Episode Transcript
[00:00:14] Speaker A: Hello, welcome to Call It Like I See it, presented by Disruption. Now, I'm James Keys, and in this episode of Call It Like I See it, we're going to discuss the nature of the backlash that has been out there to Dave Chappelle's new comedy special, the Closer, and consider how the characteristics of this discussion and debate seem similar to a lot of the debates that we're having today in society.
Later on, we're going to take a look at China's efforts to create what they deem to be and determine to be a more stable society by forcing a greater degree of assimilation of ethnic minorities. They consider the extent to whether this is worthwhile realistic, and it just makes sense as far as what they're doing and so forth.
Joining me today is a man who, if you know him, you know this ain't his feng shui.
[00:01:07] Speaker B: Tunde.
[00:01:08] Speaker A: Ogonlana Tunde. You ready to show the people why you're certified everywhere and haven't needed a resume for years?
[00:01:16] Speaker B: Yes, sir. I like the allusion to the interior design of the feng shui, sir.
[00:01:22] Speaker A: There you go. There you go.
I see it all in your background now. We're recording this on October 11, 2021, and last week, Dave Chappelle released a new comedy special on Netflix called the Closer. And as Chappelle's specials tend to do, it created a backlash, and probably several backlashes of varying degrees of intensity. One of the larger backlashes was in response to parts of the act that were directed at the LGBTQ community, which included, among other things, Chappelle declaring that gender is a fact and expressing support for JK Rowling and even appearing to defend the rapper. Debating.
Now, the backlash that has come from this has included calls for Netflix to take down the special, amongst other things. But one thing we noted in it was that the back and forth that's happening here is really about what the underlying facts are, particularly whether gender is a fact or the extent to which gender. Gender is a fact, as opposed to what people should be doing about whatever the facts are, you know, as far as how. What people. How should people should treat people or how you know and so forth, how we should react based on these facts.
So, Tunde, what's your thought on seeing this controversy exist as one that focuses on the actual facts and who's my truth is better than your truth or whatever.
And not really about. Not at least not specifically or not. The thrust of it isn't about how we as a society can and should be treating people fairly and with dignity.
[00:02:59] Speaker B: It's very interesting, man, because. And I like the fact that.
And I'll give you the props here on the show that you chose this topic today through the lens of the Dave Chappelle special, because I think what it does is it illustrates something greater in our society that's been going on, and I know that we've observed it at different times on different shows, and I don't think I'm saying anything new to the audience here, but that this. And we've heard this kind of term before, this post truth era. And I don't think it's fully post truth, but I think what it really alludes to is this idea that a lot of things that we have. A lot of us, I guess, have taken as factual positions in our society, whether now or historically, are being challenged by other parts of society. And so I think, as relates to a topic specifically like transgender, it's a very interesting topic because, like, you're saying, the idea of male and female is something that I think most people would have assumed was settled both scientifically, culturally, and many things throughout human history.
And so I think it's an interesting topic and an interesting entry point into this idea of what are facts, what is truth, and how are we all relating to it now as a society, both here domestically and around the world.
[00:04:21] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I get you on that, man. And I think that that's a good way to look at it. I would say truth has always evolved. Like, if what actually struck me about this or what stood out to me or where my mind went was kind of to Galileo.
And Galileo getting. Putting together a telescope. He learned how to. The first person built a telescope. They wrote about it. Galileo built his own. Looks up at the sky and says, hey, you know what? The Earth is not the center of the universe.
The Earth is moving around just like everything else, and we're going around the sun. And he was put on house arrest by the church for that. That was. No, that was all bad. He got in trouble. But that was truth kind of evolving. The ability to measure was improved. Because you're sitting on the Earth's surface, it looks like everything is going around us, or visually it does. So it's understandable why you would come to that conclusion. But somebody got a better tool of measurement. And, you know, and then they. They said something different. And then everybody, you know, was like, oh, you know, you're the worst person in the world for saying that. You know, you're. Again, you go on house arrest for that. And so it was an argument about the fact, you know, what was the fact here? And so with the, the gender discussion, it does like, it seems like there's an established truth, so to speak, which I would think has more of a biological basis because I'm a science based person. I'm looking at the biology of it and people are saying, well no, this is not true or this is not actually the case. And the debate really seems to be about that. But what I notice about it or what I would say what stands out about it is that the debate that's being had doesn't seem to be one that's being had in a scientific method type of way. Like we're not starting with hypothesis and then testing it and, and then come seeing if it meets all, if it can sustain through all these tests and then putting it as a theory. It seems like it's coming from a place of emotion, like, well, people who are saying it is a fact are just saying, well, it's always been that way. Well, always been that way is not really the best reasoning for anything. And people who are saying it's not are saying it's just, you know, because I have this isolated incident or that isolated incident. So it's really just becoming a matter of dogma and saying, well, it is or it isn't, it is or it isn't. And, and that's the whole basis of the discussion. And people are mad at each other because they're not buying each other's facts. And we've said this before, these take on characteristics of religion in that way. Believe in my God or I'm gonna kill you or I'm gonna take it out on you. And so it's almost like, believe in my truth or I'm coming after you and you have no right to say anything else.
[00:06:49] Speaker B: Yeah, I think what you're alluding to is the result of the tribalism. And we talk a lot in our show and we have in the past year or so about tribalism through the lens of politics, especially domestically here, talk about things about the election and the different political parties, or let's say the two political parties here, and how their bases, both sides, act or react to things.
But I think this helps us broaden this conversation out to pretty much our society today.
And again, going back through history, this isn't new. History may not always repeat, but it rhymes.
Our society today is in search of new norms and new order, as in other parts of history. So made me think back, I won't go too far, but just over 100 years ago and we did a show around this topic, which was around what they called the red summer of 1919.
And I would say that whole decade from about 1910 to 1920, which saw right in the middle, the film the Birth of a Nation, you had new technologies, we discussed, and you also had, at the time, the media, because of this new technology and the ability to spread information. Now, in radio as well, you had a lot of things that weren't necessarily factual being believed by society. And I would say maybe a decade or two later, a good example of that, which is just a simple example, would be something like War of the Worlds, the original radio program.
Many people might remember that that was Orson Welles. It was fully fiction, it was just a story.
But as people heard it in real time, they actually believed that the Earth was being invaded by aliens. And people were calling in police stations, people were going out, forming their own militias, believing that this was happening. And so if we can extrapolate out kind of information being not only given but also received by people under a new format of technology, can. Can create an era of seriousness and reality. Because people haven't seen this before.
[00:08:54] Speaker A: And to your point, if it's serious in your mind, it's serious, period.
[00:08:57] Speaker B: Yeah, it's like perception is reality. So people believed, they perceived that we were under threat from Martians, and they actually went out in real time and tried to deal with that. And that's just a simple example. And I think until this modern era that we've lived in, I never looked at that story as anything kind of, but a joke kind of thing. Like, not serious, but it goes back to, wow. Actually, people really did believe that. And just like we've talked about in other shows about fight or flight feelings and all that, think about the emotional state and the stress that those people were under if they really believed that we were being invaded by aliens. So this, like, this perception became manifested in reality. And so I think it's the same thing with this new forms of communication and technology. And we've talked about this before in the past too. Like, it's easy to look in a history book and say, wow, the 2010-2020 was a little bit more rough in this country because of the media ginning people up and there's misinformation and it's just a quick line in a book, just a dash.
[00:09:54] Speaker A: Yeah, but that's 10 years.
[00:09:55] Speaker B: That's a long time. You know what I mean? I mean, that's.
[00:09:57] Speaker A: That's to.
[00:09:58] Speaker B: To. To live through 10 years is, you know, that's a big part of everyone's life. So we're living through that now. So it feels like it's crazy. But in reality, 40 years from now, there'll be a norm and we'll. People look back on this and say how the hell they believe all this stuff, you know.
[00:10:11] Speaker A: Well, I mean, and that's in these norms, you know, scientific consensus can be challenged, you know, so to speak. Like we see that with, with. And this is the vaccine skepticism or people questioning vaccines is not new. Every time there's a vaccine, people question it. Climate change is another one where there is a quote unquote scientific consensus and then there's people who don't believe it or who believe something different. And again, and I say all this to say, not to go after any scientific belief. Now I will say that when we're talking about biology and things like that, like gender is not specific to humans. So that I believe everybody still would consider to be true. You know, gender goes back to. If you really go back, look at it from a biological standpoint, it goes to. There's prior to animals and species like us, there was just what's called asexual reproduction. And that is just a organism making a copy of itself. You know, there it's not. It doesn't take two, it takes one. It's one organism making a copy of itself. Then an innovation from that, a evolution from that really was sexual reproduction, where two of a species get together to mix up their DNA and so forth. It's more robust because you get that mixing of DNA and produce an offspring. The gender thought always to me went to that in terms of, okay, we're a species that has sexual reproduction like dogs, like, you know, any other type of species that we're talking about with Ann in the animal kingdom. And so therefore that's what we have with gender. But what I've noticed, and part of the undercurrent of the debate is that there is a lot more assigned to the concept of gender and sex in our society, in our culture than just what I just said about sexual reproduction and that concept. And so with gender identity and gender roles are more rigid and so forth in a society, then the concept of gender may be attacked not necessarily because of the biological aspect, but just because of the role aspect, because of the culture aspect. Where we are in that. I don't know, I'm not in everyone's head. But that does seem to be something that could be at play in a situation like this where. Because I'm trying to figure out well, where is the science coming in and where is the belief coming in? And in the same way with climate change, you try to figure that out. Okay. Well, it is conceivable and understanding to me why someone can look at how big the world is and says nothing we do could affect that. But then it's also when you look around and people who actually, again, do hypotheses and test them and come up with theories, say that this, whatever's going on, you give a certain level of deference to that. Either way, the debate, though, that we see, and this is the tie in to all of it, the debate has taken on a characteristic. It's not scientists debating these things, it's us, the public debating. It's. And we're debating it like these things are ironclad, provable as anything. And so all the passion gets involved. It becomes a matter of emotion, becomes a matter of your identity. And discussions, when they get like that, don't really lead anywhere. People are just yelling at each other.
[00:13:13] Speaker B: Yeah, but don't forget, yelling feels good.
So that's part of the human condition, right? Emotion.
I gotta get it off my chest and I gotta tell you, you hurt me, so now I gotta hurt you back. And all those kind of things that really run on our subconscious level.
And another kind of terminology I like to use with these things is triggers and responses.
All of us as humans have the ability to be triggered, you and I included. And then obviously we have a response to when we're triggered. And I think there's low level things, like somebody bumps into you by accident on the street, or somebody cuts you off on traffic that'll trigger you. But, you know, we're all conditioned, most of us anyway, not to like stop our whole day and make a big, big hay about that, right?
[00:14:00] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:01] Speaker B: But then there are things that have caused us emotional pain in the past.
And I would say, obviously, I think every single marriage can speak to this.
You know, you can look at maybe relationships you had with your siblings or your parents from your childhood, right. And then because of some emotional event that happened way back then, your parent or your sibling or your spouse might just say something or behave in a certain way. And all of a sudden you lose your shit, you know, and you just go ballistic. And it wasn't what you lot, the way you lost your stuff definitely wasn't equal to the moment, but it wasn't about that moment really. It was about what happened.
[00:14:40] Speaker A: It's about all the other stuff you.
[00:14:41] Speaker B: Exploded 30 years ago and all the piling on and all that. And now you just exploded like a volcano.
[00:14:45] Speaker A: That's a good thing. That's a good analogy, man. If your gender identity is something that you've been picked on about or you've been excluded or something you've been made to feel by people in society bad about, then you may. Anything you view as a slight, you may take as the most ultimate slight. So someone questioning, hey, you know, is. Is what you're saying true?
May get a reaction from you. They like, you know, just not saying if it's true, then something, but just saying, is it true? That itself may be enough to set you off in that sense because of all the. All you've experienced in that way. And so. And that's one of the things that we know does happen in terms of people are treated poorly. And so that part of this discussion, that's part of the discussion I think we should be focusing on, honestly, is like, let's not treat people poorly regardless of who they are and what they are and so forth.
But we're getting bogged down in the discussions on what is and isn't and all this other stuff. And it's like, well, hold on, let's just not. Let's not be antisocial. And so, in part, like I saw in some. Reading some of the comments that were coming back, people were saying, oh, Dave Chappelle saying these things, it perpetuates violence, and it's a comedy special. So that's a leap. But whether it does or not, it makes people feel like that violence may come after them because somebody said this. And so does illustrate how this is the type of thing that if you're. Again, if you're in a group that experiences slights all the time, then, you know, slight something that someone else might not think is a slight. Dave Chappelle might not think it's a slight to say that gender is a fact, but it may be received as a slight because of the environment or because of the experiences of the person who receives it. Yeah.
[00:16:30] Speaker B: And I think, you know, as you're saying that at some point it's gotta be a conversation about tolerance versus intolerance, then always picking at this group is a victim, and that group's a victim because that's what also keeps it fractured and that people are always in their camp. So now the Asians are gonna stay in their own camp because they feel violated. The Jews are gonna stay in their own camp, the blacks are gonna stand. And then everyone's sitting there being defensive instead of just saying, look, there's. And there's great people in all groups, right?
Let's start coalescing with the people that are tolerant of other people. You know, the Asians that wanna be tolerant of non Asians, the blacks that wanna be tolerant of the non blacks, the whites who want to be tolerant of non whites, they all can congregate together because that's how I like being with people that are tolerant of other people, even people of my own group. Like, I don't like being around racist black people.
That makes me uncomfortable when blacks start talking shit about whites and Jews and all that. I don't want to be around that. And I'm black. So my point is, is that I think that's the issue I have with this whole thing, is we keep. Instead of recognizing that and just lifting our heads up and saying, wow, we as humanity, we've all seen how this works out. It just gets uglier and uglier, more painful and something bad. You see what I'm saying?
[00:17:42] Speaker A: Yeah, we're saying. You're saying that it's. The wrong battle lines are being drawn.
[00:17:46] Speaker B: That's what I'm. And the wrong people are receding into.
[00:17:48] Speaker A: Camps based on identity as opposed to. Based on tolerant versus intolerant.
[00:17:53] Speaker B: And also, as if these things now are the only reason why people. Like, that's what I mean. As if Dave Sepell's show is the only reason why transgender people might suffer harm. Or as if the. The. The virus of COVID is the only reason why now Asians are being discriminated or have racist unfortunate events. No Asians were getting discriminated against before COVID 19. But it can be a trigger.
[00:18:16] Speaker A: To your point earlier, it can be a trigger that could be something. A trigger that would. Somebody who otherwise was inclined to do it but was sitting on their butt may be triggered through something else.
[00:18:25] Speaker B: It may or may not be. It may be a huge trigger. It may not. I don't know. We don't have that kind of information. What I'm just saying is that as a society, we look at these things and only focus on that as the reason and the moment to talk about it. And then three years from now, if, let's say Covid kind of subsides and three, four years ago from now, it's all over. No one's gonna be talking about racism against Asians, but I bet you there's gonna be racism against Asians. You see what I'm saying? That's my point, is that it's.
You know, why do we Always it's like a marketing thing. We always talk about these important things. Like, oh, well, this happened. And this guy likes the Chappelle thing because Chappelle did a comedy. Now, now, now, people might be violence against trans people. Been violence against trans. Why don't we focus on that and not about blaming Dave Chappelle? That's kind of my bigger point.
[00:19:09] Speaker A: Well, yeah, I mean, and I think I would like to move on, though. Yeah. And so, like, with this, when we have essentially where people can go into their own camps and have whatever information that they want to be true to be the only information that's allowed in those camps, and we don't have basically where overall we can agree on certain things or, you know, and move forward under those bases.
And this isn't a lot of things, you know, this is in economics. The people who believe certain things about economics think that everybody else is crazy. They believe other things about economics, think that everybody else is crazy. And like, so there's all these different facts that are accepted post truth, as you said.
Can we. How can we, or is it possible for us to agree on enough basic things in like a pluralistic society like this to move forward, you know, or is this. Are we not going to be able to move forward at a certain point when people don't agree on enough stuff?
[00:20:08] Speaker B: Good question. I would say this. I don't think we're ever going to agree on everything. I think that's just humanity. I spent the weekend watching some very interesting documentaries about the story of Jesus, other ones about why Mary was left out of the Gospels.
And I'm not here to talk about that. You're going down that rabbit hole. I'm not here to talk about those in detail. What it was was a good reminder that 2,000 years ago people didn't agree on stuff, right? And then, you know, people didn't agree on who should be in and out of the Gospels and which ones we should see, you know, and all that. I mean, people don't realize this. There's 39 books in the Old Testament. Forget about the New Testament. Why do we only get to see six in our general kind of Bible learning? So that's my point, is that it kind of was a good reminder that, man, people always been arguing, people have always been not able to agree en.
[00:20:58] Speaker A: Masse with everything real and what's not.
[00:21:00] Speaker B: And so. And religion, I mean, actually the history of religion, not religion itself, but the history of religions is actually a great way to see that illustrated through most of, at least our Recorded history.
[00:21:10] Speaker A: So I would say you pointed that out a couple of shows ago with the difference between the Shia and the Sunni Muslims.
[00:21:17] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
[00:21:18] Speaker A: And they disagree on an operative fact and so therefore their own. That's right.
[00:21:23] Speaker B: I mean I think about what that means to just stay on that point and not to pick on Islam. But it's more of to say, like you said, we're talking about a very distinct fact about who was the direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad.
[00:21:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:36] Speaker B: Was it his son Ali or was it the nephew or you know, and I'm not, I'm kind of vague on this story, so I apologize anyone that knows it well, but.
[00:21:43] Speaker A: Well, no, it's not attack Islam at all though. It doesn't matter what happens. To point out how people have disagreed about facts.
[00:21:49] Speaker B: No, but what I'm getting at is a small factual disagreement, I should say small a disagreement on a fact like that, like who's the descendant of the Prophet.
Look how many deaths that's led to in 1500 years. And that's the sad part when in the end both agree that their prophet is Muhammad and that then they, you know, then everything above Muhammad, meaning God and the whole story from the Quran is they both agree on all that.
[00:22:15] Speaker A: Well, but you can take that the next step up in all the Abrahamic religions in terms of.
[00:22:18] Speaker B: Yeah, that's my point.
[00:22:19] Speaker A: Like disagreements that they have and we.
[00:22:21] Speaker B: Can even go to the fact that they all come from the Torah. Right. It's all based on Judaism, but then.
[00:22:25] Speaker A: Somehow they all recognize Abraham.
[00:22:29] Speaker B: But Christians and Muslims have, you know, unfortunately practice anti Semitism through most of their history and have hurt Jews who are the source of their own religion. So, you know, none of it makes sense. And that's why I do think that we'll never be in a place to agree on everything.
But I would say this, that's why I think that there's these cycles and like I mentioned to whether it's the 100 years ago or let's say almost little over 100 years prior to that. Right. If you go 1910 to 1920 and I said maybe 1790, that's about 120 years, 130 years difference. So it's this idea that obviously as humans we go through these cycles, you have a little bit of this chaos, kind of like economic cycles. Right now we're in a human thought recession. Right. Instead of an economic recession.
And then at some point there becomes norms again that are generally accepted. And I think that will happen over the next decade or two as a New generation learns to deal with all this.
[00:23:26] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, and honestly, and you pointed this out offline, it's having everybody agree on the same thing is not necessarily a virtue either. I mean, everybody can agree on the same thing and be wrong, you know, and so like, I think we, when we were spoken, speaking before, we were talking about, well, most people believed that the Gulf of Tonkin was, you know, an attack that warranted a war. And so at least initially, and they were wrong, you know, and so it's not necessarily, it is a good thing for people to challenge and be willing and able to challenge what's out there. And to. Not everyone just say everybody has to believe this. Everyone has to believe that there's probably some range, some spectrum as far as you need to agree on enough to move forward in a society. The larger your society, probably the harder that is because you need to have enough commonality for everybody to want to, or not everybody, but 90, 80% of the people to all be pulling in the same direction. If 25% of people four ways are all pulling in different directions, that's going to pull whatever collective apart, whether that's a city, whether that's a state, whether that's a neighborhood, whether that's a nation. And so there has to be some level of commonality, again, on, not, excuse me, on what is, because oftentimes the hardest part is what to do about what is, not necessarily even what is. And so if you can't even get past the what is going on to be able to get to, okay, so what should we do then? Your ability to solve problems is going to be very, very, very restricted. And so that, I think, is the concern. But let's keep moving though, because, you know, I want to get to this second topic as well. And the second topic, what we, you and I saw this, this piece this week that discussed China and basically their leadership's pivot in an approach to try to force more assimilation amongst ethnic minorities. Now, the majority group in China is percent of the Chinese people is the majority group. Then you have ethnic minorities in there. And so basically the direction they want to take it is. Previously they had been more hands off. Well, and again, this is all relative. So, you know, but, but just for the purposes of discussion, more hands off there. There was rules on the books to allow people to learn things in their own language and different things like that. Now they want to get, they, they want to change directions, force more learning in the actual, the national language, other things to bring people into essentially one culture. And Essentially to form what the leadership in China is calling a collective consciousness. So what are your thoughts on China's attempts to refocus this and try to bring in. It almost harkens back to the discussion we have. Try to bring in a kind of an aligned mindset amongst the people.
[00:26:09] Speaker B: Well, that's an authoritarian regime at its finest.
Straight up. I mean, straight up. It's amazing, the contrast to something like that and the United States, let's say this up until, you know, let's say recent, and I mean recent within the last five years, meaning where America always prided itself as being this kind of hodgepodge of immigrants that all brought their stuff to this country. And then kind of culturally, we embrace certain parts. So, you know, you know, people fondly refer to certain sections of town, Little Italy, Chinatown, you know, the Latin. The Latin Quarter, you know, and yeah, you're right, South Florida, we have Miami, which has Little Havana and Little Haiti.
[00:26:56] Speaker A: Yeah. And.
[00:26:57] Speaker B: And Little Haiti and this. And this. And these ideas that we like that they have still this holdover from their culture makes it, you know, you can live in a regular suburb like we do, and then make, you know, drive somewhere and you feel like you're a little bit, you know, in. In a different place. You got the different food, different language on the signs, you know, on the, like in Chinatown, it's all the Chinese characters, and we embrace that. That's different. But it's in my. It's in my town, you know, or it's in my country.
And that was traditionally America and hopefully will continue to be. And I think this is a good example of true authoritarianism where they are. China is basically saying that, you know, we're kind of tired of these minority groups, you know, continuing to express their cultures, and we're gonna just, you know, now force them to assimilate into the Han Chinese way of doing things. And you're right, the Hans from the Han dynasty descent are 90% of China. So clearly, when you got a billion five people, they got some strength.
[00:27:55] Speaker A: And the stated goal is to create a more stable society. They're seeing what they're. At least they're saying there's been upticks in violence amongst the. They're, you know, dealing with the ethnic minorities and so forth.
[00:28:07] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:28:07] Speaker A: And so.
[00:28:07] Speaker B: And that's what I'm thinking, but no.
[00:28:09] Speaker A: I was gonna say. But that's always. When the authoritarian. It's always the. Not just. I'm not saying whether it's true or false, but that's always what they say.
[00:28:14] Speaker B: Oh, but it's probably true is my point. And that's what got me thinking that. I mean, these are the two, these are the choices societies can make because it's going to be painful one way or the other. That's what I realized because as I'm thinking of reading this thing, I'm thinking of the insurrection in January 6th, and I'm thinking about the way that we just talk in public about each other. You know, this F Biden stuff now that's on flags. I mean, I got my family on a.
We're out on a boat on the water here in South Florida and every boat's got a Biden flag on it. And it's not that I'm here to defend Biden from a political standpoint. I'm just thinking about, I got a 10 year old kid on the boat and I'm trying to tell him not to use bad words and he's like, daddy. But everyone's got the F word on the flag. And I'm like, wow.
[00:28:58] Speaker A: And I wonder how many of those people would have been calling the FCC when Janet Jackson performed at the super bowl and Justin Timberlake ripped her shirt off.
[00:29:05] Speaker B: Remember, you taught me that hypocrisy doesn't matter.
[00:29:09] Speaker A: You're right.
[00:29:12] Speaker B: But my point is that that's the opposite of the Chinese, what the Chinese are doing, right? That's what it looks like when a society is so open that everybody can do what they want.
[00:29:23] Speaker A: Well, no, I mean, I think that what you were saying, as far as the kind of the two options, I mean, there is a difficulty in societies in general, you know, bringing groups of people together. There's different types of people and some people are more antisocial than others and whatever. So you have that. Then on top of that, when you have a heterogeneous society, when there's more different narratives, types of people, cultures and so forth, that makes it more difficult because there's finger pointing and all things like that that go naturally go into the tribal nature of humans. And so when you're dealing with that friction, this is kind of like you said, this is the authoritarian approach to dealing with it. Whereas another approach may be to try to have a lesser degree of assimilation and more tolerance, which is a term we've talked about a little bit. But ultimately in this instance, it seemed like they're just recognizing the same concerns and then saying, okay, we're going to do something about it. They mentioned, or it was mentioned in the piece that, that they. The previous belief was that the economic Incentives would bring this kind of assimilation together automatically or naturally, which, if you look at American history, that is how things worked with a lot of different ethnic groups, not all of them. Some were, you know, were explicitly excluded, but others who weren't explicitly excluded. There has been an assimilation, particularly cultures from. Or people coming from Europe where they. They weren't expressly excluded. And so it's not inconceivable that people can't. Cultures can be more assimilated without force, without forcing to give it their language and so forth. But I think there's a worthwhile discussion on what types of things work to bring a more cohesive society. Is this the right approach to try to just force your one culture on everybody and then therefore you're going to get a cohesive or you're going to get more cohesive, you deal with the normal stuff or to let it happen organically, or what should be done, I think, is I look at this and more so and come up with that question as opposed to an actual answer, because as you said, it's going to be a little messy no matter what.
[00:31:21] Speaker B: Yeah, well, that's why I say there's pain either way, because I think it's pain on the front end or pain ongoing. Right. So here's the thing. Like when I first read this, this actually really reminded me of some of the stories we've heard over the last year or two about certain nations apologizing to their indigenous people for what they did in trying to force assimilation over the last 100 to 200 years.
And even like, more recent than that, like one was Australia, which officially in 2021, announced that they're going to give reparations to certain Aboriginal groups of people who were taken from their families when they were young, like 5, 6 years old. And because they were supposed to be, quote, unquote, civilized in kind of the Australian Western culture. Because at the time, Australia, I guess, as a nation, felt that the aborigines were savages and had to take their children to assimilate them into Australian culture. The same has been done by Canada this year. They acknowledged that hundreds of children of Native Americans were killed during a period of time that was in a lot of people's lifetimes, you know, 50, 60 years ago.
And that's how many were killed, unfortunately, and died in this process. So thousands were taken through these programs and were basically taken from their families in kind of the rural areas of Canada and brought into boarding schools and all that to be civilized, to be taken from the savage reservations and Civilized in the Canadian system. So I think it's interesting, that's what I thought of to see China doing this now, because we're at a point, I guess, in the kind of quote unquote west, where we're now looking, that that was probably the wrong thing to do to take children from their families to force assimilation. And so now we're doing the opposite, apologizing for that, in a sense. And it seems that China is saying, no, we don't want to have the messy democracy that you guys have. And that's what I'm saying, because what I'm saying is that China is choosing to have the pain now, which is going to be painful as they do this. But at some point, if they're successful, they will have rid the country of their minority groups and they would have either died or been assimilated or I.
[00:33:36] Speaker A: Should say killed, but like of the cultures that the group have.
[00:33:41] Speaker B: And then the other is if they don't, then they're going to be like us with the insurrection January 6th. Meaning, and I say that in all seriousness, meaning is messy, ongoing, because everybody with the opinion is allowed to be heard. Like we talked about in the earlier part of the show is you go through these periods in an open democracy where there's accepted norms for maybe a generation or two and then a point like now where the norms break down and that it's, it's messy as they, as the entropy happens and, and takes time for the new norms to build.
And so. Well, both, both have their pros and cons, I'm sure.
[00:34:16] Speaker A: Yeah, well, some of it's worldview, you know, like, if you have a worldview like China, I mean, China's is, is historically, you know, it almost stands out in the way that you've had kind of a, a singular culture over such a long period of time, you know, like, so it's, it's from a worldview, from a cultural standpoint, this may be more in line with what they've done in the past. And China also, I mean, I, when we have discussions about China and then people like to compare it to the United States, I always point this out. China doesn't hold itself out as some beacon of freedom and democracy. Like China is honest about who they are, more or less, you know, hey, we, we're authoritarian, we run the thing, you know, like, this is us, you know, like. And so I think that we don't, we should not necessarily be looking at them and trying to import our outlook or views on them because they have told Everyone, they don't. They don't subscribe to that stuff. Now, I think more so when you're looking at how Americans should look at themselves and look at their issues. Americans hold themselves out of something different, you know, as a. As a melting pot to whether you agree with that or not. And like you said, there's an appreciation of the richness of having different cultures and bringing different things to the table and so forth. A richness to the culture. It likely makes things more robust, more interesting.
I could go on because I'm of that worldview where you want that kind of variety, but it does create a level of friction that I think we need to consider how we can do more to make Americans feel as one. It doesn't have to be, you give up your culture, you give up this, you give up that. But there needs to be some effort in our country that's done to make people feel more as one. Because what you're seeing now is people, everybody retreating back to their. Whatever they identify as their tribes. It may not be birth tribes, so to speak, bloodlines or something, but just people identify their tribes and recede back into it. And the oneness of being an American has really taken a backseat to everything. So what are we going to do? It's not going to be this necessarily, but the question that China is trying to answer is one that Americans should be asking themselves and come up with an answer that's consistent with our worldview, but one that also does figure out a way to get more people pulling in the same direction, whether that's a collective consciousness, whether that's whatever it is, you need more people pulling in the same direction for the whole thing to work. And again, that's higher level. When I say whole thing, that's higher level than. Than the government or the democracy. It's like for the society to continue to be able to solve the problems that come up and for enough people to feel invested in it.
[00:36:53] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think, you know, here in the United States, and we've said this on other shows, that, you know, the idea was the Constitution, that this was a nation built on reason of law, not of men. Yep. And it built on reason and the ability to debate your way through issues.
And so the Constitution is supposed to be the legal framework of this country that then everything springs from. And not a religion, not an ethnic group or race, things like that now or a man. People may or may not believe. Yeah. All that stuff. Right. But that's.
[00:37:24] Speaker A: Hopefully they didn't misread the human condition.
[00:37:27] Speaker B: Yeah, and so, but what I was going to say real quick to go back to China and then bring it back to that comment about the Constitution is what it strikes me when a group that has 90% majority starts putting all these kind of aggressive policies to try and assimilate this 10% minority, what it really does is it shows me that they're actually insecure for some reason. China feels, or at least the government and those in power must feel very insecure about their position and that this small minority groups just by piping up a bit may somehow upset their whole apple cart.
[00:38:02] Speaker A: But is it that inherent in authoritarian regimes?
[00:38:06] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I'm just pointing it out. So the fact is that my estimation is going to be that this is going to backfire in the long run because I think China, like you, well said, China and the United States are very different. But I think one thing that China has done well generally has been to keep a massive population in one country. Like they haven't fractured and had civil wars and all this kind of stuff.
And one of the things that the.
[00:38:34] Speaker A: Article, I can't imagine if there was a billion and a half Americans with.
[00:38:37] Speaker B: The stuff, who knows? Yeah, maybe there is a limit to the size of a true free society.
But no, but what I'm saying is that because there was an interesting part of the article that alluded to what's happening right now or what just happened in Mongolia. So you figure, I mean, this is where it gets real, right? I mean a lot of people think all Asians are the same. They're not. Right. It just like not all Africans or all Europeans are the same. So a Mongolian is a very different than a Han Chinese. Just historically, ethnically, even if you look at their features, you know, just like Ethiopian is much different than a Nigerian or a Ghanaian. So the thing is, is that the, the, the province of Mongolia was always allowed to be governed by someone who was a Mongolian descent or Mongolian culture. And for the first time since 1954, I believe the Chinese government, the central government in Beijing, Shanghai said, no, we're going to pick someone who's a Han Chinese to be the head of the Mongolian kind of region because of this assimilation thing.
[00:39:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:39:45] Speaker B: And that's where I felt like, okay, this is when you're going to start having people push back more.
Because throughout history, whether it was the British Empire or a name I said once that blew your mind, which I'll say again, Kublai Khan.
[00:40:05] Speaker A: How many know about him?
[00:40:08] Speaker B: Those who have managed to have successful empires or colonies or The Romans could be an example, or even the American empire to a lesser extent, were smart enough to allow the local culture to govern themselves. So what I mean is one area where that was successfully done, at least for a long enough period of time was the British rule in India.
Another would be, you know, when Americans, you know, have, have had occupied islands in the South Pacific, things like that.
So the idea is that I think that by China doing this and putting someone of the Han group on top of the Mongolians, who are also in a more rural area of China in the long run could cause more disenfranchisement of the Mongolian group of people who may feel that they have less in common now with the central government because they don't have a spokesperson like we have a House of Representatives. We at least feel someone from our area, our district is advocating for us up in Washington.
[00:41:09] Speaker A: Well, it's a different setup though, like, and so no, I don't disagree.
[00:41:14] Speaker B: I just think that you, well, to.
[00:41:16] Speaker A: Your point earlier, though, to your point earlier, China is trying to smoke that out basically and say, look, it's going to be this way and we're not even going to give the appearance that it's not anymore and you're either going to get on board or, and there's going to be strife in the short term on the bet that, and this was actually even talked about that in 28 years when they do their 100th anniversary, they'll have more harmony then, like, so they're already playing a long game with that understanding that they're going to actually force this more friction now, force either greater submission or flesh out the smoke out the fight. And obviously they know, they believe that if there is a fight that they'll be able to put it down. And so that's kind of the approach. And so that's what I said. Like, we look at that and understand that's kind of, that's China's approach. That's China. That's what China's done. You know, and if you look back historically, their approach isn't really what's instructive here, though it is the problem that they're proactively trying to, and there's a word that you've mentioned that we almost completely lack here in this country to be able to proactively identify issues and do something about them, but that they're proactively trying to do something about. And so that's the point that I think is the biggest takeaway for someone sitting in this country is, okay, well, what are we doing to try?
Are we even coming up with ideas? Forget even doing something yet, but just, are we coming up with any ideas in terms of how we can build a more cohesive society? Just cohesive enough that when problems come up, enough people feel like they're on the same page, that you can try to address those problems in some meaningful way. But I think we can wrap it up from there, man. You know? So until next time, I'm James Keys.
[00:42:55] Speaker B: I'm Tunde Walana.
[00:42:56] Speaker A: All right, subscribe to the podcast. Rate the podcast, give us five stars review, tell us what you think, and we'll talk to you next time.
