Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: In this episode, we discuss the 2024 movie Shirley, which is currently airing on Netflix and tells the story of Shirley Chisholm, who was the first black woman elected to Congress. And it talks about her trailblazing run in the 1972 democratic presidential primary.
Hello. Welcome to the call. Like I see a podcast.
I'm James Keys, and joining me today is a man who, whenever you need him, you can be sure that he'll be around. Tunde Ogun, Lana Tunde. You ready to show him the day, how you keep things spinning?
[00:00:47] Speaker B: Yes, sir. And just for you, I wore this shirt for everyone who's watching us on YouTube.
[00:00:52] Speaker A: I was gonna say, yeah, there'd be many more people on YouTube that'll see it besides just me.
Now, before we get started, now, before we get started, if you enjoy the show, I ask that you subscribe and hit, like, on the show on YouTube or your podcast app. Doing so really helps the show out.
Now, recording this on September 24, 2024. And today we continue our streaming between the Lines series and take a look at the movie Shirley, which was released March 15, 2024 on Netflix. It's directed by John Ridley and has Regina King starring as political trailblazer Shirley Chisholm. Now, the movie highlights a couple of political firsts that Chisholm pioneered, essentially, or blazed the trail for. First was her election as the first black woman in Congress in 1968. And then also her run in 1972 in the Democratic Party's presidential primary, where she became the first black person, you know, black person, man or woman, to run in a major party for a major party's nomination for president. So, Tunde, just to get us started here, what stood out most to you in the movie, in this story of Shirley Chisholm's time running for the democratic presidential primary in 1972?
[00:02:08] Speaker B: No, that's a great question. What stood out to me was really a couple things. One was in watching, you know, the whole movie and the story that interesting. Like, things have changed, but they haven't changed a lot. Meaning, like, you let in with the representation part. That's changed a lot since 1972 in terms of the makeup of our elected officials and who they look more like the country, in terms of they represent more multicultural and multigender type of representation now versus back then. But the other issues were exactly the same as today. Kind of, you know, the distrust by many in the public of the political class, the tensions, you know, the social class tensions between the haves and the have nots. So in that sense, it was like, yeah, it was a reminder that society in that way hasn't changed, and it's probably won't change. I mean, I'm sure these are the same tug of wars that societies have had forever since humans started organizing.
And so that stuck out to me. And then the other part, which I kind of alluded to already, was just the idea of a representative democracy, like you said about her being a woman, then, a woman of color, so on and so forth. But it's just that, yeah, this is a time her story happened at a time when America began to live up to the ideals of its founding in terms of a true representative democracy, where someone like her could represent her constituents in Brooklyn, who, a lot of them were a reflection of her majority women and majority non white. So it was, you know, in her district. So it was, I thought from that angle, it, you know, that's what stood out to me primarily, you know, what.
[00:03:58] Speaker A: Stood out to me. It kind of piggybacks back on what you're saying there. But it's the dynamic. The american system is like her decision. Now, the movie, obviously, is going through these things in an hour and a half, 2 hours. So it's not going to go the in depth, you know, contemplative, you know, it's not going to go into all that. But she decided to run. You know, it's for the president. Like, it, it touched on briefly, you know, when she was elected to Congress as a representative, like you said, for her district in Brooklyn. And just how, you know, she shows up and everybody's kind of like, oh, my God, you know, what's this? But, you know, she's from a district wherever I person like that can get elected. This is post civil rights act. And so, you know, it's, this is an America where, like you said, it's starting to actually live up to the idea of being a democracy where people can vote, and not just in theory, but actually in practice. But come 1971, when it's like she starts kicking around the idea or it comes up like a running for president, and she's like, okay, well, I'll do it. You know, I'll do it. It's like, okay, yeah, that's, that's pretty cool that someone can, you know, not just, you know, like, it's not just somebody sitting on their couch all day, you know, but it's somebody who is a obviously a person who will try new things and is not afraid. You're not afraid to take risks, but to say, to decide and say, hey, okay, well, I'm gonna throw my hat in the ring, start fundraising and so forth and put on, you know, a legitimate campaign, so to speak. And so that's not, that's something that's kind of built into the american system, at least it has been to some degree. And so once a lot of the barriers that have been put, that are put in place to hold back women or to hold back people of color or to hold back. And one of the issues here was this was the first presidential election where 18 year olds could vote, you know, 1819, like the voting age was lower to any adult. And so that's another thing. And so that changes the dynamic, so to speak. But just that dynastism, when you have what's supposed to be a representative government and how things can change very quickly. And for things to change, you just take it needs a brave person to go out and make the change. And everybody calls them crazy and so forth like that. Once she did it, then it had been done. And so she, other people saw a path to do it as well. And so I think that really was just kind of how change happens.
It kind of gave us an insight into it's not necessary sometimes it's just somebody deciding to do something. And then in a system that allows that to happen, like, she didn't make that decision, and then the system just closed her out. Like the system gave her enough avenues to wiggle her way in and so forth. So to me, that's a credit to the system in addition to a credit to her being, you know, with the courage and the ability to push forward even though you're doing something that everyone is telling you is crazy, or that everybody looks at it like, oh, you know, like, that's not even serious, and so forth, but it's serious. And all the people that told her, you know, like, oh, that's crazy. You know, like, those people aren't marked in history in that way, but she is.
[00:06:45] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a good point, too. I mean, just to finish on the very last point you made, I was amazed how little this woman is talked about in just our kind of american history discourse. I didn't learn about Shirley Chisholm until my thirties. Those were my thirties. And I'm not saying that that's everybody, but I just someone who's dynamic like this and represented such change at that time, I thought would be a little bit better known to most Americans. But it's interesting as you're talking, it makes me realize that what we watch in the film was an example of when the pendulum had had begun already to swing a certain way like you had mentioned the 1965 Civil Rights act, because prior to that, the United States was not the democracy that people like you and I have enjoyed during our lifetime because we're born after that.
[00:07:38] Speaker A: Or that it claimed that it was. The United States claimed to be something that it was.
[00:07:42] Speaker B: Be careful until that might offend some people.
[00:07:44] Speaker A: Hey, man, you're gonna offend some people no matter what you say these days.
[00:07:47] Speaker B: But, um. But no. So, so what I'm getting at is, so by 1972, like you said, it starts in 68 with her election to Congress, and then 72. So you're in this era where the pendulum had just begun to swing towards the more egalitarian, open America, more of their reflection of the society, so on. It's like we're talking about representative government. And you said something that made me realize that why kind of the pendulum is swinging back the other way, which is kind of natural in societal cycles.
[00:08:20] Speaker A: Like a physics standpoint of a pendulum, we're going to describe it as a pendulum. If it swings one way, it's going.
[00:08:26] Speaker B: To swing back the emotional physics. Yeah. Because when you're talking about 18 year olds being able to vote for the first time, and again, it's something that we're not. I mean, I know we can't learn every single thing about american history and school and all that, but it's another reminder that even things like the voting age or the age to drive a car haven't been static in american history. There are things that have moved and changed. And what I think what it reminded me of is that's another example of opening up the representation, because the sixties represented opening up the representation of non whites. The feminism movement at the time opened up more rights to women. And then you're right, younger people were able to come in particular. Yeah, yeah. And younger people now being able to have their voices heard by the early seventies and vote. And it did. Like when you said it, I thought about the vice presidential nominee for 2024 this year who has kind of suggested that maybe we should change the rules a bit, where we limit access to voting for people who don't have children, for example. Or if. Or if you don't have children, you pay higher taxes. And that's what I mean by speaking.
[00:09:35] Speaker A: Of the republican vice presidential candidate, Vance.
[00:09:38] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And so what I'm saying is, it reminded me, as you were alluding to that, that, yeah. Right now we're seeing the pendulum trying to be swung the other way by people like him and people that support that mindset, which is, let's limit the ability of everybody to participate in picking our leaders. And I says, as it. As you said, that it made me realize which what that film and what she represented was the earlier stage of opening up the plurality of our country. And we see people now that are trying to, you know, put a lid on what was started.
[00:10:10] Speaker A: Well, yeah, but I mean, I think that the forces that were trying to put a lid on it were there, too. I mean, I think that the question whether the pendulum is swinging is more so, what is ascendant? What actually is having success? And so maybe in November, we'll come, we'll see whether or not, you know, if the pendulum is actually swinging that way or. Or is. It's still just kind of a battle to push things a certain way in a more everybody equal way or in a way where some people are considered to be more important than others. One of the things that the movie did touch on, though, is, and I think that it's relevant, we see it relevant today, is the nature of gender politics and how just gender politics then was much more overt in terms of, okay, well, this is a woman. What is this woman doing? Women don't do this, so to speak. That wasn't just from, like, she experienced that from whether it be just white people in America, but she experienced that from black men. And it was like, oh, well, black men. Or. And then sometimes it would be white women or black women that were looking at, like, what are you doing? That's not your role in society. So it wasn't even, like something where her being a woman galvanized or her being a black woman galvanized 100% of black people or galvanized 100% of women, it was still something that because of what people were accustomed to, some people, you know, people who maybe are more resistant to change, kind of. Some of that stuff is kind of just inherent. Like, it's harder for people to get used to some people to get used to different things or to seeing different things, you know, that that causes discomfort for them. And so we saw that. And what I want to ask you, though, you know, along these lines, is, you know, just in terms of part of her messaging and part of the what her approach and what she wanted to do was the. This mindset of bringing politics back to the people and make putting the power, the levers of power closer to the people and not so far away, as you indicated, there was a lot of reference to the idea that people feeling very disconnected. You know, there's a political class that has all the power. And then the regular people have very little connection to that. And so there was some pushback to that. There were some ways, and people thought that that was crazy itself and, or that that was something that wasn't going to, wasn't something that could be successful. But it was very important to her, you know, to try to bring the levers of power closer to all types of people. So what do you make of that? You know, in terms of that as a messaging? Did you see that as something that was, that what was or could have been successful? Just, you know, kind of. What was your reaction to seeing her approach like that and then the reaction to it?
[00:12:40] Speaker B: No, I thought it was. It was very good, because I think it's this tensions again, we see in democracies and movements even, and we could even, like, there's similarities today with the version, let's call it, of populism in America today, even though I think it's very different than what Chisholm represented and the circumstances are different, which is because I'll give you my thought from the film specifically, was her meeting with Huey Newton when she asked him for his endorsement, and he started giving her pushback because she had met with George Wallace and so on and so forth. And it goes back to, like, her mindset was, no, if you're going to do this long term and have changed, you need to approach it in a way that's not burning everything down, as opposed to the more passionate, you know, emotions of this. People in the sixties, like Huey Newton, the Black Panther, so on and so forth.
[00:13:38] Speaker A: So she said, like, if you burn it all down, then all you'll have to govern is ashes. You know, that was a quote from the movie.
[00:13:43] Speaker B: You stole my thunder because I was going to read it. She wrote it down as a quote. So you're right. You said it, so now you stole it, but it's all good. So now if you burn everything down.
[00:13:52] Speaker A: This is a collaborative effort.
[00:13:54] Speaker B: Yes, you almost got it 100%. She actually said, if you burn everything down, all you'll have to rule over is ashes. And then she says, democracy works. That's why we're here. That was her reply. And I really like that because you and I have had private conversations about stuff we've talked about with even friends of ours from even recent times. I mean, like the 2020 summer, BLM summer and stuff, where maybe some of our friends were more of the burn it down types, and we compared them to that more fiery energy of the 1960s, like the Black Panthers and the Nation of Islam. Versus which would then be like the hairdouse versus the tortoise of the Martin Luther King type of attitude, which was slow and steady. And I think her point was more of the point that I would take, which is if you want lasting change, you can't just be kinetic strikes all the time. You actually got to get into the democracy and do what was done that changed the course of american history after the sixties with the civil rights era and all that.
And what I like. She also followed up to him because she asked him, what are you? What's your role in society? In a sense, because he put her down or tried to put her down, but she turned around by saying, you can't do that. You're only a school teacher. And then I'll read the quote. She goes, yes, I'm a school teacher. Harriet was a slave. Rosa was a domestic. And then she looked at him and says, what is your job? And I guess she put him on the spot because he's supposed to be, you know, someone that's leading the people. So then he actually turned around and endorsed her. So to me, that was kind of the interesting part when you're talking about for the people, that she really took the long game and she was punished for it, too. This wasn't in the film, but I decided to do some reading for afterwards, which will be in the show. Notes or honor, which was. By the late seventies, a lot of the progressive left in New York began to reject her because they felt that she was too much working with the man kind of in the system. And I think that's what I'm saying is we see that today with the populism on the right where if they feel that somebody that's representing them is working with the other side or working within the greater system, that they're a traitor and they need to be jettisoned. So that, to me, was an interesting dynamic, too. Is that a lot of times when people come up from the ground, you know, the bottom up of society and say, we're representing the people at some point that people might turn on them and it might not always be a justified turn.
[00:16:25] Speaker A: It's that they, because there's an emotional satisfaction, a lot of times associated with that energy of burn it all down. Like, I'm upset about something, I'm upset the way things are. And so trying to make incremental change doesn't have the emotional satisfaction. So we've seen this, you know, a lot where, you know, that goes back where you can look at the, you know, Malcolm versus Martin, you know, in terms of how do you approach this? Like Malcolm X, there was a lot of emotional satisfaction in by any means necessary. The question is whether or not you can really create lasting change like that, you know, and that was kind of a wrestling match that takes place. So what you bring up here is something and that along that lines, like what she was. I mean, she was true to her word in that sense. Like, she was trying to be. She was a. She was there for all of the people. Like, the movie made a point to point out how she goes from meeting with George Wallace after there was an attempt on his life to meeting with Huey Newton, who is, you know, the leader of the Black Panther party. And so it doesn't get too much more different, you know, the opposite sides of polls than those two people. Yet she's comfortable discussing, having conversations with both of them, trying to work with both of them to try to bring people towards, you know, what she views as progress. And so I really respected her kind of bringing this, because the. The isolation and everybody going to huddling off in their corners is how people get disconnected from the power, because the people, I mean, to borrow from the Black Panthers, I mean, the powers with the people, but only when the people are together. You know, the people would have to have a common interest and believe in their common interests. As long as the people believe that the guys over there are the enemy or the guys over there the enemy, then they will be disconnected from power, more or less, in a system like ours. So part of her kind of walking the walk of the talk she was talking, I thought was very admirable in that sense. I do find it, though, you know, in many respects, and this may be a critique on our system to be something that may be a little pollyannish, you know, because, like, she, you know, it was talking about or the movie went into, like, conversations she had with her campaign manager, who's a political animal, you know, like, literally, that's what his job is to be. And how she wants to talk straight to people. She doesn't want to spin it. She doesn't want. She just wants to give people her thoughts and give it to them straight. And he was like, that's. That's a terrible idea, essentially, and I'm paraphrasing, but it's like a terrible idea. You got to have this message for these people. You got to have that message for these people and so forth. And his. His understanding was from not some kind of overall, like, uh, you know, like ideology. It was like this is how you effectively talk to people in our political system. And so to me, you know, it was like her bet on the people. Was that a good bet to bet on kind of the intelligence of people and say, hey, I'm going to talk to them straight and they're going to appreciate, they're going to understand it and they're going to appreciate it. That's a bet on the intelligence of people. You can bet on the intelligence of a person, but to bet on the intelligence of people might not be a good bet. You know what we see maybe some people tend to have a lot more success by telling the people what they want to hear, but just dressing it up as plain talk. But really, you know, like you're not really telling them how it is, you're just telling them, you tell them what they want to hear and say it in a way that makes them think like you're just talking straight seems to work a lot better. So, and that's not a, I don't think that's a good thing. That may be a critique more on our system or it may be a critique on kind of just how we, if you put humans in a democratic type system, that's kind of how it's, a lot of it's going to happen or a lot of it's going to move.
[00:19:57] Speaker B: She, she falls into the trap that I think a lot of genuine politicians fall into, which is, again, why a lot of them probably don't make it that far. Cuz you're right, what she, what she was doing is projecting. Right? Like meaning she understand, we talked about.
[00:20:11] Speaker A: This a lot, you and I, like separately.
[00:20:13] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, but that's, I mean she's a good up in Brooklyn. She understands certain issues that the people need in those city, you know, big cities.
[00:20:20] Speaker A: Or she wants people to talk straight to her. Yeah, you know, I just want somebody to talk straight to me.
[00:20:25] Speaker B: Yeah, but she doesn't understand why if she doesn't just say, hey, look, we need this, we need that and blah, blah, blah, like I don't think, I mean, she obviously learned this, I'm sure after years of being in Congress. But maybe at the beginning, like she didn't understand that maybe someone like a George Wallace, part of the reason why he behaved the way he behaved was not only that, he maybe have even believed it, but maybe he didn't believe some of the stuff he was saying, but it was about power. So it doesn't matter how you talk to some of these people.
And that is why probably you do need to understand that different messages work for different audiences and different recipients.
[00:21:02] Speaker A: The power, the connection there, by the way, just to tap into people's emotion so that they, when you tap into people's emotion, a lot of times they just throw the power at you. They just throw like, oh, yeah. You know, because you've tapped into their emotion. She's trying to tap into their intellect, trying to tie into their patriotism, trying to tap into things that, you know, again, what she would want someone to, how she would want someone to come at them. And I agree with you. That's like, honorable. That's like the kind of person that. Yeah, that would be a great type of person, you know, that you would want in the abstract, or at least someone like me would want in the abstract. But, yeah, there seem to be limitations on that when we look at history and we look at people who tried to take that approach, because, and that's.
[00:21:42] Speaker B: What I'm saying, that unfortunately, the politicians that approach politics like that usually aren't as successful as the ones who want understand the emotional slogan. Think about it. To what you said earlier, I'm thinking of a slogan now, which one of the slogans in our current political campaign is take America back.
Right. I mean, I see it on flags.
[00:22:01] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:01] Speaker B: That's a very strong emotional feeling for people that feel like the country has been taken away from them. There's nothing.
[00:22:08] Speaker A: But let me throw in something real quick with that also, because what that also taps into, anytime you have something where it looks backwards to some previous amazing time or great time, that also taps into the emotion from a nostalgia standpoint. And remember, we, and we've talked about this in shows. Nostalgia is a really tricky thing because nostalgia can you, it can actually convince you that, well, one, your brain tends to look at these things in the past as much better because it flattens your memory. Kind of flattens on it. And, you know, remember we were talking about the instance where people remember. There's people that remember, like a bustling factory in town, like, oh, the factory wasn't even like there or open when they were a kid. But nostalgia, I had a better one.
[00:22:49] Speaker B: Hold on that. Recently we saw a quote, I'm putting air quotes for people listening, a historian on a famous media entertainer show who said that Winston Churchill was the one that caused World War Two. It was his fault. And I was looking at World War Two.
[00:23:06] Speaker A: But that's not what I'm saying is more so how nostalgia can kind of, if you can tap into a nostalgia where people naturally, a lot of people naturally will look back at the past as something more fond. And then if then it actually was, that happens. And then if you can tap into that, you can, you can really build that emotional. You can move them emotionally in a way. So that's more.
[00:23:24] Speaker B: So I get it. I'm just making a point that if you add on top of it, beginning to change this nuances of information it actually can change people, people's actual perception. But the, but as we say something like that, like a slogan, like take America back. What? You're right. Looking backwards. That that's where you get to Shirley Chisholm's quote of well, if we burn it all down, all you're gonna rule. You're gonna rule over a bunch of ashes because you're right. Those kind of slogans, they're all about emotion and let's tear something down. But there's not really a discussion about, okay, so what are we building after? Like, what's, what's gonna hold this thing together if we, if we tear all the scaffolding down?
[00:24:02] Speaker A: It's kind of like tear it all down. And what's left is what was there before. One, you know, you have a mistake about. You're mistaken about what was there before. And two, that's just not how it will work. You gotta move forward. You gotta build something moving forward even if you wanna change what is now. But, but nonetheless, I think that one of the points I wanna get to because I wanna keep us moving just real quick, is the idea, and this is, this was implicit. I kind of just want to say it as a question and I'll let you react to it real quick. But the idea that sometimes when you see something like this and you have the conversation we just had as far as how her I projecting positive stuff like, hey, this person wants to hear people talking straight or talking to them straight and really not try to manipulate them and so forth. You wonder sometimes whether the nature of our either is it our political system or is it just how human beings operate in these large groups, particularly large groups that are not just homogeneous, but large groups like that. Where is it the politics? Is it the incentive structures in the politics? Is it just human beings where it's actually designed to like where good people that are drawn in kind of flounder, at least unless they divide, they kind of go to some of these dark arts of emotional use of emotion and manipulation. Or they bring out along those lines the, you know, if good people get in there, it has to bring out the bad in them. Or, you know, worst case scenario would be it actually incentivizes and draws in the manipulative people like, hey, this is, this is the kind of thing we like to do type of thing. It's like, well, hold on. Our incentive structures might be a little thrown off if that's what's drawn to it. And people who genuinely want to help people kind of have to start making these hard choices. Okay, well, do I want to start manipulating people emotion with emotion, or do I want to stay true and marginalize myself?
[00:25:44] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I think there's a lot to be said there. I get the feeling that the incentive structure, it probably sways people in directions more than we all want to believe. So now, like you said. Wait.
[00:25:57] Speaker A: Humans respond to incentives. So, I mean.
[00:25:58] Speaker B: Yeah, and that's why, like, with the way that our media ecosystem. Sorry, media ecosystems are now between social media and all that, the incentive is for those who make the most noise. They get noticed because there's such a, there's just so much out there. And people want to get attention to fundraise and be able to stay in power, as opposed to maybe in the 1980s when you and I were younger and there was only the network television, really, maybe just a few cable channels. There was a much more orderly process of power in this country. And so, and so I think we're just in a wild west of information and the technology, and at some point a new order will form. The battle is now, will that be an autocratic order?
[00:26:40] Speaker A: Or I think just to add to your point, is like the incentive structure. If you go back 40 years, if you were someone who told a lot of lies, for example, then those media ecosystems might have kept you out because you were considered to be dishonest. Whereas now, whether you are telling the truth or not, it seems like because attention is at such a premium, there is no one that will keep you out, because what you're saying isn't true. If it draws attention, then it's going to work, so to speak, to keep you in the public eye. So how those incentive structures change, obviously will change who's incentivized to get involved and then the extent that the techniques that are employed when, you know, amongst the people that are involved. So it's, it's interesting. It's good to take a, you know, a look at that stuff. And this, I think, gives, you know, kind of illustration of that because you do have somebody who made it their intention to say, hey, I want to talk straight to people. And she got respect from some insider. Wallace, you know, was mentioned in the movie, expected that about her. But it definitely, maybe there's some limitations to that. But go ahead real quick.
[00:27:43] Speaker B: Let me just. Because I do want to speak on the Wallace thing specifically, because for those who. I mean, this is a long time ago now, George Wallace was a very, very staunch and popular segregationist who ran for president.
And so this was back when the.
[00:27:58] Speaker A: Racists were still in the Democratic Party.
[00:28:00] Speaker B: Yeah. And people can look up the history. I mean, he was famously stood at the doorsteps of the University of Alabama because he didn't want to let black students in who are now admitted to the university at the time. And so this was a big deal that Shirley Chisholm, after a failed assassination attempt against Wallace, where he became paralyzed because he was shot, he just wasn't killed. She went to his hospital room and met with him. And what happened is, to me, is the human part of politics, which I think, unfortunately, we've lost in this era in american politics, because besides the fact that I read in a separate piece that Wallace's daughter states that that meeting is one of the things that began the catalyst of him changing his views on his own behavior in the past about segregation and all that.
But what happens is, in May of 1972, I'm reading here, when Chisholm worked on a bill to give domestic workers the right to minimum wage, Wallace helped gain votes from enough southern congressmen to push the legislation through the House. That's what I mean by the long game. What Shirley Chisholm did is she went to someone who, by all intents and purposes, should have been her enemy, a staunch segregationist from Alabama, and she's a black woman from Brooklyn.
[00:29:18] Speaker A: And she went in, was made on her. Like, people were making that point to her at the time, you know, like, was lost on her.
[00:29:25] Speaker B: But that's what Huey Newton was giving her grief about. Right. And that's why she summoned her campaign.
[00:29:30] Speaker A: Remember some.
[00:29:31] Speaker B: Yeah. And she took him to task on it. And that's what the point is. In the end, because of that human connection and her reaching out to him, he ended up helping her get legislation over the hump that required domestic workers, which would have at the time, especially been mostly blacks, to get, to allow them to participate in minimum wage, because obviously, prior to that, they weren't being paid minimum wage and they're american citizens working here. So, again, but her desire for change was playing the long game, not just.
[00:30:01] Speaker A: This emotional, but I think you say the long game and you actually trivialize her a little bit. I don't think when she went to meet with Wallace, it was so that he would, she could try to flip him to get this legislation passed. Like, it seemed like genuinely. But this, I, so I just want to make, this is genuinely who she was, you know, and so that, again, a credit to her, you know, and then I think it's unfortunate if we're in a situation where someone with those type of personality traits, our system can kind of marginalize them or force them to be marginalized or kind of give them a ceiling as far as how high they can rise. If they're are going to truly be trying to care about people and be about trying to better people and bring people together, that would be a concern, something to keep an eye on. So I do want to finish up this discussion. There's one more piece that I want to get to is just with the way our media and politics have changed, like you said, some things have changed, some things are kind of similar. But in the world we are in today, do you think that Chisholm, at least, let's say, for a presidential primary, would have had more success or less success? And then why do you think, you know, she would have been more successful or less successful?
[00:31:10] Speaker B: That's tough, man, because I think I could see it both ways. I could see more success potentially because of social media and the ability she would have been able to, in certain cases, potentially jump over the apparatus of the political party. You know, all that. So I could think of someone like Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, you know, AOC, who came in as a young person who, you know, without the current Internet and media, she might not have been seen by enough constituents at the time when she won, when she was only, like, in her late twenties or something. So I could see that. I could also see on the flip side, Shirley Chisholm maybe not even winning an election because maybe she'd have been driven out too early by some of the things she said and that would have circulated on social media, and maybe she would have just been kind of driven out. So it's interesting, I'm not sure which way it would have gone, but I do think that unfortunately, like we mentioned about that, the ability to make some human connections behind the scenes, I think that's a little bit more difficult today because of maybe politicians feeling like they have to perform for their, like their audience, quote, unquote, all the time. I mean, the amount of time politicians spend on social media just making their comments known on Twitter, I mean, it's, it's ridiculous. I mean, as professionals, you and I don't spend that much time on social.
[00:32:36] Speaker A: Media, social media fundraising, man. That's all they do.
[00:32:40] Speaker B: That's what I'm saying. So it's like they, they continue to have to drive, like, a more, and I'm not saying they, they have to, but it's like they end up driving a more divisive message because I guess they're trying to get more attention from certain rabbit holes instead of the ability to get it from everybody, you know, try and appeal to everybody. So I'm not sure how she do today.
[00:33:02] Speaker A: It's, there are very few, like, public squares where you can try to appeal to, or the ability to appeal to a lot of different people actually can be, can, can be weaponized, so to speak. I think personally, you know, in terms of whether she would do better or worse or because she could, could she be more successful or less successful in today's environment? I think she could be more successful in today's environment, but the question really would come down to where the population was at a certain moment. Like, could she have been, I think, like, for example, I think whether she would be more successful would depend on the year 2024 versus 2020 versus 2016 versus 2012. It depends because I think the mood of the nation would matter a lot. Like, she probably could have been more successful in a year like 2016. Setting aside, like, kind of the way that Hillary Clinton kind of stacked things in her favor in the democratic primary, the messaging that she had, I think, would have been from a, and I'm talking about in the democratic primary, you know, I think that messaging would have been very well received at that moment. You know, and so, like, she could have done more because she definitely could cover more ground and touch more people within the genuineness of her message. And, you know, kind of the idea of putting people back in charge would have, would have been something that could have, could have resonated. So I think her ceiling is higher, but I think, and in a different year, for example, I think she would ran into the same issue, like one of the biggest issues. I mean, name recognition was one of her big issues. She would have been able to help with that in the modern era. But the issue that she ran into ultimately in 1972 was, quote, unquote, electability and people, and it was said many times, oh, you know, like McGovern, Jordan McGovern ends up winning the democratic primary in part because he was seen to be electable. And this guy goes and gets trounced in the 72 election by Nixon. Maybe any Democrat would have, but the idea that somebody who is people are lining up behind because he's the most, quote unquote electable is, you know, like, is an interesting thing. And I don't think she would have fared well in that environment. And I say 2020 would have been something analogous to that because that was a big piece of Biden's appeal, was that he was, quote unquote, he could, he could beat Trump, you know, like, let's do something that's, quote unquote safe and very not going to be offensive to anyone and so forth. Now, Biden actually won. So, you know, I'm not going to say, oh, you know, like, the public was wrong, whereas, you know, obviously, the sentiment, whether amongst the party might have been guided with an interesting one, would.
[00:35:24] Speaker B: Have been 2016 when that's what I'm saying. Like, when public aside, like Bernie Sanders.
[00:35:29] Speaker A: But, but her, similar to a Bernie Sanders is kind of, I'm saying. So 2016, I think she probably had a hot, she would had a better chance. 2020, probably the same or worse chance. So I think it depends on the public mood at that time.
[00:35:43] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:35:43] Speaker A: You know, more than anything.
[00:35:45] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:35:46] Speaker A: Well, no, okay. So, no, I didn't get anything else on that.
[00:35:49] Speaker B: I guess we're good.
[00:35:50] Speaker A: There was something, I had something, it.
[00:35:51] Speaker B: Was a good movie. Go see it. And I don't work for Netflix.
[00:35:54] Speaker A: The other thing I just wanna mention, though, is, you know, like, and we see that. We see this, what I'm about to say kind of still in this current timeframe, I think now the gender politics was there, and I think it was very overt in many cases, you know, what she dealt with. But I think even now, though, we still have the gender politics in a more subtle way. So I think that she still would have, that wouldn't have been something that would have been solved and she would have just been able to like that. She wouldn't have had to deal with that. I think it's still something that she would have to deal with, and that would have made a difference in terms of her ceiling. And so I think society may be a little better with it. But where it really is is that, I think negative messages, people questioning, like, she could have been the smartest person in the world and be like, oh, but is she smart enough? And people would have actually really considered that, you know, like, she could have spoke very clearly and everything like that. Oh, but is she smart enough? And she could have, she could go against somebody who may be a man who speaks in broken English and all this other stuff, and nobody will question his intelligence in that way. So we still have to.
[00:36:53] Speaker B: Aren't we seeing that in our 2024 race?
[00:36:56] Speaker A: I would say yes. I think that's the evidence of that. So I think that many of the same hurdles that she faced would still be there. Maybe there are better ways to get around those hurdles. There are more avenues to get around those hurdles or to deal with those hurdles than there was then. But it still would have been the same, you know, as a similar uphill. Uphill climb. But, you know, I mean, that's kind of. That's some of that is just built into our humanity, you know, like. And so we're good. Those are things that. Those are barriers that other people are going to have to break down so that we can start changing kind of the what we think the normal is, so to speak.
So I agree.
All right. Sorry, but no, but I think we can wrap this from here. We appreciate, everybody, 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. Until next time, I'm James Keys.
[00:37:44] Speaker B: I'm Tunde Winlana.
[00:37:46] Speaker A: All right, we'll talk to you next time.
