Episode Transcript
[00:00:14] Speaker A: Hello, welcome. 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 1619 Project, which since 2019 has spawned a long form journalism endeavor, a podcast series, and more recently an anthology of essays and poetry that are presented in book form, a book that you can go buy. And all of these are dedicated to add more context and perspective to American history.
Joining me today is a man who's fully focused, man, his money on his mind.
[00:00:55] Speaker B: Tunde.
[00:00:56] Speaker A: Ogon. Lana Tunde, we know you're always doing big deals, but are you ready to show the people how you're still on the grind?
[00:01:03] Speaker B: Every day, man, every day I'm hustling like they said in the song.
All right, all right.
[00:01:09] Speaker A: Now we're recording this on February 14, 2022.
And today we're going to take a look at the 1619 project and the way it takes a look at the history of the United States and before that, the American colonies, and aims to offer a more honest portrayal of the role that slavery as an institution, as well as that black Americans as a group played in the development of the society we live in today.
Now, the 1619 project comes from Nicole Hannah Jones, also writers from the New York Times and the New York Magazine. And what it does it quote, aims to reframe the country's history by placing the consequences of slavery as and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of the United States national narrative. Now, the project's readily accessible and really is best appreciated and understood by reading the actual individual pieces in full context. So we're not going to try to explain in this podcast all that there is to know, but we wanted to react to some of it and really take a look at how it fits into the big picture of our society and how we understand our history and ourselves.
So tunde to get us started, but I mean, we'll start broad. What stands out to you about the 1619 project and what it's trying to accomplish?
[00:02:29] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a good question, man. I mean there's obviously a lot that stands out to me and I know we'll get into some of it, but for the just the sake of just answering here, I mean, and I've alluded to this kind of sentiment in other discussions we've had about historic stuff. You know, what stands out to me are many things that were not taught to me, or I'd say us in terms of most Americans, I think about some of these specific pieces of American history. And I want to say it that way because I also want to say this is not like black history only.
This is a shared history of our country that happens to be about one of the many topics of our country's history, which is slavery, the treatment of black people, so on and so forth.
And also how blacks have related to this country's history. I mean, some of the things that we'll get into that I found interesting, for example, was the history of black participation in the Revolutionary War.
And so I found it to be very interesting as an accompanying narrative to other narratives we have about the American history and what it's trying to accomplish, in my opinion. I mean, I know that there's plenty of interviews everyone can go see with some of the people that have founded this project about what comes out of their mouth. But what I would think that this is trying to accomplish is really kind of what I just alluded to, which is giving another narrative.
Not a false narrative or a replacement narrative. Let me be clear on that. But it's adding, I should say, and let me correct myself, then I won't say another. I will say it's adding to the narrative that's already been established in American history.
And what I think I realized in preparing for today is I'm an American citizen. I was born in this country, and I love this country.
And I have a much different experience as a black person than white people have had in this country.
And I think that black Americans specifically have been able to, in a very mature way, carry several thoughts and realities about this country in their head at once. And I think what this project tries to do is articulate those feelings that we have had about this country and.
[00:04:56] Speaker A: Challenge everybody else to then also have to carry a couple thoughts in their head at the same time.
[00:05:00] Speaker B: Correct. Exactly. And so I think it's just. That's what I think it's trying to accomplish, is to ask us to look at the history and actual facts.
And there's areas where they do have opinion, but there are pretty much it's all based on the historic facts of this country.
And like you said, we've been forced to deal with certain things and have to be comfortable with things.
And others, I don't want to say be forced, but others should take pride in their country's total history and be able to see things that are not always easy and sometimes difficult and be okay with that.
This is what makes us who we are. And if we want to understand a bit more of some of the tensions today, we should probably look at these things more seriously and not just.
What do you call it, kind of jettison them as a waste of time.
[00:05:55] Speaker A: We talked about that kind of last week, some of these discussions or some of these points, and it comes up in the 1619 project as well, actually. If you can gather an understanding as far as what's happening, what's being discussed, it'll make you better able to deal with the complexities of today. It's when you try to look at things in the past as just one thing or just one way that the complexity of the present frustrates you because you're wondering, why aren't things simple like they were in the past? And it wasn't that they were simple in the past. It's just that your desire to only see things simple in the past has you comparing something that, based on your own decision, is easy or simple or not complex, but really wasn't. And so. But for me, what really stands out. And I would piggyback on what you said. I mean, black history is American history, if you're talking about black Americans. And so the question I think that is being implicitly asked here, and it's not really being asked, it's just being taken, so to speak, which, you know, I can appreciate, is that is the black experience a part of the narrative of the United States? You know, a part of the entire narrative of the United States. You know, when the black Americans. You know, narrative necessarily depends in some measure on perspective. You know, the narrative of how you see things happening will. Your narrative will. If you're actually recounting it, it will change depending on your perspective. If you're a football fan, or let's say a fan of a sports team, how you would recount what happens in the game would depend on in some measure. Now, you'd say the scores or whatever. Like, you'd say, okay, that happened. Those are the facts. But the meaning of things or whether there's momentum here or all these things would depend in some measure on your perspective. If you're a fan of this team or that team, the teams that are competing. And so if you're the team that came from behind and won, you know, in a magnificent way, then the narrative will be about overcoming adversity, fighting through struggle, and then finally coming out on top. And if you're part of the team that had the big lead and lost it, then your narrative is about couldn't finish. And you looked at it and you didn't work hard enough to be able to get all the way through. And so we have to understand that. But in our country, we're all Americans. And if we're all Americans, then the narrative can't just be from one perspective, so to speak, if we're going to understand the complexity and what it means to be American. So I think from what it's trying to accomplish, I think that's very helpful. It's very helpful for people who want to have a better understanding of what's going on, better understanding and better ability to adapt and to react to what's happening and in the world today, in our country. Now, this will help them. This will give them the tools. This will help them understand. Okay, well, here's where this is coming from. Here's where this may be coming from and the type of things that we can do to deal with it.
[00:08:59] Speaker B: You asked a profound question, because you asked, is the black American experience part of the narrative of American history?
[00:09:08] Speaker A: The American narrative?
[00:09:09] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a profound question because on its surface, it kind of sounds a little bit flippant or like, oh, what do you mean?
But I think that's what this whole moment in time that we're living in, in this kind of 2021, 2022 era of this pushback against other narratives, the 16 Project, 1916 or 1619 Project, sorry, disturbed a lot of people because it upset the narrative and it upset the apple cart by suggesting that. That certain parts of our history weren't the way that maybe we were all taught in school, for example.
What my concern is in understanding our history is that it's offensive to me and I'm sure many others, that our history has not been complete on purpose as well, that there's a lot of additions, accomplishments, and contributions of blacks in this country's history from prior to its founding that have just been withheld from educational, you know, high school, middle school, college, general classes that I think would help most of America.
[00:10:24] Speaker A: You know, what's interesting about that, just briefly.
[00:10:26] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:10:27] Speaker A: Like, you. You don't know for sure, but that stuff is either not there because it was just left out, wasn't deemed important enough, or what would be worse is if it was deemed to be not the kind of narrative that whoever was telling the story wanted to be a part of the American narrative, that they didn't want a narrative where all groups or black Americans were contributing and making this thing a better place. And so, you know, I'm not going to assign which one is which. I mean, people can do their own reading. I won't either, and figure out where they come down on that, but either way, it's out. It's not in. You know, so you need things like this. You need journalists to step in and actually take a look at these things and try to add more context, more perspective, so that we can see things that are left out and try again, try to meld them in to a national narrative that has a little more complexity.
[00:11:20] Speaker B: Yeah. And I agree with you. Like, we can't get into people's head in the past and say, why was something left out? You're right. It could have been out of apathy. This wasn't deemed important.
[00:11:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:30] Speaker B: Or it was maliciously left out because people didn't want to let young children and future generations know about the accomplishments of certain Americans. Right.
And groups of Americans. And so either one, to me, though, is both bad because they both speak to the attitude that has been had in this country about any history that doesn't fit the narrative of what we've all learned. And I'll give you.
[00:11:55] Speaker A: Yeah. The chosen narrative.
[00:11:57] Speaker B: Correct.
Because if it's not deemed important, that's a form of kind of apathetic racism, in a sense, like, all right, these people just. It's not important. We don't need to teach kids this stuff, because these people don't matter. And if it was withheld clearly that, that, that willfully withheld clearly, that. That defines itself. So, and I'll give you an example. Like, I'll be 44 in a month.
I just learned in preparing for this podcast that one fifth of the northern revolutionary army was black in the 1770s, I don't know why I never learned that in regular school.
It was never in a textbook, because I would've remembered that.
And my point is that it's little facts like that that actually would help bring this country together. Because if young white children, young black children learn about the contribution of blacks throughout the history of this country to make this country what it is, I mean, I don't know. I wasn't during the revolution, but if he took one fifth of the Northern revolutionary army out, maybe they don't win. I don't know. So.
[00:12:57] Speaker A: Oh. But it also shows that it's been a shared struggle. It's been a combined effort to build this.
[00:13:02] Speaker B: That's, to me, the, the, the. The kind of shame of all of this is that by not allowing us to share this history, it hurts everybody in America going forward.
[00:13:13] Speaker A: Well, I would say along the lines of the point that I think it's very important to keep in mind, you know, like the if the building of America has been a shared struggle in one that not just one group did on its own, and you know, despite all obstacles, that one group overcome everything and also brought along these other groups that couldn't, you know, didn't know which way was up, you know, and all that. If that isn't the narrative, so to speak, that you buy into when you allow for a bit more accuracy, you know, just in terms of what actually was happening then, like I was saying, that better equips you to deal with the way the world is now. But one of the specific things, one of the essay actually from Nikole Hannah Jones, entitled America Wasn't a Democracy Until Black Americans Made it one was a really interesting perspective, I thought, in that it essentially talks about how it was America, land of the free and so forth with the Declaration of Independence, all men are created equal, inalienable rights and all that stuff. But those were ideals that there wasn't even an attempt to live up to that stuff, Constitution, all those like, in terms of establishing democratic elections for elected for. For government officials and so forth, it was just white male landowners. It wasn't. It wasn't something that was open to the public at large, like we almost take for granted at this point. And so the struggles of black Americans to open up, voting for more people, to create equal protection, not to create, but the equal protection under the law. And then the 14th amendment, that's stuff that black Americans struggle had a direct role in those things coming to be some of the things we value the most from a legal standpoint and how our country protects us. And so how the role black Americans, whether it be protests, whether it would be demonstration, whatever it would be in creating these things. I had just never thought of it in that way. And just how that struggle pushed America to be better, not just for black Americans, but for all Americans. Then, you know, you get the 13th amendment, the 14th amendment, the 15th amendment, the guaranteeing the right to vote. After that, you get women's suffrage shortly there and you know, within. Within 100 years from there. So it shows that struggle pushing the ball, push, pushing the. Rolling the ball up the hill, so to speak, and everyone else, you know, making our democracy more full, you know. And so what was your, you know, like, your thought on that particular essay? And I mean, we're not going to go into every essay. I wanted to touch on this one in particular because it was an interesting perspective to me. But what was your thought on that one?
[00:15:47] Speaker B: No, I was.
Again, this is why I think the essay Is controversial.
And this is why the project, I should say the greater context. Controversial, because think about what you just said.
You know, America wasn't a democracy until black Americans made it one as the title. You know how offensive that is to so many people in this country. Just to hear that.
[00:16:11] Speaker A: If you are. Yeah, if you're baked into the idea that the founding fathers or whoever, Lincoln, that these guys just, you know, did. It just. It just came to them naturally. And this is just what they. Yeah, they just put it all in place. Cause they were just. That's how insightful they were then. Yeah, that would be offensive to you.
[00:16:26] Speaker B: Well, that helps articulate a bit the point I just made in the last part of our discussion, which was, you know, this is why it's important that to teach school kids at elementary school that they were, you know, one fifth of the northern revolutionary army was black. You know, this because if you grew up understanding that, then that title would not necessarily be offensive to you. But so many Americans have had the kind of complete history of this country withheld from them that it's literally unbelievable. Some of the things that actually did happen historically to some Americans today, like they just couldn't believe it. And so to read that, I could see how some people would say, what the hell do you mean? That black Americans made this democracy, and now, of course, they'll try and rationalize it. And that's where a lot of the pushback against the project comes from. Because as if somehow someone's saying that James Madison, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, you know, Hamilton, that these guys didn't. Didn't found this country, that somehow was this secret group of black people. That's not what people are saying, first of all. So that's not what the essay says. I think it speaks to a higher level of exactly what you just said, because I was going to add in there as well. You know, Native Americans weren't given citizenship to the United States until 1924.
I'm going to assume that as they pushed for their rights, they were citing the fact that slaves, Africans that were brought here as slaves, were made free decades prior to that moment and also were voting already.
And so how could you not allow us who were here, meaning Native Americans, to also have participate as equal citizens in the land that we occupied before you showed up.
[00:18:09] Speaker A: That's an excellent point. Because what it illustrates, though, is that like essentially the black Americans worked to bring the nation's practices closer to the nation's ideals.
And in doing that, they cited the Founding Fathers and they cited the things that were being said. And then other groups later on came after that and cited and relied on what the black Americans, they paved the way basically for other groups for us to become more of a, our democratic elections to, to become a more accurate and complete representation of the population. It continually grew. But the first shoe to drop in these was the push by black Americans.
[00:18:49] Speaker B: Correct. And that's what I was gonna say. I mean, think about this. I mean think about real life and just think up until 1920. So let's say it's 1915 or 1909.
There was probably a lot of wealthy white women that were looking at their husband saying, how can these Negroes vote?
A Negro man can vote, but I can't vote as a sophisticated woman in our society.
So you're right. I think that every time blacks got a little bit more progress on rights and equality, it allowed other marginalized groups and in this case 50% of the population being women, were still considered second class citizens. They couldn't vote in their own country. So I'm pretty sure, like you're saying and as well documented actually that those, those steps taken by blacks in those days are what led to some of the early transitions like we're talking about in the 20th century. And then we can fast forward to the civil rights movement of the 1960s and we can look at pretty much all other non whites in this country in terms of all the millions of people that have immigrated here from other countries.
Asians, Hispanics, Africans from Africa, like other blacks that weren't black Americans with the history of slavery, they would either not be allowed in this country right now or they would have had a much different experience had it not been for the African American struggles of the 1950s and 60s in the civil rights movement.
[00:20:19] Speaker A: Yeah. Which is well documented and actually it's touched on by Nikole Hannah Jones in the piece. I mean, so it's a really interesting perspective on how the struggle of the black Americans, it didn't immediately be bear fruit for everyone, but it kind of laid that groundwork and opened the door for everyone, you know, others to push, you know, in the direction that.
[00:20:45] Speaker B: And I'll go ahead, go ahead. No, sorry, go ahead.
[00:20:47] Speaker A: No, and push in the direction of getting the. Each of these are steps that bring our, our, our practices closer to our stated ideals. And, and that's really the thing that you can't run from that if America has these stated ideals that are one difficult to do and not kind of what will naturally happen if you just let a group of people do whatever they want to do. Like, you don't end up with freedom of speech, you don't end up with participation, voting and so forth. Like, you end up with people just trying to take over and whoever's willing to be the nastiest or the meanest or whatever ends up usually coming out on top of. And so these ideals that we had are hard to do. They're the exception, they're exceptional. And each step that gets us closer to that by all these different groups is something that, from my view, as someone who believes in the ideals, makes our nation better. And so it's actually a source of pride. As a black man looking at that, like, oh, yeah, well, I'm happy that you black Americans throughout all this time have been able to move the ball forward on such an important and vital issue. But what the thing that makes America exceptional is that we try to live by these ideals and to bring us closer. So to me, like I said, I wanted to specifically cite that when it was, you know, I like that it was also, you know, one of it was Hannah Jones's work as well, who's kind of the name person behind this project. It's not just her though. There's a bunch of essays from a bunch of different people, both in the original publication that went on the magazine and the New York Times and also in the book. But it's really just. It's an example of how in order to, if you really take a second and look, okay, America wasn't a democracy or black Americans made it one, you can take offense to that if you would like. But if you really wanna look at it and see what's being said there, it's not something that is meant to demean anyone, so to speak. What it is is talking about the evolution, the progression of the nation and the role that different people played in that evolution and progression. And I think that's something that people should. This is something that would have to have to come from leadership and messages that are reinforced. But people shouldn't run from that.
[00:22:59] Speaker B: Yeah, no. And, you know, one of the things I wanted that comes to mind that I really want to cite here is it's interesting. Our country is fascinating because you have this history. And when I'm saying this now, I'm talking about the kind of pre 20th century History of the country. The slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction, that period most, I'd say the majority of Americans today in this country don't share that history.
Most Americans today are descended from people that immigrated here after 1880. Yeah, so including me. I mean, that's why you and I share the collective distinction of being considered black Americans. But I don't have the long history in this country like your family does.
And so. But because of America, you know, you and I are both thrown into the same bucket, in a sense, in the same tribe, which I'm fine with. Like you said, I have a lot of pride. I'm looking at African American history, so I'm totally good with that. But what I wanted to cite was, again, a lot of other people in this country don't appreciate the sacrifices and the. And the history that blacks, you know, kind of the inroads that were made by African Americans in this country.
[00:24:10] Speaker A: Well, and the reason being, primarily, is that it's not common knowledge. It's not. And it's not a narrative. And that's the thing. We, as human beings understand what's going on around us or before us in narrative form. There's no way to escape that. Narratives really affect how we perceive what's happening. And so I think that protecting the narrative we've seen recently with the backlash is something that some people take very seriously. And it's because of this, the narrative, the facts don't even have to change. But if the narrative changes, if the perspective or if more perspectives are added to it, that is taken as a threat to some people. And that's something I wanted to ask you specifically about. I don't want to get too much into the backlash, but we've seen a substantial backlash. I at least wanted to give you a chance to react to at least what stands out the most as far as this backlash to the 1619 project in general or even just in addition to this conventional telling of American history.
[00:25:16] Speaker B: Well, I think. I mean, let's be honest, like we just talked about, I think, you know, and it's. It's. Look, we're people, so it's hard for us to stomach the fact that someone might not like you just because of how you were born. Right?
[00:25:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:30] Speaker B: But I think, like we said, this is offensive to some people. The idea that black people would dare to just try and talk about their contributions to this country and, like you said, go against the prevailing narrative that most of us have been taught that blacks were brought here from Africa, you know, swinging off trees in the jungle, and how we were basically savages and that, you know, we got Christianity, we learned how to read and write, and now, you know, we. We have to be kind of kept in our place, in a sense, in this society. And And. And, you know, this is the history of this country. I mean, I think, to your point, that's why this moment in time pretty much is inevitable, because you said it well. The ideals of the country, the Bill of Rights.
The Founding fathers did such a great job putting things in writing like, all men are created equal, creating the Constitution, freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, protection.
[00:26:27] Speaker A: And they moved the goalposts really far.
[00:26:29] Speaker B: We have a long way to go.
[00:26:31] Speaker A: To get to all those goalposts, especially where they are then. But even now, you know, but go ahead.
[00:26:34] Speaker B: No, but that's what I'm saying. Even things like due process.
[00:26:37] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:26:37] Speaker B: You know, that. That's how, you know, if you're a citizen of the United States, then you can challenge your country to live up to those ideals. And I think that, you know, we've said this in the past.
[00:26:49] Speaker A: Right.
[00:26:49] Speaker B: And this can be seen as provocative language. What I'm gonna say that this country has had two competing ideologies since its founding. One is like, we just said this Bill of Rights. This. You know, everybody gets a chance to speak, everyone's equal, all this. And the other is white supremacy.
[00:27:05] Speaker A: And remember Martin Luther King, one ideology is equality, the other is white supremacy. That was.
[00:27:11] Speaker B: And I want to articulate that a little bit, because I think when we say white supremacy, it has a certain trigger. And I think that a lot of people can be offended by me saying that, because what the trigger is, you immediately get the thought of some dude in a bedsheet burning a cross on a lawn or hanging a black dude from a tree. And then a lot of people get offended saying, well, I'm not racist like that. You know, why are you putting me. And I think that's the. The insidious nature of any supremacy mentality. But in this case, we're talking about race relations in the US So I'll say white supremacy is not that every white person is a racist or most are racist in that way. And I'm not even going to assign a percentage here, but I'll just say some people, because again, narratives, culture, this is all part of our American culture.
Our history has been that one group has been dominant, and I guess the other major group being blacks, has been subservient. And as we go through this kind of historical transition, because, like I've joked on other shows, a lot of this pushback comes from the fact that integration worked. You know, people like you and I got a chance and we ran with it. And you know what? We're not stupid. We're not Lazy. We didn't get a handout. We just work hard and we're smart guys and that's it. And so. And when you leave us alone, right, and you don't put us in the same ghettos and you don't harass us.
[00:28:29] Speaker A: With redline, it, you know, like, yeah.
[00:28:31] Speaker B: Do all that, Daniel, guess what? We thrive. And so. And so it's just. It's just that what?
[00:28:37] Speaker A: We thrive and we contribute to the growth of the.
[00:28:39] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:28:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:28:40] Speaker B: We pay taxes and we do all that. So my point, though, is that, well, because of.
[00:28:45] Speaker A: Real quick, you. You've made a point to me offline. Just like, can you imagine how many resources have been squandered trying to keep people down when the inverse. If you just let it go, then these people are turning around and creating more resources.
[00:28:57] Speaker B: Well, that's what. That's where I'm getting at with the white supremacy ideology. Well, no, you helped me get there.
And again, that's why I want to be very careful how I'm saying all this, because I'm not trying to call white people racist and I'm not trying to blanket a whole group of people because I don't want people doing that to me. I'm saying, but there's enough of this ideology in this country that we're still dealing with it now. So that's undeniable. That's why I said, I'm not going to assign a percentage to all this. But what I'm saying is because of the history of America and just the culture of our country, a lot of the country has been comfortable when there's a certain order, let me put it that way, that's the narrative and the order. Traditionally, the narrative and the culture has been, you know, the white man is on top. And I say, man, that's why the women have also, white women have had some of these issues and trying to climb. I mean, I remember seeing a picture of a white woman who was the first woman to run in the Boston Marathon in 1970.
And it was such an offense, I guess, to some people. The men were going on there, trying to rip her shirt off, 1970. Just because a woman trying to run in a marathon like that was that bad. So this isn't.
Every minority group can have these stories. We're just talking about African Americans here. So what I'm saying is that we talked last week about specifically the NFL coaching stuff and the Supreme Court picked by Biden. And one of the things that we discussed was the fact that right now, those are still the places where the power structure is still in the old balance. There's not too many non white males at the top in those institutions. There was a time like we mentioned that it used to be a sport like baseball and that's why Jackie Robinson was such a big deal. But fast forward 75 years later, no one's questioning blacks in major sports.
[00:30:37] Speaker A: Well, meaning the order was upset when just allowing people to play. Correct. Allowing anyone other than. And so that we don't look at it crazy if all anyone from anywhere wants to play the game anymore. But we did as we as a Nation did in 1940.
[00:30:55] Speaker B: Yeah. And just like we as a nation looked at it crazy that blacks could be in the military. You know, who would have think now I just saw a stat that the military is 56% black and brown, like Hispanic.
I mean, who would think now to say that blacks shouldn't be in the military or be crazy?
[00:31:09] Speaker A: Yeah, you had a great stat on that last week.
[00:31:11] Speaker B: Yeah. And so, and so that's what I'm saying is that we're just in this historic moment where now blacks are con. This is like another wave, just like the 60s or something like that. It's just another wave of pushing for the equality. And that's why BLM to me is equivalent to when guys in the 60s had I am a man posters.
People weren't trying to say that no one else is a man. Right. They were just saying, you know, respect me for being a human being.
[00:31:37] Speaker A: I mean, and that actually that's a good illusion that you make. Because in that time, and I'll reference again in the Martin Luther King book we're talking about is his book Where Do We Go From Here? He specifically referenced that anytime there is progress, you're going to have a backlash, you know, and then that is inevitable with the progress because the progress changes or disturbs the status quo.
And the point being is that if the status quo is something that is not living up to America's ideals, then people who want to push America to be closer to its ideals are going to continually upset the status quo, sometimes with greater success than others. And right now, as you pointed out, integration worked. So there's been more disturbing of the status quo lately with a Barack Obama going into the presidency or whatever than there was. You know, like there's been a lot lately a lot of disturbing of the status quo of the order that many people, and this is the key thing, that many people are emotionally invested in the narrative that people are emotionally invested in. They may tie their self esteem to this narrative. They may tie their place of being to the narrative and that these things happen this way. And that's what makes me feel good about myself or that's what makes me feel good about being an American. And so if that's challenged or if more is added to that, you are going to get an emotional reaction because people are emotionally invested in that stuff. And so that I think is what we see with this, is that now constructive criticism is important. So I would like to distinguish if and when there's constructive criticism being made, which I think did occur here. You know, and there's been dialog back and forth and there's even been modifications or clarifications that have been made in terms of that. But when it's just the reflexive reaction, this is bad, this is anti American, this is making people uncomfortable. And so therefore it can't happen. That's where you know that it's coming from a place that simply is just people refusing or unable to grow.
And that's just a part of it, that's a part of progress, is that there are going to be people who say, no, I am comfortable with what I know now or what exists at this point. And I don't want. Even if you'd say it's better or it's closer to the ideals of the nation, I don't care. I want it to be the way it was or even better. I want it to be better the way it was 10 years ago or 30 years ago or whatever, because I learned 30 years ago things were much more simple. And so that's again, how what we know and what we learn and how these narratives, when they're ultra simplified, it creates almost this infantile view of what's happening in the way, the order, the way things that should, the way things should be. And so, I mean, I view the backlash. I don't even get into it specifically in that sense. Like, I just look at it like, of course there's a backlash. There are people that are emotionally invested in the way things are. And I mean even we've seen some of the laws that have been passed as far as either that they don't want people to teach 16, 19 project or they don't want people to discuss critical race theory and so forth. A lot of these laws expressly state you can't teach something that's going to make certain people feel uncomfortable. And I know you and I mentioned that like, well, hold on. That's one of those laws that's clearly written only for one group of people. Because I doubt that a Native American will be able to show up and say, hey, I don't want to learn about the conquest of the west, or you can't teach me about the conquest of the west, because that makes me feel bad.
No, everybody knows that that law is not meant for. For that, you know, so.
[00:35:14] Speaker B: But go ahead. I've thought about that. Because a lot of this also comes down to just having empathy. Like, and that's a good point to bring. Cause I thought about that with the Native Americans. Like, okay, I got zero Native American kind of blood ethnicity in me. I don't have necessarily a dog in that fight. Right. Emotionally.
But I'm not offended if Native Americans want to talk about the history of this country in a factual way and how they were basically, you know, moved out of here and they were slaughtered and all this stuff. I mean, it's not, it's not, you know, it's not that. And I don't think, like, who would. Like, what person today would feel guilty for that? That's their problem.
[00:35:50] Speaker A: You shouldn't have to.
[00:35:51] Speaker B: That goes back to that.
[00:35:51] Speaker A: What I was telling you before is like, that's the person that identifies with the persecutor as opposed to the, like in the context of, like, race. For example, why identify with the person who's doing the lynching and not identify with the person who was the abolitionist or the person who was on the Underground Railroad helping people out? Like, why. Why choose to identify with Robert E. Lee and not Ulysses S. Grant? You know, like, it's just. It's interesting, you know, when, when. Cause people tell on themselves a little bit in that. When they identify with the, you know, like the Confederates, so to speak. And it's like, really, you know, like.
[00:36:23] Speaker B: Well, that's why I say it's interesting because, like, you're saying that there's. There's.
They're actually. They're putting into certain state legislations that they don't want to have histories taught that could offend people or that makes people uncomfortable. And that's what I'm saying. Like.
Like you're saying it really speaks to the privilege of some people in this country. Because think about it.
I just. I came into this discussion saying it's offensive to me that people trying to withhold information like that the Northern revolutionary army was 1/5 black. That's offensive that you don't want to talk about that. That's offensive that you don't want to talk about the history of the economic imbalance with Blacks coming from things like redlining, non access to financial institutions. Up until 1970, most insurance companies wouldn't allow blacks to have more than $10,000 of life insurance. So there was a active system in this country that prevented blacks from gaining wealth and also transferring wealth to the next generations. Then let's not talk about.
Like we talked about in the show. The Tulsa massacre is the famous one.
In 1919, there were 36 events in one summer in different cities where black business communities in 36 separate cities burned to the ground and the people chased out. And guess what? Remember this is, you know, talking 100 years ago. They didn't have blockchain and all these ways of doing this. Great.
You know, you can decentralized finance, follow data and all that. No, they had a guy who was the head of the Klan, that was the judge in the town and all this. And when those blacks got run out because many got killed and the rest got scared out of town, they just took the land. It was. It was similar. And that's what I thought, like, similar to the confiscation of wealth from Jews in this shorter period of time of the 1930s in Nazi Germany and Eastern Europe. It's just things don't happen by accident, right? Like. Like it's just not a coincidence that all of a sudden blacks went to zero after reconstruction was successful.
And then all these other groups, these little towns, these people just got immensely wealthy within a few years is all because they confiscated people's land and could do it legally. And so that's what I'm saying. It's offensive that we don't teach that history because that offense.
[00:38:39] Speaker A: Well, but that's. And that's the kind of. The elephant in the room on those laws is that it's not whether those laws aren't written for whether you're offended or not.
[00:38:48] Speaker B: I know, exactly. That's my point about who gets to tell the narrative in this country.
[00:38:52] Speaker A: Exactly. That's where it goes back to the narrative.
[00:38:54] Speaker B: That's why the 1619 project is offensive, because again, it's an example of someone else trying to add more to this narrative. And I guess the people that are offended just don't want to hear it.
[00:39:05] Speaker A: They're threatened by adding more to the narrative because they're emotionally invested into the narrative that it is brought up.
[00:39:11] Speaker B: But this is my point.
If they genuinely were open to this idea of the American experiment and the fact that we are a multicultural and a pluralistic society, then why would they be offended? So that leads me to other.
[00:39:26] Speaker A: I'LL take you one step further. I'll take you one step further.
A lot of times you'll hear that people don't want to hear. They only want to hear about the positive stuff as far as the history goes. But that actually reveals a lot about someone's love for their country. Because if you can only love your country, if your country always only did right, if your country was never wrong, then you can love your country. But if your country was ever wrong, then that's going to affect your ability to love your country. That means that you don't love your country. I mean, like, that. That's what that means. Like, that's like saying, oh, well, I love my kids as long as they never do anything wrong. And if my kids ever do anything wrong, then I don't know, that's going to make it hard to love my kids. And so those people who say. Who argue that, oh, you shouldn't say anything that America's ever done wrong, you shouldn't talk about that, because then people won't love their country. I mean, again, they're telling on themselves, because their love for their country depends on a narrative that says that America is always right and America never did anything wrong. And so it's one of those things. Man, you know what?
[00:40:22] Speaker B: I appreciate you, bro. I'm gonna go hug my wife.
[00:40:25] Speaker A: Hey, it's Valentine's Day, man. You go do that. I know.
[00:40:28] Speaker B: No, because if she wouldn't. If she didn't accept my flaws and only want to be perfect, I'm not sure we would have made it to marriage.
I was going to say might have been married about two days. I'm like, man, we might have not made it that far if she didn't accept me. My imperfections. So, yeah, you're right.
[00:40:46] Speaker A: You don't have to be perfect for your wife to stay with. So, yeah, you're doing it right then, man. You're doing it right. So that's cool. But I wanted to ask you one thing before we got out of here and one more thing I should say now. The book, this anthology that's recently released, it actually goes into more depth on a lot of the subjects that were covered in the original release.
Is there any of those that you like in particular are looking forward to seeing them go into more depth on, you know, like, whether it be on the political side? Because there's so many different angles. There's political, there's cultural, economic, you know, all types of stuff.
[00:41:23] Speaker B: Yeah, I definitely have mine. One thing I wanted to say, which before I answer to. Because this is part of kind of our running conversation, which is, this is what makes this whole thing interesting, is that you have this pushback to a narrative, but in a country that has freedom of speech as its first, you know, the First Amendment of his founding documents. So that's why the continued push of this narrative will probably be successful in the long run. That's all I'm gonna say, because.
Or we're gonna have another civil war. And I guess the people that don't like that narrative will leave.
[00:42:01] Speaker A: Well, that was actually something Nicole Hannah Jones brought up. Just, if you don't like it, leave like that sentiment. That's another one of those telling on yourself sentiments. Because again, if you don't like something that your wife does, does that mean you're supposed to leave? Or does that mean you're supposed to take. You learn from it, you know, you try to grow from it. And so that's another one of those things. Just because you criticize something that America did, the ability to criticize it and still love it shows the depth of your love, the ability to call it out. And so, I mean, it's one of those things, man.
[00:42:31] Speaker B: But, yeah, like, no, you're killing me because now I gotta go hug her again, because now you're making me feel guilty she hasn't left it, that she's a great person. So you're screwing my whole, hey, man, I'm up now.
[00:42:42] Speaker A: I'm inspiring you to have a great Valentine's Day.
[00:42:44] Speaker B: She might give you a call later and say, what'd you do to this guy?
[00:42:47] Speaker A: This is inspiration for a great Valentine's Day.
[00:42:49] Speaker B: Yep. So I'll stick to the show. So let me just answer your question.
Yes, of course. Where do you think I'm going to go with what I would imagine?
[00:43:01] Speaker A: We're going into economics.
[00:43:02] Speaker B: Economics, yes.
The capitalism part.
I find that very interesting, especially because it's something I enjoy personally and professionally, economics and capitalism and all that stuff.
And this is where I do think there's a little bit of, you know, we gotta be nuanced in these conversations because, like, there's a little bit of truth to all of it. Right.
Is it true that America benefited as a country from an economic system, an economic way, from slavery? Yes, 100%. And you and I have had this conversation in private. You can't go from a country in 1790 that was nothing literally. We had. We were broke. Our treasury was in a huge deficit because we just finished fighting a revolutionary war.
[00:43:49] Speaker A: We were worse than broke.
[00:43:50] Speaker B: That we did on that. We had no money.
Yeah, people live now about 30 trillion, you know, adjusted for inflation. That's nothing compared to what happened after the revolution. And also remember, it was like Spain and France that was at a, that was lending us money because we were fighting their enemy, the British. So there was a lot of Game of Thrones stuff going on. And we were basically a third world in a certain sense, in that way, third world type of country. Then think about it. It wasn't the same country that we know today. The Spanish still owned Florida and they own California. They own Texas.
[00:44:24] Speaker A: The French still owned Louisiana, had the.
[00:44:26] Speaker B: Whole Louisiana Purchase, which wasn't just Louisiana, it was the whole slice west of Mississippi.
Take out Texas and California.
You fast forward 73 years later is the Emancipation Proclamation, 1863. And in 73 years, less than one century, we become the one of the top five economies in the world that drove a full global boom because of our export of commodities. Let's be very specific here. This is why you can't get away from slavery as the history and backbone of this country, United States, because by the 20th century, we were a powerhouse. How does that happen in a hundred years? Just barely, you know, just over 100 years with a country when you have other seriously established countries out there like Great Britain, France, you know, the Russian Empire was pretty big time in the 1800s. You had the Germans, the Prussians, all that kind of stuff going on. And so part of the whole idea of this 1619 project is again to add to the narrative that blacks, the idea of slavery wasn't just that blacks were like these stupid beings that just were somehow kidnapped from Africa and brought here as slaves. And then after emancipation, because of some bleeding hard white people that didn't want to see blacks be slaves. Now there was just this problem that had to be shoved in ghettos and all that in the 20th century. And now they're sitting down on the street with BLM marches.
No, this is, this is without the contribution of slaves. However you want to look at it, this country's economy doesn't take off and we're not a first world country by the 20th century. And then the European economies don't boom in the 1800s. So there's a lot to be said about that.
[00:46:10] Speaker A: I actually agree with you. I think the economics is the part I'm most interested in learning more about because again, we learned such a simplistic view of the economics. And I mean, myself, I'm an attorney, so I mean, I've learned a lot as Far as the evolution of law and some of those key points there. And I like that and appreciate that stuff, but the economic stuff is really fascinating just from the standpoint of this economic engine that slavery created. Like it was. No, it's silly to try to argue. And I've heard actually Nikole Hannah Jones make this exact point. Like, if slavery wasn't such an amazing economic engine, why were all of these powers trying to get their own slave.
These forced labor camps, as they've been called more recently, set up in the new world, like everybody was trying to get their own one set up?
[00:47:00] Speaker B: Also, why did the Confederacy even try and secede if slavery wasn't such an economic. Wasn't such a boom?
[00:47:07] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:47:07] Speaker B: Why would they do all that? Go to war with the Union and all that?
[00:47:10] Speaker A: Exactly. And so like, to me, I don't know that we still understand the depth of how much that could propel and did propel the propel in the short term, in real time, and then set up for growth over the long term. The economy, the American economy, to shoot to where it became.
It's really fascinating to me to really try to understand that. And so yeah, I'm interested to learn more about that and also how that intersects with capitalism and how the Americans practice capitalism.
[00:47:47] Speaker B: Let me, let me add this too, because I think that's where, you know, the waters can get muddied a bit, where people will assign something like the idea of forced labor and slavery and say, okay, that's why American capitalism is evil. I think I want to be clear, like I'll distinct it too. Capitalism is an economic system.
[00:48:05] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:48:06] Speaker B: Slavery is a whole different story.
So yeah.
Did the American economy.
Was capitalism the kind of the foundation of the system of which slavery was still a part? Yes, of course, it wasn't like we were communist in the 1800s. But I also want to caution those that want to look at it as now, oh, America has an evil economic engine, or that capitalism isn't about being nice or evil, it just is what it is.
It's a kind of human collective and it's the best system that's been figured out. So someone else figures something else out that deals with human kind of spirit.
[00:48:46] Speaker A: Right. Well, let me switch back on you a little bit. I agree with your sentiment, but what you have to the context and this is to push back against the people who would say that capitalism actually is the root of this stuff. Capitalism isn't the root of it. What you can't have or when you practice capitalism. I think what we've learned is that when you practice capitalism, and I'm going to use a tunde term here, it's guardrails. You need guardrails. You can't have it be a race to the bottom for everything. Whoever does things, you know, the, the, the cheapest or is the cruelest or whatever is the one who prevails, whoever employs the kids. And, and cap, this has been an ongoing lesson with capitalism, you know, because initially when they're running these factories or whatever, they got kids in there in the same way that's like slavery is bad, child labor is bad. These are all guardrails we have to put on to capitalism so that the capitalist engine, the capitalism engine, can serve our society. And we don't end up just serving capitalism in its unadulterated form. That incentivizes negative behavior. And this is the same way with any kind of social management. We don't want to incentivize negative antisocial behavior. And so with capitalism, it's no different. You have to. You, if you're going to implement it, you have to implement in a way, but also put guardrails on so that the most vile negative behavior is not incentivized and is in fact disincentivized.
[00:50:06] Speaker B: Yeah, and that's a great kind of segue for me to just finish off on this point, which is exactly, you know, to that, which, because I was going to add that too, that what we've talked about for this whole show is really under the lens of the American culture of what you just said, kind of what happens when you do allow just the kind of animal spirits of humanity to just have nothing but profit as the motive without any guardrails. Right.
And so obviously in our system, our country, it was black Africans brought to build the country from the ground up, in a sense.
So we've retained that culture of race as being that defining factor. But other societies, it's been something different. So for example, I was thinking about China.
China's rise in the last 25 years is unprecedented as well, similar to America's. I mean, China was kind of nothing again when Nixon opened it up in 73. It was still coming out of the Mao communism and all that stuff.
The reason why they've taken off and are the second largest economy in the world in such a short period of time is because of the practices you mentioned. We all know about their labor camp, the factories and people jumping off the roofs and child labor. India is another example with child labor that helped get their economy booming. And like I Mentioned prior earlier in the show Germany of the 1930s.
They can't have an economy like that in 10 years without theft and theft of capital from a whole other group of people. And so when you see things like that, that happen so exponentially fast, it's an anomaly. And there's usually something, some imbalance like we're talking about that one group is being subjugated and forced to do kind of this hard work and labor while the other group, another group, is dominant and benefits from it. So this is not unique to America. What we have that's unique to the American experience is that it was built primarily on racial lines, on this concept of race.
[00:52:06] Speaker A: Whereas like in another. Yeah. In another culture it might be built on religion or it might be built.
[00:52:12] Speaker B: On, or ethnic ethnicity, like China. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so that's all I'm saying is that we, we, we see this through a very self centered lens in America of always race.
[00:52:22] Speaker A: Well, but that's why as, as Americans, and I think we can wrap from here, that's why as Americans it's important for us to learn about that because that has been the dividing line, so to speak. That has been the fault line of how our society has been turned against each other or turned against itself or divvied up and whatever and used for advantage. And so from that standpoint, that's why if you cling to a narrative or an approach that leaves out all that complexity and that context, then honestly, I mean, that will make you unable to deal with, and as I've said before, that'll make you unable to deal with what we're dealing with now. You won't understand it, you won't, you won't see it as something that is part of the American experience and part of either the growth or the regression of America, depending on if you're shooting for the ideals or if you're trying to get away from the ideals. And so ultimately the 1619 project adds I think a lot to that discussion and to that, to that understanding. And so I think it's something that, you know, it's, we want more like this. You know, we want more like this. And I commend, you know, the authors, Nicole Hannah Jones and everyone that's a part of it for, for giving us more for, for, but also for keeping an open mind with it as they move through it and continuing to try to grow it, continuing to try to add to it, not being so rigid that they, that they can't look back, you know, like, so it, the way they've gone about it, I think is commendable. And, you know, they. They got to pull a surprise, you know, already out of it. So, I mean, that's impressive. So I think we can wrap from there, man.
[00:53:58] Speaker B: You know what, though?
Someone's still gonna burn that book one day.
[00:54:02] Speaker A: Always, man. There's always gonna be somebody gonna burn that book.
So we appreciate everybody for joining us on this episode of Call It Like I See It. You can get us wherever you get your podcast. Subscribe to the podcast, rate it, review it, tell us what you think, and until next time, I'm James Keys.
[00:54:18] Speaker B: I'm Tundeguanlana.
[00:54:19] Speaker A: All right, and we'll talk to you next time.
