Episode 35: Blacks and Democrats: A Failed Marriage, with Dr. Marc Lamont Hill

black communities relationship with the Democratic Party. This is allied with Gianno called well, thank you Dr Mark Lamont Hill for joining me today on all of Gianno called well, a lot of folks know you as a very influential brother on the left for your intellectual Clearly you have your own show and people may not realize that you Before you were on CNN and all those different places. You were on Fox News Channel doing weekly ball Battle with Bill O'Reilly and you did it. Yeah, Bill really

respected you. I remember this one particular clip where he was giving an example about a coke dealer and he said, hey, you look like one, and you said, well, you look like somebody who does coke. Those were the good old days where you can make jokes and people weren't as pc as they are now. So definitely a different place to be, so thank you for joining me again. That's my pleasure, brother, it really is. Man. I always love

a good civil dialogue. I've seen some recent chat on social media's uh, that's what we're here for today, a good civil dialogue. So you you're clearly a prominent voice on the left, You've got a big platform, and I wanted to figure out from you, what do you think thus far Joe Biden's presidency. It's a good question. I first, I say that the Biden presidency is exactly what I

expected it to be. It is a presidency that won't meet the needs of the real left, but it will irritate the right significantly because he's not the centrist that he campaigned on either, And so what you end up with is a presidency that is slightly left of center that problem, which is sort of what it promised to be. But I would argue not nearly as progressive as he promised right, which was to be the most progressive president since l B J or since FDR Right. He ain't that.

But he's also not the right winger that some people on the left was we're afraid he would be. But he's also not the socialist leader that many people on the right are now pretending that he is because of some of the spending that he's doing and because some of the plans that he's trying to enact. Well, I think a lot of folks in the middle, you know, most voters are in the middle. They're more so independent

than anything else. They were told and sold on the fact that Joe Biden was going to be a moderate, and I know you said that, clearly he's not. A lot of folks have said pre election that progressives have said that they were going to drag him to the left, and we clearly see that happening. But what we're not really seeing is any policy specific and direct for African Americans, which is the reason why he's in office today because

of the black vote. Black folks seemingly, especially when it comes to Democratic politicians, seem to always get left out in the cold. They vote for him, they rally for him, but they never really get any tangibles for their support.

Why is that? You know, It's an interesting question. And I'm somebody who sits on the left and I've been critical of the Democratic Party for many years for this, I wouldn't say we don't get anything for Democratic votes but we certainly don't get the kind of race targeted policy and other groups get. We are with political scientists referred to as a captured electorate. We uh, we ain't

going nowhere. The assumption is Black people gonna vote Democrat no matter what happens, and so very little is done to get us to vote Democrat. What's done is to get us motivated to vote at all. So, in other words, if a h Black people come out and vote, somewhere between eight eight and ninety four of them are going to vote Democrat. But if we don't speak to their needs,

you're only gonna get a hundred. If you speak to their needs or or you promise some stuff, maybe three d come out, you'll still get the same percentage, but you'll have a lower turnout. So a big part of what Democrats strategy has been is doing stuff to get voter turnout, but not trying to convince people to vote for them. And that's something that you don't see with the Latino communities for for lots of complex reasons, the biggest of which is just internal political and ideological diversity

among the various types of Latin X voters. White folks certainly aren't trailed with an assumption that they're just going to vote for whoever. And so I think it's it's a big part of the fact. It's largely do rather to the fact that black folks don't have a lot of political options in a two party system where they don't trust the Republican Party and where they don't feel like Republican policy speaks to their needs, and so they end up saying, well, look, I don't trust these Democrats,

I don't like these Democrats. I like some of them, but at the very at the end of the day, I know that they'll do better for me than Republicans, and that becomes, uh, the kind of endgame. And so you don't see the kind of attempt to shift policy or shape policy around African American needs and interests. Well, you know what what's interesting is I did see some some various outreach from the Democrats, especially calling Republicans racist more so than they typically do, which we know that

exists in every election. But because Donald Trump was doing a lot of outreach to African Americans, especially African American men, you saw al what he got in twenty sixteen, which was a percent generally the black vote to percent black men, and this year for African American men who had a high school diploma or below that they voted for him to the tune I believe. So we do see when

there is some policy tangibles. We talked about the first step back in the number of these things that I know folks on the left typically dismiss as real and tangible efforts. We do see black folks say, Okay, I'm willing to give this a shot, give it a chance. But we without any real tangibles. Because I'm from the South Side of Chicago, I've heard the song and thence pretty much all my life. You know, white Democrats are races, so we couldn't get anything done for you. But we're

gonna come back the next election cycle. We're gonna have a fish fry, a chicken cookout, and we're gonna tell you what we're gonna do for you. And nothing gets done. Wouldn't you? Would you advocate for black folks just become an independent versus being in that out which we saw under Barack Obama In two thousand and eight, black folks voted for Barack Obama. You know, it's an interesting question. You asked first let me get to the first one.

I'm not convinced. I don't. I don't concede that black men, particularly educated black men, voted for Donald Trump because of policy tangibles. And I'm not convinced that that's the case. I haven't, uh when I look at so when I when I've interviewed folk and talked to folks, that's not what I get. Now, I don't assume that my experience is I don't confuse my experience for data. So I'm not going to say that, you know, anecdotally what I'm

experiencing is necessarily the whole story. But if I look at Trump's proposed plans and I juxtaposed that to say Ronald Reagan's plans or say Mitt Romney's plans, um, it's not that Trump offered vastly broader or even more targeted policies, um, and yet black men voted for Trump much more. I think that there were several things that play here when

we look at Trump versus Hillary Clinton. I think there's a very complex comm station we have to have about gender, about whether black men are willing to vote for a white woman, and whether they were willing to vote for a Clinton in particular of whether they're male or female at this stage in history, given everything that happened with

Clinton's in the nineties. UM. The second piece of it, though, in the second election of Trump, the second election that he lost, is an interesting connection that many black male voters had to Donald Trump. And there's something about Donald Trump's personalities or something about the way that he navigates the world that does sort of resonate with certain voters. And I'm not sure that it's because of, you know, Trump's vision of school choice or because of Trump's understanding

of the free market. I don't think it's necessarily because you know, any particular policy, as much as as it is who Trump represents, which I think is deeply problematic. But the second part of your your question, I think we is where we probably find some common ground. I don't believe black voters should be have allegiance to the Democratic Party. Now. I happen to be a Green Party member, and I've been a Green Party member almost all of my voting life. I voted for Joe Biden in this

last election. It was the first time since I've been voting for presidents that I can remember that I voted for a Democrat and in an election, and it was for me, it was because of the particular stakes of this election. But I say that the same I'm still able to weigh in on policy, I'm still able to be part of the conversation. I'm still able to drag Joe Biden in the direction that I want them to be dragged. But the Democratic Party doesn't take for granted

I'm going to vote for them. And I think that if black people had that kind of flexibility, it would be fine. But if all black folks are registered independent but they still vote Democrat every single time, then you end up in the same vote. Democrats don't care whether you're registered or not. I mean, it might matter for the primary, but in general, Democrats want are you gonna vote for us? So if a whole bunch of independent black folks still voted for Democrat in every election, I'm

not sure that changed anything. So black folks don't have to just change your affiliation with to actually change how we vote, not just in the national election, but particularly in these local and state wide elections. Okay, do so

do you think folks are gonna answer that call? And and before you answer that question, because you were saying, hey, you don't know the reason why so many voted for Trump if his personality what what the case may be, And and many could argue that the personality was a part of it. Certainly people were attracted to his personality. Is bravado all of that that that alpha male type energy.

So yeah, I can understand that piece. But we also if we're looking at the data just in terms of how well black folks did over four years, by the time he was leaving it was he was up for election. Rather during that time of the election cycle, unemployment in the black community was it is lowest on record five hispanics. These are tangibles. You talk about the deregulation of the

economy and how it benefited everyone. It wasn't just the wealthiest. Again, they would gain more because they pay the most in taxes. But certainly there was some tangible benefits, unlike what we're seeing with Joe Biden, who's regulating the economy and he's coming out with a lot of kind of uh, welfare initiatives if you will, to say this is what I'm gonna do for the black community, when the black community

actually need jobs, not welfare programs. Here's what I following them because you're saying that that the demographic of blackmail voters who voted the most Trump board between earners, of which I said that the original number that I stated with those who had high school diplomas are below overall in terms of black folks, has supported him black men, I believe it was almost My understanding is, and I don't have the data in front of me. That's why

I don't. I don't want to speak with certainty, but my understanding of the data was that the highest slights of black men who voted for Trump were actually those who had higher educational attainment and higher income. Yeah, I don't, I don't have the data to support that that particular conclusion. But but but but so because it's interesting to think about the most vulnerable people are voting for Trump workers, people

who honestly are fairly recession proof. For example, you know, when you look at black men who make over seventy dollars a year, who have graduate degrees or college degrees, they're they're they're not recession proof per se, but they certainly are less vulnerable to the whims of the economy than say, someone with a high school diploma and someone who's making minimum wage. And so I'm always fascinated to know which slices of our population, of of our community

are finding residents with Trump's message. But but again, black voting patterns with regard to Republicans aren't don't necessarily hindle on the economy. So you could look at moments under George W. Bush when the economy was fairly strong, right particularly the first two years of his presidency, and when you when he goes up for re election in two thousand and four and John Carey's on the table, it could have made complete sense to vote for George Bush

based on the economy at that at that time. But they didn't because there's something about George W. Bush that didn't resonate with them. And of course we have nine eleven, we have the Iraq War, we have weapons of mass instruction, there are other conversations going on. Similarly, you could look at the economy under the kind of small government except for the military Ronald Reagan years, and you see a

very interesting voting pattern. Black men are not They're voting for Reagan more than they did George H. W. Bush. George W. Bush, UH and and uh and John McCain, etcetera. But they're still not voting as higher numbers they are for Trump, despite the fact that based on just the economic metrics, you could make a case for it. And so I think it's really complicated. I think that black people are are committed to the Democratic Party as as a cultural move, as a confidence move, and to a

large extent, as as a for policy reasons. But I do think that Donald Trump might be an anomaly. And I wonder and we'll know, and you will certainly know in three years, right when when when these when when we campaigning again and and Republicans are attempting to rest control of the White House again. If Donald Trump runs again, will know, we'll have an answer. But assuming Donald Trump doesn't run, it will be interesting to see if anyone else in the GOP can get the kind of support

that the Donald Trump got. I think it's an anomaly. I think it's I don't see it happening again. Well, there's one indicator that I think that you you you didn't reference there, and that's the fact that Donald Trump has been the only president to my knowledge or really in my lifetime, that has went after the black vote in such a way that it was almost his every conversation when he was running in sixteen. He will be before all white audiences and you will say the Democratic

Party of taking black people for granted. Republicans were afraid to use that kind of language, and they certainly were afraid to be looking to recruit African Americans to support them, and in the same way that Donald Trump did. You don't even see Democrats per sely go after the black

vote in the way that Donald Trump did so. If, for example, he doesn't run for a second goal at it, rather a third go at it, he and the next person to say, if it's rhond de Santas or someone else, they may not go after the black vote in the way that Donald Trump did so, then that would make him an anomalo. So that that's a fair point. I

think you're right. I think it would be so unwise though general like if after watching Donald Trump, despite all the drama, all the messiness of his of his presidency, um secure that much of the Black vote, it would be full foolish for the Republican Party. Whoever, the next standard bear is to not follow Donald Trump's blueprint one at least targeting the black vote and Donald Trump didn't

just do it during the election. I mean, we're in the kind of moment of the called the doctrine of the permanent campaign, which is kind of post George W. Bush, where you're always campaigning. But but Donald Trump was very particularly to say, look, from day one until day whatever, I'm going to constantly be speaking to the black community.

You know, whether it was bringing HPCU presidents into the White House, whether it was you know, meeting at Trump Tower with everybody from Jim Brown to Steve Harvey too. I mean, this stuff matters. Now. I disagree with it as a tactic and as a strategy, as a philosophy, and as a policy move Donald Trump or not just don't see the world the same way. So I don't

agree with him. But if I were in charge of the GOP, or if I were managing the next presidential campaign for the Republicans, I would absolutely say, look, Donald Trump, just because Donald Trump did it don't mean it's wrong. You know, donaldrup did a lot of stuff right tactically, and one of those things was targeting in the black community in the way that he did. And so for me, you know, I I think you're right that if the next person does with the GOP usually does. It wouldn't

be at apples and apples comparison. I just have enough faith in politicians ability to do it's best for them to think that now that they see that it works, that they'll do it. I mean, if you remember, uh guess it's been over ten years and now kind of

time moves so quickly. But after just getting smashed in in an election, Bobby Jendo did the autopsy of the GOP and he's you know, and and and he said, look at where we are, look at what we're doing, look at what we're not doing, and here's you know. And they made other problems. One of them, of course, was the tent was getting smaller. The Republicans too often said we're gonna double down on what's already worked. Trump's

had found a way to do both. He found a way and you and I may not agree on this, but he found a way to appeal to the most racist sector in America at the same time that he said I want some black people on board. I mean, it was it's actually quite stunning how how he was able to kind of speak to the populations that are so desparate and be so successful at getting one side and getting enough of the black vote to make him competitive in every state. That's that takes more than the notion.

You know, I disagree with you on that point, but we'll debate more after this quick break. Let's be clear, there were some people that were racist. Didn't they did like what he said? Okay, that's fair, that's fair. There were some people. There were some people, so that's but that's gonna be the case with Joe Biden's base too. There will be some raceist that say, I like some of the things that Joe Biden says. That happens on

both sides. But if you yeah, But if we're big artists, I think it'll be safe to say that if you were to take the one million most racist people in America and and line them up and ask who they voted for it, would you would you agree that they would that Trump would would would win by landslide. I don't have the people, I don't have any data to

support that conclusion. But if we were to say, a candidate who's using some language that may not be racially sensitive at times, will both of them with be be in that category or are candidate who's literally legislated policy to put as many black men in jail as possible, who's used the N word on the floor of of of Congress, multiple times, whether it be he was repeating what someone said or not. I think most racists would say, hey, give me that person. You don't name Trump or Biden.

They would say, give me that person, and that person would be Joe Biden. Yeah, I think out of context that could be true. But I guess I'm making a different argument. My argument here isn't about whether or not Trump is racist or whether Trump is even intending, and that's not That's not what I'm arguing either. My point is, yeah,

I'm just saying. I'm just saying that if you look, if you go to rallies taking my golf the table for a minute, if you if you if you just if you look at the people who are marching in Charlottesville right for as an example, just I think it would be dishonest to suggest that those people are marching to tear down who are protesting the tearing down Confederate statues, Those people who are anti Semitic, anti black, et cetera. Are also voting also voted for Hillary Clinton, in the

previous election. I think that would be an unreasonable um interpretation. Now whether Trump, I'm not so when I say Trump is appealing to them. I'm not even making at this moment a judgment about whether or not he wants to or not. I'm not making a judgment about whether it's his fault or not. I'm not making it he's more or less racist than his opponent claim at all. I'm simply saying that Trump's campaign and Trump's president seemed to

appeal to those people. Those who made a choice for president. They chose Trump, and lots of other people chose I'm true. I'm not saying that everybody who voted for Trump was racist, but I think if you're a racist, it's much more likely you voted for Donald Trump than Hillary Clinton in two thousand and sixteen and then in two thousand and twenty. I would make the same for Biden. But I have no I make no I do not believe that Joe

Biden is racist. But I absolutely could dissect Joe Biden's career and point out numerous instances where he said some racist stuff, or did some racist stuff, or reported a racist policy. Absolutely I would agree with you a thousand percent. But just to be clear, you know, when we talk about the crime bill, for example, or three strikes or the welfare reformat wealfare reformat, or the prison litigation reformat.

All of these policies that emerged in the nineties, Democrats were in control or but Republicans supported them as well. So for me, it need you don't think you don't think that Republicans supported the welfare wealth reform no wealthfare reform. Yeah, but I don't I don't understand where where that would be institutional racism or racism generally. The ninety four crime bill.

You said holistically, you mentioned a bunch of policies, and you said Democrats supported the Republicans supported them as well. Republicans as a whole did not support the ninety four crime bill. There were some Republicans that voted for, but the majority that voted for that was Democrats. If we look at I don't have the I'm gonna put up the rod call now. But no, that's it's angry. You

can take you can take my word is fact. The majority that voted for the institutional rate because my colleagues a lot of them don't believe in institution racism. I get it. I do. I think it exists. In the ninety four crime Bill, most majority Democrats supported it. I'm not I'm not distributing that, but I'm looking I'm literally looking at the crime deal. Now everybody supported the crime That's not true. It was. It was ninety five years

and four days and one he didn't vote. Were you looking at the you're looking at the Senate right now, look at the House. But I mean, let's and then I was wondering, what exactly are you looking at? Because the majority of folks that voted for it, and who was it? What was the makeup in the Senate at

that time too, That's another consideration. But the majority of the folks, especially when you look at the House of Representatives the word democrats, right, But we're talking about that the Senate where Joe Biden was, right, Joey wasn't in the House, he was in Senate. So my point is everybody voted for it. I'm not. I'm not making a claim that Republicans were more forward. Wait, just maybe we're

talking abow diferent things. You you you you agree that in the Senate nearly everyone, it was nearly unanimous support for the crime bill. You agree with that, right, No, I don't agree with that. I gotta look at that record. I don't think I'm okay. I mean, I'm talking about the majority already stands. The majority party stands. Was the

Democrats supported it. It It was their issue, their bill. Uh. Jesse Jackson, Jackse Jackson went and sat down in the Judiciary Committee and he said this was gonna cause mass incarceration. And he was absolutely right. And he was the spokesperson for the black community at that time, one in which Democrats supported. So with that hold on, I'm confused because this is just a matter of fact. I'm looking. There

were four days and one instention. So again in the Senate, I mean, we can't really disagree on this, right, I mean, this is a matter of fact. Right, Almost everybody voted for it. Only four people out of a hundred said no, that's a fact. You still think that that most people didn't vot for it. Look at the House, Look at the House totals. I'm only talking about the Senate because I'm talking about Joe Biden. I'm saying that Joe Biden. I'm saying that Joe Biden supported it. Right. I agree,

Democrats supported it. Democrats advanced this was a project. In fact, this was one of the policy. But you said Republicans and Democrats everybody voted for it. That would means if everyone voted for everyone in the House and everyone in the Senate would have to have supported it. That is inaccurate. It's factually that's not what I'm saying that I'm saying so clearly we're miscommunicating. So so that we could be

on the same page. I'm saying in the Senate where Joe Biden was, where Joe Biden advance, that was a serving architect in advance a policy that had detrimental impacts on the black community. I agreed, most it was a democratic project. I agree. I'm saying that Republicans also supported it, that this was not a u and I conceded that point from the beginning. I said that there were some

report Republicans that did support it. That's what I said that I said, the majority, the majority that supported the bill, we're Democrats, That's what I said. We're on the same page, right, I'm saying, But the majority of Republicans who were in the Senate also voted for it. We agree with that too, right, I was listening to your point in terms of the majority.

I don't know what the Senate totals are. So if you say that that's the case, but that's still but that's still we're talking about over four hundred people in the House of Representatives. We're still there's still more Democrats supported it than Republicans. So that's the point there. Move on. Yeah, I'm I'm not I'm not just I'm not just agreeing with that. Right, we were on the same page from

the beginning. I said the majority supported it, and some Republicans did supported Sure, but it wasn't just majority of Democrats. I have. I have no dog in the dimocrats. I'm fine saying with Democrats supported I have. That's I'm saying. Yes, I'm that's never been in the street for me. My overall point in saying this is to say that I don't look at the Crime Bill or any of these

other and I did. It wasn't just some of the crime but like I said, the Welfare reformat, prison Lilegation REFORMAC these were all bills that were they all and I was speaking about all four of the bills that a one time that was the other thing. I wasn't speaking just of the House. That's that's not true, because

you lumped them all in there. There you go, right, And what what I'm saying is if we look at if we look at this body of work emerging in the nineties, there were not Republicans saying, no, we should get softer on crime. There were there, they were not. In fact, most of the if you remember, most of the opposition, Republican opposition to these bills were about the details of the bill, not against the premise of the bill. Right as you as you know in Congress, it's it's

the devil's in the details. People saying we don't want pork, we don't want these add ons, we don't we don't want to people Democrats and Republicans sins were smuggling other things on a on a bill that has nothing to do with the thing they're talking about. We saw with the COVID release package. But there were there were not a string of Republicans saying, no, we should we shouldn't, we shouldn't give we shouldn't have welfare from No, we shouldn't be the soft tougher on prisons form. For I'm

not making a case about what I'm making. The case when it comes to legislation and bills is the devil's is in the details, and people put pork in it and things that Okay, got it all right, I understand absolutely, But also but also the Clinton presidency. Clinton was very

strategic and saying. Clinton had a series of policies that he knew would be palatable to the mainstream, and he knew that would um make him seem like a centrist, and and and and Bill Clinton was quite savvy in this, and he understood that the crime bill here said, the string of bills that we just talked about, would be things that would make him look reasonable and tough and quite frankly, in many ways, it was the Clinton campaign and Clinton administration that threw black people under the bus

because they said, well, if if I could be a two term president by governing this way, by by by attempting to govern from the center. Um. Of course they say now they regreted. It's very easy to regret things twenty years later, thirty years later. It's very easy to

regret things when there's nothing at stake. That the question is, do you know, how did you feel when you were when you're in the midst of doing it, and was it just an air of judgment or was it what you wasn't that you did whatever you needed to do to succeed. And so when I look at that, I say, Joe Biden's a little bit of both. Joe Biden's. You don't get to be a career politician. You don't get to be in the Senate for all that time and and not have to make some calculations that are not

ethically strong. Right, you're but you can convince yourself that you're looking big picture. And then there's a way that I think Joe Biden has grown. I think that's way that Joe Biden has been challenged and pushed and made to look at the world differently. And I appreciate that in him, and I think there are a lot of politicians like that. I don't think it's just Joe Biden.

And So when I think about racism, and I think about what it means to live in a country where they're still lingering racism, and I think about who who those people to tend to vote for. They tend not to vote for people who speak about racial diversity. It's not to vote for people who say black lives matter. They tend not to vote for people who want to reform police, you know, all things that Joe Biden has

talked about. Even though again I don't Joe Joe. I happen to think Joe Biden is not strong enough on these issues. I don't. I'm deeply critical of Joe Biden on these issues. But it's hard for me to imagine that someone who supports police votes for Joe Biden if that's their pride, if if they're voting on that issue. Obviously,

people aren't single issue voters all the time. Um, it's hard for me to believe that somebody who cares about the environment, I'm sorry, who who who doesn't believe in global warming for example, or someone who wants to put out the Parents Accords hard to believe they vote for Joe Biden. It's complicated because, you know, voters vote for lots of reasons. That's that's true. People vote for lots of reasons. And I think a lot of people, especially

some prominent black folks. I'm not sure if you know Terik Nashid or not. He's he's been on a podcast he believes or rather he has said that he believes that Joe Biden is a suspected white supremacist, which he has a you know, big following, as you know, and he had he said some very insightful things. He says some really insightful things on the podcast that made me think and say, man, I never thought about it that way.

That's interesting. So when we talk about these policy is very smart, Yeah, very very smart, very very smart, very smart, both a lot of insightful thoughts and comments on lots of issues. Indeed, indeed, now you you were saying that, and I'm not trying to stay on the ninety four crime bill because there's so much other things to be talking about than that, But you were saying that with Bill Clinton. It's interesting how you can say that you regret something twenty years ago. What Joe Biden is in

office right now. It was his crime bill. We've not seen any policy pushed forward in terms of reversing some of the draconian effects of that that crime bill. We saw with Donald Trump, he pulled out the first step back, which was what he said to be the first step and reversing these these negative effects. What are you doing to push folks on the Joe Biden's team on the left to tell him that he needs to right these wrongs that continue to devastate the black community to this day.

You know, Um, for me, the strongest thing we can do is take to the streets and and mobilize our votes. Those are two separate things, right, there's protesting this voting, and for me, both of those things are key. You know, I've met uh and publicly and behind the scenes with many lawmakers in the last few years to talk about these issues. I'm an abolitionist. I believe in the abolition of police and abolition of prisons. So Joe Biden and

I will never be on the same page. But what I can do is make moves and support the types of reforms that aren't antithetical to the project of abolition. In other words, I don't believe in reform as the solution, but I don't I don't oppose reforms that that can make create more livable lives as we fight to produce this new world, this ultimate world, which might we might be decades from, we might be centuries from who knows, But but we have to we have to fight and

live in the world that we're in. Right now, And for me, that means, for example, pushing Joe Biden to say, hey, what about what about cash bail? Pushing Joe Biden saying, hey, what about privately funded prisons, federal prisons. These are things that we pushed them on during the campaign, and it's paid off because he's already saying no, no, you know, no to privatize federal prisons. You know, you know Obama had already said a note to cash bail and uh

in federal prisons. Definitely. We're pushing on, pushing against the death penalty, pushing for retroactive parole, in release for people who incarcerated for for for marijuana in the nineties, who got these draconian sentences under under these various laws. These

are things that we can do right now. And these things that I'm doing to push Joe Biden, but not just to push Joe Biden, but to push state level law making, because so much of the stuff happens at the state level, and we gotta push them to Okay, So I'm hearing what you're saying, and it's two things that pop out. One, Um, I get getting rid of the private prisons, But are you saying that you're are you against all prisons or just private prisons? Against prisons?

I believe in the abolition of prisons. Yeah, so so what do you so? What do you do with the people? Who? Who? And I know you have I'm not sure how many children you have, but I know you have a daughter. So someone tries to do anything to hurt what do you what do you do? You take the law into your own hands or what is it you would advocate to prevent the destruction of life? And what criminal penal? Is there any criminal penalties? Do they go in the

corner for a few hours? And what? What? What? What are we doing? Well? I think there's a lot of um, there's a lot of space between putting someone in a cage and sitting someone in a corner. Right, There's there's lots of ways that we can reimagine the world. Yeah, no, I know what I mean. These are the questions I get asked all the time. Right, is it a slap on the wrist? You know? Do we get people slap

on the wrist or do we you know? And if because people can only think in extremes, because that's how we've been talked to things, Right, We've been We've been only talked to think about the extremes, which are either we lock of people in cages for years or decades or their whole life. Are we kill them or we do nothing? And Um, the first thing I say to you, because it's it's an it's an important question you're asking, UM, the first thing I say is, well, I don't think

about this purely in those extremes. Right the bulk of the cases, the bulk of the people sitting in prisons right now aren't there for violent crimes. The bulk of people in prison aren't there as serial killers and rapists and murderers and etcetera. Right if they were, there are two point five million of those, we might be having

a different conversation. So I think about, um, the various ways that the prison is used right now to cage people, uh, for crimes of need, for crimes of addiction, for crimes of of mental illness, for crimes of homelessness, for crimes

of poverty. And the first thing that we always talked about is investing in the world in such a way that those crimes are not necessary, That people aren't stealing to eat, that people aren't stealing to live, that people aren't selling drugs out of this session, that people are using drugs to treat mental illness UM, and that we understand drug addiction as a mental as a mental as a mental as a medical problem, rather than as a

as a criminal problem. So part of what we have to do is really is a strip away are the logic of criminalization, so that we don't always criminalize everything. I'm still getting to your crazy serial killer question. I'm just I'm just explaining that that that's the which is because I think that's the right question. No, I think it's the right and fair question because people aren't scared of the person steals a TV in the same way to scared of the person who might sexually assault them.

So I'm I'm with you. I don't want you to think I'm avoiding your question. I'm just saying I think that we tend to only thinking those narrow terms right of of what happens to that small slites of people in prison for that, UM, I think about so so. So it's about that. It's about imagining what the world would be like if we had uh decarceration. For me, prison never listens about decarceration. It's about saying how can we empty the prisons now? And during COVID we saw

lots of signals as to how that's possible. A whole bunch of people didn't get A whole bunch of people did do their time. We let them out. They were aging, they were dying, they were sick, they want to threat to society more, and we said, you know, we can let these people out. We did it for health reasons, but the truth is we could have done it a year prior with with the same consequence. Right they were. They weren't more or less of a danger because of COVID.

We let them out because they weren't really threat to society anymore. So we have way more people caged than we need to. We cage people when they don't have enough money to pay for their bail. So essentially you're in jail because you don't have enough money not to be in jail. That's an evil system. You should that's it. Sinmily becomes a debtor's prison. So we can decarceerate that way.

We can decarcate by giving people suspended sentences by right by doing work release, by doing community based um action, community based dispute resolution as opposed to adjudicating things in courts and lead to prison. We can empty out so much of the prison without separating fathers and mothers from their families, without breaking down communities, without stripping away so

much of what we need excarceration. As an other part of what I'm talking about, um, it means that some of the party because part of your questions is what do we do when people commit crimes? But remember crimes of social constructs? Right? Okay, I mean, I mean they are right. You would agree that everything you there's laws that are past and people feel whatever it's criminal behavior, they provide a punishment for it. Okay, got it. So you agree that crimes is a social construct They're created

by people, They're created by lawmakers. You laughed at you don't want your audience, No no, no, no, no, no, no no no, because I'm listening to where you're going with it, because okay, let's let's continue. I want to hear. I want to hear you. I want to hear. The reason I'm saying that, because so much of our attachment to things once might commit to crime, is that many of the things that we as a society agree on

his crime shift from time to time. For example, when you when I was growing up, Um, if you told me somebody was smoking weed, we oh my god, you know what I mean. Now it's like you're smoking weed? Do I mean? People joke about it, people talk about it. You can you can run for president. I mean even Bill Clinton inhaling with he had to lie about it. How much Weedy spoke just to be president? Right, And it was like wink wink. But like now, if you

told me somebody smoke we nobody would trip about it. Right. So, but that was a crime, and and and so learning to read was a crime for black folk at one point, right, black people and white people getting married was a crime at one point in history. So so what I'm saying is just because it's a crime doesn't necessarily mean that we have to punish it. We can reimagine what crime is and say, okay, is everything that we consider a crime actually something that we as a society want to

commit to punishing. Now, some things I think in any juncture in history we might say should be a crime, there are other things a hundred years ago that should have been crimes that worked. I mean, there was a time where you could beat slaves legally, right, that should have been a crime. Uh. You know, sexual assault, particularly among married people did not exist. That should have been a crime. So I'm not. You know, lynching or lynching was act and legal, they just didn't care. But so

my point is I'm not. My point is that crime is people don't commit crimes. They commit acts, and then society decides whether these things are criminal or not. So another piece of this X carceration is making the is making the determination about whether or not all the things that we call crimes need to be And I'll give you a concrete example. Uh, smoking crack. Right, you grew up in Chicago, you had crackheads as they called them, Right,

they call people crackhead. The crackhead was seen as somebody who was not just making a bad choice, but somebody who was a bad person. Juxtaposed crackhead with the cocaine. Right, you could have a cocad lawyer, You can have a cokehead accountant. You could have a cocade holding that goes to college when you gets high and he goes to class the next day. And we didn't we would say, yo, he's making a bad choice. But the crackhead was a

bad person. So it was much easier to imagine taking of one addicted to crack and put them in jail, because because that's where bad people go. Then it is to take that that that rich guy sniffing coke in his office before he goes to a board meeting, right, And that's abound race. That's about classes, about gender, it's about lots of stuff. And so my point is we have to strip away some of our some of these ideas we have about crime. You know, do we really

do we need to criminalize sex work? Do we need to criminalize two people in the corner shooting dice? Because there's plenty people some Sich Chicago shooting dice and you don't care about that when you walk past, and you don't really think they need to be in jail for for illegal gambling. But it's still illegal. So we have to ask ourselves are all these crimes on the books um necessary? But then there's this thing you that you're

talking about, which again I don't want to ignore. And for as an abolitionist, is what I call, or not what I call. It's what abolitionists have called and what I echo restraint of the few. Yes, there are people in society who need to be restrained from society. They do. I grew up with them kind of people. I grew up in a hood. It's people You're glad they somewhere else. I've seen people kill people. I've seen people do extraordinary harm to people, and it's not because they're poor. Sometimes

it is, but sometimes it's not. It's people who have means, who have resources. There's sometimes people just do bad ship. And it is not my contention that we put them in the corners. That my contention that we give a slap on the wrist. But the question is is there a way to have restraint of the few in a way that actually makes those people whole again and makes the people they harmed whole again outside the logic of the prison. And you might say, well, why, Well, because

the prison doesn't work. The prison doesn't actually rehabilitate. The prison actually produces more crime. The prison actually makes it is criminal genic. It actually makes people worse than when they you go to prison for one thing, you learn how to do more crime you in there. The prison is unsafe, the printed, the prison creates more untreated trauma. So for me, it's I'm not I'm not against developing a system of restraint of the few for the purpose

of restorative justice. But the prison isn't the only model. But even if you say, all right, Mark, that's a distinction without a difference. You still, whatever you call it, you're putting people away for some time. Let's tall you that's true. I don't agree, but let's say that's true.

That's still would reduce the prison population from two point three million to maybe a few hundred thousand, which for me, would be the ultimate way to undo the violence of the crime bill, the violence of the prison litigation, re format, the violence of the war on drugs. That's that's and I know that's a long answer, but that that would be my knowledge. Yeah, So it was so important to hear you out in your concept and your analysis failing. And I wanted to make sure that I didn't interrupt.

But let me say, and I know that you're a very smart guy, but my opinion of this and this has not been you just pushing it. There's been a lot of people pushing the same concept on a national level. I'll tell you, I think it's an intellectually bankrupt concept. And i'll tell you why. So you talked about coming from this South side of Chicago, talk about my best selling book, Taken for Granted. My mom was one of

those quote unquote crackheads that you you just referenced. I recognize that she isn't a bad person and wasn't a bad person. Then, However, there are people who are quote unquote crackheads, didn't do criminal behavior, and they abuse their family, They rob people, they steal from people, and they may murder someone just to get a hold of that drug to get in their pocket. Those people deserve jail time.

When you think about the fact that I'm telling you, if you're gonna murder somebody that deserves jail time, if someone shoots you, so one murders you, your family is gonna want to get justice. Just like with George Floyd, his family wanted justice, America wanted justice. Let me ask you just a client, Frank, because because my premise was if we invest in the world, I agree. But most people who most people who do who are doing crime as crack addicts are doing so as crimes of addiction.

You'd agree with that, right, Like you said, they steal, they robbed, they do the stuff. I mean people, it's like steeling your VCR in the nineties. It's not because they just like to steal VCRs and they tell them to get right. Yeah, they were selling still in all, Still, in all, there's someone being disenfranchised by that action. So that that's that's what I'm saying. Let me finish this point really there. So the same philosophy that you're you're

pushing is being pushed on the national stage. So I won't even say as your philosophy. I'll say that is being pushed on the national stage. There's people like Kim Fox, she's the Cook County prosecutor in Chicago right now, who's moving about life with this very same philosophy. She has since she's been in office, over the course of three years, has dropped all charges. And I'm talking about felony counts, real legitimate felony accounts, which are up to murder, all

charges for twenty nine point nine of defendants. That's about twenty five thousand people. This is not made Chicago more safe. My little brother in a car Memorial Day weekend, seen in the car with two of his friends. Uh yeah, two of his friends just sitting on the street talking. That's it. And that's all they were doing. Two men walked up, shot the car twenty five times. His best

friend died in his arms. Should we reimagine the punishment for the shooters because it was two shooters at that point. Should we say like, oh, well, maybe they don't deserve jail time, or we have to think about this differently. No, people want justice. My little brother wants justice. His best friend died in his arms and he could have been dead.

I would want justice. So there has to be a place for the bad people to go for those who refuse, and there's gonna be people who refuse to obey the law. There's not gonna ever be a time where we can just say, hey, you can be rehabilitated. Some people, simply put, cannot be rehabilitated. They have to face some harsh consequence in order to turn theirselves around if they were to choose to do so. Would you not agree with that?

I would disagree with almost everything you said. Well, I reject some of the premises, right, So again you said that you're asking why why shouldn't those people get justice? My premise, I'm not sure. I never argue that people shouldn't get justice. What we're disagreeing is what justice looks like, right, he'd not go to jail. Derek Hilman shouldn't go to jail in your in your argument? Is that right? Yeah,

that's my argument. So you're saying Derek Chauvin should not be in jail for uh, what he did to George Floyd. You're I mean, if I don't want to get into a sound bite thing, you understand that we're speaking about in the ultimate you're talking about right now, in this very moment, are you talking about in an abolitionist world? You're saying, you're arguing, generally speaking, the jails shouldn't exist. That's right or no? Yeah, okay, I'm saying in this world,

hold on, hold on. You also remember me saying that we have to also to navigate the world we're in. Then it could it could decades or even centuries to build the world that I'm talking about. Remember that part. So let's just say it takes decade. Let's let's just say one decade, because that because that would be it becomes a disignest conversation because what you design is you don't want to mention it. Has it dishigonness? Are you being intellectually dishonest and I don't know. I'm trying to

understand your point. You don't believe in jail. What I'm saying is it becomes misleading to the audience because the way they walk with a headline saying makoel moont Hill says Derek Schulman shouldn't be in jail, as opposed to saying markol mont Hill is saying that we should we should construct a world that would that would deal with these issues in a different way. I also said that people who are a threat to society should be restrained

and held out of society. I just think the model should look different than the prison as it's currently constructed. I also said that, And so to take all that away and just walk away with markol Monthill said Derek Shulman shouldn't go to jail, I think that was a misrepresentation of what I'm saying. You say you clarified your point because you said, oh, yes, that's what I'm saying. So you just clarified your point. Fine, we we we we You move on from that, But I begin with that.

I began with that. I began by saying that again, this could take centuries to create. I began by and I also began. But I also began by saying restrain of the few doesn't mean that people just go home. It doesn't mean that we get people slaps on the wrist, but that we reimagined how we can do it, but that the goal is restoration and rehabilitation rather than simply punishment. Also, I also never suggested that people shouldn't get justice. What I said is that justice may look different if we

have other models outside of just the prison. Right, I'm talking about restorative models. I'll give you an example. Someone shot the president, right, Ronald Reagan gets shot. All right, there's a fact he wasn't putting, he wasn't sent to prison. It's also a fact. You're not disputing any this, right, No, no, okay. So it was determined that he had mental illness, and so for decades he got treatment, he got care, he got medicine, he got scoping strategies, he learned how to

navigate society. And this man is now where back in society, reintegrated. But he didn't sit in a cage for thirty years. This is my point. So it's it's so and so yeah, but so yeah, we could we could have a cheap headline of you know, he says, you know, the person

shoots the president shouldn't go to jail. We yeah, but um, But the more nuance and sophisticated conversation, I think is to say, what did that set of services do for him that still kept the public safe, that still held him accountable, but but allow him to re enter society better than when he left. That's what I'm looking for, and and and and remember I also began by saying, we have to invest in the systems that, um, that

that create the problems that we have. So again, if somebody is addicted to drugs and they're stealing because they don't have drugs, part of why they're stealing to get drugs because they don't act us to them. Right, Drugs are illegal, they're they're they're poorly regulated, they're they're unsafe for that reason, and you have to live in the underside of society to consume a lot of them. Right, You can't just go and do heroin like sitting on

sitting on the steps or so. And many people are unhoused, and and so what would what would the world look

like with safe injection facilities? What would the world look like with with the with the decriminalization of these drugs, What would the world look like if we invested and create a social safety net so that so that the people who are the poorest among us still have resources for a living wage at the same time that I would say, just to use example, with your with your your your beloved mother, I don't want her to stay there. I'm not saying that we should give our living wage

so that she can buy drugs. I'm saying, give her a living wage at the same time that we're we're supplying drug counselors and drug treatment, and we're treating it like a medical problem rather than rather than a criminal problem. That's all I'm saying. So I'm not saying ignore the fact that the person just stole your TV. I'm saying, let's create a context where someone doesn't have to steal t vs to deal with a medical problem and a social problem. That's what I'm saying. So I'm not trying

to ignore what happens when they steal the TV. I'm saying, let's try to prevent the stealing of the TV through these other investments, But that doesn't change the fact that somebody's going to steal the TV. Right, everybody isn't going to follow this the rules. There's going to be somebody who steals the TV, either because they need to or because they just want to. Some people are just suck up people and they just want to steal TVs. Let's

let's let's accept that. I'm saying, though, if General Carbon steals my TV, I don't want you to put it in here. I want you to make me whole again. I want I want you to restore me to where I want right. But potentially yes, and it could look like buying me another TV, but it could look like a few other things. And I'm saying that that also has to be part of how we think about this. And if we do, if we do those processes, then the Derek Chauvin's of the world, or the Dealing Roofs

of the world, Right, these are awful people. They can be dealt with through mechanisms that we can create in society. There's no way you're gonna tell me de Laruf is sane. There's no way you're gonna tell me a child molester is sane. There's no way you're gonna tell me a serial killer, the Boston bomber it's sane. I'm saying that they need mental mental mental health treatment as much as they need to be kept out of society. We can imagine alternatives to the prison that that doesn't mean that

you don't get justice. Okay, we're talking to Dr Martin Lamont Hill. We'll be back in a second. Let me ask you about this because you know we're we're in a place where, uh, being woke is. I remember when woke was a thing, it was just kind of more among the black community. But now being woken seemingly everybody's thing and whatever the general the purpose of being woke was has been usurped to something else altogether in my view, So I want to ask you about wokeness and social justice.

I recently saw a story about Coca Cola urging its employees to be quote less white as a part of their company's diversity training program. Do you support that kind of thing in the workplace? At what point do we get to woke? I still don't know what woke means. I'm still very confused at what people mean when they's here, and I mean, that's that's not me being silly a core or like I feel like it's the term, like you said, that has been co opted so much that

I don't I don't know what it means to people. UM. For me, woke at least what Erica used to say it, you know, stay woke and all that. For me, it was about being socially conscious. Woke was about being aware, it was about it was about being aware of who you are is and having knowledge itself. Now woke to me, it is about playing into some real narrow thin liberal

politics that I don't necessarily share. UM, And so watching core operations or or media outlets or whatever co op that language to look like that that they're part of the diversity, equity and inclusion game, which is really about um posturing and making themselves accessible to more money, uh and resources. For me, I have, I have very little. I have very little trust or I put very little

credence in those in those efforts. Yeah, so would you would you agree that, uh, the Coca Cola really advocating for his employees to be less white would be a form of racism that advocating for their employees. Yeah, that's what they said. They im sorry, I'm asking for claring. You say the one the employable this way? Do you mean demographically or to act less one no, no, no,

to act less white, to act less white. I think that that's uh a very The language is so ambiguous that I think it can it can potentially do harm. I can understand the context in which that would make sense, and I can understand the context on which that would be problematic. I don't think it's racist, but I think that it can. It's wildly insensitive and deeply irresponsible. If it's if it's unless it's given extraordinary context. And even in that context, I would say, is that really the

best way to make that happen? So if if you and I were a part of a corporation, let's say Apple or whatever, and they can't no, no, no, Let's say we work for Sea Pack, if you will. Let's say we work for Sea Pack and we were in the room with our white colleagues and they said, listen, you and Mark need to be less black. Would that be considered racist or would that just be uh, deeply disturbing the premise of the question the answers the answer

your questions, Yes, would be racist. And the reason why there's a difference is because black and white aren't opposite sides. Of the same coin. Surely it's surely if if when when, when you're again, you're from Chicago, you know all about the Black Panthers, when people stood up and said black power. Surely you don't think that that's the same thing is somebody sending up and saying white power? Right? They words have different meanings given the context and the histories that

they come out of. Black and white are opposite sides of the same coin. One has normative power, one has state power behind it, and so when and so again. I don't know the context which Coca Cola is saying it. But if if I asked you, if I said, Gianna, what do you love about being black? I think that there are certain answers you would give. Right, you can talk about all the ship you like about being black. Right. If I if you walk to white person, what do

you love about being white? Right? That's a very different question. Not what do you love about being Irish or Russian or Polish or or whatever, but what do you love about being white? And the reason why it would be an uncomfortable question to ask someone is because of what whiteness means in our social world and with the social and political meanings attached to white nest. So it's not the same thing. And so when you ask me, well what if a white person did that, Well, the context

is different, you know what I mean. Similarly, if um, you're I don't know if you're part of blex it or not, but you know if but if somebody says there's a Blexit, that's not the same thing as a wex it. If white people said, you know, all the white people need to lead Republican the Democratic Party, that ship would be profoundly different than saying all the black people need to leave why Because there's a history and a context for why black people need to leave the party.

The Democrats have served white liberals quite well, and white people aren't under or under attacking the Democratic Party, right, So so a wexit would be a very different kind of move. And so we could look at this across across the board and say, well, yeah, that's why we don't have white history model, that's why we don't have w E T for a for a TV network because

these things aren't necessary in context. So when I hear them say so, so part of what whiteness, part of what we've learned, and part of what we talk about with regard to whiteness is whiteness is is when people is when we say we're trying to rid ourselves of whiteness. Typically what that means is white privilege. Typically what that means is being at the center of the cultural experience at all times, being at the center of the the intellectual experience at all times. And so to so what

I use the language be less white. No, I would not, But I wouldn't assume that that means the same thing as being less black. They don't mean the same thing. Yeah, but that that that's that's your interpretation of it as you as you would say. They said, be actuively. But but here's the distinction too. You talk about how do you feel about being black? Um, I can ask my friend Connor, for example, how do how does it feel being an Irish American? Or how does it feel being

an attack? No, no, no, no no, no, you didn't say that. I'm saying. I'm saying you said about you know, how does it feel about being black? That was your example. I'm saying I did not say, did not say that that? No, I said, what do you like about it? What do you like about? Being very specific? Okay, what do you like? It is important. I'm not I'm not being pedantic. The distinction is important because liking something about being white when white is born out of a certain kind of power

and privilege. It's hard to say what you like about being white? What what if you like to be white? Is different what you like about as white prisons? What do you like about being white? And see what kind of responses you get? What do you think a white person would say about your white friends? I have white friends. What do you think a white person said, what do you like about being white? Not about your ethnicity, but

about being white? What do you think they say? Yeah, I've never I've never had that discussion before, so I wouldn't I would know. I barely like I barely hear black folks saying what do you like about being black?

I don't really hear that. And I'm just saying, if we're talking about equality and we want things to be the same for everybody, if we wanted to be uh even bored, if you will, then one would say, if I'm gonna tell you be less black, which we know you and I both know that there's been corporations that I've done this there's been supervisor just said, listen, you should be less black. Therefore you would be more appropriate for us, so you would be more accepted by us.

If we're saying that that's racism and that's wrong, than being saying be less white can also be viewed as racist and wrong. I get what you're saying. I hear, I hear what you're saying. You're looking at it through the context of uh context. It's a different context. It's a different it's a different context. But that your context doesn't necessarily mean that it's right. Just because you have a different context. I can I can look at a glass that has water, and then I can say that

glass is half full or is half empty. That's that's context, that's the distinction. But either way, it's still a glass would water at a particular level, right, And I'm saying something different. I'm saying because those are objective measures. There's a certain amount of water in the glass, and and it's and it's and and my perspective may shape how I describe it, but there's still an objective amount of

water in the glass. What I'm saying is that the very idea of white and black aren't objective in that way that they're not flat objective categories. They're categories and ideas and identities that emerge out of history, and they emerge out of politics, and they emerge out of social meaning. And so when we make social meanings about things, they don't necessarily mean the same thing. And so, and even an example you just gave when I tell somebody, this

is what I said. If you would ask a bunch of black people, what do you like about being black? You don't think that. I think. You go on Twitter and find a hashtag what I like about being black? You can find million people tell you all the ship they like about being black. Right, you don't find white people in general talking about things they like about being white that aren't about and if they do, it's from

You'll you'll see some very interesting answers. And I'd like you to do this and anyone else listening to this as an experiment as white people, what do you like about being white? Not about being Irish or any other ethnicity, Italian? What have you? What are you like about being white?

And the problem is it creates a discomfort because whiteness is often defined or the things you like about being white or often in opposition to what black people don't have or to what other people don't have, because whiteness is about a power relationship, just like blackness is about a power relationship. And so that's why I'm saying it's different.

And so when you ask, when you when if somebody says that you be less black, like you said, they're saying you need to hide that society has decided are wrong and bad in order to achieve right. Don't talk the way you talk, don't move the way you move, don't dress the way you move, do a dress the way you dress, don't do the things that you do culturally or don't don't identify in the world with the

people that has been despised. Yeah, you're right, that would be racist when they tell you don't be white, when they said don't don't act white. And again I'm not saying it's okay. I'm just saying it doesn't necesarily to be racist. Everything is not the same if I say, um, actless white. A lot of times just saying, at least in experiences that I've had where this has been said, they're saying, be more culturally sensitive, listen to other people,

decenter yourself. Can you just say that I agree with you. I said there are other ways to do it. I'm not I'm not. What I'm saying, though, is the sentiment behind beat less white is not the same as a sentiment behind beatlist like they're not the same thing. I agree with you that there are better ways to deliver it. I agree with you that this is not a helpful or healthy way to build community. We're on the same page that you shouldn't do it. But just because you

shouldn't do it doesn't mean it's racist. Okay, all right, UM,

I hear your point. Now, let me ask you about something because we were talking about walking this right now and we're seeing and to your point where you were saying, hey, you shouldn't be like this like that, and you're using your example in your descriptor for black people be less black, I would I would argue that they're the same thing is occurring with white people, with a lot of white people saying, hey, I hate my white skin and I hate um what has happened in this country and what

I what I might me being white has has done to this country, and that that's a whole another set of issues and probably self hatred because obviously these are people ancestors and not them actually committing the acts. But there was a guy by the name of Andrew Gutman who head is I believe it was his daughter in a private school in New York City, and he recently took her out, and he wrote a letter to to

UM six hundred parents about what they were teaching. And in the letter and some of the things he said in the letter I disagree with. I want to read this part UH here what he said, object to the idea that blacks are unable to succeed in this country without the aid from government or from whites. He disregards the view that blacks should be forever, forever regarded as helpless victims and are incapable of success, regardless of their skills, talent,

or hard work. And he believed that's what they were teaching in the class. And I think to some degree a lot of people can agree with that statement in terms of UH saying that, hey, you, because you're black, you can't be as successful. And I grew up with people saying that to me that I can only go so far in life because of the color of my skin. I'm talking about black folks telling me that exact same thing. And these are things that are passed down, theories that

are passed down from generation to generation. I understand that their systems against us. I understand the history of this country. I get all those things. But for us to form our mentality around we can't succeed because of the color of our skin. It's not just a dangerous concept, it's one that provides um that we're incapable of any success whatsoever. So what do you do if you believe that you

can't succeed doing things the right way? You you get involved in criminality, You pretty much story your life away. You don't believe in education because hey, I'm not going to succeed regardless because of the color of my skin. Are you seeing that in this woke culture? Now? Are you? Are you? Have? You are familiar? You're not seeing that at all? Have you never heard of any of this? No? What I what I've heard in my experience in the

forty two years I've been on this planet. Um is uh more black people acknowledging this is no internal conversations that it happens. White people are engaging in it as well. They're saying Hey, we need to bring about qutches because there's no way you can succeed because you're black. That that that does exist. We see that very little. Yeah, I'm just saying, you asked me about my experience. Experience. I get an example. I went to Cook County Jail

with Jesse Jackson. Of time, since you missed Jesse Jackson, you would agree that Jesse Jackson, someone who talks about systemic racism, right, and and and black people having a tough way to go. Jack is not shy about criticizing racism and calling out racism. Right. So we go to the jail and he says, to the incarcerated brothers, how many of you are here for a non violent drug offense? Hands go up? Almost everybody, right, systemic stuff, He says,

how many of you finished high school? Almost no hands go up? He said, how many of you have kids? Hands go up? Two kids, hands go up, three kids? Whole bunch of hands up. He stopped asking, So how many of you are here under twenty five years old? A whole bunch of hands go up? So about young black men, systemic drug crimes, kids, broken schools, the whole nine. But he just asked questions. He says to him, how many of you I want to get out of this prison or his jails? She is, how many you want

to get out of here? They raised their hands. He said, how many you'll want to leave his place? He said, yeah, how many you'll want to shut this prison down? Everybody raised their hand. They said, what do we do? You know what he said? He said, don't come back no more. He said, don't come back no more. Jesse Jackson as a critique of society. It's a critique of the drug war.

He is a critique of broken schools. But when he met with those young men, what he said to them was, if you want to shut this thing down, don't come back no more. You're from Chicago. I'll give you another example, Elijah Mohammed, and I don't you Mohammed. He said, we have to starve the system. Nobody would ever say the Nation of Islam doesn't have a critique of racism. But what he said was, we have to starve the system

by cleaning ourselves up. So when you look at Marcus Garvey, when you look at do Boys, when you look at book or t when you look at Malcolm, when you look at King the argument and our tradition, the churs and I've been a part of, is not to ignore that we got work to do and that we need to do better, and that we need to act right. But it's to balance the need for act right with the realities of a system in which we need to

act right. And so when I hear people say the system is messed up, there's a conspiracy against us, they're trying to kill us, they're trying to arrest us, they're trying to push us out of school, they're trying to etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. The the endgame has never been to just concede to that. It's to understand, as Ratcas used to say back in the nature of the threat, it's to understand what you're up against so that you can fight and win. So when I meet with young black men, I say, yes,

there is a conspiracy against you. They want you go on, they want your erase, they want you silence, then want you marginalize. But I said, the next question is are you going to be part of the conspiracy or are you going to fight the conspiracy? And that's how I think about this work, and that's what I've always heard of our tradition. The system is sucked up, but you gotta act right, and that's the only way we can succeed.

The system is left up, but you gotta right. Yeah. Wow, let me ask you this question because I really want to ask you about this. And you know it's about racism because you mentioned Jesse Jackson. You said you you know he talks about racism all the time. Yeah, of course, racism exists, and I personally don't believe it. It will never not exist. I think hate will always be with us, whether it be hate against Hispanics, hate against White's, hate

against blacks, whatever the case may be. I think hate is is here to stay. I don't think that that's gonna change at any point until Jesus come. Maybe then you know that that are changing. And I'm not sure how you feel about Jesus and one on that, but you see racism continuously being used in ways like I saw that. It was a a transgender woman who says, for those who say that we shouldn't have um biological men playing in women's sports, that's the new form of

white supremacy and racism in this country. Uh. You you have a home, I know you might be in your home right now, you have a master bedroom. Right. People are saying that master bedrooms, the phrasing of that is racist. People are saying that trees are racist. People are saying a lot of different things and a lot of a lot of cases. What I'm seeing now it has nothing to do with black folks and legitimate racism. White liberals have usurped what true and real racism is for their

own agenda and their own benefit. And we got policymakers like Joe Biden who no longer speaks to black people in terms of direct policy. He's saying minorities. Um, do you think that the liberals, like really far left liberals or even just liberals in general right now, have usurped these not even concepts, but what has happened with racism, and they created their own agenda to the kind of fuel whatever they want to target and push forward in

their own life. No. Um, I think that if we have a look at the grand swoop of history, they've always been these kinds of tensions and debates. They've always been these skepticisms of white liberals and criticisms of white liberals, very skeptical of white liberals, Yeah, he should have been. Um. And so I don't think this is some new movement as much as I see part of the tension of freedom fighting, part of the challenge of of of having

moral and political political clarity. What are we fighting for? What is the endgame here? What is it supposed to look like? Um? Is every fight worth fighting for? Now? You and I might disagree on whether these things are, these terms, these moments, these movements, these controversies, these stories are racist or not. I mean, that's almost not even the point, right Uh. Um. The question is who gets

determined what the thing is? And I think too often we have surrendered um our power to define, in our power to lead our own meeting freedom movement, to other people, including white liberals. We've allowed too many people to shape the discourse or to tell us who we're supposed to be and how we're supposed to be. And for me, the best thing we can do at this junction in

history is to rest that control back. And I think the most beautiful thing I saw in the streets of Missouri and two thousand and fourteen, or the streets of Minnesota, in the streets is the people taking control. The people season seizing power, et cetera. We're calling for defunding because that's what we want, damn what Joe Biden wants. Right, we're gonna call for medicare for all to help what

Joe Biden wants. And even and even though this is a particularly black issue, it should be uh, the Green New Deal, we're gonna call for it because that's what we want, that's the people want. And we're no longer going to say I pray, We're no longer going to say, um, not yet, we can't wait. The Democrats won't win on that. We're now saying, what do our people need? What do the people need? What do what? What does the world need?

And we're making those judgments. Um, And again, we may have disagreements, You and I may have disagreements, but if we love black people and we love freedom and we're willing to fight for it, then we can get somewhere. Well, yeah, you're right, we we do disagree because I don't think black folks are so interested in the Green Deal with some of these other things that you mentioned. But you know, you know what you said, you know what I just said,

the exact same thing I said. I don't think that's yeah, yeah, but you said they should, but I don't. I don't think black folks are really for for that. Think Poland supports that. But I want to finish this conversation by talking about unity. There's no secret that our country is very divided. We often hear people, including President Biden, talk about the need for national unity. Is there any hope

of that happening? And what steps can be taken to unify the American people more uh than they are now. I don't think you can have unity without justice, which include prisons. UM. I don't think prisons is the issue right now. We're talking about unifying the people. I'm saying we're dying in the streets. We don't have access to capital. There's a huge wealthcap um. Our neighborhoods are over polluted. UM.

We're being our streets are being militarized, jobs are leaving. UM. I'm saying that there's too there's too much of a gap between those who have and those who don't for us UM to be unified. There's also a big chunk of the country that's deeply racist. It's deeply homophobic, it's deeply transphobic, and the condition of peace the precondition of peace has to be justice. So if people don't feel whole and whatever that looks like, then no, we won't.

We won't have unity. We can't all right, So justice in the form of ensuring that police aren't unjustly killing people, Justice in the form of black folks not killing each other, Justice in the form of jobs. Coming back to the communities which which existed in pre COVID. Things were going fairly well for a lot of people. So you're saying we need justice overall in order to unify the country in a real way. I'm saying that, yes, but I'm gonna be clear of the bar is very low right now.

You know, where we were pre COVID is not enough. Where we were, we were there, we were doing really well things. I mean, the lowest black unemployment rate in the history of this country, or at least since they've been recording the data. You're missing my point. I'm saying that the bar for for the bar for justice and prosperity can't just be that. I'm saying that this isn't This isn't the partisan argument. I'm thinking, you know, whether we're talking about the Trump days with Timbo, the Obama

days and saying none of it was enough. We've never been close to justice. Are we closer than we were fifty years ago? Of course, I'm not making the case that there's no progress. What I'm saying is we still have so far to go, and and and and the gaps were experiencing don't hinge upon whose president They hinge upon our capacity to imagine the world differently and better, and um also our our political will to make it happen. And we're so far from that. There's such a crisis

of leadership. But there's also christ of imagination in this in this country, political imagination, social imagination, cultural imagination. There's so much further we could go if we just dream differently and worked differently and organized differently. And I didn't just say, well, we can't do that because we've never done it before. And that's too often where we where we find ourselves. Yeah, I certainly agree with you that there's a crisis of leadership. We're seeing a board that

uh continuously in crisis. We're seeing a White House that seemingly and they just got into I'll give them that they've been in office for what five months now, So I'll give them the fact that they just got in, but they're seemingly a government that's not completely working for everyone. So that's that's a problem in and of itself. But before I let you go, what's next for you? Do you have any big projects? You know, you want to plug your your TV show? You know, got a book

out as well. I know I'm doing a lot, very excited about it, you know. I I am the host of Black News Tonight, which airs every single day Monday to Friday, eight o'clock on Black News Channel, which is in fifty two million cable home so it should be on on whoever's listening is cable provider if not, it's also in Roku channel, Amazon, uh t vo all all the things. UM. Also the host of Upfront Without Jazeera.

Our season just ended, but we'll be right back in the fall with with weekly weekly international news and just great hard hitting stories. UM. I have the Coffee and Books podcast where I sit down with great authors to talk through UM their work, their ideas, et cetera. And I'm the owner of Uncle Bobby's Coffee and Books. So if you're if you're purchasing books or UH interested in you know, critical community, critical engaged conversations and beautiful beloved community.

Go to Uncle Bobby's dot com uncle b O B B I E s dot com and you can check out all this stuff, including our apparel, our books, everything well, thank you so much for your your time. It was a great conversation. Thank you for joining me today on that with cars. It's my pleasure, but bless your brother.