Transcripts For CSPAN3 After 20240704

Welcome. Mr. Lowry. I think i can you mr. Lowry, ive been calling you wes all these years. Its to be with you today. And im looking forward to talking about the book. You know, thi that i think is usually a good starting place is that in my experience its a book doesnt come together or the idea for a book doesnt come all at usually its like maybe experiences or disparate bits of information that, you know, gradually the themes become more visible you and you realize that you know theres a subject to be written. So i wondered if you could give before we get into the substance of how you did the book and so on, i wondered if you could give a kind of overview of the idea for the book to you. Of course, i really appreciate it. Dean cobb or as i know the you know, i, i think that when i think about this book in, this project, you know, i go back to 2016 when we saw the end of the first black presidency a the of a candidate who had run an opened nativist Campaign Campaigning on a kind of racialized hostility and a play toward a white racialized grievance. And as a reporter, as a journalist who was covering issues of, race and justice at time, it was this question think all of us were grappling with this question of what is our role, what is our job amidst the Trump Administration and how does it change what our jobs were . And how does that change . How is it different from the obama not not in terms of the actual function, but just literally what are the good story ideas . How should i write about this in this as opposed to the last one . And as that as that timing is playing out . You know, the the thing about journalism is that as as events progress, the story starts to play itself out. So we were seeing incident after incident of cases where there had been these acts of clearly emboldened White Supremacists. By that i mean avowed racist not in a colloquial sense, but actual race warriors who were committing against all sorts of different types of people and and who were empowered and who were recruiting and people who were recruited because of the coarseness and the open bigotry of our mainstream politics and of our president ial administration. And so for me, initially i just thought about, okay, as a journalist, how do i want to spend my time . What artifact do i want to leave from the trump years . And it felt like, okay, part of this can be telling the stories of people who have been victimized that way but then how do i contextual lies that and so its impossible to look at the trump years without also looking at the obama years as well and so suddenly now i was looking this kind of era of black advancement or, the perception of black advancement and then the the backlash to that or the pushback to that. And then the need to place that in type of a bigger context as well. Because of course this is not the first or only time that weve seen this tug of war play out in our history. So i wonder if you could talk about this i mean, we can get into the bigger historical currents in a minute but even just a more microcosmic sense of the, you know, backlash and kind of boomerang cycle that weve seen in our politics in the past decade. And i wonder if you could talk about about that as. It relates to the book. Sure. You know, and i think its remarkable. As i start the book, i thinking in meditating a little bit on Election Night in 2008 and this desire year from a lot of our institutions to in recognizing the historic moment to project a kind of postwar reality. Right there was this desire for us to have closed the door we have finally solved racism in america by electing a black guy. Whats actually interesting is there have been studies that show i know theyve been done on gender. Im not positive that theyve been done on race that they look at countries for example that elect the first female prime minister. Sure and what it shows is that in fact the expression the naked of misogyny increased following the election of a woman because and now their politics are gender in this way the way you critique the leader is via the ways that you would comment gender, but secondarily that you have people who now say, well, but i cant be sexist because i voted for right. And it provides a permission structure to in fact, express prejudice. And so what we see is the election of a black president , the desire of people to suggest that were now in some type of postracial utopia, which gives them a permission structure to express a bunch of racial prejudices. You know, i think one of the most revealing statistics or data points is by the end of the obama administration, polling shows that 55 of White Americans believe they are racially oppressed, believe they face racialized discrimination. Right. Right. And thats a marked difference as a change. Right. And so what we see is the, is this playing out of a subsection of the major of our country, who that in the face of a what is perceived as a clear towards racial equality or racial equity, they see that a net loss as a deficit and it makes them begin acting as a more anxiety ridden racially aggrieved set of people and so that its unsurprising to see the rise of this kind of explicit nativism in our politics. Yeah you know the interesting thing about that back to the 2008 moment which was that the uncomfortable reality, the thing that people didnt really want to talk about was fact that for you these barrier breaking leaders they often face, you know, severe headwinds. You know, the type that you you mentioned in the United States you know you could have all sorts of comparisons that you could think of. But the fact that, you know, the president the night the country was led through the Second World War and through Great Depression by a president who used a wheelchair and yet a 45 years after his death, it was still to pass the americans with disabilities act because the community that had been so incredibly well represented, even as Franklin Roosevelt himself great pains to obscure that from the public but the community that had this stuff living example of their ability to do to lead, you know, to provide service to the nation in its most dire moments. Still all was not fully included and the society. And so those two things can can coexist in those ways. And you know, for the nations have had plenty of instances, nations that have had female leaders that still have to grapple with entrenched sexism, you know, directed at the population. So it seemed there was always maybe a naive starting place for that that era, of course, will end. And beyond that or or to build on that, you know, i think a lot about what would be required to elected as the first black president in the united of america. What would it be require geared to get a majority white country to vote for you to become the president and how that might preclude do some of the things whether be dispositional ideologically but in terms of boldness that would be required of providing the most full throated and Political Representation to black america right the that there are some of the things required of barack obama to get would preclude him doing some of the things that many of his supporters would want him to do. Beyond that, as you know, the headwinds faced by such a president , i mean close to former president obama note all the time how his relatively mild and frank of the skip gates incident in cambridge was the moment that they lost the support of White America indefinitely. You can see it in the polling, the distrust numbers that he never wins back for a mild and selfevident that the officer arresting a nationally renowned scholar on his own porch was kind stupid. Right, right. And yet this becomes the moment that that white a significant chunk of White America decides dont trust this guy. Despite the that again in terms of his racial or his voiced racial politics, barack obama was remarkably figure who went of his way to say, im not a leader for black america, a leader for all america who was remarkably moderate on on issues like affirmative action or others. Right. Terms of what his stated positions were and i just think that its very interesting to. Look at it and look at it through that lens that that there was this fear. There had this fear that of of losing the country in some ways. Right. This is obviously you cant look at the election, obama without contextualizing it in what that point had already been a decades long grapple and fight over immigration and the changing demographics of the country that had for so many White Americans this that this country has changed in fundamental ways that that are going to leave us to be the losers. And now you start to see the kind of vitriolic both in a policy but also in interpersonal response to that. Yeah. Yeah. So just one last contextual and certainly to your point about obama, that, you know, moderates have a way of looking like radicals in the midst of reactionary times so i think no matter how he was, the reaction to his existence, you know, was so severe. What you talk about the book, you know, the idea that the main priority the Republican Party was to ensure that hed be a one term president , you know, which its before hes enacted any policies before hes actually done anything, you know. But the last prefaced question that i want to ask is you and i met in ferguson amidst the. You know, uproar and the the conflict and everything that was happening in the aftermath of Michael Browns death, you know, in ferguson really became a shorthand for all the social that was going on at time. Can you talk a little about, you know, in a book that you wrote that comes out of that, you know, they cant kill all . Can you talk a little bit about how this book relates to your prior one . Certainly and i actually do see these books in conversation with each other in some ways. And i imagine that i imagine that, you know, where i work on another book it might it would feel very different these two feel like theyre that that they have something to say to each other and and what i mean by that is, you know, they they cant kill us all in ferguson the rise of you know whats commonly known as black lives matter as a protest movement in a new era of our long Civil Movement in. Many ways grows out of it as a reaction, as a response to. The Obama Presidency. Right. That this is a movement of young people. Many whom are mobilized into politics through. The obama candidacy, who theyre entering public life at, a time when the first black president is being is campaigning and then being elected, and then and they respond to their perceived and their correctly perceived limitations to that representation. Right. I think all the time of poe, the activists in saint louis, saying, well, i voted for barack twice and Michael Brown still dead. Right. This idea that with a black president , there was still this limitation in on on the ability to actually claim the promise of an equal or an equitable society. And what that gives rise to is to a grassroots protest movement demanding gains achievements beyond what just idea of having as Rashad Robinson says, a black face in a high place could provide. Right. And so what i think about in this context, though, right. And thats the old, you know, equal and opposite reaction. Right. That as the obama years of the Obama Presidency are ceding and getting breathing new life into a new era of our our Civil Rights Movement, into our Antiracist Movement, there is always been a white supremacist in this country. Right. The Antiracist Movement is a foil, not just to a status quo, but also to a movement of people who want things to remain way. And think that. So what we see and what i think about in this book is this idea of the response and the reaction, the rise of of people, of movements who would play to these insecurities, these anxieties, and how that playing to it has a certain set of outcomes. Right what we know, and i think its important to draw a distinction right there when we talk about supremacism, were not talking about the 55 of White Americans. Right. Were talking the were talking the movement of people who are avowed or avowedly racist, who are eager to exploit those who are slaying in a wait and hoping to proselytize, are excited and happy about the idea of many White Americans googling phil black on white crime . Or are immigrants bad or, you know, because they have set up their their information ecosystem to suck in such people and to indoctrinate them in these these evil ideologies. And so so i think about this book and i think about this work in some ways it feels the very natural next step, a chapter where to cover and cover the rise of a protest movement or a demonstration movement is one thing, but now it makes sense. Have to contextualize and understand movement in the context in relationship to its foe and its foil. Mm hmm. So when you say white lives, you know, in the title american lies. What do you mean by that. So i think its important first to start by defining and talking about the idea that and i think that very often we have these conversations and it goes on said but i think theres probably some value in stating it that that race is not a biological reality. Right. Were talking a social construction racist lived is experienced, but its not actually true. We are different races of human. Right. And so when we talk about white people, white lash supremacy, were talking about people who are societally coded in that way. Because what we also know is that those are malleable over time. And so changed a lot in the course. The 20th century, correct . Right. And will continue to change, frankly, through this demographic change as. We have more people who are showing up from central and south, many of whom would selfidentify as white, you know, and so but i say that to say that if country was founded on an explicitly white supremacist system in that people who were coded under law as white had claim to the full promise of american freedom, while people who were coded as black did not have claim to that promise, which is just the of how we were founded, is what it looked like. The that that system as a white supremacist system is a system that prioritizes and places others people who are coded as white. Weve seen steps over our history to undo that and to create a multiracial when those steps date back to the revolts of enslaved date to the abolitionist the civil war. I and reconstruction. The date to the Civil Rights Movement in the fifties sixties. And they date the steps towards the election. A black president in each of those incidents. What we see is that as people fight to upend the white supremacist status quo, those who are the beneficiaries of that status quo lash out violently in in defense of a system for which are the beneficiaries. And so what we see is that follow showing the revolts of enslaved people. We see massive acts of violence, both interpersonal and in terms of policy cutting down on the ability of enslaved people to have access to reading or to education, their freedom of movement, in some cases, quotas on how many nuances saved could be brought to a given colony to make sure that they would not lose an upper hand in terms of maintaining the populations we see, the violence and the backlash to the radical republicans in the and the overthrow of multiracial as it was established in reconstruction. We see the the violent crackdowns, civil rights and Civil Liberties of black americans following the Civil Rights Era in the Civil Rights Movement. And we see the rise of these white supremacist groups, whether it be the skinheads, whether it be the Militia Groups, whether it be what we called alt right for a while. Right. This idea that when white supremacist when White Supremacy is threatened, people lash out in its defense and in those moments, i think those moments are best understood as. A white lash. Mm hmm. So i wonder, because this kind of grim prognosis. Yes. I wonder. What you got from your time reporting about mechanics, be they societal or, the mechanics of individual psychology about how that process works and what really seems to be the driving force in this recurrent theme of of violence particularly violence in reaction to perceived black progress. I think that there is a very i think the driving force in many ways is very base human prejudice. And what i mean, that is all of us think and worry about a scarcity of resources is there enough to go around . Are safe . Are we healthy . Am i to have a job or my as my family my children, my offspring, are they going to have access the resources they need to get ahead to survive, to thrive . And that what we see in these moments are the fears of people who are different than us and the idea that perhaps there is a rebalance of the scale in a way. And in that rebalancing will i and my people and my tribe, will we end up the losers of history in some way and then what we see is the people who would preach race as a by a logical reality playing to those anxieties and ramping them up. We see we see rhetoric whether it be through the institution of media whether it be wielded by politicians that seek to demonize and dehumanize those those folks who are coming who are different. And the result is a lashing out. You know i one of the things that when i was researching this book was really struck by i was the sociologist Gordon Alpern study the nature prejudice and and tracking how how does a intersperse final prejudice which we all possess. We walk down the street and we decide, okay, do we think that person is attractive or not attractive . They look friendly. Do they look mean . All these things are prejudicial in that we havent done any objective analysis this person to figure out what we think of them right that its its our feeling but what takes an internalized prejudice and what metastasizes it into an actual act of violence and he charts the course and how public rhetoric and public discussion can can accelerate that process that okay i might i might live in a neighborhood where a new set immigrants has shown up a new set refugees has shown up. People who look or different people of a new religion and may initially just be skeptical of them in a way that is natural and human, because i dont have experience with them. But when suddenly Public Square and our Public Discourse, i begin seeing those internalized prejudices reflected back me. It provides a permission structure. It provides me permission to segregate from them, to stay away, to not integrate, to not to not connect from there. It develops into a permission actively discriminate against them right. And then from there to take steps of violence, whether they be interpersonal and eventually societal. Right. And and so what we see in these moments are that understandably populations that understandably feel a base prejudice about the way society of the world is changing. But when those prejudices are reinforced and reflected back to them, its how we start getting to this moments of discrimination and of true violence. Mm you know, weve been talking a lot about race and i kind of binary sense of black and white. It is of course more complicated than that. And so i wonder if we could talk a little bit about the immigration angle of this and specific ali, about the death of marcelo. Who you write about in extensively in the book and how that fits into the bigger narrative that youre talking about here. Or so. Marcelo lucero was an ecuadorian immigrant who was killed in patchogue, new york, which is in long island just days barack obama was elected and he killed in an environment in which local officials in response the demographic change in this area had begun demonizing and to humanizing immigrants and immigrant laborers that the immigrants became the people who were blamed for a collection of problems and policy issues. People were concerned that their housing was going to fall, which in a time during the economic downturn was a major, major concern for people had invested years of their lives into achieving this kind of suburban life. We concerns about the schools and was english as a second language pulling money away. The Football Team or the Lacrosse Team that suddenly any problem can be blamed on a wave of immigrants and and this dehumanization and it gotten deep and so angry itself into a culture of this community that groups of High Schoolers were going out each weekend looking for immigrants to beat up. That was how they were passing the time. That was the fun they were having. Right. It speaks to a again and its almost too obvious to say. Right. But when we dehumanize people or dehumanize a group of people, people stop viewing them as humans, therefore stop treating them as humans. Hmm. That that suddenly these these are playthings to be harassed, to be harmed, to be assaulted and marcelo lucero, whos walking home one day, one night, is accosted and and attacked, stabbed by a group of teenagers and loses his life. Now, in this case, it ends up going to trial. Now, there ends up being a conviction. But so much of the trial itself turned this question of whether it was whether or not it was okay to describe his killer as having racist or racially motivated. Was this a hate crime or was it not right that this was a young man who had gone out with the express purpose of assaulting immigrants, has murdered an immigrant, and we are having a public debate about whether or not it is okay to that as a racialized and i think it speaks to the failures and the limitations of our Public Discourse here, because we are we have literally taken someone whos committed a racist murder and we are that they are that they do not meet the standard of what is racist and what is white supremacist to what is a backlash in this way. And if such a person does not. Well, then who does . Hmm. You know, i wonder, you know, youve been covering these stories for a long ive been covering these stories for a long time. You know, lets say a hypothetical critic will say, okay, these people did terrible things that dont represent me. They dont represent you. The community where i live or the friends that i associate with. Is it wrong to chronicle these people . A barometer for where were headed . In particular ways, or does that skew our sense of where we are in terms of our racial and and ethnic tolerance in the country . I think that what we have to think about is that it takes a very small portion or percentage of people to imperil the freedoms of fellow americans, fellow citizens. Then it doesnt actually require a significant portion of White Americans to lash out violently, to chill and to curtail the freedoms of immigrants of black americans, of muslims, of whomever that it takes. Dylann one person to to massacre people in charleston and to chill and scare black americans. The country. Referring to the 2015 mass shooting at the Emanuel Ame Church in charleston. Exactly that that. In fact, we live our lives based on interactions, just small portions of the. Right. And that it does not take a Critical Mass or even a major city to fundamentally change experience of someones life. And so i think that we have to be willing but i think beyond that though, i think one of the reasons is important to look at these cases that are understanding and by design outline year is because we all want to and agree or at least the vast majority of agree that we do not want such people in such cases, the that there there is large agreement across political spectrum, across our populace that what happened at the tree life synagogue, the mass shooting there, what happened in harrisburg in, pittsburgh, or in el paso, the walmart killing of hispanic people there, people dont want that to happen. Right. I believe no matter who the politician is, no matter what their politics are, i believe them when they when they say that this terrible and a massacre. Right. And so if we have a upon outcome, which is to have such things happen the only way to decode how to prevent it is actually looking and focusing on those things and reverse engineering our solutions from there. The is if were when we focus on things, it leads us to solutions that people may not like much. It leads if we do want immigrants being slaughtered or being targeted, that might change the way we deploy rhetoric about immigrants and refugees. And that that suddenly requires something of us that may not be advantageous to Political Program to our chances of reelected, to our ability attack our political foes x, y and z. Right. That its a lot easier to look at all these things in a vacuum. And of course, i hate antiimmigrant violence. But no, i get to say whatever i want about immigrants. Right. Because my speech cant linked to this and x, y and z and i would suggest is weve got a greater responsibility than that. Mm hmm. You know, im aware that the dean of a Journalism School and that some of my students may watch this. And so have to ask you a few process questions. Of course. You talk to me about how reported this this book. And you know what your approach to the stories that you highlight, you know, and, you know, logistically kind of walking through the work of creating book itself. So when i first started, i was thinking primarily about the trump years, and that presented a challenge if only because they were still playing out. It was a story that was still happening was a story i was still covering in and day out. And as i began thinking about this and having conversations with folks i, i really focusing on the obama years as well in part again, because i dont believe we can understand the trump years without understanding the obama years. From there, i began looking these different types of cases. One thing i thought was important was flattening. Having a conversation about. All of the different types of people who are targeted by White Supremacists. And what i mean that is that we i certainly believe its important for us to understand and the rich textured individual history of, say, antiblackness in america or antisemitism or islamophobia or xenophobia. Right. But in moment, there is a true through line between many of the horrific acts of violence. Were seeing targeting one group or targeting the other. You know, weve referred to tree of life a few pittsburgh, the the attacker in that case was just sentence for a recently and and he noted that targeted that synagogue because believed that they were helping resettle refugees. Right and so while is unquestionably an act of antisemitism, it is also an act of antiimmigrant violence and ends xenophobia. Right. And so to only understand it as the one would be to be the bigger context. Yeah. Just as a quick aside, you know, when you look at the. 1955 bombing of the hebrew benevolent congregation in atlanta, you know, thats done as an act of antisemitism, but also is meant as a warning. Because they perceived the of that congregation to be being too sympathetic toward nascent Civil Rights Movement. Mm hmm. And so it was both of those things was both antisemitic and antiblack. And kind of braided into a toxic hole. And so its not uncommon, i think, you know, to see the thing that youre talking about with these kinds of social prejudices amplify each other. Exactly. And i think its important to try to understand that, because, again, if our goal and our aim is to understand and inform so that we can do something, we do have to develop some expertise in the way that these people are thinking and operating so that we can Work Together on finding a solution and a remedy. So from there, i begin thinking about, okay, what are Different Cases that fit both in terms of a chronological, you know, do i tell the story of an era which means i got to move through time, but then also how do i make sure that im not so rooted in one, that im missing the details of another . How do i contextualize both in a sweeping history, but then also a in a modern era history . But beyond all of that, how do i make sure going back to what in a lot of ways was was really the underlying push of why i wanted to work on this was how do i make sure that im chronicling and telling the stories of the real people who are in this era, whose lives were forever changed that we can talk these ideas in these abs strapped like conceptual but lets go into the living room of the brother of man who was murdered. And lets sit there. Lets sit with the stakes of this because i think that is what matters. And that is what is important. And i think thats what empowers us to then potentially figure out ways to to resolve all of. I think that, you know, that points to, you know, Something Else that i was curious about, which is, you know, were the most difficult aspects of this. I imagine that in reporting a story like this, theres a certain amount of emotional difficulty that you have to prepare yourself. But im curious about how youd answer both, whether it be an emotional, logistical practice call, you know, journalistic you know, what were the most challenging aspects of doing this project . I definitely think thats true. You know, someone whos a someone covered a lot of Police Violence or a lot of stories of people who have been killed just by police. But frankly, even just in homicides. Right. And street crime. Theres a amount of pain there and trauma and frustration. But in experience, theres something thats even different about people whose loved ones are are targeted for so immutable to their being. Mm hmm. The that. Wait a second. My son was killed because someone sent out to massacre. I my daughter was killed because someone set out to attack muslims. Right . Theres something that might in again, in my experience. And i dont want to make a universal statement of in my experience theres been something about those interviews and interaction that has a different level of tax that is a little different. I think was also true is that this is a big space of the space that has been written about and thought. Its a space that is ongoing battlefield for a lot. Our public conversation. And so part of what was difficult for also was thinking about what is the scope and what is the scale. There were a bunch of different ways could do such a book and how much history, how much of it is about interpersonal violence versus how much of it is about systems, structural violence, how much of it . And i think that there are i guess i certainly think theres some other subjective decisions i could have made about how to it. But for me, again, trying to root this or and this project in, the stories of these people, i tried to really start micro and then just pull the string who was person . How were they indoctrinated . Whats the background of that . And let the story kind of unspool itself under standing that it therefore would not and could not be encyclopedic. Mm hmm. You know, theres the old lesson that you probably when you were starting out, too, about journalism, which is that a complex story should be told. Mm hmm. Yeah. And so i think, you know, kind of getting it these huge currents by talking about the brother of someone who was killed and sitting in their living room is exactly how we getting at that something. So incredibly you know, convoluted and complicated. Mm hmm. Exactly. And i just think that that beyond that, though, i think that there at times theres a hyper focus and almost a weird fetishization of the attackers. These cases that im sure they dont even mean this is like a media criticism. I just mean like even in our public imagination. Right. The idea of these nazis, the skinheads and this and that and. Right. And part of me just wanted to that wanted to characters to be not the Richard Spencers but the their hires or or the z bryants the young black woman who writes the initial this is this is a reference to charlottesville and charlottesville, virginia, where there was the unite the right rally in 2017, where where what we see and i thought this fascinating to me right that one of the moments that most identified in our Public Knowledge as a as white supremacist violence, a violent turned homicidal event hosted by White Supremacists, is sparked by a young black womans of antiracist activism with which she writes an essay for school. And then later sends us a letter to the editor, suggest letting the confederate monuments come down. Mm and the result ends up being that the nations White Supremacists show up and murder someone. Right. That theres a theres a disturbing like butterfly effect to this. That such a relatively small act of resistance and antiracist activism by teenager results in such an overwhelmingly vile lynch response from White Supremacists in many ways. I actually illustrated a lot of what we are talking about here. Sure. You know, the other thing that im curious about is, you know what learned because you have covered these subjects for such a long time you know what, if anything, you learned in the course of this reporting and whether any of it surprised you. You know, i think the part of was surprising to me me was just how united so many of these different or different denominations of american supremacist, how united they are in their core ideology, how relatively similar . I actually in the press very often we perhaps overflow on the delineations. Whats the difference between the alt right versus a Militia Group versus a christian identity . You know, and thats not and i might that doesnt matter. Those distinctions dont. But what is interesting is how when you zoom outward these are the exact same people. They believe the exact same things that for all of the ink spilled over this new rise in white supremacist and theyre aware and bow ties and this and that these are old school klansmen in their beliefs right that its just a rebrand. Mm hmm. And i actually i feel like maybe i knew that in to tim lee, but to actually go through a more rigorous process of diving into their beliefs and looking at it, you know, i think i was also, you know, i think i was also struck by the kind of tactical forethought a lot of these movements have put in. You sure that you go back to the eighties and theres a white supremacist leader, lewis beam, who writes about this concept of leaderless resistance, which is something that is a terminology been adapted by civil activists. Theres this concept of we will not were not going to be in this hierarchical process where they could just they can infiltrate one group or they can assassinate one leader, but rather, were going to try to proselytize to the mass is and to spark up all these different points of resistance and to see, you know, the organized white supremacist of the eighties writing this stuff down in tracks and then watching that play out with Timothy Mcveigh in Oklahoma City and then watching it play out with dylann roof. And its actually i mean, its truly the embodied meant of what they hoped would come. Well, also, you know, theres theres kind of logistical and Practical Knowledge that, you know, i wont go through the list, you know, but when you look at the on the Tops Supermarket in buffalo last year and you looked at the dylann roof attack in charleston in 2015, there were practical and forensic things that overlapped. Mm hmm. So not only are they kind of following this source of inspiration, but theyre learning from each other and, you know, kind of almost crowdsourcing, you know, the information about how to continue to act, to commit these these heinous acts. Well, and i think one thing we have to remember, and i didnt go into this too deeply in the book, but i think its fascinating right, is that this generation of white supremacist coming after a set of of postcivil rights, White Supremacists, did all exist in these hierarchal groups. They had more formation. And and what we saw was that we had civil Rights Groups like the splc who who systematically in and sued these groups out of existence. Mm hmm. Right. That they said. Okay, well, someone was murdered. Were suing you in civil court. 50 million. And they could bankrupt a local klan or bigger group. They could seize the land. They could. The fbi could infiltrate. And so what we see happening in this generation of attackers and this begins with mcveigh and sense is that whether it is true or not, they insist in their manifestos. Im not a part of any group. This was all me in part because what does is it insulates their brethren from the ability to be held accountable. Right. Right. That. No, no, no. Im not the member of anything. You cannot argue. Anyone influenced me. And they explicit write it down in these things means that they take completely on themselves. The legal culpability which then destroys the ability for. Attorneys for the justice department, for civil groups to come in and hold the movement writ large, responsible. Sure, sure. And so i think that, you know, in looking at, you know, these stories and, certainly in reading your book as well, it had a couple of effects. One is that at this point, we almost take for granted, you know, in our worst circumstances, we do take for granted the advances that have been made over the past century, but particularly in the Civil Rights Movement and. When you distill this down, you see exactly what people were up against. And you know, how incredible their achievements were in light of that. The other thing that i think is really interesting, i thought about this in reading the section on the murders in kansas was that there is a commonality in which, you know, are people who are killed as an expression of, you know, a particular kind of bigotry. But the people who who are killed dont have any connection. They dont belong to the group that is being targeted. And so thats the case in city. Thats the case with the sikh in wisconsin, in which people sometimes make no distinction between seeks and muslims. That was the situation when the Holocaust Museum in washington, d. C. Was attacked some years back. And the person who died there was, an africanamerican security person. And so it really does seem to reinforce, guys, the idea that Martin Luther king articulated that if i can paraphrase that that none of us are safe until all of us are safe. You know, none of us are free until all of us are free. And that the kind of bigotry that can be directed at one group will extend almost assuredly will extend to victimize beyond that group 100 . And beyond that, because what we also know is that these group distinction are malleable. They change, they shift. So they move right to really hate immigrants in 1920. I mean, Something Different than to really hate immigrants today. And you can use the same terminology. You can believe in the same policy remedies. You can you can preach the same it. You actually targeting your vitriol at a completely different set of humans. And in fact, may be a person who was in Group Previously and. So its its its remarkable. Its said are we going to be a nation for all . And are the promises of freedom of equality . Are those promises that are actually universal regardless of types of demographic distinctions or are they something being held for a certain subsection of people who we deem american and and withheld from everyone else. And and i think that we cant and choose we cant have it some other way. Theyre everyones free or no ones free. Yeah, i thats well said. This is one of the things i want to go back for a little while, the time we have remaining to talk some more about immigration. You talk about the 1965 immigration act and, you know, the the of, you know, very vitriolic debate. Discourse on immigration in the country. Can you give us a sense of how we got here. You know, from that to where we are now. Of course you know, i think that there is a when we look at the way immigration has worked over our our history, i mean, it truly is one of if not the central issue in debating who is an american cannot be an american. And what we see is and by the way, it has been central historically to a white nativist and White Nationalist movements that people forget. When the klan was at its strongest in the 1920s when it own senators governors they had they passed major policy and it was the immigration act of 1925. Right. Right. They restricted who could come into the country. How would come in. And they created a quota system for that. What we see is that in the sixties, we we have a pivot change in the way immigration works. And we rid of such systems allowing more people from more parts the country. The ability to enter into our country. And so what we start to see is a massive shift demographically in who here who is allowed in that that is then increased by the dysfunction and chaos very often in several central and south american that drive masses of people toward the promise of american freedom. And so very rapidly we see amounts of immigration in the United States of america that really do not have historical precedent in our countrys history. Not that they dont present anywhere, but we have seen people showing up and changing the makeup of the country faster, more rapidly in these recent decades than we had seen ever before. And and that necessary really spikes tension, that frustration, those interactions. Right. I remember i was interviewing trevor noah once. We were talking about the differences with the united and south out south africa. And i remember him talking about he all these places we talk about melting pots. People forget like to have a melting pot, you have to have a underneath you. Right. Thats like melting is not a pleasant experience. And the and so that when you think about it right. Is a fundamentally tension experience youre taking people who are different, putting them in the same place and telling them to do a shared thing. And and so what weve seen a massive change in who our country and the subsequent response reaction to that. Whats been remarkable has been that we have conversation now about how remedy parts of our immigration system that do not work, that dont function, whether it be our asylum system, the ability enter the country or not. And little of the conversation very often is actually about solving the problem, but rather much more about an expression of anxiety and frustration, about change. Right. That theres actually very little utility in building a wall on the southern border will not solve the problem. Right. But its politically is politically very valuable, at least in certain contexts. But, you know, it doesnt actually address the problem because its an expression. Right. In the same way that weve seen a, you know, the governor of florida came out and said he get rid of birthright citizenship, a thing that would not solve any of these problems, but speaks, which is also a thing which is also a product of the civil war. The attempt to enshrine citizenship for the newly emancipate enslaved black people formally. Enslaved black people. So so what were so what were seeing is major politician people who could become the United States propose using to undo the amendment that codified the citizenship of black americans. Right. Because they are so anxious and or not. Not having to speak to them personally, they believe people whose votes they are seeking will respond to such an appeal about the changing demographics of the country to say, well, well people that if they show up here, their kids will not be american citizens as a means of protecting what i would call an american whiteness, this idea of who is really an american versus who is not. You know, theres an interesting biographical note here which is that. The 1965 immigration act, which greatly immigration policy in the United States, when you back and read Lyndon Johnsons around that he downplayed it you know of course this was tremendously in congress at the time and one of the things that it did was upend the old quota system that you talked about that came from the johnson act in 1924. So, you know, this is meant to be something that makes this society, at least on its face, more democrat and more in line with its ideals. Lyndon johnson says. Its not going to make much difference at all. And you know, i remain curious about whether that was just him speaking politically or if he really believed that because of course, it radically changed immigration. And in route to changing the demography of the United States. One of the first places where those changes became apparent was queens new york. You know where i happen to have grown up queens is now the most statistically the most diverse county in the United States prior to the immigration act. It was the second whitest portion of new york city. And over time, youve seen a huge influx of people from a variety of places, the world. Its really not a coincidence. And that change happened very quickly. Its really not coincidence that the most nativist politics that weve seen in the politics of the prior president ial administration, which you make note of, are connected to a political who was born and raised in queens, new york, was donald trump. Well, and you have queens, new york. You also have many of these figures, including the now deposed fox news host tucker carlson, who hail from san diego. Yeah. Place that was among the first to see the massive demographic change around hispanic immigration. And so they were deang with this and grappling this in the eighties in a way that much of the country was not grappling with until the late nineties in the 2000. Mm hmm. And so all of that is very surprising. I think its also interesting when we think about immigration, and that brings to a really fascinating point when you think about places like queens is, i think sometimes we forget. How many immigrants are black. Sure. That when we talk about the change is since the sixties and who occupies the country spaces and i sit in theres a lot of conversation a debate about the difference between descendants of slaves and the children of african immigrants. Most of those african immigrants arrived post 65. Right, right. The changing of the country to be a more immigrant country, not just hispanic american immigration. Right. That in many cases youre talking about black american immigration, asianamerican immigration. So much so when we at the the muslim and the steps that taken to keep many people from many muslim countries out of out of the United States as part of the Trump Administration mission that many of the people impacted by that were black american not people who we would codify think of as arabamericans. Right. Exactly. And one of the things i know were running, you down to our last minutes here. One of the things i wanted to make sure i got to is that this is a very heavy, very weighty subject. But with the minute we have left, i wonder if you could talk anything that are hopeful or, idealistic about and where we may see some sign of progress . I think that any time we see these moments because its i use the the the analogy of a tug of war and any time we see the tug of war from the White Supremacy forces, we do see a rise of antiracist forces to pull back. Right. That is that what we see is the rise of people claiming the mantle of multiracial democracy and demanding the renewal of that out of the horrendous lynching of till rises, the Civil Rights Movement. And so that in moments, you know and so i dont like to be rosy eyed about it but in moments of of backlash. What we do see new generations of people rising to meet the call and so i think thats important. And i think that you know this one of the reasons we insist upon an accurate understanding of not just our history but of our contemporary realities is from the belief that we that if powered and empower by that accurate understanding, we change things, that we write things down and record them so that they can be addressed. And so in covering and writing about these forces are dark that are evil, that are difficult, the aim is not to say that things are irreconcilable, broke in and theres nothing we can do. And the countries redeemable. Its in fact premise in the idea that there is the ability redemption. But that redemption requires, direct acknowledgment of reality. Mm hmm. Well, you know. Thank you. On note, well have to conclude. And, you know, im very appreciative of the early opportunity. Had to read american white less. And congratulations on pu