Speaker 1: Hey, Brian, Hi Katie. So, in today's episode, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Speaker 1: we're getting into some very touchy subjects. We're talking about
Speaker 1: political correctness and cultural sensitivity with our guests New York
Speaker 1: Times op ed writer Frank Bruney. So, as you know,
Speaker 1: Frank has worked as everything from a white house correspondent
Speaker 1: to a restaurant critic for The Times, and lately he's
Speaker 1: been devoting some of his twice weekly columns to a
Speaker 1: new subject, the debate over political correctness on college campuses.
Speaker 1: You know, Frank has written a lot about how he
Speaker 1: believes terms like safe spaces and microaggressions or a macro mistake. Now,
Speaker 1: he's a white man who grew up in an upper
Speaker 1: class household, and as such, he's well aware that he's
Speaker 1: expected to quote unquote check his privilege at the door
Speaker 1: and perhaps even question his own credibility when it comes
Speaker 1: to matters of social justice. But I thought this was
Speaker 1: pretty interesting. Frank questions the wisdom of what he calls
Speaker 1: turning categories into credentials when it comes to politics and
Speaker 1: public debate. He doesn't think life circumstances prohibit sensitivity and
Speaker 1: sound judgment, while other conditions guarantee them. This conversation, by
Speaker 1: the way, comes on the heels of the final episode. Yes,
Speaker 1: ladies and gentlemen, the final hour, there were six of them.
Speaker 1: Hope you all watch of my Nati called America inside
Speaker 1: Out because I don't know if you've noticed, Brian, but
Speaker 1: it's almost in everything we talk about, every subject we tackle,
Speaker 1: there is this heightened sensitivity. And I wondered, is it
Speaker 1: about time many marginalized communities called people out on insulting
Speaker 1: them or on demeaning them, Or have we gotten so
Speaker 1: sensitive you can't say anything in this day and age.
Speaker 1: So I was really interested in kind of the yin
Speaker 1: and yang of this conversation. So in our conversation with Frank,
Speaker 1: we talked about his own life circumstances, about trigger warnings
Speaker 1: and safe spaces and snow flakes and all these buzzwords,
Speaker 1: and about the college campuses across the country that have
Speaker 1: turned into powder kegs, with speakers literally being shut down
Speaker 1: and shut out before they can even speak. I started
Speaker 1: by asking Frank about political correctness, the term itself, which
Speaker 1: I'm almost hesitant to use because it's been co opted, weaponized,
Speaker 1: and politicized since we started hearing the term in the
Speaker 1: early nineteen nineties. It's kind of surprising to me we
Speaker 1: haven't come up with a replacement for it because it's
Speaker 1: just not able to carry all the baggage that people
Speaker 1: are putting on it right now. But yeah, what term
Speaker 1: would you use if you have to do well? We're
Speaker 1: talking about a kind of ideological orthodoxy, is what we're
Speaker 1: talking about. I think when most people talk about political correctness,
Speaker 1: they're talking about an ideological orthodoxy on the left. That's
Speaker 1: what I think they mean. That's I think a good
Speaker 1: way of putting it. Let's start by talking about college campuses,
Speaker 1: because I know you've written extensively about this. In my hour,
Speaker 1: I spent some time at Northwestern and extaposed it with
Speaker 1: the University of Chicago to two different approaches when it
Speaker 1: comes to things like trigger warnings, safe spaces, micro aggressions, etcetera,
Speaker 1: which just miles geographically apart. So very well, totally so
Speaker 1: it was it was really interesting. And you're not a
Speaker 1: big fan of intellectual safe spaces, trigger warnings, microaggressions, etcetera.
Speaker 1: Are you? Is that a safe assumption? That's totally fair
Speaker 1: to say, because I think that I certainly think that
Speaker 1: every campus should be a physically safe environment for students.
Speaker 1: I mean that goes without saying, um. They should not
Speaker 1: have to worry about sexual assault. They should not have
Speaker 1: to worry about being physically bullied or being bullied in
Speaker 1: other egregious ways. But when we're talking about safe spaces,
Speaker 1: and when we're talking about trigger warnings, and even when
Speaker 1: we're talking at times about the prevalence and the spread
Speaker 1: of affinity groups, we're talking about constructing a world for
Speaker 1: students that is nothing like the world they're about to
Speaker 1: go in. And I'm not sure that's consistent with the
Speaker 1: with the mission of college and the greatest use of college.
Speaker 1: So do you think there's snowflakes? I don't like that
Speaker 1: term because I think it's so dismissive and I think
Speaker 1: it takes people. It mashes everyone together from people who
Speaker 1: are offended reflexively by everything uh. And and that term
Speaker 1: I think is meant to connote that, um, but it
Speaker 1: mashes them together with people who are wrestling in a
Speaker 1: very earnest and I think important way with how we
Speaker 1: construct universes that are respectful without being ridiculously uh censorious
Speaker 1: of any kind of speech or any kind of behavior
Speaker 1: that colors outside of somebody's lines. You know, let me
Speaker 1: push back on you a little bit, Frank, because I
Speaker 1: had the same attitudes that you did. And then I
Speaker 1: went and talked to some of these students, and I'm
Speaker 1: not saying I did a total about face, but I
Speaker 1: did come away with a better understanding of some of
Speaker 1: these terms. For example, trigger warning, Uh. To me, it's
Speaker 1: almost like what you used to see before you saw
Speaker 1: a film at the movie theater, you know, whether it
Speaker 1: was G P, g ARE. It's basically a warning that
Speaker 1: some of this content may be upsetting. And young woman
Speaker 1: at Northwestern told me that her professor said, we're going
Speaker 1: to be discussing black face today. Now, that might make
Speaker 1: you uncomfortable, and I just wanted to kind of give
Speaker 1: you a heads up. She said, Oh, no, I'm fine,
Speaker 1: but I really appreciate your thoughtfulness. To me, if that
Speaker 1: is what a trigger warning is, that's perfectly acceptable and
Speaker 1: really just I think an example of being carrying and
Speaker 1: thoughtful to your students, I wouldn't disagree with you. And
Speaker 1: if that, if that were every trigger warning, the problem
Speaker 1: is we don't know what every trigger warning is. We
Speaker 1: also don't know how prevalent they are, so, you know.
Speaker 1: I think one important thing to say in this discussion is, sometimes, um,
Speaker 1: I think we extrapolate from stories that get out there
Speaker 1: and we assume that this is happening onege campuses, and
Speaker 1: it may really only be happening on fifty Now, it
Speaker 1: is a real thing. Trigger warnings are a real thing.
Speaker 1: Safe spaces are a real thing. Um. We may exaggerate
Speaker 1: how widely they've spread. But here's the thing. If trigger
Speaker 1: warnings are a little prevalent, we don't know exactly how
Speaker 1: prevalent they are, if they're not all delivered in quite
Speaker 1: the way that you just described. Does life give you
Speaker 1: trigger warnings? Is it setting up an expectation for the
Speaker 1: way you can navigate the world that's unrealistic, And is
Speaker 1: it sending a message? And I don't know the answer.
Speaker 1: I'm asking the question. Is it sending a message that
Speaker 1: you can go through the world with a kind of
Speaker 1: emotional bubble wrap? And that worries some of us in
Speaker 1: particular because the way a lot of kids have been
Speaker 1: raised today is an extension of this over helicopter parenting
Speaker 1: and over I think I think it might beybody gets
Speaker 1: a trophy. I think it might be and I'm saying
Speaker 1: might be because I'm glad you began the conversation. That's
Speaker 1: where I think we do need to be careful with
Speaker 1: our language. It's so easy in the world of Twitter,
Speaker 1: and in the world of right left media and our
Speaker 1: ed columns like the one I write, it's so easy
Speaker 1: to kind of paint stark realities. It might be an
Speaker 1: extension of that kind of child rearing. It might be
Speaker 1: part of that point. Frank Um. We have a clip
Speaker 1: um from last year of Van Jones from CNN, who's
Speaker 1: also a liberal. He was in conversation with David axel
Speaker 1: Rod on my University of Chicago. I love I've quoted
Speaker 1: this a million times, he says it best. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna play what he said in response to
Speaker 1: a question about how progressive students should react to ideologically
Speaker 1: offensive speakers on college campuses. I don't want you to
Speaker 1: be safe ideologically. I don't want you to be safe emotionally.
Speaker 1: I want you to be strong. That's different. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to pave the jungle for you. Put on some
Speaker 1: boots and learn how to deal with adversity. You are
Speaker 1: creating a kind of liberalism that the minute it crosses
Speaker 1: the street into the real world is not just useless,
Speaker 1: but obnoxious and dangerous. I want you to be offended
Speaker 1: every single day on this campus. I want you to
Speaker 1: be deeply aggrieved and offended and upset, and then to
Speaker 1: learn how to speak back. For rank. All right, well,
Speaker 1: I'm so I'm happy. He doesn't even describe how I
Speaker 1: feel about the fact that you included that clip. I'm exulted.
Speaker 1: I'm I have I have quoted almost all of those words.
Speaker 1: They didn't fit easily, but I've quoted most of that
Speaker 1: in a column that I wrote in The Times. I
Speaker 1: quote them in speeches that I give. I think Van
Speaker 1: says it as well as it's ever been said. And yes,
Speaker 1: he's being a little bit provocative when he's saying your
Speaker 1: liberalism is obnoxious, etcetera. But he does need to use
Speaker 1: strong language to make that point. The point being that
Speaker 1: the world of ideas, the world of knowledge, it's it's
Speaker 1: a rough and tumble world. It's meant to be. That's
Speaker 1: how we grapple and hash our way to the truth.
Speaker 1: And I think everything Van says there's really really important. Well,
Speaker 1: isn't this really about bringing things to the extreme? For example,
Speaker 1: saying a trigger warning for the Merchant of Venice because
Speaker 1: it's anti Semitic, or saying, you know, to kill a
Speaker 1: mocking bird or Huckleberry Finn. Now, how do you feel
Speaker 1: about those two great works of fiction? You know that
Speaker 1: both use the N word. And for African American students
Speaker 1: who want to feel a part of the conversation, want
Speaker 1: to be I think acknowledged and heard. Is that appropriate
Speaker 1: to say, Hey, this language is tough or it might
Speaker 1: make you uncomfortable. I think it's absolutely appropriate and that
Speaker 1: circumstance to acknowledge that this language is in here um
Speaker 1: and might might well offend, and it's coming from a
Speaker 1: much different era, you know, so be prepared for it.
Speaker 1: But I also think here's the problem again, the way
Speaker 1: that said is it actually kind of patronizing and emotionally
Speaker 1: caught Like I, I actually think people are smarter than
Speaker 1: we often give them credit. The college students are smarter
Speaker 1: than we often give them credit for. I'm guessing a
Speaker 1: lot of college students realize they're reading a book from
Speaker 1: a much different era with terms and realities in it
Speaker 1: that don't at all reflect a much more enlightened and
Speaker 1: fair and just era. Um it's probably a good idea
Speaker 1: to give them a warning, but are you sure, kitty,
Speaker 1: they really needed that warning and wouldn't have understood that
Speaker 1: they're reading something in the context of its time, and
Speaker 1: that no professor in the world and putting this on
Speaker 1: the syllabus is endorsing that language. No, of course not.
Speaker 1: But you know, I interviewed an African American sensitivity reader,
Speaker 1: which is another area where we're seeing this kind of
Speaker 1: heightened heightened sensitivity, and she said, you know, people don't
Speaker 1: understand how incredibly uncomfortable I felt, as the only black
Speaker 1: girl in school as to kill a mocking bird as
Speaker 1: the class read this novel. And I think sometimes it's
Speaker 1: just even acknowledging that discomfort is a positive thing. It's not,
Speaker 1: I understand what you're saying in a patronizing way. But
Speaker 1: to hear her talk about that, she frank, I was
Speaker 1: never cognizant. It didn't really cross my mind that she
Speaker 1: When I read this in high school and there were
Speaker 1: some black kids in the class, how did they feel
Speaker 1: about that? I just wasn't within my realm of consciousness,
Speaker 1: which is bad on me, but it made me realize,
Speaker 1: you know, we need to pay attention to how different
Speaker 1: people are receiving the same information. Yes, no, And I
Speaker 1: think it's all a matter of comes back to these
Speaker 1: subtler distinctions of how are you doing it to what
Speaker 1: degree with what sort of message? You know, are you
Speaker 1: not over doing to the point where you're telling someone
Speaker 1: they should be inoculated from anything that might be upsetting.
Speaker 1: I can't speak to what it's like to come across
Speaker 1: one of those words because I'm not black, you know,
Speaker 1: but I mean I'm gay. Um. And to this moment,
Speaker 1: I run across all sorts of stuff from the fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties, um,
Speaker 1: ten years ago that traffic and sorts of stereotypes and
Speaker 1: language that are now understood to be very offensive and
Speaker 1: not used. Um. I mean, I'm older now, but even
Speaker 1: when I was younger, that didn't I understood that I
Speaker 1: was seeing something from an earlier era. I may not
Speaker 1: have liked it, but I'm not sure I needed a
Speaker 1: trigger warning for it. And to your point, Frank, trigger
Speaker 1: warnings maybe a result or emblematic of a big shift
Speaker 1: in the culture that you've written about, where people are
Speaker 1: judged not by the argument they're making necessarily, but by
Speaker 1: their qualifications to make it they're racial or ethnic or
Speaker 1: sexual qualifications. Um, there's a great quote from one of
Speaker 1: your columns that I just want to read briefly. You wrote,
Speaker 1: firmly in cheek, I'm a white man, so you should
Speaker 1: listen to absolutely nothing I say, at least on matters
Speaker 1: of social justice. I have no standing, no way to
Speaker 1: relate my color and gender nullify me, and it gets worse.
Speaker 1: I grew up in the suburbs. Dad made six figures.
Speaker 1: We had a backyard pool from the tent through twelfth grades.
Speaker 1: I attended private school. So the only proper way for
Speaker 1: me to check my privilege is to realize that it
Speaker 1: blinds me. Are you concerned that that's where we're going
Speaker 1: as a society and how do we think about that?
Speaker 1: In a way, I feel like, Frank, we've gone from
Speaker 1: identity politics to identity conversations or identity discourse. Well, I
Speaker 1: it's funny. The other day was talking with a friend
Speaker 1: and I wondered if we were in the era of
Speaker 1: identity journalism, And that was the phrase I used, because
Speaker 1: I read a lot of journalism, especially in opinion sections,
Speaker 1: where the writer is not necessarily making an argument, the
Speaker 1: writer is just saying, this is how I experienced this,
Speaker 1: this thing that happened as a transperson, this is how
Speaker 1: I experienced it, you know, as a black man, or
Speaker 1: as a black woman, or as a Latino woman, like
Speaker 1: and and they're interesting articles, and it's important that we
Speaker 1: have the diverse voices, absolutely, but sometimes they don't say
Speaker 1: much more than that. And I think we have to
Speaker 1: come to a place where we are being even more
Speaker 1: cognizant and even more proactive than we are now about
Speaker 1: making sure we have a diversity of voices, you know, demographically,
Speaker 1: socio economically, racially, geographically, all of those things, because that
Speaker 1: is really important to understand how as many different kinds
Speaker 1: of people in the world. But I don't think, UM,
Speaker 1: we should be judging what is said by um the classification,
Speaker 1: the designation, that taxonomy, whatever of who is saying it,
Speaker 1: independent of what argument they're making. I mean, there are
Speaker 1: privileged white people who have served in politics, who have
Speaker 1: done some of the most trailblazing social justice things, because
Speaker 1: that's that's who they are character a lotically, and there
Speaker 1: are some people from backgrounds of much less privilege, UM
Speaker 1: and people who are not white, who I would say
Speaker 1: in terms of the policies they advocate, what they had
Speaker 1: to the public square are not serving the cause of
Speaker 1: social justice. So you can't judge the quality of someone's
Speaker 1: contribution or the relevance of their contribution based merely on
Speaker 1: gender or gender orientation or sexual orientation, or skin color
Speaker 1: or anything like that. That was the point of that
Speaker 1: tongue in chief thing, because if if Brian had continued
Speaker 1: reading it then said, but wait a second, Now you've
Speaker 1: dismissed me. Now let me tell you something else. And
Speaker 1: who grew up in an era when you had to
Speaker 1: be very, very nervous about this, So now you're thinking, oh,
Speaker 1: he can be sensitized to oppression. The thing is I
Speaker 1: could be a good voice on issues of oppression or
Speaker 1: a bad voice on issues of oppression, having nothing to
Speaker 1: do with whether I've ever been oppressed. I guess the
Speaker 1: big question is have we become so restrictive in terms
Speaker 1: of who can not only talk about said subject, but
Speaker 1: who can write about it, Who can be the creative
Speaker 1: force behind anything that deals with a particular group. I
Speaker 1: interviewed Laura Moriarty, who wrote a young adult novel about Muslims.
Speaker 1: She was worried about the Islamophobia. She saw surfacing in
Speaker 1: the two thousand sixteen election and wrote a novel about it.
Speaker 1: She had too Muslim friends read it. She had a
Speaker 1: couple of sensitivity readers, and the Muslim community not the
Speaker 1: entire I know, I know not to generalize, but some
Speaker 1: people were very upset that it was a white savior
Speaker 1: narrative and that a Muslim wasn't writing about this. And
Speaker 1: it seems to me increasingly, Frank, we're hearing that and
Speaker 1: her fears white people will only be able to white
Speaker 1: about white people. On the other hand, you talked to
Speaker 1: people from marginalized communities and they feel they have been
Speaker 1: kept out. Now the gate has been closed to them,
Speaker 1: and opportunities have not been available to them in a
Speaker 1: whole host of professions and arenas. And they're saying, well,
Speaker 1: this sucks because why should a white person have to
Speaker 1: write about this experience? And I understand both sides totally.
Speaker 1: This is this is complicated stuff. I mean, both of
Speaker 1: those things are true. I want to hear more voices.
Speaker 1: I want to hear more different kinds of voices. That
Speaker 1: is how I learn more about the world. That is
Speaker 1: how you learn more about the word. That is the world.
Speaker 1: That is how we all learn more about each other.
Speaker 1: That is how we help talk to each other. UM.
Speaker 1: So that goes without saying um. And if you just
Speaker 1: assume a white person can illuminate the truth of everything
Speaker 1: and you never concern yourself with the lack of diversity
Speaker 1: of voices, you are oppressing people. You're leaving people out
Speaker 1: of the conversation. But you're also doing the truth and
Speaker 1: the ideal situation a disservice. I mean, it's bad on
Speaker 1: every level. It goes too far though, and it's counterproductive
Speaker 1: in another way to say a white person should never
Speaker 1: write from X perspective or a black person should ever
Speaker 1: write a white person. One of the things that fiction
Speaker 1: certainly does, but I think that journalism does too. Is
Speaker 1: it traffics and encourages empathy. And what is empathy but
Speaker 1: the effort to see and the ability to see the
Speaker 1: world through another person's eyes. Um. I think if you
Speaker 1: say X person can never understand or write why person
Speaker 1: because they're not in that group, you're saying empathy is impossible,
Speaker 1: and you're discouraging the sorts of connections that we really
Speaker 1: want to make. So this is complicated because you have
Speaker 1: to acknowledge that white people have commanded a disproportionate amount
Speaker 1: of the stage and the front of the stage, and
Speaker 1: you need to make sure you push back against that,
Speaker 1: and you need to make sure that's not no longer.
Speaker 1: So I'm not sure the best way to do that
Speaker 1: is to say you cannot right outside your race or gender.
Speaker 1: But how do we deal with moving beyond empathy to
Speaker 1: real understanding? So you don't know what it is, nor
Speaker 1: do I to be treated differently by the police because
Speaker 1: you're black, or to be profiled and an airport because
Speaker 1: you're Muslim. I mean, you can take the position that
Speaker 1: these things are terrible and that we're sympathetic and that
Speaker 1: we wish that they didn't happen. But how should white writers, commentators, politicians,
Speaker 1: sis kind of confront their own lack of experience on
Speaker 1: these issues. Well, journalistically, the way we always have interview people,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, that's what we do. We enter,
Speaker 1: We interview people who have um who are the products
Speaker 1: of situations and experiences that we can understand. And then
Speaker 1: what we do as human beings as we go into
Speaker 1: our own trove of experiences and all that we go
Speaker 1: into our own ability to kind of imagine beyond ourselves.
Speaker 1: We then take that information um and then we understand better,
Speaker 1: if not perfectly, what's been going on. You can certainly
Speaker 1: articulate if you inform yourself, if you do some of
Speaker 1: that journalism, you can certainly articulate the injustice of it.
Speaker 1: And you can certainly mold some of the solutions without
Speaker 1: having gone through it. And it's important that you can
Speaker 1: do that because most of our lawmakers haven't gone through
Speaker 1: because most of them are white and most of them
Speaker 1: have come from privilege. Hopefully that will continue to change.
Speaker 1: I mean that is changing slowly, and I think it
Speaker 1: will continue to change, and it must. I sympathize with
Speaker 1: college students when Richard Spencer gets invited to speak at
Speaker 1: a university. Yes, white nationalists, I would call him, and
Speaker 1: maybe white supremacist. I think neo Nazi work. Neo Nazi.
Speaker 1: He's a bad guy, yes, And when college students really
Speaker 1: get upset that he's coming there, they do something called
Speaker 1: no platforming. They'll they'll basically shout him down so he
Speaker 1: can't speak. I guess the question is hate speech free speech?
Speaker 1: Should it be kind of like an open invitation even
Speaker 1: if you're a neo Nazi to come and speak at
Speaker 1: these campuses. I don't think so. I'm not a I'm
Speaker 1: not an absolutist. I don't know what the terminology is
Speaker 1: like a free speech. I don't I don't go that far. Um.
Speaker 1: I think there's a world of difference though, between Richard
Speaker 1: Spencer and Charles Murray, who was the you know who
Speaker 1: prompted all that stuff at well, yeah, but he wasn't
Speaker 1: even going there to talk about the middle at middle
Speaker 1: at middle of there. He was going there to talk
Speaker 1: about um work he's done. Subsequently, and fascinatingly, after of
Speaker 1: that all happened, the Times did something brilliant. It was
Speaker 1: just online. I think, I don't know who did well.
Speaker 1: It's such a big organization. I can take credit for nothing, No,
Speaker 1: really for nothing, but they did something. Someone in the
Speaker 1: online opinion universe did something brilliant where they boiled down
Speaker 1: the talking points that Charles Murray was going to make
Speaker 1: in that speech, most of them I think from his
Speaker 1: bookcoming a Part I think I have that right, which
Speaker 1: is on white working class um. And they asked a
Speaker 1: bunch of academics to place the sentiments of his on
Speaker 1: the political spectrum from left to right, like is the
Speaker 1: center is the center left if it's center right, And
Speaker 1: I believe most people placed him dead in the center
Speaker 1: or a little bit center left. This was what he
Speaker 1: was going to speak about at Middlebury, so he was
Speaker 1: no platformed. But if anyone had bothered to really listen
Speaker 1: to him, they would not have heard something beyond the
Speaker 1: pale at all, and they might have heard an interesting lecture.
Speaker 1: But there was a decision made about who he was
Speaker 1: as a person based on the Bell curve. But I
Speaker 1: remember listening to the Chance and they were saying, like,
Speaker 1: you know, racist, sexist, homophobic, go away. Um. The complaint
Speaker 1: about the Bell curve was was that it was racist,
Speaker 1: but I mean it was a key. Was all of
Speaker 1: these terrible things encoded because someone had just decided to
Speaker 1: put that mantle on him when he was coming to
Speaker 1: talk about some ideas, some important ideas that are not
Speaker 1: even far to the right. And you think that that
Speaker 1: people could have challenged him in a more appropriate way.
Speaker 1: I mean, that was just a ship show at Middlebury
Speaker 1: when he came. On the other hand, I interviewed a
Speaker 1: student at the University of Michigan who was getting his
Speaker 1: PhD who protested went and Charles Murray invited him on stage,
Speaker 1: and his argument, Frank, is that Charles Murray's philosophy and
Speaker 1: the Bell Curve itself has been used. In fact, I
Speaker 1: know it has because when I talked to Jason Kessler
Speaker 1: in Charlottesville before the quote unquote Unite the Right rally,
Speaker 1: he used some of Charles Murray saying, philosophy, it's been
Speaker 1: used to base sickly buttress this incredible racist vitriol and
Speaker 1: white supremacy. So so I can understand that too. But
Speaker 1: what would you disinvite him then, Katie? Would I disinvite him?
Speaker 1: I don't think I would. I would like to have
Speaker 1: some debate him. How about what you just said, how
Speaker 1: about some student um actually kind of getting that deeply
Speaker 1: engaged in the material, educating himself for herself on all
Speaker 1: of that, and standing up during the quick Q and
Speaker 1: a period and I'm pretty sure there was a scheduled
Speaker 1: Q and a period and saying the things you lay
Speaker 1: out in the Bell Curve are not only um bitterly
Speaker 1: and wildly when widely disputed and in many ways discredited,
Speaker 1: but they have become the foundation for some of the
Speaker 1: most horrible thinking and some of the most horrible proposal.
Speaker 1: How do you feel about that? And how do you
Speaker 1: defend that? That would have been fascinating. I think so
Speaker 1: much good would have come out of that discussion. But
Speaker 1: that discussion was never had because they shouted down so
Speaker 1: that he couldn't speak. Middlebury, there are many ways you
Speaker 1: can handle that. First of all, Middlebury, mind you, is
Speaker 1: very sensitive to the way this might play out. They
Speaker 1: were having Charles Murray not just kind of give, you know,
Speaker 1: an unchallenged speech. They were having somebody questions question A
Speaker 1: liberal professor questioned him on stage. He was going to
Speaker 1: be answering questions if I have this correctly and if
Speaker 1: I if I don't forgive me by students. You could
Speaker 1: have come. You could have come with signs. You could
Speaker 1: have done what has been done at some speeches like this.
Speaker 1: You could have come to the speech and turned your
Speaker 1: back while he was speaking, without still allowing him to
Speaker 1: say what he was going to say, allowing him to
Speaker 1: answer what I presume would have been tough questions from
Speaker 1: the professor. That's all different and a hell of a
Speaker 1: lot more civilized than shouting someone down. Shouting someone down
Speaker 1: says we are not living in and promoting an arena
Speaker 1: of debate, and we're not interested in the battle of ideas.
Speaker 1: We're interested in telling you how our universe should be
Speaker 1: purified and purged, and you don't belong. It's time to
Speaker 1: take a quick break. We'll be back with or Frank
Speaker 1: Bruney right after this. And now back to our conversation
Speaker 1: with Frank Bruney. Frank, I want to ask you about
Speaker 1: another definition of political correctness, which is the one that
Speaker 1: President Trump uses, and in my view, he basically applies
Speaker 1: the term as a cover for racially charged, if not racist,
Speaker 1: views that it's okay to say anything if you can
Speaker 1: dismiss criticism or controversy around it as mere political correctness.
Speaker 1: And I'm curious what you think about that. It's one
Speaker 1: of the reasons why I think we have to retire
Speaker 1: the term, you know, because I think it has been
Speaker 1: co opted in misused. I think we all know President
Speaker 1: Trump in that regardless being hideously cynical and opportunistic, and
Speaker 1: he's just it's just, I mean, we know the answer
Speaker 1: to that. He believes that if you simply kind of
Speaker 1: say that person is being victimized by the sanitized type
Speaker 1: of conversation we're all supposed to have that, then all
Speaker 1: of these sorts of sentiments, in any sorts of remarks,
Speaker 1: all fit in the same basket. And that's not the case.
Speaker 1: That's not the case at all. We have actually a
Speaker 1: clip of President Trump or then candidate Trump, speaking on
Speaker 1: Face the Nation in December of two thousand fifteen. Let's
Speaker 1: take a listen to that if we could. So, everybody
Speaker 1: wants to be politically correct, and that's part of the
Speaker 1: problem that we have with our country. Have people been
Speaker 1: too politically correct with Muslims in America? I think so.
Speaker 1: I think so, and with maybe other things too, but
Speaker 1: I think certainly so. And as you know, I came
Speaker 1: out with I want vigilance. I want real vigilance, and
Speaker 1: whether it's mosques or whatever, it has to be. What's
Speaker 1: your reaction to that conversation That was three years ago?
Speaker 1: And hate crimes against Muslims have risen dramatically, And of
Speaker 1: course he's talked about a Muslim registry. He's obviously the
Speaker 1: travel ban with majority Muslim countries. To what end as
Speaker 1: President Trump using this term to ignite the fears and
Speaker 1: anger of his base, Well, I think to a large extent,
Speaker 1: and I think what he's jumbling is some some less heated,
Speaker 1: less provocative questions about our conversation that that people the
Speaker 1: conservatives or even people in the center have asked, he's
Speaker 1: jumbling that together with permission for people to engage an
Speaker 1: actual hate speech. So you mean, well, what I mean
Speaker 1: is like when he's talking about political correctness and and
Speaker 1: and Islam and terror, and he's referring to all there
Speaker 1: are people like Bill Maher who have said, we're not
Speaker 1: talking honestly enough about certain things that seem to be
Speaker 1: encouraged among certain factions of Muslims. And there are people
Speaker 1: who have said, I mean, Barack Obama battle with us
Speaker 1: all the time. There are people who said that if
Speaker 1: you if you purge the word Islam or Muslim from
Speaker 1: some of the discussions of some of the kinds of
Speaker 1: terrorism we're seeing, you're not actually having an honest debate
Speaker 1: about what's giving rise to it. So there are plenty
Speaker 1: of people who would say that's political correctness run a monk,
Speaker 1: because we can't have an honest debate. Um, And I'm
Speaker 1: just telling you what people would say, we can't have
Speaker 1: an honest debate, and we can't like actually kind of
Speaker 1: bring in everything that needs to be bringing because we're
Speaker 1: so afraid of offending. Um, it is not political correctness
Speaker 1: or I mean, that's very different from saying that those
Speaker 1: marchers in Charlottesville we're channing things that are absolutely hateful
Speaker 1: and and unconscionable and impermissible. And he's jumbling all of
Speaker 1: that together. He's saying, I mean, I'm saying, Katie, and
Speaker 1: that's it's a really dangerous thing, and it's a really
Speaker 1: cynical thing. And I think he knows what he's doing,
Speaker 1: is doing it deliberately. Bill Maher and other comedians, Frank
Speaker 1: a number of them. I think Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock
Speaker 1: are among those who just don't want to perform on
Speaker 1: college campuses anymore. And that brings me to another comedian.
Speaker 1: And this may be slightly dated by the time our
Speaker 1: podcast airs, but I have to ask you about Michelle
Speaker 1: Wolf and her performance of the White House Correspondence Dinner. Um,
Speaker 1: what did you think of it? And I just it's
Speaker 1: been fascinating for me to read the reactions by Maggie
Speaker 1: Habrman was very dismissive of her and then got attacked yes,
Speaker 1: and then of course Mika Brzynski was very upset with her,
Speaker 1: and then Jimmy Kimmel and other comedians came to her defense.
Speaker 1: What did you think of that? I think so many
Speaker 1: things about that that are disconnected, one of which is
Speaker 1: I think the amount of attention we're lavishing on this
Speaker 1: is an example of why so many Americans see the
Speaker 1: media is so disconnected from their lives. A. Um, this
Speaker 1: is this is about a set of remarks from a
Speaker 1: comedian at a fancy, self indulgent, self celebratory dinner. You know,
Speaker 1: let's not let's not get carried away. Um. I also
Speaker 1: think that the White House correspond Association dinners should be
Speaker 1: retired forevermore because it exists primarily not as some touchy
Speaker 1: feely bipartisan can't we all get along? It exists. It
Speaker 1: exists as a kind of exercise of vanity. Um. And
Speaker 1: it is a New York Times no longer wins. Well yeah,
Speaker 1: and by the way, and I'm not saying this because
Speaker 1: I think The New York Times did. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think we made the right decision. I think it was
Speaker 1: back in two thousand eight, and before then I went,
Speaker 1: I haven't been back. Sense. Um, I don't know. Sometimes
Speaker 1: employees go as other people's guests. I think, but we
Speaker 1: don't buy tables there, we don't do anything like that. Um.
Speaker 1: I think that's one of those situations where we made
Speaker 1: the right call, because I think it has become a
Speaker 1: sort of you know, Oscar's manque for journalists. You know. Um,
Speaker 1: I don't think anything noble is being accomplished by that dinner. Um.
Speaker 1: I think it is an exercise and self indulgence, and
Speaker 1: this sort of thing is bound to happen. I've never
Speaker 1: understood why a centerpiece of this dinner was a comedian
Speaker 1: who more often than not is bound to do some
Speaker 1: offensive stuff standing up there and ridiculing the people in
Speaker 1: the room. I'm not sure what the message I mean,
Speaker 1: is that supposed to communicate a noble self effacement in
Speaker 1: this crowd or you know, I mean it's at a
Speaker 1: at a very a very great risk. Um. On the
Speaker 1: other hand, at a time when journalism is being so
Speaker 1: kind of trashed by the president, the First Amendment kind
Speaker 1: of questioned by the administration, fake news, the moniker. Just
Speaker 1: do you think the w h C A is the
Speaker 1: answer to that? No, not necessary there just what But
Speaker 1: I guess the rest of my question was or statement
Speaker 1: was at a time when these are being so challenged.
Speaker 1: Is it a time for solidarity and for members of
Speaker 1: the press to say, Hey, we believe in a search
Speaker 1: for truth and we think that we're a really important
Speaker 1: part of a democracy. I don't know. I don't, yes,
Speaker 1: And I mean, I'm just I'm just giving the opposite
Speaker 1: point of view. Well, but but I don't think that
Speaker 1: point of view has anything to do with the actual
Speaker 1: fact and details and mechanics of the White House Correspondence
Speaker 1: Association dinner. I mean that dinner brings together right there
Speaker 1: on the days the very people who are trashing us,
Speaker 1: you know, Sarah, how could be Sanders, Kelly and Conway.
Speaker 1: So how does that dinner represent a solidarity act in
Speaker 1: defense of our utility to our essential role in democracy?
Speaker 1: That dinner is something is a bit of frippery entirely
Speaker 1: to the side of that. Let's talk about this now,
Speaker 1: penchant for evaluating past works through a modern a lens
Speaker 1: or sensibility. Most recently, Molly Ringwald wrote in The New
Speaker 1: York Or a piece about sixteen Candles and other John
Speaker 1: Hughes movies. I Guess the Breakfast Club, Breakfast Club, and
Speaker 1: and sort of talked about some of the themes and
Speaker 1: some of the characters and some of the dialogue in
Speaker 1: those films, and uh, you know, she in retrospects thinks
Speaker 1: they were offensive. What say you, Frank Bernie. I think
Speaker 1: everything that she pointed out in those films was offensive
Speaker 1: and that was interesting. Um. And she's right to look
Speaker 1: back and say that those weren't necessarily constructive or ideal situations.
Speaker 1: But I found myself a little heartsick at the selectiveness
Speaker 1: of the reading, because you can also go back and
Speaker 1: look at those movies if you're just in a different spirit,
Speaker 1: and see a hell of a lot of good. I
Speaker 1: read that whole Molly Ringwald thing. I was riveted by it.
Speaker 1: Smack in the middle was the passage to me that
Speaker 1: was the most interesting. She talks about a black gay
Speaker 1: friend of hers who she was sort of filling him
Speaker 1: in on her processes on how bad she felt. And
Speaker 1: I may be misrepresenting the essay a little bit, but
Speaker 1: I think I'm close to the mark. It's not right
Speaker 1: in front of me. And I read it a week
Speaker 1: ago or two weeks ago. Um. And she talks about
Speaker 1: her concern about movie stuff whatever. And he says to
Speaker 1: Molly Ringwald, he says, as as a black gay man,
Speaker 1: your movies saved my life. And she's puzzled by that
Speaker 1: because she's thinking, there weren't there wasn't racial diversity in
Speaker 1: the movies. There was the horrible caricature of the Asian
Speaker 1: American character and I think that was sixteen candles, and
Speaker 1: so she's sort of surprised. But what he's what he
Speaker 1: kind of says to her, And you know immediately, if
Speaker 1: you if you're if you're familiar with the movies, is
Speaker 1: that so many of those movies were portraits of outsiders
Speaker 1: and people who were shoved by the in crowd to
Speaker 1: the margins, figuring out how to forge a separate piece,
Speaker 1: how to find dignity, how to navigate the world. And
Speaker 1: even if that character was fair skinned, red haired Molly, heterosexual,
Speaker 1: Molly Ringwald this black game and saw himself in that
Speaker 1: character and took great heart from it and took inspiration
Speaker 1: and as he says to Molly, your movies saved my life.
Speaker 1: Now let's go back to what we were talking about before,
Speaker 1: about kind of person in one group right as another person.
Speaker 1: The things we're talking about, empathy, you could Shakespeare lives
Speaker 1: to this day, not because he provided us, you know,
Speaker 1: with a perfect array of diversity and all that. But
Speaker 1: because the human conditions, the human strivings, the human cruelty,
Speaker 1: is the human foibles that he wrote about. Those transcend
Speaker 1: all distinctions of gender and class and race. Those are
Speaker 1: universal things. And what this friend of Molly's was saying
Speaker 1: to him is, you may now be concerned about some
Speaker 1: of these details of those movies, and that's a noble concern,
Speaker 1: But they were so universal, um in what they were
Speaker 1: capturing and in their consequence that they saved my life.
Speaker 1: I thought that was just such an important passage that
Speaker 1: we should not let go of easily. Hold that thought.
Speaker 1: We're going to applause for a moment because we want
Speaker 1: to hear from those of you who see things a
Speaker 1: bit differently than Frank does. Here's what some of you
Speaker 1: had to say. Hello there. I am Jeffrey Marsh. I
Speaker 1: am an activist and an author and a non binary
Speaker 1: and I travel around the country helping churches and corporations
Speaker 1: in schools make respectful spaces for LGBTQ folk, and PC
Speaker 1: spaces or so called safe spaces, are sometimes the only
Speaker 1: spaces where people like me find respect and has PC
Speaker 1: culture gone too far is a really great question, and
Speaker 1: I think enough the great question is why in the
Speaker 1: world do some human beings need to be strongly encouraged
Speaker 1: to see the full humanity and other human beings and
Speaker 1: show kindness and respect. Thank you, Hey, this is this
Speaker 1: just leaving my thoughts on PC culture having recently graduated
Speaker 1: from a super liberal research university. I think that PC
Speaker 1: culture is a sign that we are progressing as a
Speaker 1: society and we are paying attention to how we could
Speaker 1: have been hurtful to other perspectives in the past. So
Speaker 1: I think it is something good, and it's something that
Speaker 1: needs to continue, and it's a way to make people
Speaker 1: feel more comfortable in the society that we live in,
Speaker 1: and we're fare that being said, I often did feel
Speaker 1: at college, specifically that PC culture sometimes prevented us from
Speaker 1: haveing a fair debate for the fear that I think
Speaker 1: that we might just agree with the other side. And
Speaker 1: I think it's important to keep to make sure that
Speaker 1: PC culture isn't used to stiful discourse. Thanks thank you
Speaker 1: to everyone who called in. Clearly there's more than one
Speaker 1: way to look at these issues. And now back to
Speaker 1: our conversation with Frank two other terms, frank, have become
Speaker 1: hot button issues, and I deal with it in my
Speaker 1: hour on which I called the Age of Outrage. One
Speaker 1: is cultural appropriation and the other is white privilege. When
Speaker 1: does cultural appreciation become cultural appropriation? And how do you
Speaker 1: feel about that conversation that's going on, whether it's on
Speaker 1: fashion runways or celebrity magazines or musical performers like Bruno Mars.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of talk about this right now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's another one of those conversations where people
Speaker 1: tend to go to extremes. You know, we should never
Speaker 1: the whole idea of cultural appropriation is ridiculous, as one
Speaker 1: camp you know, another camp you know, says everything is
Speaker 1: a cultural appropriation. Um. I think this is another tough
Speaker 1: one where there are many many ways, um to show
Speaker 1: cultural appreciation that people in one extreme call cultural appropriation.
Speaker 1: And I think they're being a little bit too quick
Speaker 1: to take offense. And I think that, um, there's sort
Speaker 1: of being a little bit blind to the way the
Speaker 1: world invariably works. I think the real complaint here goes
Speaker 1: back to who's been shut out and and and so
Speaker 1: I have I have no problem with I'm going to
Speaker 1: use the phrase because that's what we're using. But I
Speaker 1: don't like. I have no problem with cultural appropriation because
Speaker 1: I think it's often um a sign of a very
Speaker 1: important integration and it's a sign of respect. I do
Speaker 1: have a problem when the only people who get to
Speaker 1: showcase and benefit from the distinctive fruits of a culture
Speaker 1: are the outside of that culture. And I think that's
Speaker 1: the real problem and the real tension. And sometimes the
Speaker 1: cultural appropriation argument starts to be about the things and
Speaker 1: forgets that what really is an issue here, what's at
Speaker 1: the root of it. This is the group's excluded from
Speaker 1: recognition and from benefiting from the things that they in
Speaker 1: fact brought into the world. I interviewed Elaine welter Roth,
Speaker 1: the former editor of teen Vogue, and she told said
Speaker 1: something that really made me think. She talked about minstrel shows,
Speaker 1: and we should add she as an African American woman, yes,
Speaker 1: and she she was talking about how how that was
Speaker 1: stealing a culture and mocking a culture. It was mocking
Speaker 1: a culture. And you know clearly and that that was
Speaker 1: sort of one of the primary examples of early cultural appropriation.
Speaker 1: Of course, has been going on forever in terms of
Speaker 1: if you look at fashion and all kinds of things.
Speaker 1: But but I don't even think cultural appropriation is even
Speaker 1: the right word for that, because that's something much different.
Speaker 1: It's mockery, it's caricature. I mean, it's designed to make
Speaker 1: fun of. And so how you relate that to say,
Speaker 1: the debate on some campuses over hoop ear rings. You know,
Speaker 1: a white girl wearing a big hoop ear ring sometimes
Speaker 1: is put in a defensive crouch about cultural appropriation. She's
Speaker 1: not mocking or making a caricature of a culture that
Speaker 1: you had first worn an ear ring like that. She's
Speaker 1: actually paying a kind of compliment. Now we can talk
Speaker 1: further about whether it's an appropriate compliment. Um, But I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't see a problem with it. But that's nothing
Speaker 1: like black face, is right, I mean, I know, I
Speaker 1: think you're right. And you know, Mark Jacobs was criticized
Speaker 1: because he put some of his models in dreadlocks one season,
Speaker 1: and he later put them in turbans, and people were
Speaker 1: offended by the fact that he didn't seem to include
Speaker 1: the Muslim community, for example, in wearing sort of head
Speaker 1: scarves or turbans. It was primarily turbans, if I recall,
Speaker 1: so you know to me, I said to some of
Speaker 1: the folks I interviewed, isn't that in a way an
Speaker 1: homage to that culture? But I think you hit the
Speaker 1: nail on the head, Frank when you mentioned the people
Speaker 1: who have been excluded from the table, that have not
Speaker 1: been brought in on the conversation, who are not benefiting
Speaker 1: financially or otherwise from the use of any given culture. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know about that fashion show, but
Speaker 1: let's say you did a fashion show where you were
Speaker 1: putting your models in a certain kind of hairstyle or
Speaker 1: head dress or whatever, and what you your rationale was,
Speaker 1: I think this is beautiful. I think this is part
Speaker 1: of the beautiful tapestry of humanity. But not a single
Speaker 1: one of those models belongs to the cultural group, the
Speaker 1: ethnic group from which you're taking. Well, that's a problem
Speaker 1: with that, because it's like, if you think this is
Speaker 1: so beautiful, and if this is a gesture and gesture
Speaker 1: of inclusion, where the hell's the inclusion. That's where African
Speaker 1: Americans feel, like, why is it only beautiful when white
Speaker 1: people start donning it? You know? Why are corn rows
Speaker 1: only great when Miley Cyrus wears them? Or I think
Speaker 1: they were. I think they were always great, and you know,
Speaker 1: but you know what I mean that they're feeling. It's
Speaker 1: like you're robbing us of our identity. You're benefiting from
Speaker 1: it financially and otherwise. And you know, where was your
Speaker 1: appreciation for this look when it was being warned by
Speaker 1: African American women. It's just so interesting. The whole thing
Speaker 1: is very and every and every single situation is a
Speaker 1: little bit different because in all cases, like you know,
Speaker 1: is it a homage or is it a trivialization. Sometimes
Speaker 1: that's an exploitation. Sometimes that's in the eye and the beholder.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's pretty clear. And so one of the problems
Speaker 1: with the cultural appropriation debate is we are mashing together
Speaker 1: a lot of different situations for which your answer would
Speaker 1: be very different about is this trivializing, is this exploitation,
Speaker 1: is this homage, etcetera. Yeah, Frank, this may be a
Speaker 1: bit of a leap from political correctness, But before you go,
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask whether you're concerned about a backlash
Speaker 1: to another movement, which is me too. And ever again,
Speaker 1: where there seems to be a very quick jump from
Speaker 1: the allegation to the career death penalty, and are you
Speaker 1: concerned that we've become extreme on this issue as well?
Speaker 1: You know, I I have a hard time talking about
Speaker 1: this one because again I'm I'm a man, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I I certainly have thoughts about this, but
Speaker 1: I have not been I'm not a woman who has
Speaker 1: worked in a workplace as most of my female friends
Speaker 1: have where they have felt, you know, some form of
Speaker 1: sexual harassment or worse. So I really in this in
Speaker 1: this one, I don't think I'm the most appropriate voice. Um,
Speaker 1: does it feel like there are some situations where things
Speaker 1: are happening very quickly in terms of judgment and in
Speaker 1: terms of punishment. Sure, But I've got to say when
Speaker 1: I take several steps back and I think about what
Speaker 1: has happened over the last year and what has been accomplished, well,
Speaker 1: we have not gotten it perfect. I think we've made
Speaker 1: a leap forward as a country. And I think that
Speaker 1: when we're talking about this, certainly a year from now
Speaker 1: and this is all settled down a bit, I think
Speaker 1: we're all going to agree that what we've gone through
Speaker 1: in this period in terms of making sure the workplace
Speaker 1: is respectful to women and making sure they have equal
Speaker 1: opportunity in making sure we're safeguarding a certain you know,
Speaker 1: human dignity. I think we're going to agree that this
Speaker 1: was a good period um and that we made a
Speaker 1: very very important advance for whatever small things were done
Speaker 1: wrong on the margins, I hope. So. I think the
Speaker 1: devil will be in the details and the policy changes
Speaker 1: that are ushered in as a result of this sort
Speaker 1: of reckoning. If you will, I wanted to ask you,
Speaker 1: I took a privilege walk at Columbia Privilege. What a
Speaker 1: privileged walk have you heard of that? I don't know
Speaker 1: the privilege walking. So basically, you get with a bunch
Speaker 1: of different people. I think there might have been, gosh,
Speaker 1: ten or twelve people of all different backgrounds, races, ethnicities,
Speaker 1: and you're asked seventeen questions about your life experiences and
Speaker 1: you take a step forward or take us up backwards
Speaker 1: depending on your answer to the question. And things like
Speaker 1: your parents came here of their own free will, came
Speaker 1: to this country, or you can find a band aid
Speaker 1: to match the color of your skin, your parents told
Speaker 1: you you could do anything you you know, one parent
Speaker 1: has been fired. All these just different questions and you
Speaker 1: take a walk, you close your eyes and then you
Speaker 1: open your eyes and you see kind of where you are. Well,
Speaker 1: I know it'll come as a shock to you, but
Speaker 1: I was smack in the front of the group, and
Speaker 1: we we really just sort of used it as an
Speaker 1: opportunity to talk about white privilege, which I think is
Speaker 1: a is a term that really rankles a lot of people.
Speaker 1: And I noticed that there was a young woman sort
Speaker 1: of in the middle of the group, and I said
Speaker 1: to her, while I'm surprised you're there, and she said, well,
Speaker 1: I'm from North Carolina, working class parents. My parents worked
Speaker 1: nights and weekends, and whatever the answers were it she
Speaker 1: ended up sort of in the middle. And one of
Speaker 1: the young ladies said, this reminds me of trying to
Speaker 1: explain white privilege to my parents. It doesn't mean you
Speaker 1: haven't struggled just because you have white privilege. It just
Speaker 1: means you have certain advantages. And I'm curious, like, why
Speaker 1: does that rankle so many people, the term white privilege. Um,
Speaker 1: I think it rankles some people for a bad reason.
Speaker 1: I mean some people for reason that I don't find
Speaker 1: much sympathy for. And then I think it rankles other
Speaker 1: people for a reason that I do have some sympathy
Speaker 1: for I think it rankles some people, and this is
Speaker 1: the wrong on something reason, just because they don't want
Speaker 1: to be told or they don't want it suggested to
Speaker 1: them that any facet of their achievement or life is
Speaker 1: anything but entirely earned. You know, it's it's a matter
Speaker 1: of kind of ego. You don't want anyone to say
Speaker 1: that you you know, yes you occupy this professional station,
Speaker 1: yes you have this lovely whatever, but you didn't really
Speaker 1: get that that was for ordained by the circumstances, by
Speaker 1: the way you. I don't think people want to hear that,
Speaker 1: and that's something I think they do need to hear,
Speaker 1: not that that's the sole thing, but that they need
Speaker 1: to feel like they had a leg up. Right, So,
Speaker 1: some people don't want to be told they had a
Speaker 1: leg up because they want to believe wherever they got
Speaker 1: was entirely, entirely of their own doing. So that's one
Speaker 1: reason that rankles people, and that's the one I don't
Speaker 1: have sympathy for it, because you absolutely need if you
Speaker 1: want to be a truthful person, if you want to be,
Speaker 1: you know, a person on the right side of social
Speaker 1: justice and awareness and all that you need to be
Speaker 1: aware of how you ended up where you ended up.
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean you had nothing to do with it,
Speaker 1: but you had advantages. It rankles other people for a
Speaker 1: reason I'm more sympathetic to, which is they hear white
Speaker 1: privilege as something that is supposed to pivot them toward
Speaker 1: an apology. They're supposed to apologize for the circumstances of
Speaker 1: their life and birth as opposed to be aware of it. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, when they asked me, Frank, how I felt
Speaker 1: when I found myself in the front of the line,
Speaker 1: I said two words, lucky and guilty. Okay, Well, most
Speaker 1: people don't want to feel guilty or apologetic. So white
Speaker 1: privilege as a tool for awareness, great white privilege as
Speaker 1: a tool for apology gets a little bit more complicated. Um,
Speaker 1: because a lot of people who hear that phrase, I
Speaker 1: think I'm a good person. You know, I'm actually voting
Speaker 1: in ways that I believe are going to make society
Speaker 1: more just. I'm volunteering my time, choosing where to live
Speaker 1: in some cases, um, you know, giving my money to
Speaker 1: charity in ways that acknowledge, um, the unevenness of the world,
Speaker 1: the inequality of opportunity, and are my effort to make
Speaker 1: up for it. But if I'm doing all of that,
Speaker 1: I can't unborn myself. I can't unchange the way I
Speaker 1: grew up. So why are you making me feel like
Speaker 1: I should apologize for it when through my awareness I
Speaker 1: believe I am living in all those ways that are
Speaker 1: in the service of a world of more equal opportunity.
Speaker 1: Should I have not said guilty? No, that's your reality.
Speaker 1: Honestly I feel guilty too, But because I I think
Speaker 1: I would have ended up like you in the front
Speaker 1: of the line, you know, I mean, really high up.
Speaker 1: I mean, but you know, everything is complicated. I would
Speaker 1: have ended up really far up. My father grew up
Speaker 1: with no money, with parents who didn't speak the English language,
Speaker 1: you know. So someone who looks at me and says
Speaker 1: he grew up in a suburban I mean my my
Speaker 1: awareness and my consciousness is a little bit more nuanced
Speaker 1: than that, because I do not have to look far
Speaker 1: at all into my past to see an entirely different world.
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying that I still wouldn't end up
Speaker 1: at the front of that walk of privilege line like you, Katie.
Speaker 1: But we're all much more complicated, and let's you know,
Speaker 1: let's be generous in our judgments of each other. I
Speaker 1: agree allelujah to being generous in our judgments. But how
Speaker 1: else can we make this a little less fraught? How
Speaker 1: do we get to a place where we're not at
Speaker 1: each other's throats about this? How do we lower the
Speaker 1: temperature and get rid of some of the divisiveness around
Speaker 1: these issues. I think the way we do it is
Speaker 1: when we meet somebody who doesn't immediately seem to be
Speaker 1: or to think like us. First of all, don't immediately
Speaker 1: move to hang various labels on them. Second of all,
Speaker 1: um to the extent that they do have different views,
Speaker 1: ask yourself, ask them why they have those views, and
Speaker 1: try to listen with some empathy, generosity, and with an
Speaker 1: impulse toward common ground before you retreat to your separate
Speaker 1: corners and begin tweeting at each other. I mean that
Speaker 1: metaphorically more than literally. Everybody is so on the attack.
Speaker 1: I think it just makes people recoil and dig in
Speaker 1: their heels even more. I feel like the desire and
Speaker 1: the quest for common ground has taken a back seat
Speaker 1: to this sort of desire to shout as loudly as
Speaker 1: you can, or to come up with the snarkiest, most
Speaker 1: clever put down right. Um, you know, look at it.
Speaker 1: The you know, the Republican Democrat pendulum of power keeps
Speaker 1: swinging back and forth, and one group gets into power
Speaker 1: and just wants to quash the other group, and the
Speaker 1: other group gets into power and wants to quash that group.
Speaker 1: And you know, at some point, you know, we've got
Speaker 1: to stop letting the perfect be the enemy. They're good,
Speaker 1: and we've got to, um, we got to develop a
Speaker 1: new respect for the concept of compromise, and we've got
Speaker 1: to develop a new appreciation for common ground. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you watch Homeland, but the season finale was
Speaker 1: last night, and the character of the President who don't
Speaker 1: tell me spoiler alert, Are you going to ruin it
Speaker 1: for people? No? I'm not, But I'm going to tell
Speaker 1: you this. I'm gonna tell you because I won't tell
Speaker 1: you the context or the end of it, but I
Speaker 1: will tell you that she gives a speech about precisely
Speaker 1: this and about how we are being very shoddy, great
Speaker 1: ungrateful caretakers of our democracy by dint of our lack
Speaker 1: of interest in common ground. And it was it was
Speaker 1: an interesting and I think extraordinarily Germaine speech. And I've
Speaker 1: given nothing away about it the way it ends, and
Speaker 1: you just know that she's going to give a speech.
Speaker 1: That's it. Thank you, Frank, Frank, Bernie, thank you Frank
Speaker 1: for coming in. And I always love talking to you.
Speaker 1: And it's these things are kind of I don't know
Speaker 1: even the way to describe it. When you're kind of
Speaker 1: trying to unpack these complicated issues, and people bring so
Speaker 1: much baggage and personal variance to the table. Sometimes you
Speaker 1: have to let that go to right and that's not easy.
Speaker 1: I agree, and I thank you because I think you've
Speaker 1: allowed us to have a conversation about these things that
Speaker 1: was nuanced and that and that did justice to the
Speaker 1: fact that there is no right wrong, you know, cultural
Speaker 1: appropriation always good, always bad. These are these are really
Speaker 1: kind of chewy, sticky, complicated matters, and um, I wish
Speaker 1: more people would think through them without just taking an
Speaker 1: instant position that they think is the position of their tribe.
Speaker 1: That does it for us today and actually that does
Speaker 1: it for our podcast episodes delving into the topics I
Speaker 1: covered in my series America Inside Out on Nacio, also
Speaker 1: on Facebook, also on YouTube, also on Hulu. I hope
Speaker 1: you enjoyed digging into these thorny issues with me and Brian. Well.
Speaker 1: I certainly learned a lot, and I know that's why
Speaker 1: we're here, just so I can learn a lot anyway.
Speaker 1: Next that's my goal and like to teach you, young man.
Speaker 1: Next week, very excited, we'll be talking with the actress
Speaker 1: Julianna mark Ellis. I'm a big fan from Ere to
Speaker 1: The Good Wife. Julianna has made a big mark on
Speaker 1: the small screen. Do you like what I did there, Katie?
Speaker 1: Big mark small screen? Very clever, Brian, very clever. What
Speaker 1: questions do you all have for her? Leave us a
Speaker 1: message at nine to nine to two four six three seven,
Speaker 1: or as always, you can send us an email at
Speaker 1: comments at currect podcast dot com. As usual, our thanks
Speaker 1: to our team at Stitcher. Producer Gianna Palmer, assistant producer
Speaker 1: Nora Richie, who, by the way, has an incredible voice. Nora,
Speaker 1: you knocked my socks off. She's an incredible singer, and
Speaker 1: you're the one who should be singing on this show,
Speaker 1: not me. Nora. Also audio engineer Jared O'Connell. I'm not sure, Jared,
Speaker 1: if you sing, but if you want to Okay, I
Speaker 1: guess not. He's shaking his head. Special thanks today to
Speaker 1: Josh Richmond in l A and my team at Katie
Speaker 1: Correct Media, Alisan Bresnick, Betha Moz and Emily Beena. You
Speaker 1: can find Katie on social media under Katie CURRK Big
Speaker 1: Surprise I tweet from the hand Goldsmith B. Don't forget
Speaker 1: to subscribe to this podcast. You'll get our episodes fresh
Speaker 1: off the presses every week and we'd love a review
Speaker 1: from you on Apple Podcasts if you feel so moved.
Speaker 1: Thank you as always for listening. And since I mentioned
Speaker 1: Nora Richie and her singing ability, She's gonna sing us
Speaker 1: off the air today. Hit it Nora, trusted Heart. She
Speaker 1: tells us the favors Ben was strong stories of love.
Speaker 1: We feel it in our guts. We have been here before,
Speaker 1: all action history, cheerful to see and tell it again.
Speaker 1: Tell Mamma Joe all our history a mental and tell
Speaker 1: it again, telling one all the time. My mind tells
Speaker 1: our story of mental be in her bone