons.

1163
01:09:32,760 --> 01:09:36,400
Speaker 1: We did not incarcerate a ton of people. We reserved

1164
01:09:36,400 --> 01:09:40,120
Speaker 1: incarceration for people who were a threat to public safety.

1165
01:09:41,040 --> 01:09:44,240
Speaker 1: That changed in the nineteen seventies when politicians from both

1166
01:09:44,240 --> 01:09:48,360
Speaker 1: political parties began arguing that people who are drug addicted

1167
01:09:48,520 --> 01:09:51,800
Speaker 1: and drug dependent are criminals who should be punished, and

1168
01:09:51,840 --> 01:09:54,479
Speaker 1: we started filling up the prisons with hundreds of thousands

1169
01:09:54,520 --> 01:09:57,559
Speaker 1: of people dealing with addiction and dependency. Now, we could

1170
01:09:57,560 --> 01:10:01,439
Speaker 1: have said that people suffering from addiction and dependency have

1171
01:10:01,680 --> 01:10:05,120
Speaker 1: a health problem and we need a health care intervention,

1172
01:10:05,360 --> 01:10:10,320
Speaker 1: but we said they're criminals, let's use punishment. There are

1173
01:10:10,360 --> 01:10:14,000
Speaker 1: countries around the world that said addiction and dependency is

1174
01:10:14,040 --> 01:10:18,880
Speaker 1: a health problem, and they've had phenomenal success at reducing

1175
01:10:18,920 --> 01:10:22,120
Speaker 1: the number of families that are impacted by opiod addiction.

1176
01:10:22,680 --> 01:10:27,280
Speaker 1: They've had phenomenal success at improving public safety because they

1177
01:10:27,400 --> 01:10:30,960
Speaker 1: dealt with a health problem as a health problem rather

1178
01:10:31,000 --> 01:10:35,240
Speaker 1: than that's exactly right. And then we expanded that in

1179
01:10:35,280 --> 01:10:38,679
Speaker 1: the seventies and we started wanting to punish people who

1180
01:10:38,760 --> 01:10:42,400
Speaker 1: have other kinds of issues, children dealing with trauma, and

1181
01:10:42,479 --> 01:10:45,640
Speaker 1: our prison population went from three hundred thousand in the

1182
01:10:45,680 --> 01:10:48,160
Speaker 1: seventies to over two million by the end of the

1183
01:10:48,200 --> 01:10:52,479
Speaker 1: twentieth century, and we did not become safer. If anything,

1184
01:10:52,479 --> 01:10:56,160
Speaker 1: we became less safe. So we did not incarcerate ourselves

1185
01:10:56,240 --> 01:10:57,280
Speaker 1: out of that problem.

1186
01:10:57,360 --> 01:10:59,720
Speaker 2: Can you tell me how we became less safe as

1187
01:11:00,000 --> 01:11:01,080
Speaker 2: those numbers rose.

1188
01:11:01,640 --> 01:11:07,559
Speaker 1: Yeah, because we were essentially creating situations where we were

1189
01:11:07,560 --> 01:11:10,040
Speaker 1: putting people who didn't need to be in prison in

1190
01:11:10,080 --> 01:11:15,320
Speaker 1: prison where they would be threatened and abused and traumatized.

1191
01:11:14,600 --> 01:11:15,759
Speaker 2: And become criminals.

1192
01:11:15,840 --> 01:11:17,840
Speaker 1: And when they came out of prison, they were more

1193
01:11:18,000 --> 01:11:20,840
Speaker 1: likely to offend than they would have ever been if

1194
01:11:20,840 --> 01:11:21,679
Speaker 1: we'd never sent them.

1195
01:11:21,600 --> 01:11:24,320
Speaker 2: To prison, if we'd gotten them different kind of help.

1196
01:11:24,240 --> 01:11:26,040
Speaker 1: That's exactly right, Or even if we had said, you

1197
01:11:26,040 --> 01:11:27,920
Speaker 1: know what, we're not even going to punish you. We

1198
01:11:27,920 --> 01:11:31,599
Speaker 1: would have made them less likely to commit an offense

1199
01:11:31,720 --> 01:11:33,760
Speaker 1: than when you put somebody in an environment where they're

1200
01:11:33,760 --> 01:11:36,839
Speaker 1: constantly being threatened, when they're being minutes, where sexual violence

1201
01:11:36,920 --> 01:11:40,120
Speaker 1: is a way of life, where they're being dehumanized and

1202
01:11:40,160 --> 01:11:44,160
Speaker 1: abused and traumatized. You know, trauma is the source of

1203
01:11:44,200 --> 01:11:46,920
Speaker 1: so much of the criminal behavior that people want to

1204
01:11:46,920 --> 01:11:50,800
Speaker 1: get rid of, and we don't appreciate that. There is

1205
01:11:50,840 --> 01:11:55,040
Speaker 1: a strategy for helping someone with a trauma disorder, but

1206
01:11:55,160 --> 01:11:58,400
Speaker 1: it is not threatening them. You know, our combat veterans

1207
01:11:58,400 --> 01:12:00,400
Speaker 1: when they come back, those who come back with post

1208
01:12:00,400 --> 01:12:02,840
Speaker 1: traumatic stress disorder, they have that disorder because they were

1209
01:12:02,840 --> 01:12:06,080
Speaker 1: in a situation where they were constantly being threatened and menace.

1210
01:12:06,160 --> 01:12:09,760
Speaker 1: Their brain starts producing cortisol and adrenaline to help them

1211
01:12:09,800 --> 01:12:12,280
Speaker 1: cope with those threats. And then when they're removed from

1212
01:12:12,280 --> 01:12:16,000
Speaker 1: that situation, their brains are still in that hyperactive space

1213
01:12:16,080 --> 01:12:19,120
Speaker 1: where they're being flooded with cortisol and adrenaline. And so

1214
01:12:19,160 --> 01:12:22,160
Speaker 1: when somebody does something just a little bit wrong, they overreact,

1215
01:12:22,720 --> 01:12:26,320
Speaker 1: they maybe even become violent. But that's a health condition

1216
01:12:26,520 --> 01:12:29,280
Speaker 1: that requires a health response and the way you help

1217
01:12:29,320 --> 01:12:31,800
Speaker 1: somebody but trauma is to not threaten them more so

1218
01:12:32,200 --> 01:12:34,880
Speaker 1: in that regard, we created a world where I would

1219
01:12:34,920 --> 01:12:37,800
Speaker 1: go into communities where my thirteen and fourteen year olds

1220
01:12:37,800 --> 01:12:39,600
Speaker 1: that I would meet would say, we know we're going

1221
01:12:39,680 --> 01:12:41,400
Speaker 1: to be in jailer prison by the time we're twenty

1222
01:12:41,439 --> 01:12:43,600
Speaker 1: or twenty one, because that's what we see happening to

1223
01:12:43,640 --> 01:12:45,479
Speaker 1: all the people in our community. So we're going to

1224
01:12:45,520 --> 01:12:47,200
Speaker 1: go out here and get ours while we can. They

1225
01:12:47,200 --> 01:12:52,280
Speaker 1: were actually being made so hopeless about the future that

1226
01:12:52,479 --> 01:12:56,560
Speaker 1: embracing these pathologies of crime and boce became more rational

1227
01:12:57,160 --> 01:12:59,760
Speaker 1: than resisting them. And you see that in so many

1228
01:12:59,800 --> 01:13:03,760
Speaker 1: of the institutions. And only in the last ten or

1229
01:13:03,800 --> 01:13:08,439
Speaker 1: fifteen years did we begin to recognize how building more prisons,

1230
01:13:08,560 --> 01:13:12,080
Speaker 1: spending more money, taking money from health care, money from

1231
01:13:12,160 --> 01:13:15,559
Speaker 1: human services, money from schools was not helping us. And

1232
01:13:15,560 --> 01:13:18,760
Speaker 1: then we began doing things and guess what, the crime

1233
01:13:18,840 --> 01:13:22,360
Speaker 1: rate began to drop. We actually saw improvements in public safety,

1234
01:13:23,040 --> 01:13:25,000
Speaker 1: which is why it's so ironic, you know, talking about

1235
01:13:25,120 --> 01:13:29,040
Speaker 1: hormonicent troops into bon Bonember is actually seeing the lowest

1236
01:13:29,120 --> 01:13:31,960
Speaker 1: levels of violent crime in many categories in its scene

1237
01:13:32,320 --> 01:13:36,800
Speaker 1: in decades. These reforms have actually made us safer in

1238
01:13:36,880 --> 01:13:40,599
Speaker 1: a lot of ways, certainly healthier, because we're now spending

1239
01:13:40,680 --> 01:13:44,120
Speaker 1: money on things that can actually help people. Does that

1240
01:13:44,280 --> 01:13:48,719
Speaker 1: mean that people won't commit horrific crimes like the crime

1241
01:13:48,760 --> 01:13:51,720
Speaker 1: in Charlotte apps No, We're going to continue to see

1242
01:13:51,760 --> 01:13:54,000
Speaker 1: those crimes. We have a long way to go. How

1243
01:13:54,040 --> 01:13:56,760
Speaker 1: we respond to those things is going to be the

1244
01:13:56,800 --> 01:14:01,519
Speaker 1: metric future. But I also take great exception to taking

1245
01:14:01,760 --> 01:14:03,519
Speaker 1: one crime and saying, well, this is the thing we

1246
01:14:03,560 --> 01:14:06,360
Speaker 1: need to focus on. You know, even in this moment

1247
01:14:06,520 --> 01:14:11,200
Speaker 1: of horrific violence. I mean, it's actually a bit provocative

1248
01:14:12,320 --> 01:14:15,320
Speaker 1: to talk about one crime here and to ignore all

1249
01:14:15,360 --> 01:14:18,920
Speaker 1: of these other crimes. You know. In twenty seventeen, twenty sixteen,

1250
01:14:19,479 --> 01:14:22,920
Speaker 1: a young white man walked into Emmanuel Amy Church in Charleston,

1251
01:14:22,960 --> 01:14:27,320
Speaker 1: South Carolina and slaughtered nine black people while they were praying.

1252
01:14:28,000 --> 01:14:31,080
Speaker 1: Dylan Ruth, Dylan Ruth. A few years later, a young

1253
01:14:31,120 --> 01:14:35,360
Speaker 1: man walked into a supermarket in Buffalo and killed ten

1254
01:14:35,400 --> 01:14:38,519
Speaker 1: black people while they were shopping. A young white guy

1255
01:14:38,560 --> 01:14:41,240
Speaker 1: goes to a black college campus in Florida, ends up

1256
01:14:41,320 --> 01:14:44,479
Speaker 1: killing three people, not on campus. Nobody ever says, what

1257
01:14:44,520 --> 01:14:47,400
Speaker 1: are we going to do about the racial bigotry that

1258
01:14:47,520 --> 01:14:50,880
Speaker 1: is shaping the mindset of these young people and killing

1259
01:14:50,920 --> 01:14:54,200
Speaker 1: so many innocent people. We didn't have that moment, even

1260
01:14:54,479 --> 01:14:56,840
Speaker 1: when we were talking last and white men walked onto

1261
01:14:56,880 --> 01:15:01,360
Speaker 1: the University of Virginia holding torches chanting anti Semitic and

1262
01:15:01,439 --> 01:15:05,559
Speaker 1: racist things. Rather than see that as a threat that

1263
01:15:05,640 --> 01:15:09,519
Speaker 1: our nation needs to reckon with, we tried to minimize it.

1264
01:15:10,280 --> 01:15:14,840
Speaker 1: And so I just think it is dishonest to create

1265
01:15:14,960 --> 01:15:18,000
Speaker 1: policies based on this one thing. And what I meant

1266
01:15:18,000 --> 01:15:21,240
Speaker 1: by bad crimes. We've got crimes named after people who

1267
01:15:21,240 --> 01:15:25,000
Speaker 1: were victims of horrible things. Usually they're victims of privilege.

1268
01:15:25,000 --> 01:15:29,000
Speaker 1: They're victims who people can identify with, and they turn

1269
01:15:29,080 --> 01:15:31,360
Speaker 1: into bad policies, and so I think we have to

1270
01:15:31,400 --> 01:15:33,720
Speaker 1: resist that in this moment. I think if we're going

1271
01:15:33,760 --> 01:15:37,040
Speaker 1: to get to a healthier place around crime and public safety,

1272
01:15:37,600 --> 01:15:39,559
Speaker 1: we're going to have to stop talking about crime as

1273
01:15:39,560 --> 01:15:41,639
Speaker 1: if we can put crimes in prison. That's what happened

1274
01:15:41,640 --> 01:15:44,360
Speaker 1: in the eighties and nineties. Legislators started talking as if

1275
01:15:44,520 --> 01:15:47,280
Speaker 1: they could put crimes in prison. Oh, I hate that crime,

1276
01:15:47,520 --> 01:15:51,160
Speaker 1: child pornography, I hate that one hundred years this kind

1277
01:15:51,200 --> 01:15:53,599
Speaker 1: of assault I hate that fifty years life without parole,

1278
01:15:53,680 --> 01:15:56,240
Speaker 1: the death penalty. The truth is we don't have the

1279
01:15:56,240 --> 01:15:58,720
Speaker 1: ability to put crimes in prison, none of us. You

1280
01:15:58,760 --> 01:16:01,160
Speaker 1: cannot put a crime in prison. You can only put

1281
01:16:01,360 --> 01:16:05,800
Speaker 1: a person in prison. And people are not crimes. People

1282
01:16:05,800 --> 01:16:08,479
Speaker 1: can commit crimes. We can want to hold them accountable

1283
01:16:08,520 --> 01:16:11,559
Speaker 1: for the crimes they've committed, but there's a gap. There's

1284
01:16:11,600 --> 01:16:15,200
Speaker 1: a distance between what someone does and who someone is,

1285
01:16:16,200 --> 01:16:20,240
Speaker 1: and that's where policies become bad. When a woman who's

1286
01:16:20,240 --> 01:16:24,280
Speaker 1: been abused for twenty years wakes up one day, goes

1287
01:16:24,320 --> 01:16:27,559
Speaker 1: into the room and shoots and kills her abuser, she

1288
01:16:27,640 --> 01:16:30,080
Speaker 1: may not be threatened in that moment, and what she

1289
01:16:30,280 --> 01:16:33,719
Speaker 1: does is a crime, and you can say that is murder,

1290
01:16:34,600 --> 01:16:37,200
Speaker 1: but we have to think differently about how we're going

1291
01:16:37,240 --> 01:16:40,720
Speaker 1: to hold her accountable than we would hold someone else accountable.

1292
01:16:41,200 --> 01:16:43,400
Speaker 1: When a child that's been abused and traumatized, when somebody

1293
01:16:43,439 --> 01:16:46,320
Speaker 1: is suffering from mental illness and dealing with psychosis does

1294
01:16:46,360 --> 01:16:49,960
Speaker 1: something horrific like stabs someone to death in public transportation,

1295
01:16:50,640 --> 01:16:53,640
Speaker 1: we can't ignore that psychosis, that mental health history in

1296
01:16:53,680 --> 01:16:57,479
Speaker 1: thinking about what's appropriate. And so that's where we've been

1297
01:16:57,520 --> 01:17:00,400
Speaker 1: trying to help policy makers. And guess what places across

1298
01:17:00,439 --> 01:17:04,600
Speaker 1: the world that understand this have succeeded in lowering the

1299
01:17:04,680 --> 01:17:08,720
Speaker 1: rates of incarceration and improving public safety. It's fun. You

1300
01:17:08,720 --> 01:17:12,080
Speaker 1: go to northern Europe, it's rare. They don't have people

1301
01:17:12,120 --> 01:17:14,280
Speaker 1: being shot and killed every day. They don't have the

1302
01:17:14,360 --> 01:17:16,439
Speaker 1: kind of sexual violence we have in this country. You

1303
01:17:16,479 --> 01:17:21,280
Speaker 1: even compare Vancouver with an American city across the border,

1304
01:17:21,840 --> 01:17:24,960
Speaker 1: the homicide rates are radically different. And that's where I

1305
01:17:24,960 --> 01:17:28,040
Speaker 1: think we just have to become sober. When people start

1306
01:17:28,080 --> 01:17:32,479
Speaker 1: talking about really committing to gun control, gun safety, limiting

1307
01:17:32,520 --> 01:17:35,799
Speaker 1: access to guns, that's when I'll know we're getting serious

1308
01:17:35,840 --> 01:17:38,920
Speaker 1: about public safety in this country, because that's the recipe

1309
01:17:38,920 --> 01:17:42,320
Speaker 1: for how we make our community safer, and nobody seems

1310
01:17:42,320 --> 01:17:43,360
Speaker 1: to want to talk about that.

1311
01:17:44,200 --> 01:17:47,240
Speaker 2: Let me ask you about two other events in the news,

1312
01:17:48,040 --> 01:17:54,040
Speaker 2: the assassination of Charlie Kirk and the reaction to that

1313
01:17:54,320 --> 01:17:59,120
Speaker 2: horrific event, which I see is two different situations and

1314
01:17:59,240 --> 01:18:05,280
Speaker 2: two different points of discussion. He has been lionized, even canonized,

1315
01:18:05,360 --> 01:18:09,920
Speaker 2: I think by many people on the right, primarily, but

1316
01:18:11,080 --> 01:18:15,280
Speaker 2: I think others as well. And then he's been demonized

1317
01:18:16,160 --> 01:18:21,120
Speaker 2: by people on the left. And probably others because of

1318
01:18:21,160 --> 01:18:25,160
Speaker 2: some of the views he espoused. Where do you how

1319
01:18:25,160 --> 01:18:26,880
Speaker 2: do you make sense of all of this? Brian?

1320
01:18:27,960 --> 01:18:31,040
Speaker 1: I think first of all, we should all be outraged

1321
01:18:31,080 --> 01:18:34,959
Speaker 1: and heartbroken that we had witnessed the murder of someone

1322
01:18:35,400 --> 01:18:38,200
Speaker 1: who was in a public space on a college campus.

1323
01:18:38,280 --> 01:18:42,000
Speaker 1: Those kids will be traumatized for life. We ought to

1324
01:18:42,000 --> 01:18:45,919
Speaker 1: be thinking about how we eliminate that from the American

1325
01:18:45,960 --> 01:18:49,680
Speaker 1: experience entirely. And it doesn't matter who he is and

1326
01:18:49,720 --> 01:18:52,519
Speaker 1: what his views are and what he said. That's a

1327
01:18:52,640 --> 01:18:58,200
Speaker 1: tragedy that we all need to condemn and to acknowledge,

1328
01:18:59,120 --> 01:19:03,960
Speaker 1: and truthfully, it transcends politics, as we saw a Minnesota

1329
01:19:04,000 --> 01:19:07,679
Speaker 1: politician murdered in her home behind that kind of idea

1330
01:19:07,760 --> 01:19:10,840
Speaker 1: that you can just kill the people you disagree.

1331
01:19:10,280 --> 01:19:12,720
Speaker 2: With, and her husband and dog as Ahortman.

1332
01:19:13,640 --> 01:19:17,120
Speaker 1: It's all horrific. So I think all have to be

1333
01:19:17,280 --> 01:19:22,680
Speaker 1: pretty clear in our condemnation of that kind of violence

1334
01:19:22,760 --> 01:19:28,760
Speaker 1: and attacking people in that violent way. But when you

1335
01:19:28,840 --> 01:19:33,360
Speaker 1: politicize these things in ways that are just not accurate,

1336
01:19:33,760 --> 01:19:37,639
Speaker 1: when you say, oh, this is because of left wing

1337
01:19:37,920 --> 01:19:40,599
Speaker 1: media or etce, when we don't say the same thing

1338
01:19:40,800 --> 01:19:43,880
Speaker 1: when a Democrat or somebody progressive is murdered or killed.

1339
01:19:44,600 --> 01:19:48,120
Speaker 1: What you do is you feed this kind of ideological warfare,

1340
01:19:48,520 --> 01:19:51,080
Speaker 1: and I think that's really unhealthy. I think that is

1341
01:19:51,200 --> 01:19:57,160
Speaker 1: also inconsistent with a thriving, healthy democracy. And then people

1342
01:19:57,160 --> 01:20:00,920
Speaker 1: start reacting to that, and that's what we've seen happen

1343
01:20:00,960 --> 01:20:05,000
Speaker 1: over the last few days, people reacting to what they

1344
01:20:05,040 --> 01:20:09,400
Speaker 1: believe to be a distortion of what's really happening here.

1345
01:20:10,520 --> 01:20:16,599
Speaker 1: I don't think you have to legitimate, accept or even

1346
01:20:16,640 --> 01:20:23,240
Speaker 1: be silent about the views, the objectionable views, the bigoted views,

1347
01:20:24,080 --> 01:20:26,680
Speaker 1: are the really painful and harmful views of someone like

1348
01:20:26,760 --> 01:20:31,120
Speaker 1: Charlie Kirk. To mourn his death, to grieve his loss,

1349
01:20:31,120 --> 01:20:34,880
Speaker 1: to condemn the act of violence that took his life.

1350
01:20:35,960 --> 01:20:39,400
Speaker 1: I do think we have an obligation to call out bigotry,

1351
01:20:40,040 --> 01:20:46,640
Speaker 1: to speak to speech that threatens and menaces and fuels

1352
01:20:46,680 --> 01:20:49,599
Speaker 1: the kind of hatred that I see growing around our country.

1353
01:20:50,400 --> 01:20:54,920
Speaker 1: And that doesn't end even though someone dies tragically. So

1354
01:20:55,000 --> 01:20:57,800
Speaker 1: I don't think there's a real tension in that. I

1355
01:20:57,840 --> 01:21:02,640
Speaker 1: think what's now a bigger problem, to be honest, is

1356
01:21:02,720 --> 01:21:04,800
Speaker 1: whether the people who have power are going to use

1357
01:21:04,880 --> 01:21:10,479
Speaker 1: that power to silence and to intimidate anyone who says

1358
01:21:10,520 --> 01:21:12,680
Speaker 1: something that they don't agree with. I think that, to

1359
01:21:12,720 --> 01:21:16,240
Speaker 1: me is for democracy in America is an existential threat.

1360
01:21:16,479 --> 01:21:19,160
Speaker 1: If no one is allowed to say I disagree with

1361
01:21:19,240 --> 01:21:22,599
Speaker 1: these views over here, if they're silenced, if they're kicked

1362
01:21:22,600 --> 01:21:25,000
Speaker 1: off the air, if they're a journalist or on TV,

1363
01:21:25,640 --> 01:21:29,479
Speaker 1: if they're menaced and threatened with violence, then we will

1364
01:21:29,479 --> 01:21:33,080
Speaker 1: not become a healthy society. We will deteriorate in ways

1365
01:21:33,120 --> 01:21:34,400
Speaker 1: that I think are really really.

1366
01:21:34,200 --> 01:21:37,599
Speaker 2: Tragic, which of course brings me to my final area

1367
01:21:37,600 --> 01:21:41,879
Speaker 2: of discussion, which is Jimmy Kimmel. And this is something

1368
01:21:42,240 --> 01:21:46,760
Speaker 2: also we were talking about about institutions capitulating and not

1369
01:21:46,920 --> 01:21:50,720
Speaker 2: fighting back. Jimmy Kimmel, who knows what will happen. He's

1370
01:21:50,760 --> 01:21:54,680
Speaker 2: been suspended. You heard the comments he made. He was

1371
01:21:54,720 --> 01:21:58,400
Speaker 2: making I thought an observation of how the Charlie Kirk

1372
01:21:58,720 --> 01:22:04,040
Speaker 2: tragedy was being used and exploited by some of Donald

1373
01:22:04,040 --> 01:22:10,360
Speaker 2: Trump's followers, and basically he got pulled off the air.

1374
01:22:10,520 --> 01:22:14,599
Speaker 2: And of course, if you know the backstory about Nextstar,

1375
01:22:14,840 --> 01:22:18,320
Speaker 2: which owns a lot of ABC affiliates, wanting to buy Tegna,

1376
01:22:18,479 --> 01:22:23,679
Speaker 2: which also would have exceeded their amount of coverage over

1377
01:22:23,720 --> 01:22:27,120
Speaker 2: the country, that local news stations are allowed to have.

1378
01:22:28,080 --> 01:22:31,479
Speaker 2: There seems to be a direct correlation, kind of a

1379
01:22:31,600 --> 01:22:36,519
Speaker 2: quid pro quo to the FCC in terms of Jimmy

1380
01:22:36,680 --> 01:22:42,840
Speaker 2: Kimmel's suspension. And we saw this earlier with George Stephanopolis,

1381
01:22:42,880 --> 01:22:47,719
Speaker 2: we saw this with CBS and sixty Minutes comcasts fired

1382
01:22:47,760 --> 01:22:51,800
Speaker 2: somebody Matthew Dowd, who I interviewed yesterday. I mean, this

1383
01:22:51,840 --> 01:22:56,479
Speaker 2: is all very scary and very chilling. Can you put

1384
01:22:56,520 --> 01:23:01,800
Speaker 2: in perspective, historically or otherwise, Brian, why this is so

1385
01:23:02,040 --> 01:23:05,600
Speaker 2: threatening to the United States as a democracy.

1386
01:23:06,360 --> 01:23:09,640
Speaker 1: I really was horrified by the Chimel firing. In particular,

1387
01:23:10,120 --> 01:23:11,680
Speaker 1: when I heard about it, I thought, oh my god,

1388
01:23:11,720 --> 01:23:13,559
Speaker 1: what did he say? And then when I read it,

1389
01:23:13,640 --> 01:23:19,439
Speaker 1: I did interpret it as him actually trying to protect

1390
01:23:19,520 --> 01:23:23,160
Speaker 1: those who were legitimately grieving the loss of this person

1391
01:23:23,400 --> 01:23:26,040
Speaker 1: and their family, and condemning those who are trying to

1392
01:23:26,040 --> 01:23:28,599
Speaker 1: exploit it for these political purposes. I was actually quite

1393
01:23:28,600 --> 01:23:32,640
Speaker 1: shocked that corporation would then react in that way. I

1394
01:23:32,640 --> 01:23:38,519
Speaker 1: think it's unjustifiable, and I do think it reinforces this

1395
01:23:39,120 --> 01:23:43,439
Speaker 1: movement that we should all be quite concerned about. In

1396
01:23:43,479 --> 01:23:48,680
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties, when McCarthy was using the power of

1397
01:23:48,720 --> 01:23:53,439
Speaker 1: that Senate committee to silence, intimidate, to coerce companies in

1398
01:23:53,479 --> 01:23:57,120
Speaker 1: California to fire people based on suspicions and things like that.

1399
01:23:58,080 --> 01:24:04,440
Speaker 1: Too many people in corporate America gave. They basically capitulated,

1400
01:24:05,520 --> 01:24:09,360
Speaker 1: and it did irreparable harm to the lives of so

1401
01:24:09,520 --> 01:24:13,519
Speaker 1: many creative people in this country. It did incredible harm

1402
01:24:13,640 --> 01:24:17,639
Speaker 1: to free speech in this country. Very few people now

1403
01:24:18,080 --> 01:24:22,680
Speaker 1: align themselves with McCarthy. Everybody likes to think, oh, I

1404
01:24:22,720 --> 01:24:26,000
Speaker 1: would have been against McCarthy. You know, they see good night,

1405
01:24:26,040 --> 01:24:28,120
Speaker 1: good luck of I'm with Edward Marrow. You know I

1406
01:24:28,200 --> 01:24:31,200
Speaker 1: want to be on that team. And you don't get

1407
01:24:31,240 --> 01:24:35,320
Speaker 1: to make that choice if you engage in behaviors that

1408
01:24:35,400 --> 01:24:38,479
Speaker 1: replicate the same power dynamics. I think, you know, what

1409
01:24:38,560 --> 01:24:43,240
Speaker 1: happened to law firms, what happened to academic institutions, is

1410
01:24:43,280 --> 01:24:47,360
Speaker 1: now going to happen to big media conglomerates. We've already

1411
01:24:47,360 --> 01:24:51,000
Speaker 1: seen what happened to public media, and these institutions are

1412
01:24:51,040 --> 01:24:55,519
Speaker 1: going to have to genuinely understand what's at state, because

1413
01:24:56,080 --> 01:24:58,400
Speaker 1: when you give away your integrity, when you give away

1414
01:24:58,400 --> 01:25:00,320
Speaker 1: your commitment to honest journalism.

1415
01:25:00,120 --> 01:25:01,000
Speaker 2: Or when you sell it.

1416
01:25:01,240 --> 01:25:03,639
Speaker 1: When you sell it, that's right, when you sell it

1417
01:25:03,920 --> 01:25:06,400
Speaker 1: or you get it, you don't get that back easily.

1418
01:25:06,800 --> 01:25:10,679
Speaker 1: You do not get that back easily. Even if this

1419
01:25:10,840 --> 01:25:14,840
Speaker 1: moment passes, which many people think it will, even when

1420
01:25:14,840 --> 01:25:16,840
Speaker 1: we get to another place, you don't get to just

1421
01:25:16,880 --> 01:25:19,160
Speaker 1: step back up and say, okay, never mind, let's go

1422
01:25:19,240 --> 01:25:22,240
Speaker 1: back and Jimmy come on back, and people come on back.

1423
01:25:22,280 --> 01:25:25,320
Speaker 1: You don't get to do that. And so the decisions

1424
01:25:25,320 --> 01:25:29,479
Speaker 1: that you make will have consequences long beyond this moment.

1425
01:25:30,160 --> 01:25:32,799
Speaker 1: And I just think this is a time for people

1426
01:25:32,840 --> 01:25:36,639
Speaker 1: to think more deeply about the way in which they

1427
01:25:36,720 --> 01:25:41,400
Speaker 1: respond to threat and intimidation and to the use of power.

1428
01:25:41,600 --> 01:25:44,439
Speaker 1: Just because your corporation had just because you have money,

1429
01:25:44,720 --> 01:25:47,840
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that you are not supposed to be held accountable.

1430
01:25:47,880 --> 01:25:50,720
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean that you're not responsible. You know, I

1431
01:25:50,800 --> 01:25:53,559
Speaker 1: was saying this to some young lawyers. We got people

1432
01:25:53,560 --> 01:25:57,360
Speaker 1: wearing masks sweeping all across the country, just abducting people,

1433
01:25:57,400 --> 01:26:01,360
Speaker 1: pulling people, and they think they have legal justification to

1434
01:26:01,439 --> 01:26:03,800
Speaker 1: do what they're doing. And I've been saying, but there

1435
01:26:03,800 --> 01:26:06,800
Speaker 1: may come a day when that's going to be questioned,

1436
01:26:07,680 --> 01:26:10,400
Speaker 1: and someone's going to say you really did not have

1437
01:26:10,520 --> 01:26:12,559
Speaker 1: legal justification for that, and you're going to be held

1438
01:26:12,600 --> 01:26:16,200
Speaker 1: accountable for what you do. And I just think we

1439
01:26:16,280 --> 01:26:18,920
Speaker 1: all need to go through that process right now. I

1440
01:26:19,040 --> 01:26:22,720
Speaker 1: often say, you know, everybody today says, if they were

1441
01:26:22,720 --> 01:26:27,160
Speaker 1: alive in eighteen fifty, they'd be an abolitionist. Most people say, oh,

1442
01:26:27,160 --> 01:26:29,880
Speaker 1: I'd be against slavery if I was in eighteen fifty.

1443
01:26:30,360 --> 01:26:32,439
Speaker 1: They were alive in nineteen twenty, most people say, oh,

1444
01:26:32,439 --> 01:26:36,360
Speaker 1: I'd be against my violence and lynching. Everybody today says, no,

1445
01:26:36,439 --> 01:26:39,360
Speaker 1: I'd be marching with doctor King across the edmun Petits

1446
01:26:39,400 --> 01:26:42,160
Speaker 1: Bridge in nineteen sixty five. Well, you don't get to

1447
01:26:42,200 --> 01:26:45,280
Speaker 1: claim that status if you give into greed, if you

1448
01:26:45,280 --> 01:26:48,080
Speaker 1: give in to threat, if you give into intimidation, and

1449
01:26:48,240 --> 01:26:52,720
Speaker 1: you do things that you know are not consistent with

1450
01:26:52,880 --> 01:26:56,400
Speaker 1: your creed of honest journalism, with your creed of being

1451
01:26:57,080 --> 01:26:59,440
Speaker 1: for the good of the community, for the good of society.

1452
01:27:00,040 --> 01:27:02,400
Speaker 1: And I just think we have to push people to

1453
01:27:02,560 --> 01:27:07,519
Speaker 1: understand the moral complexity of this. That is, it's not

1454
01:27:07,720 --> 01:27:09,880
Speaker 1: just what's good for A lot of the firms say, oh,

1455
01:27:09,960 --> 01:27:12,720
Speaker 1: we had to do it's for our businesses, But there

1456
01:27:12,760 --> 01:27:18,640
Speaker 1: are things that are I think ultimately more important than money,

1457
01:27:19,400 --> 01:27:23,120
Speaker 1: than profit. And I know that a lot of people

1458
01:27:23,160 --> 01:27:25,200
Speaker 1: in the business world. I'm not in the corporate world,

1459
01:27:25,400 --> 01:27:27,400
Speaker 1: are you know, kind of twitch when you say something

1460
01:27:27,520 --> 01:27:31,360
Speaker 1: like that. But I just believe that you have to

1461
01:27:31,360 --> 01:27:34,639
Speaker 1: be willing to do what's right, even sometimes when you're

1462
01:27:34,680 --> 01:27:37,080
Speaker 1: going to lose more than you gain. That's the way

1463
01:27:37,080 --> 01:27:40,320
Speaker 1: you build. I think an honest company, a company that endorres,

1464
01:27:40,360 --> 01:27:44,519
Speaker 1: an institution, a brand that has integrity. I just think

1465
01:27:44,600 --> 01:27:47,320
Speaker 1: that that has to be more central in the discourse

1466
01:27:47,360 --> 01:27:49,200
Speaker 1: that we're having right now. And I think the rest

1467
01:27:49,280 --> 01:27:52,360
Speaker 1: of us have to try to hold people accountable when

1468
01:27:52,400 --> 01:27:55,320
Speaker 1: they fail, when they retreat, when they don't do the

1469
01:27:55,360 --> 01:27:58,280
Speaker 1: things that they're supposed to do. We cannot forget. You know,

1470
01:27:58,360 --> 01:28:01,639
Speaker 1: I'm still talking about things that happened a year ago,

1471
01:28:01,800 --> 01:28:04,679
Speaker 1: but I think they're still important. I was just talking

1472
01:28:04,680 --> 01:28:08,040
Speaker 1: about this recently, you know, when the candidate Donald Trump

1473
01:28:08,479 --> 01:28:12,599
Speaker 1: talked about Haitians in Ohio eating cats and dogs, knowing

1474
01:28:12,600 --> 01:28:15,880
Speaker 1: that it was false, knowing that that was just creating

1475
01:28:15,920 --> 01:28:21,200
Speaker 1: bigotry toward that community. To me, that was really hard

1476
01:28:21,400 --> 01:28:23,599
Speaker 1: how people would just kind of walk past that because

1477
01:28:23,640 --> 01:28:25,320
Speaker 1: it had an echo of so many of the things

1478
01:28:25,360 --> 01:28:28,000
Speaker 1: I grew up with about the black people in my

1479
01:28:28,080 --> 01:28:29,960
Speaker 1: part of town and what they were doing over there,

1480
01:28:30,000 --> 01:28:33,360
Speaker 1: and the false narratives that kept us from having We

1481
01:28:33,520 --> 01:28:36,120
Speaker 1: have to hold people accountable for these things. We can't

1482
01:28:36,160 --> 01:28:38,680
Speaker 1: just look past that. And I just think there are

1483
01:28:38,680 --> 01:28:41,679
Speaker 1: so many examples now that are going to be tempting

1484
01:28:41,720 --> 01:28:43,360
Speaker 1: to forget, but we're going to have to hold on

1485
01:28:43,400 --> 01:28:46,960
Speaker 1: to them. And I hope corporate America does not fail

1486
01:28:47,120 --> 01:28:51,240
Speaker 1: this test the way many people in corporate America failed

1487
01:28:51,240 --> 01:28:54,920
Speaker 1: in the nineteen fifties when McCarthy was making threats, the

1488
01:28:54,920 --> 01:28:57,599
Speaker 1: way many people failed at the turn of the century.

1489
01:28:57,640 --> 01:29:00,639
Speaker 1: Many jailers and law enforcement failed when all to pulling

1490
01:29:00,640 --> 01:29:02,840
Speaker 1: black people out of jails in prisons to lyne them,

1491
01:29:03,240 --> 01:29:06,960
Speaker 1: the way that many companies failed in the eighteen fifties

1492
01:29:07,000 --> 01:29:11,240
Speaker 1: when they put the profit of exporting cotton over the

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01:29:11,280 --> 01:29:16,439
Speaker 1: immorality of enslaving human beings. This is a test, and

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01:29:16,640 --> 01:29:19,920
Speaker 1: I do think we have to pay attention to who

1495
01:29:20,000 --> 01:29:21,040
Speaker 1: passes and who fails.

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01:29:22,000 --> 01:29:25,760
Speaker 2: Brian Stevenson. Always great to see you. I hope it's

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01:29:25,800 --> 01:29:29,920
Speaker 2: not as long as it has been the next time

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01:29:29,960 --> 01:29:32,880
Speaker 2: I get to sit down and talk to you. Thank

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01:29:32,920 --> 01:29:37,320
Speaker 2: you so much. Always love these conversations. I've learned so

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01:29:37,439 --> 01:29:40,479
Speaker 2: much from you and I've grown so much from you,

1501
01:29:41,280 --> 01:29:42,320
Speaker 2: and I'm grateful.

1502
01:29:42,840 --> 01:29:45,160
Speaker 1: Well, thank you, Katie. Always great to be with you too.

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01:29:48,320 --> 01:29:51,519
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening. Everyone. If you have a question for me,

1504
01:29:51,920 --> 01:29:54,400
Speaker 2: a subject you want us to cover, or you want

1505
01:29:54,400 --> 01:29:57,799
Speaker 2: to share your thoughts about how you navigate this crazy world,

1506
01:29:58,160 --> 01:30:01,400
Speaker 2: reach out send me a DM on Instagram. I would

1507
01:30:01,400 --> 01:30:04,479
Speaker 2: love to hear from you. Next Question is a production

1508
01:30:04,600 --> 01:30:09,080
Speaker 2: of iHeartMedia and Katie Couric Media. The executive producers are Me,

1509
01:30:09,400 --> 01:30:14,040
Speaker 2: Katie Kuric, and Courtney Ltz. Our supervising producer is Ryan Martz,

1510
01:30:14,560 --> 01:30:19,400
Speaker 2: and our producers are Adriana Fazzio and Meredith Barnes. Julian

1511
01:30:19,439 --> 01:30:24,560
Speaker 2: Weller composed our theme music. For more information about today's episode,

1512
01:30:24,760 --> 01:30:27,120
Speaker 2: or to sign up for my newsletter, wake Up Call,

1513
01:30:27,600 --> 01:30:30,479
Speaker 2: go to the description in the podcast app, or visit

1514
01:30:30,600 --> 01:30:33,760
Speaker 2: us at Katiecuric dot com. You can also find me

1515
01:30:33,840 --> 01:30:37,559
Speaker 2: on Instagram and all my social media channels. For more

1516
01:30:37,640 --> 01:30:42,960
Speaker 2: podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or

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01:30:42,960 --> 01:30:45,080
Speaker 2: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.