WEBVTT - Frank Bruni on the Age of Outrage 0:00:05.360 --> 0:00:09.200 Hey, Brian, Hi Katie. So, in today's episode, Ladies and Gentlemen, 0:00:09.240 --> 0:00:12.959 we're getting into some very touchy subjects. We're talking about 0:00:13.000 --> 0:00:17.560 political correctness and cultural sensitivity with our guests New York 0:00:17.600 --> 0:00:20.360 Times op ed writer Frank Bruney. So, as you know, 0:00:20.440 --> 0:00:23.160 Frank has worked as everything from a white house correspondent 0:00:23.239 --> 0:00:26.239 to a restaurant critic for The Times, and lately he's 0:00:26.239 --> 0:00:28.760 been devoting some of his twice weekly columns to a 0:00:28.800 --> 0:00:33.040 new subject, the debate over political correctness on college campuses. 0:00:33.240 --> 0:00:35.159 You know, Frank has written a lot about how he 0:00:35.240 --> 0:00:39.800 believes terms like safe spaces and microaggressions or a macro mistake. Now, 0:00:39.880 --> 0:00:42.280 he's a white man who grew up in an upper 0:00:42.320 --> 0:00:45.040 class household, and as such, he's well aware that he's 0:00:45.080 --> 0:00:48.200 expected to quote unquote check his privilege at the door 0:00:48.520 --> 0:00:51.800 and perhaps even question his own credibility when it comes 0:00:51.800 --> 0:00:54.560 to matters of social justice. But I thought this was 0:00:54.600 --> 0:00:57.560 pretty interesting. Frank questions the wisdom of what he calls 0:00:57.600 --> 0:01:02.040 turning categories into credentials when it comes to politics and 0:01:02.120 --> 0:01:06.640 public debate. He doesn't think life circumstances prohibit sensitivity and 0:01:06.680 --> 0:01:10.880 sound judgment, while other conditions guarantee them. This conversation, by 0:01:10.880 --> 0:01:13.600 the way, comes on the heels of the final episode. Yes, 0:01:13.680 --> 0:01:17.520 ladies and gentlemen, the final hour, there were six of them. 0:01:17.600 --> 0:01:23.360 Hope you all watch of my Nati called America inside 0:01:23.360 --> 0:01:26.160 Out because I don't know if you've noticed, Brian, but 0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:30.480 it's almost in everything we talk about, every subject we tackle, 0:01:31.040 --> 0:01:34.840 there is this heightened sensitivity. And I wondered, is it 0:01:34.880 --> 0:01:40.080 about time many marginalized communities called people out on insulting 0:01:40.120 --> 0:01:44.759 them or on demeaning them, Or have we gotten so 0:01:44.840 --> 0:01:49.040 sensitive you can't say anything in this day and age. 0:01:49.160 --> 0:01:51.440 So I was really interested in kind of the yin 0:01:51.560 --> 0:01:55.080 and yang of this conversation. So in our conversation with Frank, 0:01:55.160 --> 0:01:58.640 we talked about his own life circumstances, about trigger warnings 0:01:58.640 --> 0:02:01.960 and safe spaces and snow flakes and all these buzzwords, 0:02:02.280 --> 0:02:04.880 and about the college campuses across the country that have 0:02:04.960 --> 0:02:09.000 turned into powder kegs, with speakers literally being shut down 0:02:09.080 --> 0:02:11.880 and shut out before they can even speak. I started 0:02:11.880 --> 0:02:15.200 by asking Frank about political correctness, the term itself, which 0:02:15.240 --> 0:02:19.799 I'm almost hesitant to use because it's been co opted, weaponized, 0:02:19.919 --> 0:02:23.440 and politicized since we started hearing the term in the 0:02:23.480 --> 0:02:29.840 early nineteen nineties. It's kind of surprising to me we 0:02:29.880 --> 0:02:32.200 haven't come up with a replacement for it because it's 0:02:32.240 --> 0:02:34.120 just not able to carry all the baggage that people 0:02:34.120 --> 0:02:36.160 are putting on it right now. But yeah, what term 0:02:36.160 --> 0:02:37.919 would you use if you have to do well? We're 0:02:37.919 --> 0:02:41.200 talking about a kind of ideological orthodoxy, is what we're 0:02:41.200 --> 0:02:44.400 talking about. I think when most people talk about political correctness, 0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:49.200 they're talking about an ideological orthodoxy on the left. That's 0:02:49.240 --> 0:02:50.919 what I think they mean. That's I think a good 0:02:50.919 --> 0:02:53.959 way of putting it. Let's start by talking about college campuses, 0:02:54.000 --> 0:02:57.320 because I know you've written extensively about this. In my hour, 0:02:57.440 --> 0:03:00.840 I spent some time at Northwestern and extaposed it with 0:03:00.880 --> 0:03:04.000 the University of Chicago to two different approaches when it 0:03:04.040 --> 0:03:08.400 comes to things like trigger warnings, safe spaces, micro aggressions, etcetera, 0:03:08.560 --> 0:03:11.920 which just miles geographically apart. So very well, totally so 0:03:12.000 --> 0:03:14.280 it was it was really interesting. And you're not a 0:03:14.280 --> 0:03:19.520 big fan of intellectual safe spaces, trigger warnings, microaggressions, etcetera. 0:03:19.560 --> 0:03:22.200 Are you? Is that a safe assumption? That's totally fair 0:03:22.240 --> 0:03:25.200 to say, because I think that I certainly think that 0:03:25.320 --> 0:03:28.160 every campus should be a physically safe environment for students. 0:03:28.200 --> 0:03:30.920 I mean that goes without saying, um. They should not 0:03:30.960 --> 0:03:32.920 have to worry about sexual assault. They should not have 0:03:32.960 --> 0:03:36.280 to worry about being physically bullied or being bullied in 0:03:36.280 --> 0:03:39.760 other egregious ways. But when we're talking about safe spaces, 0:03:39.920 --> 0:03:42.200 and when we're talking about trigger warnings, and even when 0:03:42.200 --> 0:03:45.240 we're talking at times about the prevalence and the spread 0:03:45.240 --> 0:03:48.920 of affinity groups, we're talking about constructing a world for 0:03:48.960 --> 0:03:51.320 students that is nothing like the world they're about to 0:03:51.360 --> 0:03:54.600 go in. And I'm not sure that's consistent with the 0:03:54.720 --> 0:03:57.480 with the mission of college and the greatest use of college. 0:03:57.520 --> 0:04:00.040 So do you think there's snowflakes? I don't like that 0:04:00.200 --> 0:04:02.280 term because I think it's so dismissive and I think 0:04:02.320 --> 0:04:06.000 it takes people. It mashes everyone together from people who 0:04:06.040 --> 0:04:10.440 are offended reflexively by everything uh. And and that term 0:04:10.480 --> 0:04:13.080 I think is meant to connote that, um, but it 0:04:13.120 --> 0:04:15.640 mashes them together with people who are wrestling in a 0:04:15.760 --> 0:04:18.919 very earnest and I think important way with how we 0:04:18.960 --> 0:04:25.120 construct universes that are respectful without being ridiculously uh censorious 0:04:25.160 --> 0:04:27.440 of any kind of speech or any kind of behavior 0:04:27.480 --> 0:04:29.800 that colors outside of somebody's lines. You know, let me 0:04:29.839 --> 0:04:31.880 push back on you a little bit, Frank, because I 0:04:31.920 --> 0:04:34.159 had the same attitudes that you did. And then I 0:04:34.200 --> 0:04:36.760 went and talked to some of these students, and I'm 0:04:36.800 --> 0:04:39.320 not saying I did a total about face, but I 0:04:39.320 --> 0:04:42.159 did come away with a better understanding of some of 0:04:42.200 --> 0:04:46.040 these terms. For example, trigger warning, Uh. To me, it's 0:04:46.080 --> 0:04:48.800 almost like what you used to see before you saw 0:04:48.839 --> 0:04:51.680 a film at the movie theater, you know, whether it 0:04:51.760 --> 0:04:55.320 was G P, g ARE. It's basically a warning that 0:04:55.400 --> 0:04:59.920 some of this content may be upsetting. And young woman 0:05:00.120 --> 0:05:03.800 at Northwestern told me that her professor said, we're going 0:05:03.839 --> 0:05:07.000 to be discussing black face today. Now, that might make 0:05:07.040 --> 0:05:09.680 you uncomfortable, and I just wanted to kind of give 0:05:09.720 --> 0:05:12.279 you a heads up. She said, Oh, no, I'm fine, 0:05:12.520 --> 0:05:15.920 but I really appreciate your thoughtfulness. To me, if that 0:05:16.040 --> 0:05:19.920 is what a trigger warning is, that's perfectly acceptable and 0:05:19.960 --> 0:05:22.960 really just I think an example of being carrying and 0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:25.680 thoughtful to your students, I wouldn't disagree with you. And 0:05:25.720 --> 0:05:27.800 if that, if that were every trigger warning, the problem 0:05:27.880 --> 0:05:29.760 is we don't know what every trigger warning is. We 0:05:29.760 --> 0:05:31.919 also don't know how prevalent they are, so, you know. 0:05:32.040 --> 0:05:35.400 I think one important thing to say in this discussion is, sometimes, um, 0:05:35.440 --> 0:05:38.120 I think we extrapolate from stories that get out there 0:05:38.480 --> 0:05:41.400 and we assume that this is happening onege campuses, and 0:05:41.400 --> 0:05:43.320 it may really only be happening on fifty Now, it 0:05:43.400 --> 0:05:45.440 is a real thing. Trigger warnings are a real thing. 0:05:45.800 --> 0:05:49.880 Safe spaces are a real thing. Um. We may exaggerate 0:05:50.240 --> 0:05:53.760 how widely they've spread. But here's the thing. If trigger 0:05:53.760 --> 0:05:56.160 warnings are a little prevalent, we don't know exactly how 0:05:56.160 --> 0:05:58.480 prevalent they are, if they're not all delivered in quite 0:05:58.520 --> 0:06:01.080 the way that you just described. Does life give you 0:06:01.120 --> 0:06:04.800 trigger warnings? Is it setting up an expectation for the 0:06:04.839 --> 0:06:08.440 way you can navigate the world that's unrealistic, And is 0:06:08.480 --> 0:06:10.360 it sending a message? And I don't know the answer. 0:06:10.360 --> 0:06:13.840 I'm asking the question. Is it sending a message that 0:06:13.880 --> 0:06:15.560 you can go through the world with a kind of 0:06:15.560 --> 0:06:18.640 emotional bubble wrap? And that worries some of us in 0:06:18.680 --> 0:06:20.400 particular because the way a lot of kids have been 0:06:20.440 --> 0:06:24.920 raised today is an extension of this over helicopter parenting 0:06:25.000 --> 0:06:27.400 and over I think I think it might beybody gets 0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:29.720 a trophy. I think it might be and I'm saying 0:06:29.760 --> 0:06:31.720 might be because I'm glad you began the conversation. That's 0:06:31.760 --> 0:06:33.040 where I think we do need to be careful with 0:06:33.080 --> 0:06:35.640 our language. It's so easy in the world of Twitter, 0:06:36.000 --> 0:06:37.960 and in the world of right left media and our 0:06:38.160 --> 0:06:40.320 ed columns like the one I write, it's so easy 0:06:40.360 --> 0:06:43.400 to kind of paint stark realities. It might be an 0:06:43.400 --> 0:06:45.640 extension of that kind of child rearing. It might be 0:06:46.240 --> 0:06:49.120 part of that point. Frank Um. We have a clip 0:06:49.480 --> 0:06:52.280 um from last year of Van Jones from CNN, who's 0:06:52.320 --> 0:06:54.760 also a liberal. He was in conversation with David axel 0:06:54.839 --> 0:06:58.320 Rod on my University of Chicago. I love I've quoted 0:06:58.320 --> 0:07:00.760 this a million times, he says it best. Yes, yes, 0:07:00.920 --> 0:07:03.720 and we're gonna play what he said in response to 0:07:03.760 --> 0:07:08.360 a question about how progressive students should react to ideologically 0:07:08.480 --> 0:07:12.760 offensive speakers on college campuses. I don't want you to 0:07:12.840 --> 0:07:19.600 be safe ideologically. I don't want you to be safe emotionally. 0:07:20.400 --> 0:07:25.640 I want you to be strong. That's different. I'm not 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:29.320 going to pave the jungle for you. Put on some 0:07:29.360 --> 0:07:34.760 boots and learn how to deal with adversity. You are 0:07:34.880 --> 0:07:38.440 creating a kind of liberalism that the minute it crosses 0:07:38.480 --> 0:07:42.360 the street into the real world is not just useless, 0:07:42.400 --> 0:07:48.160 but obnoxious and dangerous. I want you to be offended 0:07:48.280 --> 0:07:51.640 every single day on this campus. I want you to 0:07:51.680 --> 0:07:56.520 be deeply aggrieved and offended and upset, and then to 0:07:56.640 --> 0:08:01.200 learn how to speak back. For rank. All right, well, 0:08:01.240 --> 0:08:03.920 I'm so I'm happy. He doesn't even describe how I 0:08:03.960 --> 0:08:06.320 feel about the fact that you included that clip. I'm exulted. 0:08:06.800 --> 0:08:10.560 I'm I have I have quoted almost all of those words. 0:08:10.560 --> 0:08:12.800 They didn't fit easily, but I've quoted most of that 0:08:13.000 --> 0:08:15.000 in a column that I wrote in The Times. I 0:08:15.080 --> 0:08:17.080 quote them in speeches that I give. I think Van 0:08:17.200 --> 0:08:19.600 says it as well as it's ever been said. And yes, 0:08:19.640 --> 0:08:22.040 he's being a little bit provocative when he's saying your 0:08:22.080 --> 0:08:25.040 liberalism is obnoxious, etcetera. But he does need to use 0:08:25.080 --> 0:08:28.080 strong language to make that point. The point being that 0:08:28.360 --> 0:08:31.160 the world of ideas, the world of knowledge, it's it's 0:08:31.200 --> 0:08:33.080 a rough and tumble world. It's meant to be. That's 0:08:33.080 --> 0:08:35.600 how we grapple and hash our way to the truth. 0:08:35.640 --> 0:08:38.640 And I think everything Van says there's really really important. Well, 0:08:38.720 --> 0:08:41.840 isn't this really about bringing things to the extreme? For example, 0:08:42.000 --> 0:08:44.560 saying a trigger warning for the Merchant of Venice because 0:08:44.600 --> 0:08:47.880 it's anti Semitic, or saying, you know, to kill a 0:08:47.920 --> 0:08:50.800 mocking bird or Huckleberry Finn. Now, how do you feel 0:08:50.800 --> 0:08:54.439 about those two great works of fiction? You know that 0:08:54.600 --> 0:08:59.120 both use the N word. And for African American students 0:08:59.120 --> 0:09:02.000 who want to feel a part of the conversation, want 0:09:02.000 --> 0:09:06.719 to be I think acknowledged and heard. Is that appropriate 0:09:06.800 --> 0:09:11.440 to say, Hey, this language is tough or it might 0:09:11.480 --> 0:09:14.600 make you uncomfortable. I think it's absolutely appropriate and that 0:09:14.679 --> 0:09:18.120 circumstance to acknowledge that this language is in here um 0:09:18.160 --> 0:09:20.520 and might might well offend, and it's coming from a 0:09:20.600 --> 0:09:23.280 much different era, you know, so be prepared for it. 0:09:23.559 --> 0:09:26.840 But I also think here's the problem again, the way 0:09:26.880 --> 0:09:30.880 that said is it actually kind of patronizing and emotionally 0:09:30.880 --> 0:09:33.160 caught Like I, I actually think people are smarter than 0:09:33.200 --> 0:09:35.200 we often give them credit. The college students are smarter 0:09:35.240 --> 0:09:37.840 than we often give them credit for. I'm guessing a 0:09:37.880 --> 0:09:40.680 lot of college students realize they're reading a book from 0:09:40.679 --> 0:09:43.839 a much different era with terms and realities in it 0:09:44.360 --> 0:09:48.360 that don't at all reflect a much more enlightened and 0:09:48.480 --> 0:09:51.240 fair and just era. Um it's probably a good idea 0:09:51.280 --> 0:09:54.160 to give them a warning, but are you sure, kitty, 0:09:54.200 --> 0:09:56.360 they really needed that warning and wouldn't have understood that 0:09:56.360 --> 0:09:58.600 they're reading something in the context of its time, and 0:09:58.640 --> 0:10:00.720 that no professor in the world and putting this on 0:10:00.720 --> 0:10:03.680 the syllabus is endorsing that language. No, of course not. 0:10:03.800 --> 0:10:07.000 But you know, I interviewed an African American sensitivity reader, 0:10:07.040 --> 0:10:09.800 which is another area where we're seeing this kind of 0:10:09.840 --> 0:10:14.920 heightened heightened sensitivity, and she said, you know, people don't 0:10:14.960 --> 0:10:19.080 understand how incredibly uncomfortable I felt, as the only black 0:10:19.120 --> 0:10:21.960 girl in school as to kill a mocking bird as 0:10:22.000 --> 0:10:24.920 the class read this novel. And I think sometimes it's 0:10:24.920 --> 0:10:29.040 just even acknowledging that discomfort is a positive thing. It's not, 0:10:29.360 --> 0:10:32.040 I understand what you're saying in a patronizing way. But 0:10:32.600 --> 0:10:35.600 to hear her talk about that, she frank, I was 0:10:35.679 --> 0:10:39.880 never cognizant. It didn't really cross my mind that she 0:10:40.360 --> 0:10:43.800 When I read this in high school and there were 0:10:43.840 --> 0:10:46.240 some black kids in the class, how did they feel 0:10:46.240 --> 0:10:50.120 about that? I just wasn't within my realm of consciousness, 0:10:50.440 --> 0:10:53.920 which is bad on me, but it made me realize, 0:10:55.280 --> 0:10:58.560 you know, we need to pay attention to how different 0:10:58.559 --> 0:11:01.959 people are receiving the same information. Yes, no, And I 0:11:02.000 --> 0:11:04.080 think it's all a matter of comes back to these 0:11:04.080 --> 0:11:06.120 subtler distinctions of how are you doing it to what 0:11:06.320 --> 0:11:09.520 degree with what sort of message? You know, are you 0:11:09.600 --> 0:11:11.240 not over doing to the point where you're telling someone 0:11:11.240 --> 0:11:13.760 they should be inoculated from anything that might be upsetting. 0:11:14.480 --> 0:11:16.400 I can't speak to what it's like to come across 0:11:16.400 --> 0:11:18.600 one of those words because I'm not black, you know, 0:11:19.080 --> 0:11:21.439 but I mean I'm gay. Um. And to this moment, 0:11:21.440 --> 0:11:26.199 I run across all sorts of stuff from the fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties, um, 0:11:26.240 --> 0:11:28.559 ten years ago that traffic and sorts of stereotypes and 0:11:28.679 --> 0:11:32.480 language that are now understood to be very offensive and 0:11:32.520 --> 0:11:35.240 not used. Um. I mean, I'm older now, but even 0:11:35.240 --> 0:11:38.920 when I was younger, that didn't I understood that I 0:11:39.000 --> 0:11:41.800 was seeing something from an earlier era. I may not 0:11:41.880 --> 0:11:43.880 have liked it, but I'm not sure I needed a 0:11:43.920 --> 0:11:47.120 trigger warning for it. And to your point, Frank, trigger 0:11:47.160 --> 0:11:50.679 warnings maybe a result or emblematic of a big shift 0:11:50.760 --> 0:11:53.520 in the culture that you've written about, where people are 0:11:53.600 --> 0:11:57.560 judged not by the argument they're making necessarily, but by 0:11:57.600 --> 0:12:01.400 their qualifications to make it they're racial or ethnic or 0:12:01.480 --> 0:12:05.520 sexual qualifications. Um, there's a great quote from one of 0:12:05.520 --> 0:12:08.360 your columns that I just want to read briefly. You wrote, 0:12:08.720 --> 0:12:11.600 firmly in cheek, I'm a white man, so you should 0:12:11.640 --> 0:12:14.280 listen to absolutely nothing I say, at least on matters 0:12:14.320 --> 0:12:17.040 of social justice. I have no standing, no way to 0:12:17.080 --> 0:12:19.960 relate my color and gender nullify me, and it gets worse. 0:12:20.360 --> 0:12:22.800 I grew up in the suburbs. Dad made six figures. 0:12:22.800 --> 0:12:25.640 We had a backyard pool from the tent through twelfth grades. 0:12:25.679 --> 0:12:28.440 I attended private school. So the only proper way for 0:12:28.480 --> 0:12:30.960 me to check my privilege is to realize that it 0:12:31.000 --> 0:12:34.200 blinds me. Are you concerned that that's where we're going 0:12:34.240 --> 0:12:37.120 as a society and how do we think about that? 0:12:37.240 --> 0:12:39.240 In a way, I feel like, Frank, we've gone from 0:12:39.280 --> 0:12:43.960 identity politics to identity conversations or identity discourse. Well, I 0:12:44.080 --> 0:12:46.160 it's funny. The other day was talking with a friend 0:12:46.160 --> 0:12:47.439 and I wondered if we were in the era of 0:12:47.480 --> 0:12:50.240 identity journalism, And that was the phrase I used, because 0:12:50.240 --> 0:12:53.520 I read a lot of journalism, especially in opinion sections, 0:12:54.080 --> 0:12:57.320 where the writer is not necessarily making an argument, the 0:12:57.360 --> 0:13:00.400 writer is just saying, this is how I experienced this, 0:13:00.400 --> 0:13:03.199 this thing that happened as a transperson, this is how 0:13:03.240 --> 0:13:05.480 I experienced it, you know, as a black man, or 0:13:05.480 --> 0:13:07.880 as a black woman, or as a Latino woman, like 0:13:08.360 --> 0:13:12.080 and and they're interesting articles, and it's important that we 0:13:12.120 --> 0:13:15.360 have the diverse voices, absolutely, but sometimes they don't say 0:13:15.440 --> 0:13:18.360 much more than that. And I think we have to 0:13:18.400 --> 0:13:21.800 come to a place where we are being even more 0:13:21.840 --> 0:13:25.640 cognizant and even more proactive than we are now about 0:13:25.679 --> 0:13:29.439 making sure we have a diversity of voices, you know, demographically, 0:13:29.520 --> 0:13:33.200 socio economically, racially, geographically, all of those things, because that 0:13:33.679 --> 0:13:37.440 is really important to understand how as many different kinds 0:13:37.440 --> 0:13:40.359 of people in the world. But I don't think, UM, 0:13:40.440 --> 0:13:45.920 we should be judging what is said by um the classification, 0:13:46.000 --> 0:13:48.760 the designation, that taxonomy, whatever of who is saying it, 0:13:49.200 --> 0:13:52.040 independent of what argument they're making. I mean, there are 0:13:52.080 --> 0:13:55.040 privileged white people who have served in politics, who have 0:13:55.120 --> 0:13:58.280 done some of the most trailblazing social justice things, because 0:13:58.320 --> 0:14:00.960 that's that's who they are character a lotically, and there 0:14:00.960 --> 0:14:04.800 are some people from backgrounds of much less privilege, UM 0:14:04.800 --> 0:14:07.360 and people who are not white, who I would say 0:14:07.440 --> 0:14:09.680 in terms of the policies they advocate, what they had 0:14:09.679 --> 0:14:12.480 to the public square are not serving the cause of 0:14:12.520 --> 0:14:15.840 social justice. So you can't judge the quality of someone's 0:14:15.840 --> 0:14:19.520 contribution or the relevance of their contribution based merely on 0:14:19.680 --> 0:14:23.680 gender or gender orientation or sexual orientation, or skin color 0:14:23.720 --> 0:14:25.120 or anything like that. That was the point of that 0:14:25.160 --> 0:14:27.960 tongue in chief thing, because if if Brian had continued 0:14:28.040 --> 0:14:30.560 reading it then said, but wait a second, Now you've 0:14:30.560 --> 0:14:32.840 dismissed me. Now let me tell you something else. And 0:14:34.040 --> 0:14:36.200 who grew up in an era when you had to 0:14:36.200 --> 0:14:39.520 be very, very nervous about this, So now you're thinking, oh, 0:14:39.560 --> 0:14:42.320 he can be sensitized to oppression. The thing is I 0:14:42.320 --> 0:14:44.520 could be a good voice on issues of oppression or 0:14:44.520 --> 0:14:47.000 a bad voice on issues of oppression, having nothing to 0:14:47.000 --> 0:14:48.840 do with whether I've ever been oppressed. I guess the 0:14:48.920 --> 0:14:53.160 big question is have we become so restrictive in terms 0:14:53.160 --> 0:14:55.960 of who can not only talk about said subject, but 0:14:56.040 --> 0:14:59.560 who can write about it, Who can be the creative 0:14:59.640 --> 0:15:05.360 force behind anything that deals with a particular group. I 0:15:05.400 --> 0:15:10.440 interviewed Laura Moriarty, who wrote a young adult novel about Muslims. 0:15:10.480 --> 0:15:14.640 She was worried about the Islamophobia. She saw surfacing in 0:15:14.720 --> 0:15:17.680 the two thousand sixteen election and wrote a novel about it. 0:15:17.720 --> 0:15:20.200 She had too Muslim friends read it. She had a 0:15:20.240 --> 0:15:25.080 couple of sensitivity readers, and the Muslim community not the 0:15:25.240 --> 0:15:27.720 entire I know, I know not to generalize, but some 0:15:27.800 --> 0:15:30.960 people were very upset that it was a white savior 0:15:31.080 --> 0:15:35.120 narrative and that a Muslim wasn't writing about this. And 0:15:35.160 --> 0:15:38.440 it seems to me increasingly, Frank, we're hearing that and 0:15:38.600 --> 0:15:41.400 her fears white people will only be able to white 0:15:41.440 --> 0:15:44.760 about white people. On the other hand, you talked to 0:15:45.040 --> 0:15:48.080 people from marginalized communities and they feel they have been 0:15:48.160 --> 0:15:51.200 kept out. Now the gate has been closed to them, 0:15:51.520 --> 0:15:54.480 and opportunities have not been available to them in a 0:15:54.520 --> 0:15:59.760 whole host of professions and arenas. And they're saying, well, 0:16:00.200 --> 0:16:03.400 this sucks because why should a white person have to 0:16:03.400 --> 0:16:07.520 write about this experience? And I understand both sides totally. 0:16:07.560 --> 0:16:10.680 This is this is complicated stuff. I mean, both of 0:16:10.680 --> 0:16:14.280 those things are true. I want to hear more voices. 0:16:14.400 --> 0:16:16.400 I want to hear more different kinds of voices. That 0:16:16.520 --> 0:16:18.240 is how I learn more about the world. That is 0:16:18.240 --> 0:16:20.160 how you learn more about the word. That is the world. 0:16:20.160 --> 0:16:21.960 That is how we all learn more about each other. 0:16:22.280 --> 0:16:24.720 That is how we help talk to each other. UM. 0:16:24.760 --> 0:16:27.400 So that goes without saying um. And if you just 0:16:27.480 --> 0:16:31.080 assume a white person can illuminate the truth of everything 0:16:31.080 --> 0:16:33.760 and you never concern yourself with the lack of diversity 0:16:33.760 --> 0:16:36.480 of voices, you are oppressing people. You're leaving people out 0:16:36.480 --> 0:16:39.400 of the conversation. But you're also doing the truth and 0:16:39.440 --> 0:16:42.240 the ideal situation a disservice. I mean, it's bad on 0:16:42.280 --> 0:16:46.239 every level. It goes too far though, and it's counterproductive 0:16:46.240 --> 0:16:48.160 in another way to say a white person should never 0:16:48.160 --> 0:16:51.080 write from X perspective or a black person should ever 0:16:51.080 --> 0:16:54.160 write a white person. One of the things that fiction 0:16:54.240 --> 0:16:56.680 certainly does, but I think that journalism does too. Is 0:16:56.720 --> 0:17:00.840 it traffics and encourages empathy. And what is empathy but 0:17:01.000 --> 0:17:03.400 the effort to see and the ability to see the 0:17:03.440 --> 0:17:07.000 world through another person's eyes. Um. I think if you 0:17:07.080 --> 0:17:10.840 say X person can never understand or write why person 0:17:10.880 --> 0:17:13.680 because they're not in that group, you're saying empathy is impossible, 0:17:14.040 --> 0:17:17.680 and you're discouraging the sorts of connections that we really 0:17:17.720 --> 0:17:20.080 want to make. So this is complicated because you have 0:17:20.119 --> 0:17:24.000 to acknowledge that white people have commanded a disproportionate amount 0:17:24.000 --> 0:17:26.320 of the stage and the front of the stage, and 0:17:26.400 --> 0:17:28.439 you need to make sure you push back against that, 0:17:28.680 --> 0:17:30.439 and you need to make sure that's not no longer. 0:17:30.520 --> 0:17:32.400 So I'm not sure the best way to do that 0:17:33.160 --> 0:17:36.800 is to say you cannot right outside your race or gender. 0:17:37.240 --> 0:17:40.080 But how do we deal with moving beyond empathy to 0:17:40.680 --> 0:17:43.880 real understanding? So you don't know what it is, nor 0:17:43.920 --> 0:17:46.560 do I to be treated differently by the police because 0:17:46.560 --> 0:17:49.200 you're black, or to be profiled and an airport because 0:17:49.200 --> 0:17:51.080 you're Muslim. I mean, you can take the position that 0:17:51.160 --> 0:17:53.879 these things are terrible and that we're sympathetic and that 0:17:53.960 --> 0:18:00.000 we wish that they didn't happen. But how should white writers, commentators, politicians, 0:18:00.000 --> 0:18:03.720 sis kind of confront their own lack of experience on 0:18:03.800 --> 0:18:07.520 these issues. Well, journalistically, the way we always have interview people, 0:18:07.720 --> 0:18:09.959 you know, I mean, that's what we do. We enter, 0:18:10.080 --> 0:18:13.240 We interview people who have um who are the products 0:18:13.240 --> 0:18:16.280 of situations and experiences that we can understand. And then 0:18:16.600 --> 0:18:19.320 what we do as human beings as we go into 0:18:19.359 --> 0:18:21.800 our own trove of experiences and all that we go 0:18:21.840 --> 0:18:24.480 into our own ability to kind of imagine beyond ourselves. 0:18:24.800 --> 0:18:28.560 We then take that information um and then we understand better, 0:18:28.720 --> 0:18:32.600 if not perfectly, what's been going on. You can certainly 0:18:33.400 --> 0:18:36.480 articulate if you inform yourself, if you do some of 0:18:36.520 --> 0:18:40.199 that journalism, you can certainly articulate the injustice of it. 0:18:40.520 --> 0:18:43.040 And you can certainly mold some of the solutions without 0:18:43.040 --> 0:18:45.160 having gone through it. And it's important that you can 0:18:45.160 --> 0:18:47.399 do that because most of our lawmakers haven't gone through 0:18:47.440 --> 0:18:49.439 because most of them are white and most of them 0:18:49.440 --> 0:18:52.640 have come from privilege. Hopefully that will continue to change. 0:18:52.640 --> 0:18:54.480 I mean that is changing slowly, and I think it 0:18:54.480 --> 0:18:57.840 will continue to change, and it must. I sympathize with 0:18:57.920 --> 0:19:01.640 college students when Richard Spencer gets invited to speak at 0:19:01.640 --> 0:19:07.880 a university. Yes, white nationalists, I would call him, and 0:19:08.040 --> 0:19:11.159 maybe white supremacist. I think neo Nazi work. Neo Nazi. 0:19:11.200 --> 0:19:15.800 He's a bad guy, yes, And when college students really 0:19:15.840 --> 0:19:18.600 get upset that he's coming there, they do something called 0:19:18.600 --> 0:19:21.760 no platforming. They'll they'll basically shout him down so he 0:19:21.800 --> 0:19:25.160 can't speak. I guess the question is hate speech free speech? 0:19:25.680 --> 0:19:28.360 Should it be kind of like an open invitation even 0:19:28.400 --> 0:19:30.479 if you're a neo Nazi to come and speak at 0:19:30.520 --> 0:19:33.720 these campuses. I don't think so. I'm not a I'm 0:19:33.720 --> 0:19:36.439 not an absolutist. I don't know what the terminology is 0:19:36.480 --> 0:19:39.840 like a free speech. I don't I don't go that far. Um. 0:19:39.880 --> 0:19:44.480 I think there's a world of difference though, between Richard 0:19:44.520 --> 0:19:49.080 Spencer and Charles Murray, who was the you know who 0:19:49.080 --> 0:19:51.360 prompted all that stuff at well, yeah, but he wasn't 0:19:51.359 --> 0:19:53.160 even going there to talk about the middle at middle 0:19:53.240 --> 0:19:54.800 at middle of there. He was going there to talk 0:19:54.840 --> 0:20:00.080 about um work he's done. Subsequently, and fascinatingly, after of 0:20:00.119 --> 0:20:02.439 that all happened, the Times did something brilliant. It was 0:20:02.480 --> 0:20:05.159 just online. I think, I don't know who did well. 0:20:05.359 --> 0:20:08.040 It's such a big organization. I can take credit for nothing, No, 0:20:08.160 --> 0:20:11.199 really for nothing, but they did something. Someone in the 0:20:11.240 --> 0:20:14.359 online opinion universe did something brilliant where they boiled down 0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:17.280 the talking points that Charles Murray was going to make 0:20:17.280 --> 0:20:19.399 in that speech, most of them I think from his 0:20:19.440 --> 0:20:21.520 bookcoming a Part I think I have that right, which 0:20:21.560 --> 0:20:25.159 is on white working class um. And they asked a 0:20:25.240 --> 0:20:29.119 bunch of academics to place the sentiments of his on 0:20:29.240 --> 0:20:32.520 the political spectrum from left to right, like is the 0:20:32.680 --> 0:20:36.080 center is the center left if it's center right, And 0:20:36.119 --> 0:20:38.800 I believe most people placed him dead in the center 0:20:38.880 --> 0:20:41.240 or a little bit center left. This was what he 0:20:41.280 --> 0:20:44.439 was going to speak about at Middlebury, so he was 0:20:44.760 --> 0:20:48.639 no platformed. But if anyone had bothered to really listen 0:20:48.680 --> 0:20:52.000 to him, they would not have heard something beyond the 0:20:52.040 --> 0:20:55.040 pale at all, and they might have heard an interesting lecture. 0:20:55.400 --> 0:20:58.119 But there was a decision made about who he was 0:20:58.160 --> 0:21:00.320 as a person based on the Bell curve. But I 0:21:00.359 --> 0:21:02.440 remember listening to the Chance and they were saying, like, 0:21:02.800 --> 0:21:06.960 you know, racist, sexist, homophobic, go away. Um. The complaint 0:21:07.000 --> 0:21:08.919 about the Bell curve was was that it was racist, 0:21:08.960 --> 0:21:10.919 but I mean it was a key. Was all of 0:21:10.960 --> 0:21:15.119 these terrible things encoded because someone had just decided to 0:21:15.200 --> 0:21:18.240 put that mantle on him when he was coming to 0:21:18.280 --> 0:21:21.480 talk about some ideas, some important ideas that are not 0:21:21.720 --> 0:21:24.080 even far to the right. And you think that that 0:21:24.320 --> 0:21:27.359