Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: In this episode, we discuss the 2014 movie Selma, which gets into a chapter of the civil rights movement where civil rights leaders led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Use non violent demonstrations against oppressive state and local officials in Alabama to successfully fight to end the rampant voter suppression that was going on at the time.
Hello, welcome to the Call Like I See it podcast. I'm James Keats and joining me today is a man who, once you hear his deep booming voice, it's too late. He's got you, Tunde. Ogon Lana Tunde. Are you ready to show him that you feel good today?
[00:00:51] Speaker B: Yes, sir. I guess, you know, putting me in the likes of Barry White, I'm a little bit nervous, so.
[00:00:58] Speaker A: Hey, I knew that you would, man. I knew that you would.
[00:01:01] Speaker B: Listen, I'll save the audience from hearing me sing, okay?
We want them to stay for the show, not leave right now.
[00:01:08] Speaker A: Before we get started, if you enjoy the show, I ask that you subscribe and like the show on YouTube or your podcast app. Doing so really helps the show out. We're recording on January 13, 2026 and today we continue our streaming between the Lines series and take a look at the movie Selma, which was released in 2014 and is currently available to stream at various services, is directed by Ava DuVernay. And the movie highlights a period which preceded the Voting Rights act of 1965 and allows us to see the roles played by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. And other civil rights leaders, also key American political leaders and the American people from all different, many different persuasions and see their roles in this moral and political battle that was going on in this period in American history.
So, Tunde, I want to jump in, you know, to get started.
First we'll look at, you know, kind of the characters and, you know, Dr. King and the civil rights leaders, you know. So what stood out to you about the portrayal of Martin Luther King or the civil rights movement in general and their leaders and so forth in the movie?
[00:02:13] Speaker B: Several things stood out, man. But I would say the first thing was, I would say the complexity of the relationships, number one, between people like himself and Lyndon Baines Johnson, you know, the President of the United States at the time.
And then also I was who.
[00:02:30] Speaker A: He had a commute. Like he would meet this guy, you know, seem like regularly, you know, like meet with him and you know, just like that was interesting to see.
Yeah.
[00:02:37] Speaker B: And you know, a few of the other characters. But I think those two I'll start with. And then I'd say for King himself, I didn't. I Mean, just watching a movie, I guess made me appreciate this more than, I guess, other things I've watched about him was just thinking the idea that he was just a. Besides being Martin Luther King, the civil rights icon and the preacher and all that, he was also just a regular dude. Like he had a wife, he had kids, and he's dealing with all this.
And you know, and I'm thinking I'm older than he was back then. Remember, he was 39 when he was assassinated.
[00:03:09] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, he's 35, 36 in this time.
[00:03:11] Speaker B: That was when he. Exactly. So he's in his mid-30s. Here I am in my late 40s and I'm thinking, man, this guy had a lot of pressure on him, you.
[00:03:17] Speaker A: Know what I mean?
[00:03:17] Speaker B: Because it's just not on a serious note.
[00:03:20] Speaker A: Agree. Like, he had the civil rights movement, he had family stuff he's trying to.
[00:03:23] Speaker B: Deal with and to know that, you know, his house was firebombed, things like that. And then, you know, guys like you and I are parents who think about how this kind of struggle, like, and you said it in the, in the wind up for this discussion today, which is he was asking for access to the ballot box. Really? That's what this was all about.
[00:03:43] Speaker A: Just. Yeah, this period. Yeah, this period was about that. Because the civil rights had already been legal, right? Yeah, Correct.
[00:03:49] Speaker B: Like we're citizens of this country and we're trying to vote and they're not letting us vote in the South. And it's just this basic appeal for just being recognized as an equal human. And it led to all this other stuff, you know, and it's national stuff. And then the last, I'll say and hand it back is the way that they brought in periodically the reminder that he was constantly under surveillance. Yeah, that stuck out to me too. I was just thinking, man, like you're dealing with all this stuff and then you have literally the United States government and the FBI actively trying to just, you know, run interference on your marriage. All this stuff. I was just thinking, like you said, he's a 35 year old guy juggling all this stuff. And that kind of is what the movie made me appreciate, I guess, in ways that documentaries and other things just, just did it.
[00:04:32] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I mean, because the way it's presented to you, you know, even when you, if you hear audio from that time, like you hear him speak and he, you know, he has the, like the preacher speak and it sounds like an older person for sure, like really driving home, like, oh, this is mid-30s, you know, like mid-30s person leading this thing. And then, like you said, had just normal life stuff too. And then all of the stuff that because he's leading it brings to it was coming into his life as well. That was. That stood out to me as well. You know, the thing, you know, the parallel I really saw in this and, you know, it really jumped off the screen to me is that the civil rights leaders and Dr. King and the civil rights leaders and then also the people that are involved in the movement, they really reminded me a lot of like the American colonists, the people who started the Revolutionary War, and they really. Because they're putting their bodies on the line, their lives on the line here, to go against an oppressive state to try to get freedom, you know, and so, like, there's. It's not like some. This isn't some highbrow debates and now there are court cases going on and stuff like that. But the real movement that happens is, is because people are out there in the street together standing up against oppression, which is how we look at the American Revolutionary. It took a Revolutionary war to get that oppression off of the American people. So seeing the civil rights movement people as akin to the Founding fathers and the people who were around and were not the loyalists at the time of the American Revolution, but the people who were on the side of trying to get freedom really seemed very similar to me, you know, because, you know, it wasn't. They. They weren't a military force. They were opposed by, you know, like in just, in just like the. The American colonists were opposed by the British military. They were opposed by a militarized, you know, state officials, you know, local officials and so forth and the police and all that stuff. But that's. That wasn't them. These were just people, you know, and they, they like, hey, we. We just have to. We have to go through this in order to. To get freedom. And, you know, that. To see what they laid on the line and how steeled they were, you know, how steel, how serious these people were, is to. To know, hey, we're walking into this thing, they're going to crack heads, and the heads they're going to crack are ours. But we have to do this in order to move the ball forward. I mean, it's really, it's really. It's really admirable and impressive, you know, to look at that and to see like, they weren't like, oh, yeah, la la la la la. We're going to do and everything is going to work out for us. It's like, no, no, they. They're like, yo, we're doing the hard work. And in the same way the outcome's uncertain, in the same way it was, you know, at the time of the American Revolutionary War.
[00:07:12] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think that's a great comparison to the American Revolution and the spirit of the patriots at that time, because you're right at the end, it is about hierarchy. It's about authoritarianism. It's about throwing off the yoke of someone who's got their boot on your neck. In a sense.
That's why I think it's interesting the way you say that, because within our culture made me realize that we're all taught to revere the patriots, the Revolutionary War, that period of Americans who revolted against the king and overthrew the British forces to create this country. But we're still debating whether someone like Martin Luther King is allowed to be seen as an equal type of American hero in the story of.
I wouldn't even just say equality. I would just say the American story.
[00:08:02] Speaker A: The American. Yeah, yeah.
[00:08:04] Speaker B: Because.
[00:08:04] Speaker A: And I mean, I would say the debate, though the debate was had in the 1980s, and the people who want to put him at that level won because he has a national holiday like President's Day.
There aren't just a bunch of other figures that have their birthday as a holiday. So he has been elevated. But I would agree with you that oftentimes it'll seem like these things are tiered in a way or that people may.
People may be pulling the wrong lessons as far as why we're revering the colonists, you know, the American. Why are we revealing these people? Are we revealing them because they stood against, you know, tyranny and, you know, like that we as Americans want to stand against tyranny, or were they revering them from. For something else? But.
[00:08:50] Speaker B: Well, let me. Let me jump on that, because you make a very. Let me just say this, though, because you make a very important point there, which is that the way that the story is told is also about who's allowed to be included and who's not. And I think that is because, as you say, that those forces kind of won in the 80s. We're living through now. The same type of energy that didn't want Dr. King to succeed has come back and reared its head publicly.
[00:09:18] Speaker A: Well, that's why I want to get to the next section, because in the next section of this conversation, though, I want to ask you about, you know, like, the movie did a lot. You know, like, the movie didn't. Wasn't just following Dr. King around, you know, like, we also were shown, you know, like lbj, we were shown, you know, George Wallace, governor of Alabama at the time, and their interactions, their conversations, what they're trying to do. And then they're having political calculations. They're having moral. Moral calculations and so forth. So what about the portrayal of key American political leaders? And also, just. Also the portrayal of various segments of American people? You know, as we saw through this, you know, you had obviously, you know, the portrayal of the people who are part of the civil rights movement. But we saw during the course of the movie, more people were joining that, at least in terms of what was happening in Selma, but then also the leadership. So you could take that in any different direction. But I did want to get to this in particular in terms of beyond just the civil rights leaders, you know, and, you know, like, what else did you. Or what else stood out to you as far as maybe general American people or, you know, American political leaders?
[00:10:19] Speaker B: Well, you know, what actually stood out to me, man, was the fact that I think a lot of the rhetoric we heard in supporting segregation by those who wanted to support it and the way that they kind of projected a negative, I would say, pejorative type of language onto the people who wanted integration reminds me again, a lot of the culture wars today. That was a part of the reminder of me watching this whole thing was that we are still living. You know, that was 61 years ago. We're in 2026, but the baby boom generation is still a big block of people, and we're still living in the cultural shadows of the civil rights era. And these fights, what is the role of the federal government? This is when the whole thing of the Southerners wanting states rights a little bit more than they had before. And this rhetoric that the federal government is the problem, and a lot of that was taken in the 1980s by Ronald Reagan because it was energy that they used politically to deal with the Southerners who didn't like the changes that were brought about by the movie, you know, what we saw in the civil rights era. So I think that calling people who wanted integration communists, and today we see people who want equality being called socialist communists.
There's always making it out like it's a problem to bring people together and the need for some people in our society to maintain a caste system, because really, that's what the United States had prior to 1965 was a legal caste system where black Americans were the bottom caste. Legally, they were unable. And this is things that they brought up in the movie, unable to serve on juries, unable to do this, do that legally. So I think that.
[00:12:06] Speaker A: And remember, this is after the right to vote is enshrined in the Constitution. You know, back in the 1800s. And so all of this was happening through the legislative process and the administrative process, through government officials, the denial of the right to vote. And that's what the Voting Rights act was about, which, interestingly enough, is being dismantled and has been dismantled by the current Supreme Court and many actors today. But in order to stop people from using the legislative process to make it so difficult for people, or to make arbitrarily throw them off the rolls or to do these different things to make it so practically they couldn't vote, you know, that's what the Voting Rights act was about. The right to vote was already enshrined in the Constitution, but people use the state and local laws and actions in order to prevent it functionally from happening. So, you know, you see how that had to be addressed legislatively. And then it was. And then, you know, then the voting block changes. And. But you see this kind of, as you said, we're kind of in this blowback period where right now, you know, over the last 15 years, we're seeing voting rights pieces and pieces of the Voting Rights act being chipped away persistently by the Supreme Court and so forth. And, you know, again, other actors and states wanting to make these laws, and then they get challenged or, you know, they say, hey, this violates the Voting Rights act, and then the law gets to go through and you chipping away at the Voting Rights Act. So to me, it's, yes, the pushback that you see or that we may be living through right now, you know, is something we're seeing in this instance. We're seeing the status quo being something different and the push going one direction. And then we're kind of living now where the status quo is where that push went to, and it's getting pushed back. You know, backlash is real. You know, and it's a real part of the American story. When you look at, you know, like, the history, historical stuff, for me, I'd say the thing that stood out the most. Let me. Let me. Let me get to this, because I want to throw this back to you. Anyway, what stood out to me the most is this is my understanding of the history as well. But the movie made this point very explicitly.
It's like, you know, you have the local governments in Alabama, you have the state government in Alabama on one side, and that's on the side of, hey, we need to oppress these people, we need to beat these people, we need to like all types of crazy stuff, you know, like the state, the state needs to show up and put hands on people to keep them in their place and to stop them from demonstrating, to stop them from doing anything. So you have the state governments doing that, state and local governments. Then you had the federal government more of a top level view, saying, deciding how much it's going to intervene in order to stop the state governments from going buck wild like that. And what really flipped me out, and again, it's kind of like this thing of where the status quo is kind of flipped. What I was just talking about before is how now it almost feels like in our modern society the federal government is the one that wants to go out and put hands on people. And you know, we've seen instances, you know, where the federal government, federal agents have shot people now unarmed people, which in that case, you know, back in the 1960s, we're seeing state government, state or local officials shoot people, unarmed people and so forth. So, and then saying it's justified. And then the feds, you know, look at the feds then were the white knight, so to speak, saying, oh, whoa, whoa, you guys are, are acting up. I can't have you doing this kind of stuff now. It's flipped. It's almost like the federal government now is doing a lot of this stuff. And you'll see state governments and depending on the place being like, hey feds, you guys are going too far. What are you doing? And you know, seeing that, it just, it reminds me, as you kind of alluded to earlier, is that the energy that we see that was being pushed against in this movie has gone away. It might have been suppressed for a while and so forth, but it hasn't gone away. And it may be on the ascent right now. And so people who thought that this was gone and we no longer have to stand united against this type of action, this type of oppression by a government, whatever government it is, a state government or a federal government, people thought that we were done, kick our feet up, we don't have to worry about that anymore. They may have been mistaken. You know, like it may require an ongoing effort to ensure things like freedom then to ensure that the government stays, doesn't overextend, whatever government against state government, local government or whatever. Did you notice that as far as, or what did you think? Or I guess, you know, I'd say that to you now. What do you think about that in terms of how, whether it's a state government or a federal government, it seems like it may be an ongoing effort always for people who want to be free to make sure that their government doesn't start creeping and pushing in a way that'll take away those freedoms.
[00:16:37] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a great point. And as you ended that comment, I'm going to stay on this creeping and pushing thing because it actually ties in to another part of the film and the discussion because it's kind of both ways. And I think that's where, you know, whoever kind of owns the narrative to the general public may be the one that wins that battle. So my example is this idea of a slippery slope. And you're right, one of the things that I know we've discussed in recent years, watching just everything, is that there's no finish line to a democracy. Like you and I were raised post civil rights era, were born in the 70s. So we grew up in a country that was kind of opening up for everybody. Right. Maybe civil rights, you know, kind of the headlines was first, you know, integration and black Americans and all that. But part of that under occurrent was immigration changed. Right. So all these immigrants benefited from the hard work of people like Martin Luther King during the civil rights era, because prior to 1965, the laws were like. We see the rhetoric now of wanting to only welcome immigrants from certain parts of the world.
Generally parts of the world where people don't look like you and I. That changed. So you have the influx of South.
[00:17:52] Speaker A: America as a result of the civil rights movement that changed.
[00:17:55] Speaker B: Yeah, that's what I'm saying. So, so, and a lot of, you know, immigrants and their descendants today don't appreciate that.
[00:18:01] Speaker A: Right.
[00:18:02] Speaker B: And those and, and those are the things that were on a slippery slope of going away. Think about feminism, think about gay rights, think about a lot of these things that came after the heavy lifting of all the people, you know, like Martin Luther King and those in the South. Like you said, people got beaten, lynched. The other thing I want to say, James, is this is why I think there is a strong portion of energy that has always been there that tries to keep this history hidden from all Americans. This isn't black history, this is American history.
[00:18:33] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:34] Speaker B: And what happens is by hiding this history, you can hide the fact that this country has only been a democracy for the last 61 years. And prior to that it was had a quasi version of fascism or a legal caste system. And the reason why I said that.
[00:18:49] Speaker A: At least in several, in many states at least in many states.
[00:18:53] Speaker B: And in other states, I mean, even where, let's say, in the northern states, there were still things like redlining and housing discrimination, even though it might not have been.
[00:19:02] Speaker A: That's statute. It's. To your point, that's an economic type of thing versus a political access to the political system thing. But to your point, it wasn't open in the way that we live it in the last 20 years, in the.
[00:19:13] Speaker B: Way we appreciate it now. And so. And so in the film, there was an exchange between George Wallace, who was the governor of Alabama at the time, and Lyndon Johnson.
And I appreciated kind of the. The honesty that the filmmakers, I think, just, you know, did with this conversation, because LBJ says to Governor Wallace, he's kind of frustrated at him for always trying to gum up the works with the voting rights stuff. And he says, george, why don't you just let this vote?
And I appreciated that because let's not soften it. They did talk like that back then. A lot of people still talk like that today.
And George Wallace comes with the whole slippery slope thing. Well, if you let them vote first, then they're gonna do this, Then they're gonna want to go to school with us, then they're gonna want to do that. And it's kind of the same thing. It's always this fear, and it's this fear about, well, if we let them in, then, you know, somehow it's going to muddy the water. That, you know, it's all this stuff. And I think that that is. This is the problem for American culture. We got to somehow figure out how.
[00:20:18] Speaker A: To get through this.
[00:20:19] Speaker B: But we have a portion of our country that doesn't want to ever address it.
[00:20:22] Speaker A: Yeah, it creates this dissonance also, because this is a country that's founded on the principle of all men are created equal. You know, and so it's like, people are constantly. Some people are constantly trying to work around that. You know, it's like. Because it'd be one thing if it wasn't founded on that, if that wasn't one of the.
The defining things at the founding of the country. And so I think that. Similar to your point, you know, like, let's look at, like, I thought, the. The interactions between the political leaders and how they're balancing political considerations with moral considerations, LBJ in particular, and how he had to get to this point in large part because, you know, he's talking to Wallace like, yo, why can't you just let him vote? Because he's like, you're creating all this. This pressure on me because you guys are over here putting hands on people, and it's all in the. You know, I want to talk about the media here in a second, but. And it's all in the papers. And so everybody's people are protesting in my front yard because you guys are beating on people and why can't you just let them vote? What's going on? And so, you know, he's making. That's a political calculation for him more than anything, you know. And so. But the other thing I wanted to mention here is that. And again, it goes back to the kind of. The point I was saying before is that we can't. The movie shows us, but doesn't focus on it as much. But there were people, plenty of people at the time when they are beating people on the Pettus Bridge that are there cheering it on. And then there's plenty of people that were excusing it as well. And I think that we can't forget as a society people who have a certain moral compass, the people who believe that all men are created equal and they should be treated that way under the law.
I think sometimes that we get fooled into thinking that there aren't people who. They may not talk about it from the highest hill. Some of them might talk about it from the highest hill, but they don't have a problem with this. If a government agent shoots somebody, then they may not have a bigger problem. You may think that there's a problem with that, but they may not. And those folks will be here.
There are people like that, and they are here. They will be here. But I think they are a minority of people. And so our democratic society has a way to deal with that. But we have to remember that when it comes time to vote, we have to stop forgetting that, hey, people who may use coded words at certain times, but what they're trying to bring about and the means they're willing to use to bring it about may be something that, from a moral standpoint, that most Americans wouldn't stand for. And then, you know, we forget that and we. And then it starts happening to us. And we're like, oh, my God, how did this happen? And it's like, well, you know, we got to believe people when they say it or when they start talking in code and so forth. So. And the other thing about it, this isn't, as you said, this is American history. This isn't black history. Only because this same type of energy, the same type of people that, you know, it's like, okay, yeah, yeah, they'll talk in code to you. Or they say, hey, I just don't like them. But you know, besides that, I think everybody's cool. They're not your friend anyway, because as we saw in the movie, as soon as any white people would stand with the black folks and say, hey, yeah, we need equality in this country, they're starting to get lynched and murdered and so forth, you know, and the movie makes that point. And in fact, the thing that actually triggered Johnson to step in, like, look, this has to stop, was when a white guy, a priest from Boston, gets murdered by the Jim Crow guys down in the South. And it's like, that wasn't, as far as we know, that wasn't the government officials that did it, that was people roaming the streets at night. But nonetheless, it's just there are people. You can't project your own view that, hey, everybody should have a shot, everybody should be able to make their way. If you're a person that thinks like that, you really can't project that onto everybody else. There are many people like that. There are. Most of us in my mind are like that, but there are people who aren't. And when people aren't like that, unless you're willing to go down that path with them fully, you got to be careful when it comes time to vote, when it comes time to show who you support and so forth, because it's hard to have it both ways, you know, where it's like, hey, we're going to be super mean just to these people though, you know, but everybody else, you know, y' all are cool, you know what I'm saying? Because now that's we're going to be super mean to those people, then it's going to become super mean to those people. There's going to be super mean to those people. And that's how we see that progression in society. And it's not like you're going to get to a point where there's just no people like that. There just are. And so those types of people need deterrence in place. Those people were tamped down because there was enough deterrence in place in our law society to keep them from going and killing people whenever they wanted to. But that has to remain in place or else we'll start seeing more out of control actions from government officials and people at large because that then starts opening up the permission from that. So I want to get to the media piece, but I want to get you.
I threw a lot out, so I.
[00:24:49] Speaker B: Know, you know, I'LL just say this, that then we move just because that was good. I think, you know, you got me thinking because the, the illusion to how people react to these things. I would say that the recent issue we've had here in January of 2026 of a federal agent shooting an American citizen dead is, is a bit of the chickens coming home to roost over the last 15 years or so. Because, you know, it, it speaks to what you were saying.
We have all seen, millions of us, tens of millions of Americans have seen cell phone camera videos generally of unarmed black men being killed by police.
You know, not all the time, but enough that we know that there's a bit of an imbalance here. Right. We've all acknowledged that. Then we had issues like, you know, the, the. The officer was. Sat on another man's neck for eight minutes and killed him while the guy was handcuffed and not resisting. And we saw how even stories like that, that are that blatant on camera, there's still a section of this country that has to give themselves an emotional excuse or cheer, oh, he was on drugs. Oh, he was on this. Yeah. And not look at the fact that, well, you know, in America, the police officer themselves is not supposed to be judge, jury and executioner. They're just supposed to take the guy and then bring him to the judge. Right.
[00:26:07] Speaker A: Yeah. We got other people to do the judge, jury execution.
[00:26:11] Speaker B: So that goes back to that discussion. This is why this topic will never go away for people like you, because this affects people like us in our life who is allowed to have sex with.
[00:26:21] Speaker A: Let me add this because you got to connect it. And just like that, we've seen in the aftermath of the recent shooting, there have been people that have gone out of their way to defend it, to say that it's okay to try to come up with some excuse. And then further than that, we've seen people actually cheer it on. So again, let me talk to.
[00:26:40] Speaker B: No, I just wanted to talk to the other people because I get it, like your point, those people are going to be there, the people cheering this kind of activity.
[00:26:46] Speaker A: My point is just that those people aren't. Those people may say they're not coming for you and they're just, they're just after somebody else. They're just after an immigrant. Don't worry about. But my point is that that's not really the case. You need. Don't be fooled when they say it's all about somebody else, because that's about anybody who doesn't fall in line with Them.
[00:27:03] Speaker B: Yeah, that's why I think we're going to have to live through this pain and more of it. Now we have an administration that is putting federal troops in the street, and they'll do this to any American.
[00:27:11] Speaker A: So that's your point line with them. You are a target at this point. So.
[00:27:16] Speaker B: So it's a reminder that, yeah, we got to protect all of each other or else we'll all be part of the.
[00:27:21] Speaker A: Yes, yes, the people want to impose their will on everyone else without regard for law or anything like that. We all have to stand against that or else they'll pick us off one by one, so to speak. That's their objective, you know. So the other thing I wanted to touch on, and I know we ran a little long before, but I do want to hit it real quick, is just the role of media and technology and how that played. And we saw that play in the movie, like a lot of the movie, you know, we saw how one.
We had King being interviewed oftentimes New York, they had a New York Times reporter that, you know, I guess more so represents, you know, kind of the. The print media there. And he's constantly talking to K, you know, what's going on here. We see television, you know, which is a new technology relatively at that time. And, you know, when. When things get broadcast on television, when images are on the front page of the paper or images of people getting beat and stuff like that, or video of that on television, how that played a role in the population and how people were people who were uncomfortable with that or the people, the kind of people I'm talking about, who are like, yo, this. This is not what it should be going on. You know, like, once they saw that stuff, it became something that was real to them as opposed to maybe reading about it and having it, you know, having it framed to them in a way that it's not a. It's not something that would really bother them.
So one of the things that actually King even brought up is that he talked about how the need to increase political pressure was we need to do that, and the media is needed for that. And how you need drama in order to get the news media to cover what you're doing. So my question to you is twofold. One, just kind of, what did you think of how the media and the role of the media and the new media at the time, even being the television at that time played? And then also I want to touch on if we have a chance to just kind of how that was a media environment that was, you know, very concentrated. You know, you had these big papers that people would read in their town. You had, you know, three television networks. And, you know, one of them has this on. The other was probably gonna have it on too. Cause there's only three with this kind of. With the ability to influence public opinion at large. Again, not segments, but just public opinion at large. Does that even exist anymore with the fragmented media? So either direction. But I want your thoughts on this.
[00:29:36] Speaker B: I don't know. I think we're living through the kind of sausage making period of how with this fractured media landscape, someone will begin to control a narrative.
And so I do think that we're not there yet. I think it's being attempted. That's what we're seeing with these fights over TikTok and Paramount and CBS and. Yeah, and all these things. You know, I think. I think because prior to that, the answer is yes. In the 1960s, there was a very, again, hierarchical media structure where there was only so many broadcasters that could broadcast television shows and there was only so many stations. And so most Americans, you know, 80% of the country was dialed into the same three or four news channels every night. So, yes, when they saw people marching in the early to mid-1960s, and then they saw the images of the way the southern leadership handled this. So sicing dogs on people, the fire hoses, the beatings in public.
Yeah, I think that swayed public opinion. And I want to say this, James, because I was thinking about this in preparing for the show. I think it's important to recognize where we were as a country and a culture in the 1960s. Remember, we had just come off basically 20 years prior to this was us winning World War II.
We beat fascism, we beat the Nazis. We had a certain pride of being the people that came out of these ashes and a kind of democracy won that war. And so I think there was some.
[00:31:07] Speaker A: Particularly the people that have come, that were coming of age during that 1940s, 30s and 40s period, were now the people who were decision makers. Correct.
[00:31:16] Speaker B: So people who served in the war, people have been to Europe and saw what had happened. Some of the both black and white American GIs that freed the concentration camps. So what I'm saying is the country. There's people in the country that understood that this kind of stuff always will just lead to more pain and ruin. So I think that you had a kind of. There was a bit of like. It was a fight for American cultural pride too. Like, who are we? Are we going to be like the Nazis who we just beat and who, you know, who behaved the way that some of these southerners are behaving.
[00:31:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:31:46] Speaker B: Or are we going to be better than that?
[00:31:47] Speaker A: So that's a really good point as far as how, why the images may have been able to influence a larger part of the American population. Like the people that were seeing those, the 40 year old, 45 year old, you know, in 1965 was like, yeah, we, we just was trying to put, put this stuff down, you know, like that, that's, that's really interesting point. I'll say. The change in technology I think is interesting, or the newer technology evolution, because the status quo at the time was one where oppression was okay.
So like the southern states, people have caught those operated at least towards some people in a fascist way. So I think the new technology was very helpful with points that you just made in terms of changing what the status quo was at that time.
So new technology seems to be very capable of dislodging status quo. So the concern would be right now that if the status quo right now has been one of a little bit more tolerance, a little bit more of, hey, everybody should get a chance to participate under the law and be protected by the law the same, and some people shouldn't be treated better under the law than others and so forth. If that's the status quo now, then my concern is the recent change in technology may be able, or may be able to be used to dislodge that status quo. And we go to something not necessarily back to what it was in 1960, but maybe something different, something that's less based on the rule of law and based on the idea that all men have to follow the law, or all men and women, all citizens of the country have to follow the law. And some can't just be above the law or do whatever they want. So that would be my concern with that. The other thing that just kind of stood out to me and I think your point about being in the sausage making point or part of this is really on point there. And that is that King talked about how, you know, hey, you know, we, we gotta make sure we have drama so that the news media will cover this. And that sounded a lot like engagement to me. You know, it's like, well, we gotta make sure that like the news media is not covered this stuff, covering this stuff out of altruism, they're covering this stuff cause it'll deliver eyeballs for them. And so what I think is that what we've seen up till now is that as these new tools have emerged and these new tools, social media tools that are biased on engagement, maybe the people who want to dislodge the status quo or take things in a direction that I might not agree with, maybe they're the ones that got the jump on it and say, hey, I can use this, I know how to generate engagement and I can make this thing happen and take it in a way that I might not agree with, you know, me, myself personally. And it just takes a second for people who may have the greater good or what I would consider the greater good for society in mind to also to learn, like, okay, hey, yeah, we need drama in order to get this stuff picked up on social, social media for it to go viral and so forth. So us being boring but morally right isn't going to cut it, you know, so it's like I'm hoping that that's the sausage making that we're seeing now is that people of good moral, you know, more backing and good faith will come around to the idea of not just complaining about the fact that social media is all engagement based and oh, it's dumb and down and all that, but figure out how to use these tools as they are to then try to make society a better place and a more moral place and a more fair place, you know, a place where there's justice. So, you know, I think that I, we're in the sausage making piece of that because all of these things are tools basically. And so it's how they're used, you know, and that's what we're going to, that's what's going to determine kind of the outcome is how these tools are used and who they're used by.
[00:35:16] Speaker B: No, I think it's an accurate observation that the new technology, the tools were first used by those kind of coming over the walls or the gates of, let's say, the old order and the old way of doing things and they disrupted it. Right, yeah, there's more urgency.
[00:35:32] Speaker A: You know, of course, if you're kind of cool with the way things are or they were at a certain time, you're not gonna be the one pushing the envelope, so to speak.
[00:35:40] Speaker B: Yeah.
And so I think that the.
[00:35:45] Speaker A: You.
[00:35:45] Speaker B: Know, you're right in the sense that they struck first and now everyone else is trying to pick up the pieces and figure it out. And that's why it is a sausage making process, because it makes me just realize, and it's sad because I know your point isn't this, but I want to say this for the audience you know, James's point isn't saying that people like Martin Luther King were saying we just got to cause drama on TV in order for us to get clicks and likes? You know, this was serious stuff. People were losing their lives. And so I think, unfortunately, saying that.
[00:36:11] Speaker A: In order for them to show it. He said he did. He was saying that this won't make the news if it's not something that will deliver eyeballs.
[00:36:19] Speaker B: No, I get it. That's why I'm just making a point that you aren't equating him to, like, a social media influencer today. Because the point I'm making is that the pain was real. People were getting killed and all that. And I was going to say that that's where we're at today. People have a choice to make about what recently happened in Minnesota with the federal agent killing the lady. Is. Is that enough pain for Americans to want to go to the ballot box and start choosing different types of leaders, or is this type of leadership going to just deliver more pain at some point? Just like what's happening with the protests in Iran or something like that, at some point people will stop putting up with pain. Is just how far are we going to let this go as a population? I think that's where we're at now is sausage making part.
[00:37:00] Speaker A: And I think, yeah, and to your point, it's also. Is that enough pain for you to remember? You know, because if your voting isn't for another nine months or another, you know, two years, then will this be so far? Will there be so much else that's happened and so many other things that you saw that kind of disturbed you or whatever, that it's like, oh, well, you know, I'm thinking about other stuff now, you know, and so I think that's part of also with how fast things move.
[00:37:23] Speaker B: So if the Haitians eat your cats and dogs.
[00:37:25] Speaker A: Yeah, I think we can wrap this from there, you know, but overall, you know, it was an excellent movie. You know, it's not something that you're looking at to see a. A story of a long period of time. It is an episode. It's a chapter in the civil rights movement, one that was a successful chapter in getting the Voting Rights act passed. But to see that there's a lot of insight that you can get as far as what's going on today, and then also the. The road that was traveled before. So, you know, we appreciate Ryan for joining us on this episode of Call. Like, I see it, subscribe to the podcast, rate it, review it tell us what you think. Send it to a friend. Till next time. I'm James Keys.
[00:37:57] Speaker B: I'm Tunde Romano.
[00:37:59] Speaker A: All right, we'll talk.
