Episode Transcript
[00:00:14] Speaker A: Hello.
Welcome to the Call It Like I See it podcast.
I'm James Keys, and in this episode of Call It Like I See it, we're going to discuss the senseless murder of Tyree Nichols by the Memphis Police Department and consider whether the way this was subsequently handled by the authorities in Memphis, particularly the relative speed in which we saw the police department fire the involved parties and the involved parties get charged, and the release of the video reflect the change in the way this type of thing is being handled, or like a change in a shift in the culture in America as far as how these types of things may be handled.
And later on, we're going to react to an interesting article by James Clear, author of the New York Times bestselling book Atomic Habits, which goes into why people generally refuse to change their minds despite important things like facts, you know, what the facts may say, which is a phenomenon we all tend to see regularly these days.
Joining me today is a man who has strong feelings on how people talk about Star wars, but is not really a stickler on how people use conjunctions and other form of grammar. Toonday. Ogonlana. Toonday.
You gonna tell the people today how you deal with this dichotomy when it comes to andor.
[00:01:42] Speaker B: Yeah, man, I really appreciate you calling this out because I use my force lightning when they get the Star wars stuff wrong, but.
[00:01:50] Speaker A: All right, there we go. Well, yeah, you're all about facts there.
[00:01:53] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. I'm pretty forgiving on other topics.
[00:01:57] Speaker A: There we go. Now, we're recording this on January 30, 2023. And at this point, I think most people have heard the tragic story about the murder of Tyree Nichols at the hands of the Memphis Police Department. Just briefly, Nichols was pulled over on January 7 for suspicion of reckless driving, savagely beaten by officers, and died three days later from the beating from. From the. You know, the wounds he sustained. Subsequently, though, we've seen a level of transparency and accountability that we don't seem to see ordinarily with. With things like this, with law enforcement and injuries and. Or death causing injuries and. Or death. Because we've seen the officers involved be fired there. I believe it's up to six now, officers that have been fired, the five in the initial wave. And then, you know, I know the initial five have been charged with, among other things, second degree murder. And the video of the incident has been released, and all this has happened within a few weeks, you know, where we've seen this type of thing drag out for months or years. A lot of times in the past. So, Tunde, I'm going to start a conversation with two things. One, you know, just your reaction on what happened to Nichols here and also the way. And what's your reaction to the way the authorities have reacted here? You know, like, again, it seemed to acknowledge relatively quickly that this, what we're seeing or what we learned about is unacceptable and leaning into accountability to some respect.
[00:03:24] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I don't have much to say about the incident itself that others haven't said already. Right. I think that for most people that would consider themselves normal, this was a terrible tragedy, clearly was avoidable. And it appears that this kid didn't do something to deserve what he got that night. So that's my answer on the first one. On the second one, you know, it's. It you. Like you said, this swift reaction is a contrast to many, not all. There have been some cases I've seen in the last, let's say, decade where the department did quickly either fire or arrest an officer, but it seems to be that that's less of the case. So this is another one of those where once faced with the evidence, which is pretty damning when you look at that video and see the behavior of those officers that, you know, I think the police department did the right thing. I mean, I think most employers, if we look at a police department that way, that have employees, if we can look at the police officers that way, would not tolerate that type of behavior from their employees. And so I don't think that the police should be given any other.
When it's, when it's so clear cut as this that they shouldn't be given any other right that the rest of us don't get from our employers. So that's why to me, it's pretty cut and dry just, you know, at least answering these first two questions.
[00:04:49] Speaker A: Well, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's. It oftentimes not always. You know, there are times when, you know, you do have judgment calls and things like that where it's like, okay, are we second guessing someone who's in the heat of a moment making a snap decision, or are we looking at somebody who's just being cruel and inhumane? You know, like, there's a lot of times I would like to believe there is, there's, there are places where we can draw a line there, you know, where you can be more forgiving when there's judgment calls, although that's hard when there may be a reputation or a history of going over the line in other ways, but areas like this, where it's like, just clearly it's just inhumane, you know. And the thing. I mean, I would say, as you pointed out, it's already been said, you know, I think very well, by and large, across, you know, many media outlets, that this is something that's terrible and unacceptable.
And I wholeheartedly agree with that. You know, this is just something like this should not. This shouldn't happen at the hands of the state. I've said before, this shouldn't happen at all, you know, if we want to live in a perfect world. But this isn't a perfect world.
The what makes this particularly egregious is that this is at the hands of the government. The government is supposed to be of the people, by the people and for the people. This isn't. We all take the risk walking around the streets, getting in the car, that it's just some. Somebody else, some other citizen, some other person will do something reckless to us or even, you know, just mean to us there. We all take that risk. But when someone's armed and authorized by the state, we have to. Like, that's inexcusable because those are the. Those. Those are officials that are put in place by the people.
And I. I always wonder when we're looking at stuff like this, like, what is it about police departments where. When we see stuff like this, what is it about it that either draws in people who would behave like this or. Or brings it out of them or, you know, something like that and that. I don't have the answer to that, but it just. It's disturbing to me that this, you know, this was just inhumane in the sense, in the way that they treated this person. It's just like, man, what have this person. Presumably these five guys that were there weren't all like this all their lives, you know, torturing animals or. I just like. But what. What happens. What switch flips or something where you just become that towards somebody, you know, who's unarmed and, you know, just it. And so it just baffles me, but I think there may be something there that we need to try to figure out. Is it training? Is it, you know, what is it, you know, because that, to me, underlies all this. But the change piece, I think I'm encouraged, but I think it actually speaks more positively about the people in charge in Memphis. You know, the mayor, police chief, the DA that they, in a relatively quick fashion, reacted the way that they did. I don't think that that means that somebody in Chicago would do the same thing. Or that somebody in, you know, Florida, you know, some city in Florida would do the same thing. You know, I think that what we're seeing is ideally, officials handling something like this in a way that isn't immediately, let's cover it up. Let's cover it up. And ideally, not being something that, you know, like, they can be commended for, that is still a terrible act. But we want the officials to be a part of the solution in these types of situations and not be saying, okay, we're just going to double down on trying to cover this up for years or something like that. And so I was more encouraged just by. And I would give more credit to the people in charge, to the mayor, to the police chief, to the DA and saying, okay, they handled this well. I don't know if that means it's a change. I would need to see more, to see it's a trend, but they handled it as good as I would hope that somebody would in that sense.
[00:08:17] Speaker B: Well, in true American spirit, remember, local governments and local communities usually make these calls. So you're right in the sense that however, you know, we feel about what the Memphis Police Department and the leadership did, it doesn't mean that anyone else is going to be asked or forced to replicate their behavior on the next time something like this unfortunately happens. It'll be up to us to see how their behavior is, you know, how they handle themselves in that situation.
I've seen since this incident, which normally, unfortunately, after these tragedies, we see these things, which is, you know, a lot of people calling on Congress and kind of just, you know, the federal government to step in and make more rules that would, I guess, I. I guess you can't stop people from behaving certain ways in many, many times. But at least to try and discourage maybe officers, especially when there's multiple people on a scene like this, that would encourage other officers to at least stop it or report on their fellow officer if they're committing a crime against the scene.
[00:09:29] Speaker A: It's to change the incentive structure right now. Oftentimes the incentive structure is to turn inward and to take kind of the circle of the wagons mentality and so forth. And so there's something to that. But, I mean, I don't want to beat that because we've been down that road and so forth. I mean, it's difficult. But I do think, again, we have to look at it from the standpoint of incentive structures, because it has to. Like, we're human beings, you know, like, so human beings respond to pleasure. And you Avoid, you know, respond to going to pleasure and avoiding pain. That's something we know. And so we, we have. Everybody's not going to be. We can't have systems that set up where you have to be the most honorable person alive in order to avoid falling into pitfalls. You know, like, we have to have systems in place where there's accountability. And so, you know, you can be just an average person and say, okay, well, I don't want this bad thing to happen to me, so I will avoid doing this. If we, when we lose that, then it does become a system that's difficult for just average people to deal in. You know, like, you're not the most honorable person in the world. So. But I did want to get to one other piece in this, which makes it distinguishable in many respects, not, not all respects, but in many respects from what we've seen a lot of times, and that is that the officers involved here were black Americans and the victim was a black American. So this was. We've seen, you know, police departments, you know, beating up, you know, even killing black people. You know, we've seen that, but rarely have we seen a group of all black people, all five of the officers being black, doing. Perpetrating that. We've seen it where maybe one or two of them are or something like that, but it's all black officers going in on a black guy. And so that's. A lot of people have had a lot of notable things to say about that or interesting things to say about that in terms of what.
[00:11:17] Speaker B: That.
[00:11:17] Speaker A: What they take away from that. So I wanted to get your thoughts on that. I mean, do you, does, do you make anything of this fact, you know, from, like, from a. As a black person or looking at it from an angle, black American angle or from a police angle, you know, like that this is not. Oh, the white guys are always coming down on the black guys. That's not. That narrative is not in play here.
[00:11:37] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, there's a lot to unpack with that. There's a lot of complexity around that conversation. I think first, you know, let's just get back to the beginning comments, which is this is just a tragedy and it's. And it's. No matter who does something like that to who, it's just bad. So if a white cop does that to a white kid is bad.
[00:11:58] Speaker A: Dead guy doesn't say, oh, well, at least it wasn't, you know, like, nah, like you shouldn't end up dead, you know, regardless of who's doing it.
[00:12:04] Speaker B: I just Think this is what is the sad part to me in our culture as Americans is that we do look, every race just dominates so much. So, yeah, you're right. Is the fact that this was five black cops that beat up a black kid. In today's environment, with the kind of social media and all the cameras out there and all that, yeah, it's different. It's different than what we've seen over the last decade. And it creates, and I think it opens up the door for a different conversation.
And so I'll get to that in a second. But what I want to get to is something you just said at the beginning of the show, which I wrote down at the early part of our conversations. You said this shouldn't happen at the hands of the state. Because when you said that, it just hit me because I keep hearing about things in our political discourse in recent years about things like the deep state and the government is out to get us and all this stuff.
[00:12:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:57] Speaker B: But the reality is black Americans have been living with that. No one's saying that you shouldn't hold black people that break the law accountable or you should just let people, black people act a fool and no one else should. What we're saying is exactly like you said. The state is the one that delivers due process. If someone committed a crime, the police officer has one job only. Take this person in to go to jail and have their day in court. Now, if a police officer has to defend their life, that's a different story. So we're not talking about that. We're talking about the killings that we've all seen for the last decade on camera and prior to that, where. But police life doesn't appear to be in danger. And then on top of it, just like this case in Memphis, they lie.
And again, this Memphis one is not the only, but the rare time where the immediate reaction by their superiors appears to be the correct one. So. Because when I thought about what you said is, I said this is what the problem is, too, with our culture and our discourse. You and I, that's a real conversation. My son is 24, he's 6 foot 5, and he looks like me. So you know what? I've already had that talk with him because he's in Gainesville, Florida, and I get worried that if he gets pulled over, maybe he gets pulled over by the wrong guy. But my point is, is that we had a lot of Americans that we had to watch you and I and many other black Americans in the last few years say that it was state oppressing them because they were asked to wear a mask during a pandemic.
[00:14:26] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:27] Speaker B: And I'm just bringing it up to say this is why we don't understand each other in this country. Because you and I look at that and say, really, you're being oppressed.
Well, but, but, but you and I have to deal with these realities that because of the way the system looks at people like you and I, even black police officers, if they're bad people, I'm not saying all cops are bad, but if a person in law enforcement who's white or black has the intent to do harm to someone because like you said, they can hide behind their group, meaning the police unions and all that, then they will pick on someone that looks like us. Because I don't think if those five cops had arrested a white kid who was 29 years old who fit that kid's profile and did whatever that kid did to cause him to get pulled over and he ran and got chased by the cop, I don't think they would have killed him. Cause I think they would've known.
[00:15:17] Speaker A: We think over a slow period of time, like just beating for such a long time, like there's such a level, a disconnect from a humanity standpoint. And to me, you know, like, I think to unpack what you're saying there, like there is amongst the law enforcement tribes, so to speak, you know, it reflects. There's something shocking that a black person who's in that tribe, so to speak, can like, it's shocking to see from the outside, I should say. But if you really think about it, it's not in the sense that it's like, oh wow, they can have the same level. Like there can be a disregard for the, the, the humanity of a black person. It's, it doesn't become a racial thing. And we've seen this before. It's like, oh, you know, like blue is, is the color that we've seen them talk about in that sense. And so to me, I actually think, though, what. When you see a situation like this, it's no matter the, it's important to acknowledge that the color of it doesn't and shouldn't. The color of the people involved shouldn't change the analysis, I think. But what it does here a lot of times is that because race hangs over every discussion that we have in this, in this country. And I say this at the risk of getting banned in Florida, but you know, like, because of that, they just.
[00:16:31] Speaker B: Won'T let you talk at your kids elementary school. Besides that you're okay, you can still live here.
[00:16:35] Speaker A: Yeah. But because of that, anytime a discussion comes up, this issue may be easier for us, to us as Americans to process when it's blacks and blacks, because it doesn't invoke any kind of tribal response based on race that some people just have reflexively and aren't even conscious of them having. And so in this instance, it actually, the issue may become clearer more quickly to more people in the sense that, oh, this is messed up, because they don't have any kind of reflexive reaction like, oh, but the guy, the officers had to be right, or something like that. Like, it's possible that certainly some people would still have that. But. And just our. Again with the race, the way race hangs over all of our discussions here. This kind of makes it a little less complex of an issue for a lot of people to handle.
[00:17:27] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I think you're absolutely right. I think that's where this is just different because we don't see the same fault lines being created immediately after.
And I even told you I was looking at something online and chat between these two guys, and one of them said to the other, dude, this isn't like Floyd. Floyd was on Fentanyl. This. This guy really got killed by the cops. They just did it. And I just thought, it's just interesting. Right? And. And the, the.
[00:17:59] Speaker A: Which means that per. The. The same defense kind of mechanism in that person's mind didn't jump back up, that I need another explanation subconsciously. A lot of times I need another explanation for this because I can't believe that that person would do that to that person. So I need something else. But in this case, they had no, that. That need. They didn't have that emotional need to break between the actor and what happened.
[00:18:23] Speaker B: Yeah. And I never understood that either because I've seen some really bad and tough things to watch of white police officers doing things to white men. I mean, there was a recent one, I think, a few months ago in Arkansas where they're bashing the guys into the head, into the concrete and stuff. And it's like, yeah, okay, I don't know what happened before the whole video. If they chased him for 10 miles and the guy was pissed off. But again, we also just like, we expect school teachers not to slap kids in the face and we expect, you know, regular professionals. I mean, I get it that a cop can have a much more stressful day than many other types of professionals. But again, this is where, again, we want to have the right people in law Enforcement too, that aren't.
[00:18:58] Speaker A: And this is where we should give them more support then. Yeah, like that. That's really what that comes to. Because, look, it's a stressful job. Let's give them more support because you can't. Like, I think your example of the. Like an elementary school teacher, like, when we give you that power, we. There's this heightened level of responsibility. And so if the environment is making it difficult for you to live up to that responsibility, that is where that's. Fund the police. Fund different things for police. Like get them. Don't give them more guns, don't give them tanks. Give them resources that will help them deal with the stress of the job. Because, yeah, like that. That stuff. Look, if you. If somebody chases you for 10 miles and then like just some dude and then beat you up. Yeah, that's the. Like I said, that's the risk. You run a living in life. But a cop is not. It has a greater responsibility than to get super frustrated and then take it out on you. In that same kind of sense, listen.
[00:19:45] Speaker B: I'm the type of guy, I'm okay with a cop getting the liquor to. And if a guy made him run 10 miles, like, I'm like, okay, we're all human beings. A cop got upset, you know, and punches a guy in the stomach or something, you know, it kind of just roughs him up a bit. Like, I'm actually all right with that if the guy deserved it in that sense. But in the. In the. But there is a line. I mean, I think we all. That's what. I think that's what this case really was about, is that whatever this kid did and he ran from his car and all that, and he's scared and. All right, you know, again, arrest a kid if he didn't listen to you as a law enforcement officer, take him to jail, let him have his day in court in front of a judge and all that. But again, this. This vicious beating of a human being. And what is interesting to get more nuanced into the details of the case, I mean, you know, they're literally yelling at him, put your hands up. Put your hands up in these things that we hear. And then you see in the video, the cops got the guy's hands up, meaning it appears that they were saying things to already have an alibi as to why they were doing this. So that they were assuming, okay, when. When they're looking at the tapes and the recordings, we can just say that this guy had.
He wasn't cooperating. And I've seen that in other cases where the cop yells, gun, gun, gun, and then there's no gun, or the guy had a gun on the floor on the back of the car. He wasn't even like, you know, he was sitting in the driver's seat. And then. And then they shoot him. And that becomes the excuse. Or remember the one in South Carolina where the guy shot the cop in the back and on video shot the.
[00:21:08] Speaker A: Guy in the back?
[00:21:10] Speaker B: Yes, I'm sorry, the cop shot the guy eight times in the back.
[00:21:14] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:14] Speaker B: And in the video that one of the kid bystander took on a cell phone, you can see the cop take the Taser off his belt, meaning his own belt, the police officer, and throw it down next to the body. And that became his argument in his police report, which is, he stole my Taser. I had to shoot him.
[00:21:31] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:32] Speaker B: And again, it goes back to where's the accountability? And that's where this one is different, where it's the rare time where the Memphis Police Department has said, not only are these guys going to be fired, we're going to arrest them. And I think accountability is important. I made this comment, I'll pass it back here in a sec. That in the 1960s, there was an average of three lynchings a week in the United States. And in the 1970s it dropped to zero.
That doesn't mean that the culture of the people who were doing this changed. What happened was the law started holding those people accountable. And once guys started seeing the incentive structure correct, guys see other guys going to jail for that stuff is like, hold on, I gotta get.
[00:22:08] Speaker A: People still wanted to lynch people.
[00:22:09] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
So you could still have cops that wanna hurt people, but if they start seeing more of this kind of response, especially the ones like this that are, well, obvious that it was just terrible, then I think, you know, we may see a change.
[00:22:22] Speaker A: Well, I mean, this. And this gets to really the practical difficulty because we've seen, not in every respect, but when there is a video, there is oftentimes a different way it's handled. And so. But there's not just. There's not always going to be a video, you know, and so that creates. That's where you'll need enough to actually change a culture. But that takes time. And so I think that the first goal should be to change the incentive structure. And then once the incentive structure is in place for a long enough time, then the culture does eventually change in that sense. One other angle from this, which I found to be interesting, was, you know, after the the. The video's release, LeBron James, you know, prominent, you know, athlete and activist, tweets out, we are our own worst enemy, which people were pretty riled up about. And many, you know, and many on different sides of the issue in terms of, oh, you know, like, this is an issue that, oh, we're blaming black people for this or something like that. One thing I found interesting on that, on both the LeBron James tweet and the reaction to it, is this still implicit assumption that blacks are a monolith. And again, in the face of. Or I shouldn't say again, but in the face of oppression, in many respects, blacks are a monolith, you know, like. But, you know, it's something that we all can see ourselves being subjected to. And so there. There is a uniformity there that we can all see ourselves in. But on the other hand, this case itself represents the fact that blacks are not a monolith. You know, like the. The. The perpetrators and the victim are black folks from this, you know, like, they're living in the same city. And, you know, like, it's not like you got a. A class. A super huge class difference where you got some rich person and some, you know, abject poverty person. Like, this. This is, you know, like, people. This is just, you know, just. I'm not gonna say average, but just kind of your. Your, you know, normal people, so to speak, and actually to make it flatten, you know, like, to try to flatten it into we are our own worst enemy, I think does a disservice either that the point is not made artfully, that, you know, it's. It's disappointing to see a black person do this to another black person like you. You can say that, you know, it's disappointing to see anybody do that, but you would expect to have a more common, you know, view of, hey, you know, we. We all have to deal with oppression. We all have to deal with judgment. You know, you would hope they wouldn't do something like this to you. To say that is a better way to say than. Or better thing to say than we are on Worse Enemy, but at the same time, people jumping on it, you know, like, it's just like, all right, you know, like, maybe it. It may. You may not be pushing the ball forward in the sense that you think you are by coming at that and saying, oh, see, this is part of the problem.
[00:25:05] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I think, look, as two black guys, right, we understand black people aren't a monolith, but I get it that people from the Outside looking in, I guess, assume that many of us are right and people that aren't around black Americans a lot. I think this recent last few months from Kanye going sideways with his anti Semitism and all this crazy stuff to this incident here shows that, yeah, there's a lot of diversity in the black community, without a doubt.
[00:25:33] Speaker A: Well, we covered it, remember, with disintegration in the book, you know, like, in terms of, like, just how even from a categorical standpoint, it's difficult to sustain the idea that blacks are a monolith because Kanye is much more different than your average black person than, you know, or then. Then the other types of black people than, you know, like, you would find in. Across races in a lot of.
[00:25:53] Speaker B: Well, I think. I think that's where this is very complex because, you know, I mean, I could even point out someone like Herschel Walker or, you know, many people that can show that not all blacks line up in the exact same way and behind the same things. And that's good, right? Maybe that means blacks are human beings. Wow, that would be amazing to consider and ponder. And so the.
[00:26:15] Speaker A: Because no, people aren't a monolith. So it would actually be.
[00:26:19] Speaker B: That's. That's what I'm getting at. This is where to me, LeBron's comment is, like, you said, it's very inartful. I get what he's saying, but I think it also plays into that stereotype because it's like, oh, we're our own worst enemies. Like, well, you know what? White people don't say that. When a white guy goes rogue and does something bad to another white person, like, oh, well, you gotta represent all of us. And it's funny because again, a lot of people do think that all blacks must think alike, because how many people came. Non black people came and asked me questions about Kanye when he said his dumb stuff. And I'm just like, how many? A lot and more than I care to remember, right? And it's like, oh, I didn't know that he spoke for every black person. You know, next time, you know, it's funny, like, I asked one of my friends asked, you know, every time Trump said something when he was president, I didn't come to you and say, man, what do you think about this?
Like, this guy's representing you, you know, like. And I just think this is, again, people probably tired of hearing me say, this culture is the most important thing, or I should say demos, right? But it's one of the most important things we have in our society. And the culture around race is important and is not something we can put in a box and make it go away so that easily. Meaning it's going to take time and probably past our lifetimes, me and you, we might not live to see the time when America's past the black and white racial stuff because it's so recent in our history. There's only a few generations ago there was slavery. So the point I'm getting about with LeBron stuff is it's complex because in one sense, if he's having that conversation internally to only black people, that's one of those conversations, like, guys, we got to police ourselves better. Meaning, you know, that's a shame that none of those police officers thought to tell the other guy to not beat up this kid who's going to make us all look bad, blah, blah, blah. But when you're talking to the greater society, it does make it sound like for someone that's not black, I can see them saying, yeah, look, even LeBron says these, you know, these people are, you know, can't get it together and there are their worst enemies. And again, it plays to this thing like, blacks are different. Not that, oh, well, blacks just have people in their group that are poles too, like these five cops.
[00:28:31] Speaker A: Well, but it's misguided, ultimately, because it assumes implicitly that these guys did this because they were black, you know, and so that's where it falls into this.
[00:28:40] Speaker B: Yeah, just have a bad black person position of authority, do something bad to someone else, period.
[00:28:45] Speaker A: Yeah, like this guy. These guys, their race is. I don't know, that would be the defining characteristic of why they did this or witnessed this or whatever. But I mean, it ultimately, I mean, to your point, you know, we can end with this piece. I just wanted to kind of reassert it in a different way, and that as human beings aren't a monolith. So, you know, any time we've observed blacks operating or acting as a monolith, it wasn't because blacks inherently are a monolith. It was because of external factors. They were dealing with challenges that forced a consolidation of interests, you know, and that hap. That's. That's also a human thing. You know, if we're all sitting here and there's in a volcano, we're in a village, and a volcano mile away is about to erupt, then we're going to all going to become a monolith to try to figure out what we need to do to avoid getting swallowed up by lava, you know, and so when there are Common threats that can make people behave as a monolith and can look at themselves as the monolith. But it's not an inherent condition. It's just in dealing with something that affects us all, presumably.
[00:29:48] Speaker B: So can I stop you there? That's an excellent point. And the way you said consolidation of interest I think is spot on. And I want to say this, and then we can wrap this up. This section is.
This is the damage we do to ourselves as a nation. Everybody but black, white and all that, by not allowing the history of this country to be told in its full. Because what you so well said is that up until basically the last two generations, the Civil Rights act was only 60 years, not even full 60 years ago, 1965, blacks had the consolidated interest of survival in this country.
[00:30:21] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:30:21] Speaker B: Because they were second class citizens legally and people could harm them emotionally, physically, all that without any recourse. And that was happening. That's my point. Think about how many times we've seen these kinds of incidents and we have all these cameras and cops know that they have cameras on them. And that's my point is I don't think these five black cops would have done this to a white 29 year old male, period. They would have known instinctively that the system would reprimand them and they assumed that it wouldn't when it was a black kid. And that's all we need to know. So that's why.
[00:30:53] Speaker A: But yeah, I mean, and that shows you kind of, you know, where they were coming from at that time. It wasn't coming from their black experience, basically, you know, like when they do that and, and that's why, you know, like the accountability is necessary from an institutional standpoint, from a police department, you know, and that's, that's ultimately where you come back to. So the second topic we wanted to discuss today was another one of these interesting topics that we look at from time to time. Just kind of looking at how our minds work, you know, not much different than when we did the book the Rational Mind, you know, a few, maybe a year or two ago at this point. And just, you know, like a lot of the situations where we oftentimes just feel like we're in much greater control of what we're thinking and so forth than we actually may be.
And so in this instance, what we're looking at is the title of the article, and I will have it in the show, Notes from James Clear is why Facts Don't Change Our Minds. And it gets into a lot of things in terms of how Knowledge how belief is useful for more than just being able to have accuracy, you know. And so I wanted to get you to react to this before I go too far into it. You know, what's your thoughts on the idea? And this is kind of a central premise of it, that truth is whatever helps you fit into the social group you want to fit into, oftentimes not necessarily what's factual.
[00:32:15] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it was a great insight. Before I get into it, do I do want to say this and thank, actually one of our longtime listeners for bringing this article to our attention. So I'll say this to the listeners that we do listen.
I didn't tell him I'd be giving him a shout out. I just thought of it now. So I'm not going to name his name without his permission.
But it was a good piece, though. Yeah, but he listens to us and he kind of knows the direction of our conversation, so he shared this. So again, for the audience, feel free to send us stuff to discuss. But. But yeah, back to the topic at hand.
I think it's a great insight into how our minds work. And the author did a great job explaining it because I think, if you look at, I think historically with humans. Right. The idea of tribalism, we've brought that up a lot and a lot of people understand the concept.
But what I like, what he gets back to in some of the article is actually going back to the idea of a tribe that during our evolutionary phases of, you know, hunter gatherers and all, that, your tribe was actually the most important thing and it meant your survival. So whether everything was accurate or not that went on within the discourse of the tribe or what was going on mattered less than you're being welcomed and maintaining your involvement with the tribe. Because if you are cast out, literally from the tribe, that probably meant death in a world where you had wild animals and disease and things like that, where most humans couldn't make it on their own in the wilderness.
[00:33:52] Speaker A: And so also where you have a need to eat.
[00:33:55] Speaker B: Yeah. Like the collective society, if they cast you out, then you're dead, pretty much. So I think this idea of. And this is where it's interesting for me. Cause I like to think of myself as rational, even though I know we're all irrational in certain respects. But. But some, I think when you look at, let's say, our discourse today in politics, for example, each side is looking at the other side like they're absolutely crazy. And they don't. And they don't, you know, everything they're Saying is not factual, so therefore, they shouldn't be listened to or respected. And, you know, I know that we've talked about other influences that have, you know, maybe influence our lack of decorum in today's public sphere, but I think part of it goes back to what he's saying here, is that, you know, we're looking for. If I. If I don't think someone is correct, and I know we have our various conspiracy theories that we can bring up, I might try and correct them and say, well, you're wrong because of this fact here or there.
And what this does a great job of is kind of showing us why the facts are less important to maybe the person that we're talking to who we believe is wrong, let's say, or incorrect in their facts.
The facts are actually less important than their need to belong to the group which believes whatever it is that they say they believe.
[00:35:22] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:35:23] Speaker B: And I think if you understand that going into a discussion with someone you disagree with about whatever the basis of facts you're talking about are, it might arm you to better deal with it. And I think one thing he says that's very good, and then I'll pass it back is he gets into the ideas like, what's your goal in a discussion with a person? Because I found that so many people want to be right and they just want to win a discussion.
[00:35:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:35:46] Speaker B: But if your goal is really actually to have some kind of progress and move the ball forward with the person you're talking to to some, you know, mutual end goal, then one must. I would say this. I shouldn't say must. Right. I should say one should want to learn this part of the mind and how, you know, we all deal with things like this.
[00:36:05] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I actually, I. As I noted at the beginning of the show or the beginning of the conversation, you know, this hearkened back to some of the things we talked about in the Rational Mind book. And I'd also. Actually, I've read different. Say it again.
[00:36:19] Speaker B: Righteous mind.
[00:36:20] Speaker A: What did I say?
[00:36:21] Speaker B: Rational mind. Okay.
[00:36:22] Speaker A: Yeah. Righteous mind. Thank you. Thank you. I apologize. But this also invokes things I've read, things I've studied in terms of the actual art of persuasion. And just looking at that, I. One thing that stands out in some of those things that I've read, you know, just doing stuff, you know, attorney, you know, learning and different things like that. Just things I'm interested in is that persuasion often involved, involves finding commonality, which is touched on in this article, you know, that, you know, facts don't change opinion. Friendship does. You know, so change people's minds. Friendship does. And so. But that's where I've seen it. Like, hey, if you want to persuade somebody on something, you need to find something you have in common with them, like, you've just thrown out. Oh, fact A, fact B, fact C. Oftentimes, they have mental defenses against that, because, like you said, with the objective in there, deeper than their conscious mind, the objective is to maintain a tie with the group, their selected group, the group they want to be in. And so unless you're offering a replacement tie to them, where it's like, okay, well, maybe I can be in this tribe, then it's not something that makes sense for them to jump to your side. And what we have to realize and what we oftentimes, I think, in modern times don't remember. We talk about tribalism as a bad thing oftentimes in our modern society. But the reason for that isn't because tribalism is inherently bad. It's because we're all jammed on top of each other. Tribalism is great. If it was 50 of us remote somewhere, it's like, hey, we got to stick together or else we all die. Tribalism is great.
[00:37:55] Speaker B: That was the point. It was necessary.
[00:37:56] Speaker A: Yeah, but tribalism is tough when you got 30 tribes in a village of 100,000, or maybe more than that. But, you know, you have all these different people identifying as different tribes, quote, unquote. Quote unquote, so to speak. And then all these tribes then naturally are competing, you know, for various. For power, for influence, for, you know, whatever. And so that's where it creates a friction in our modern societies, because we're all on top of each other. But tribalism itself is a big part of who we are. And so ultimately, this feeds into that, in that, okay, well, these. All these rational people walking around thinking, oh, well, if I just explain to you, here's why you should believe X, Y, and Z, you're missing actually a lot of the reason why they don't believe X, Y, and Z, and it's because it's not about. They haven't seen all the facts or they haven't prioritized all the facts. It's something higher that they're responding to. And ultimately, if you want to. To. To be able to rent some space there in their mind, you better be coming with a handshake. More so than, you know, a fact, Stew.
[00:39:03] Speaker B: Yeah, no, it's true.
And that's why it's interesting, because, you know, I'm Going to take a quote from the article. It says, quote, understanding the truth of a situation is important, but so is remaining part of a tribe.
And I put a little note here that today's tech has allowed for the proliferation of these microtribes.
[00:39:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:39:25] Speaker B: And I think that's interesting too, because.
[00:39:27] Speaker A: And remotely located, like, you don't have to be, which you've pointed out a lot in our conversations that, you know, somebody might have a fringe belief in 1980. And like, it's difficult for them to maintain that belief, you know, because they don't. They're not hearing it a bunch. They're not around a bunch of people who are sharing it with them, at least inherently. But now you can reinforce.
[00:39:47] Speaker B: Well, remember too, I think that's where syndrome. Actually, I'm glad you brought it up that way because it allows us to go deeper on this concept of not being outcast from the tribe. Because remember, in 1980, for example, you could have had a little bit of a fringe view in your head, but you might have kept that under wraps more when you're around your regular folks that you in your neighborhood, in work, because you just knew, okay, it'll be more painful for me to be ostracized from my mainstream life than it is.
[00:40:17] Speaker A: To not by sharing this belief that I kind of, you know, think about sometimes.
[00:40:21] Speaker B: Let's just, let's. Let's go on an easy one because most people won't get offended, right, by, let's say, a flat earther. That's the one in 1980, if you're a flat earther for real, you might have just kept quiet because in your mind you're making that calculation like, okay, it'll be more painful for me to, you know, lose my wife, my kids, not respect me, the people at work to start laughing at me, maybe even I get fired because I'm seen as crazy then it is. That would be more painful than the pain of me not sharing this with other people and me just locking this in my head and thinking that the world's probably flat, but I'll just put up with the fact everyone thinks it's round. And I think to your point today is, oh, well, I have a community through my Facebook group that there's 3 million people around the world that believe the earth is flat.
And number one is when you have 8 billion people on the world and 4.6 billion of them on Facebook, 3 million is still a very small percentage, but it feels like a lot of people. If you're that one person in your phone or your computer that's seeing all these people in the group. The second thing that we can get into, but we don't have time would be how many people in that group are real and aren't bots and all that.
[00:41:28] Speaker A: But I want to. While you're on that. While you're on that or just kind of went down that road, are there any prominent examples, you know, beyond flat Earth that kind of stand out to you, you know, in this kind of phenomenon and just how we see how that it become. These beliefs a lot of times become more about. I want to be in this group. And so the facts are irrelevant.
[00:41:52] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:41:53] Speaker A: What I'll bring up. Just let me bring up the one because I shared it with you earlier this week and you know, it's just, it's.
[00:41:58] Speaker B: I was going to end on that one for you.
[00:41:59] Speaker A: Okay, well, I'm bringing, I'm bringing it in now. Apparently there's, you know, a conspiracy theory. Demar Hamlin, who is the football player for the Buffalo Bills, that a few weeks back went into cardiac arrest on the football field playing a game on Monday Night Football against Cincinnati Bengals. And there had. Following that. Now he survived and you know, went to the hospital. He was in the hospital for a few days and eventually was released and has been at the Bill's facility and has shown like, has been around amongst his teammates and stuff like that. But there's a conspiracy theory that he died that night or is in much worse shape and so. And they have a body double and he died. Oh yeah. The dying was related to the COVID vaccine and. And he has. There's this intricate body double thing going on where every time he shows up it's using a body double so that. So that the greater society doesn't realize what happened. And this to me stuck. Stuck out as this so much because all of the things like, with conspiracy theories, a lot of times you can identify them by the leaps that they ask you to believe without any substantiation. You know, it's like, okay, well, we don't have substantiation that the guy just got the COVID vaccine or he recently got. We don't have any substantiation on that. We don't have substantiation on that. You know, like, well, that he's still in the hospital or that the person that's walking around and then it's very incredible to believe that all of his teammates, all of the support staff at the Buffalo for the Buffalo Bills, all of this stuff going on that he's dealing with or that are people that are dealing with him are in on this conspiracy. And I mean, unless you want to believe, which is even more. Would be more incredible that he is, you know, like, from where he is, that all of them are fooled. They don't even recognize this person they spend six days a week with every week for all this time is not even the same person anymore. And so that. That one, to me is like, okay, yeah, clearly that's one of those situations where you want to believe. You want to go a certain. Down a certain path. As far as belief, I think some of it deals with the COVID vaccine. The people who want to believe that there's a lot of bad things happening because of the COVID vaccine, because they promised that a lot of bad things would happen. And so naturally, they want to now say that bad things are happening to be right about what they. They said previously. But it's amazing to me to see it in action. But understanding this, you could. You don't even really get upset because it's just like, oh, okay, okay. That's. That's what that group. That's the group. That group has to believe this. And so if anybody came out and said, hey, guys, this one sounds a little bit too much for me, they get kicked out of the group. They don't want to do that because they don't. They want to stay in the group. And so it makes a lot more sense how you can. How these types of things can proliferate. So that's one that stands out to me. Anything stands out to you?
[00:44:36] Speaker B: Yeah, a lot.
[00:44:38] Speaker A: Yeah, we get a lot of these. Yeah.
[00:44:40] Speaker B: Like, if you're looking around, you got Buddy.
No. And it's interesting because I think specifically with Hamlin, you know, it's interesting because there's truth within the BS of the unfactual people. So here's something I haven't even shared with you yet. One of my clients and friends, she's 46. She just had a stroke recently, and I was real worried. I'm texting her, calling, hey, you okay? Doesn't it. She's like, yeah. I started. I just started. I was walking, and I realized something's really wrong. And, you know, luckily I was home. My husband was home. She says, you know, he took me to the hospital, and they. They said I was having a stroke. Literally. I said, what? Because I'm curious. Right. She's 46. That's terrifying. Yeah. So I said, like, how'd that happen? You know what she acknowledged?
[00:45:25] Speaker A: Hmm.
[00:45:25] Speaker B: She said, no, I got five boosters.
And she said, there is a risk that if you overdo the doses because she started explaining something. She said, I'm one of 3 to 6% of people that has either the blood type or something in her system where if she does too many boosters, she's at risk for a stroke.
[00:45:46] Speaker A: Oh, my goodness.
[00:45:47] Speaker B: Yeah. And I was like, okay. And she was. And you know what's cool about the conversation? She wasn't getting all crazy about it and being a conspiracy. She was just a matter of fact about it.
[00:45:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:45:55] Speaker B: She's just like, I had five. And it was probably because she's like, I'm always too cautious with everything. So, you know, they say, get two boosters. I got five. And I happen to be in this small percentage.
[00:46:04] Speaker A: I thought you were exaggerating when you said.
[00:46:07] Speaker B: And then that's like. And what I'm saying is like, I remember hanging up from her and I thought, you know, it'll be refreshing. What a refreshing attitude she has about it. She's not sitting there upset. She's not blaming the mRNA, the creator. She's not blaming the government and Fauci. She's just saying, look, my body reacts this way. I'm in this small percentage of people, and I chose to do this and this would happen, period. Let's keep moving. And I just think that. So are there times when vaccines can hurt somebody? Yes. Is this one of those times where an NFL player got hit by, you know, the equivalent of a freight train on the field and his heart stopped? Was that one of them? No.
[00:46:44] Speaker A: And not that we have any. Any knowledge of. You know, again, like, it takes. You have to do an incredible leap. Like, you could just as easily say he got struck by a meteor and that's why the heart stopped. Like, you have to take a lot sight unseen to go down that road.
[00:46:59] Speaker B: But one of the things I found interesting as you were bringing up this Hamlin case which relates to Covid vaccines, is, you know, there's this idea of COVID truthers.
And what I found. I was reading an article about some of this stuff and how because of, like, you're saying that once the facts don't matter and it's about the tribe, then unfortunately, even in that community, people cannibalizing each other. And the one, you know, the person that was kind of considered, let's say, by the mainstream as the fringiest person 2 years ago on the COVID topic is now being ostracized from another group that's even more you know, extreme on their views because there is no facts anymore. Right. So people just in those groups creating these new fact bubbles for themselves and then attracting more people who want to hear it. And I guess it's. It's almost like when we talk about sometimes with societies going back to the days with the warlord with the biggest gun and who could get the most people to follow him was the one that used to rule the roost.
[00:47:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:47:58] Speaker B: And it's almost like we're seeing that with information now.
[00:48:01] Speaker A: And so particularly once you decide that the fact that like, you don't have to prove what you say, then if you can just say the craziest stuff and get the most people to be interested in what you have say.
[00:48:11] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:48:12] Speaker A: Then you create a lot of pressure on everybody else to follow you. And that, that's a really interesting point that you raise because there is. When it becomes about that, it's difficult to push back on it because again, the people that are there are there because not because the people have been able to prove what it is that they're saying. And I mean, honestly, I look at it and like you said, a lot of times, certain types of things are ripe for this where you can go down these conspiracy roads, particularly because, I mean, like, I look at the pharmaceutical industry as not one to be trusted, you know, like they. But I'm also looking, I'm looking at their incentive structures, you know, like every time I'm looking at it and so forth. And so when I'm looking at the, the COVID vaccine, I'm like, okay, well, they have this set of incentives here, and it didn't really line up to what the people that are conspiracy. I'm not immune to considering alternative explanations, but I myself try to. Again, I'm a human being, so it's not, it's not always easy to do, but I myself will try to look at it from a factual standpoint. But that's just because, you know, like, I'm able to do that from afar because I'm not trying to be a part of that tribe. And so that's. It's like a luxury, so to speak, that where you can evaluate the flaws and other people's position when you're comfortable where you are and don't want to be a part of what they're doing, you know, like. But when you're comfortable where you are and don't want to be a part of what they're doing, unless you're offering an olive branch to bring somebody into where you are, the Point of this article is that it's hard to convince them otherwise also because they're, they're good where they are too. And they're like, I don't need what you're selling. I don't need you to convince me otherwise. I'm happy where I am. And so it creates, it makes actually a more three dimensional kind of portrait on decision making when you look at it like that. In terms of, okay, this person wants to, wants to believe this. If I'm going to talk to them about whether they should believe this or not, as the be with one of the headlines or one of the headers, be kind first be right later. You know, like it has about building bridges.
[00:50:10] Speaker B: So saying about what's your goal in the argument, right? Is it just to win or do you actually want to, you know, turn a person to seeing something different? And I think that's where. Because with our fictitious character we created from 1980 who was on the fringe with his flat earth conspiracies. This is the difference now with the Demar Hamlin thing because you know, again, prior to this modern tech stuff, right, somebody saying that a football player who was hit in a way that caused his heart to stop was killed from some vaccine, that there's no proof of that that happened, may have been quiet about it at home and all that, not wanting to lose their tribe that they're around, but because they may have some ecosystem in their social media or online, they can actually some people, right, not everybody, but some people will make the calculation, well, if my family or my people at my job or others, if they ostracize me from those tribes I've been in, I have a new tribe. I have this tribe that I can run into.
[00:51:11] Speaker A: And I mean, or they're, they're happy to be in the new tribe because the new tribe invigorates them.
[00:51:16] Speaker B: Whereas like we haven't seen this in humanity actually because we never had the ability to have these micro tribes like.
[00:51:23] Speaker A: This that are remote, you know, like.
[00:51:25] Speaker B: All over available 24,7 to people that just go into. It's almost like we created that metaverse before we realized it in a certain way. Which is if you think about it.
[00:51:33] Speaker A: That way, it's the metaverse, but it's ideas. It's the worldwide web.
[00:51:39] Speaker B: Well, go ahead.
[00:51:40] Speaker A: I know you because I want to get out of here, but go ahead.
[00:51:43] Speaker B: I actually started writing down a few of these and then I couldn't stop. I was amazed at how long just for our current environments I want to rattle a Few just for the audience because there's so many that it becomes. You can't even keep up. So, demar Hamlin, I told you I was going to end on that, but I didn't. I didn't get to stage it the way I wanted to.
You know. You know me about the show. Ancient Aliens on History Channel railing against that flat Earthers. I thought of the lost cause, you know, the people that need to believe different facts about the Civil War.
[00:52:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:52:17] Speaker B: I thought about the big lie. Right. And the tribalism there that, you know, there's certain people that if you don't believe in that they're going to ostracize you from the tribe. And you got to make a choice. Right? Yeah.
[00:52:28] Speaker A: That's an interesting one, because it literally is, actually. You can see the dichotomy of choosing between different realities. Like, look, I want to be here. So I'm going to say I believe this.
[00:52:36] Speaker B: Exactly. And you're making a choice because some people are going to say, no, I can't rock with you on whichever direction, whatever side.
[00:52:42] Speaker A: And we've seen people try to straddle the line and a lot of times get marginalized. Whatever looks, I want to be in this group, but I'm not going to go down this path. And we've seen a lot of them get marginalized in their group.
[00:52:54] Speaker B: Correct. And so I started thinking of all this stuff, and I got another 15 I could rattle off, but I'll save it. And I just thought, these are all things that you and I would sit there and intellectually try and sit someone down and say, well, this is not true.
[00:53:09] Speaker A: A lot of times, though, we would start and say, okay, well, show me the proof, you know, and like, when we're evaluating the sources and, you know, primary sources all, like, we're looking at all this stuff, but that's because we're coming at it from the standpoint of, okay, I want to decide. I'm not looking to join a group, you know, I just want to decide how legit this is. And so we're looking at it wrong.
[00:53:30] Speaker B: Yeah, no, because. And you know what? I'll use the one.
[00:53:33] Speaker A: The ones I'll say I want to get out of here. But the ones I'll say that I think illustrated best are the ones that form fault lines on groups, like, where we can see, like, look, you're either on this side or on that side, you know, like. And so it's like, it doesn't leave much room for you to straddle the fence, so to speak. And say, okay, well I'm not going to take a position on that. And a lot of times that is people in one of the tribes saying look, you can't be or sometimes both, you can't be in both. You know, like you, you have to pick one. And that's to me illustrates it really well when it's like look, these decisions are being made and that's how the same people can look at different things or you know, look at a scenario and decide that they're going to believe one thing or the other. So we will close this up from there. 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, send us some suggestions. And until next time, I'm James Keys.
[00:54:26] Speaker B: I'm Tunde Ogunalana.
[00:54:28] Speaker A: All right, we'll talk to you next time.
[00:54:39] Speaker B: Me, I'm.
