Transcripts For KQEH Tavis Smiley 20170920

By contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Tonight a conversation about white rage, white anxiety in the era of trump. I am pleased to be joined by tim wise, activist and author of white like me reflections on race from a privileged son. Has latest text is titled under the affluence shaming the poor, praising the rich, and sacrificing the future of america. Also, honored to be joined by carol anderson, professor at Emory University and author of the National Book Critics Award winner white rage the unspoken truth of our racial divide. Im delighted to have you both on this program. Thank you. Thank you very much for having us. Carol, let me start with you. What is the unspoken truth of our racial divide . The unspoken truth is that we right now in america, we live in a space that has a narrative of black pathology. If only black folks would value school, if only black folks would vote. If only black folks wouldnt do drugs. What i found in doing this research is that in fact africanamericans have valued education, have voted, do drugs the least or about the equal amount, and the response has been white rage. The response has been when africanamericans achieve, when africanamericans succeed, when africanamericans refuse to accept the subjugation, a range of policies come forth to undermine and undercut that advancement. I track it from the end of the civil war all the way through the election of barack obama. And the source of their anger, the source of their angst or rage is what . Black achievement. Yeah. And black refusal to accept a subordinate place in american society. Africanamericans demanding their citizenship rights. And that quest for full citizenship and then achieving that creates this incredible response, coming out of the courts, coming out of the white house, coming out of congress, coming out of School Boards to find ways to, in fact, undermine and undercut that to move africanamericans back in their place. To those white folks watching, and were on pbs so there are a bunch of them watching thank you, prisht it. Thanks to viewers i appreciate it. Thanks to viewers like you, im here every night. To viewers watching saying i dont connect to what carol said, i dont begrudge black folks achievement, i watch tavis smiley, i voted for president obama, i am still going to the games even though theyre not winning. I love oprah winfrey. When you say they are enraged by black achievement, unpack that for me. So to unpack it is to understand that this isnt about all white folks. Yeah. But this is about a large swath of White Americans. Yeah. Who are then in positions of power and are encouraged by those in the Larger Society who find that rights and access to resources, they treat it like a zerosum game. So that you see, for instance, in the discussions, for instance, about affirmative action, right, in those discussions its always cast as some unqualified minority taking my slot. Taking our slot. So that what you get in that construction is that one, that there are only so many slots. And two, that they are inherently mine. And so when some interloper, some unqualified minority gets into that position, then it has to be only at my expense. So what youre seeing and you see politicians working through this, you see wide swaths of media working through this, to treat this as just mine. And so when africanamericans, for instance, are coming to the table, then it can only be at white expense. One of the reasons why the Civil Rights Movement worked at the time that it worked is right at that moment, americas economy was expanding. It coming out of the second world war, the u. S. Accounted for 45 of all industrial goods made globally. So in that expanse, it gave whites a kind of sense that its not always at my expense. I can still have my house in the burbs, i can still have my school, i can still have my job. When you begin to see the construction is in the mid a 60s and on. And this is when the American Economy began to contract in ways that went after the manufacturing sector. To quote hold on, im coming. Im coming. One quick followup here. What would you expect from white folk other than rage if their mean incomes had not increased for 30, 40 years, and the numbers bred out the angry white men, i dont like the way theyre going about it, i dont like that theyre pointing the fingers i know youre going to say it but their incomes have been stagnant or decreasing for decades now. Did you expect something other than rage from them . Let me put it this way okay. Theres a study that found that africanamericans would have to wait 228 years to equal the wealth of whites. Where would rage really be coming from, okay. So this again is an issue of perspective. And its also to say coming out of the Civil Rights Movement, when you have the Civil Rights Act of 64 and the Voting Rights act of 65, the response of white rage was the war on drugs. Uhhuh. Which led to mass incarceration, which led to gutting the Voting Rights act for convicted felons, and which also led to stripping away a lot of the rights in the Civil Rights Act. The United States spent 1 trillion on a failed war on drugs. So this isnt about resources. This is about priorities. And so the rage that is being turned toward africanamericans for refusing to accept that subjugation is misplaced. Let me paraphrase bill clinton bill clinton said famously when he was president , when he established his race commission, youll recall when John Hope Franklin was at the head of it. I recall president clinton saying that that racism may be White Americas may be black americas burden, but its White Americas problem. Black americas burden, but White Americas problem. We accept that its our burden. But when, where, how will ever white people accept that its their problem . I think that we dont because whiteness hasnt really been racialized the way that blackness has. White folks have the ability to believe ourselves unraced. We view ourselves as the neutral sort of floor model of an american. Thats part of what whiteness does. It creates a mentality of entitlement. To connect that to what carols talking about, if you are raised generation after generation to not only expect that if you work hard and play by the rules it will work out for you, which is something no person of color can take for granted or has ever been able to take for granted, but white folks could. Particularly white men, particulay straight, white men. White men, middle class and above, could assume that. Even working class white guys could assume horizontal mobility, right, as in my daddy worked at the plant, im working at the plant, my sons going to worker at the plant or the coal mine or whatever. So if youre led to believe that you are entitled to the best of everything, that meritocracy is real for you if not for those people, and all of a sudden you find yourself in a system that seems as throw it has limits and where that entitlement is challenged, if ive had 90 of the good stuff and you tell me im going to have to make due with 75, equality begins to feel like oppression because what whiteness does is it sets up a mentality of expectation that people of color have never had. Theyve always known theyre going to have to grind to get to that 7, 8, 9, or 10 on the scale. For white folks, 7 was promised, right . And even if you started at a 4, by god, if you worked hard, youll get to the 7. I think we have to understand white folkses if were ever going to get to that place that your question suggest that white folks know its our problem, weve toe get to the expectancy and expectationalism which i can make up a word as a white person, they let me do that. They actually let me do that. Yeah. I need to trademark it. As a white person, i can make stuff up. And get paid for it. Yeah. That white expectationalism actually coming at a great cost for us. Part of the psychic trauma that white folks are experiencing when they see black folks succeeding or latin folks succeed, the reason they think its youre taking my job, is were led all of this is ours and youre here at our pleasure. I think thats not a healthy place because then if my life doesnt work out, if all of a sudden im struggling and cant pay the Health Care Bill and cant pay for my kids college, i got two choices in this society. One is the one that the society teaches me which is its your own fault, wherever you end subpoena all about you. Then that you end up is all about. Then that makes me feel inadequate and shamed. Then i project on to those people and say, its those people, its those mexicans. It t its fascinating because ill get mail from young white folks, like those with tiki torches in charlotte that paraded with people of color, saying i cant get a job because all of the jobs are going to black folks and mexican. Really, all the jobs . Where are these jobs . Are they in second life because theyre not on the streets. The Unemployment Rate is always double for black and brown folks relative to white. Theyll say that and turn around in the next breath and say, oh, and by the way, black and brown folks are all lazy and dont want to work. Which is it . If you cant be both. If you took all the jobs, youre the president of lazy lalazy. If youre lazy, you didnt take one job let alone all the jobs. This psychosis allows us to blame others as a way to not deal with the sense of inadequacy rather than saying we need to be getting together with black and brown folks to figure out why the Economic System is rigged against millions of people. Mexicans didnt tank wall street. There are 37 people in this country that have the same amount of wealth as the bottom 50 of the country. Thats our problem. Whiteness says weve got to protect ours, this is our silo, this is our fiefdom, and they are the threat, rather than other rich white folks. And thats the divide and conquer stuff thats been going on for years. Theres two issues. One is the issue of equality, and the other is equity. Even if you believe in equality, i get the sense people dont care much about equity. That is to say giving people who dont have an opportunity to get in the game. Talk about the difference between equality and equity in the white world. Right. Well, i mean, i think the way that white folks think about this has been for many, many years this sort of colorblind racism, where the idea is lets treat everyone youll hear nice, white, liberal people say i treat everyone the same. So thats equality. I treat everyone equally. And that sounds very, i guess, very nice in the eyes of some. They believe that that makes them prague recoand openminded progressive and openminded. If i treat people facing unequal and differential experiences the same, by addition to i do an injustice to those who need more. If we say were going to fund all the schools with exactly the same money but some folks got their parents kicking in and can have the big pta where theyve got rich folks that can put more money in, then equality wont suffice. But i think when youre the dominant group, theres a real incentive to say, oh, lets treat everyone equally because at some level we know if ive already got the head start, mine, if im two laps up on you in a fivelap race and then you say, were all going to run by the same rules, but folks are too laps back, then equality will end with a twolap head start. And me crossing the tape first. Equity is something we havent really ever embraced because were so wrapped up in that sense of being colorblind, not noticing, not talking about the stuff, as a way to really preserve the head start that we have but dont want to acknowledge. Its pretty clear i think, carol, to most people who are honest about this that donald trump didnt create this mess, but certainly his presence on the ballot and in the white house has certainly exacerbated it. Just talk to me about white rage, specifically white anxi y anxiety, specifically in the era of trump. And so what trump tapped into was what the republicans began to stir and play with with the southern strategy in 1968. That was to get at disaffected whites, both in the south and in the northern and midwest areas. Particularly to say, look, youre you know, theyre giving all of these things to these black people. And whereas you have to work hard for it. It is that line again where whites work hard and black folks are given. Particularly given by the government, dependent on the government. They began to play with that. N 68 particularly 68 particularly, the strategy. And lee atwater, Ronald Reagans chief strategisist, laid it out beautifully. He said, in 1954 you could say the n word, it wouldnt hurt you. By 68, it hurt you. It backfires. Then you begin to Start Talking about economic things. Cutting taxes, like bussing and all of those economic things, he says, and the point is is that blacks get hurt worse than whites. Now in that language there, notice its not just that blacks get hurt with these policies, but that they get hurt worse than whites. What that does then is it creates both a racial fill leaf to cover the racism thats fig leaf to cover the racism thats under that policy because if whites are getting hurt, you cant say that this is a racially discriminatory policy because youve got white folks who are taking the brunt of it, too. Now that also begins the churn. It begins that sense of ive worked hard all of my life, and this is what ive got. I cant pay my bills. This is what trump tapped into. He tapped into what the gop has been churning for a long time. At least lee atwater, i remember this well, at least lee atwater, his blues guitarplaying self was smart enough, to carols point, to at least codify the language that they used. Right. Thats not whats happening now. And there are two ways to interpret that. Yeah. You have what annie lopez calls dog whistle politics, what atwater was talking about. For years that was the strategy. Thats what reagan does when he talks about welfare queens and cadillacs. Thats what politicians did with willy horton. Thats what were used to. The two ways of interpreting trump and his way of doing is t is, one, not being a politician, he didnt get the memo that youre supposed to cover up your stuff. That somebody forgot to remind him that, hey, we play a game. And you dont really know the game. But heres the game. Maybe. The other possibility this is more frightening is that were at a place now in this country where one doesnt need to dog whistle, where you can use the bullhorn and not lose s. That goes to carols point about lose support. That goes to carols point about blacks and whites. I wrote about this five years ago that you had four things happen at once. Any one of which could have sparked wide anxiety. Awe four of which were guaranteed. One, the election of barack obama which challenges white folks notion of who the leader should be. And not just the black guy, but a black guy with an exotic name whos from hawaii or kenya or wherever we think hes from, right. And so thats number one. The second thing is the economic meltdown, right. Which is confronting white people with a level of insecurity that we had not seen since the great depression. Doubledigit unemployment wasnt new for black and brown folks. For white folks, that was like your great grandparents problem. Third thing, cultural shift. The pop culture thoroughly multiracial and multicultural from music to fashion to food, everything interconnected in a way that means the pop culture irveths cons are not the icons are not the ones you grew up with. Culture shifting. Fourth was the demographic shift where we know in 30 years half the country will be people of color, half will be white. You get all those four things coming together in the mid 2000s, first decade of the century. They are going to thats tailormade for white anxiety and have sentiment. Ive said many times, we see it playing itself out, when you cant change the game, you change the rules. Exactly. When you cant change the game, you change the rules. I think thats through. What that means ultimately, carol, i think is that if you wait this out long enough, the numbers are going to shift in your favor in such a way where they cant exert the kind of power, the kind of influence, they cant inflict the pain and suffering. So for those who believe that, disabuse us of that notion. Im ready to disabuse it. Bring it on. Bring it on. And that is actually in the afterward in the new piece. This is why Voter Suppression is so important right now. Because what youve seen, its like what we had saw in North Carolina where the Fourth Circuit said that the North Carolina legislature targeted africanamericans with nearly surgical precision. Where you have the republicans applauding because the early voting percentage of africanamericans had dropped by about 8 because of the way that they had cut the early voting hours. And because of what they had also done with voter i. D. Because they had looked at they didnt just say you need an i. D. To vote. What they did was they figured out the kind of i. D. S that black people didnt have and what texas is doing is figuring out what black people and latinos dont have. And then saying, okay, those are the kinds you need in order to vote. What theyre trying to replicate is what we had in the middle 20th century. In 1942, in the midterm election, the poll tax states, the combination of the poll stacks and literacy test, only 3 of votingage eligible adults voted in the poll tax states in 1942. In 1944 in the president ial election this is landmark roosevelts going for his fourth term. 14 in those poll tax states. Theyre trying to replicate that because if all you have to do as a politician is be responsive to a very narrow band of your population because you have used the law to systematically disfranchise the bulk of your population, you reign in power. Thats what theyre trying to recreate via the legalism,view at white rage of the law. This is why we see the Election Integrity commission where theyre using the myth of voter fraud to try to drum up this sense. Its working. The public, that massive voter fraud actually happens. When, in fact, it doesnt. A law professor out of california found that there were 31 cases out of 1 billion, and this is what you now have states who are in deficits using millions of dollars for voter i. D. In order to begin to make sure that their black and brown populations cannot vote. We need to be willing to call what theyre doing White Nationalism. See, it isnt just white rage or white anxiety. We use the term White Nationalist to refer to nazis. We called david duke a White Nationalist because he is, a white supremacist, neonazi, whatever. We dont want to call the folks in the Trump Administration White Nationalists because that conjures images of skinheads. If i am trying to limit black and brown peoples access to franchise, to limit their ability to participate in democracy in this nation so as to maintain a white majority, not just numerically but in terms of power, what is that . White nationalism if not White Nationalism . Weve got to understand white supremacy, White Nationalism are not problems up here. Theyre problems out here in the world of policy and systems. Weve got any number of references in this conversation tonight. I see the click ticking way too fast. We have any number of references to history. And my read of history, tim, suggests to me that history is not unlike our lives. That the darkest moments are just before dawn. So if the moment is really dark right now and clearly it is, whats america on the precipice of . Well, thats our decision. And to make that call. Heres the thing and i think this is important for us to remember. People are trying to make it seem as if donald trump is this new monster, and this is some new, unique thing. This is the monster thats always been under the bed. This is the monster thats been with us for hundreds of years. On the one hand, its thashl its been there that terrible that its been there that long and we havent vanquished it. But if its the same monster that folks fought 100, 200 years ago when things looked worse than they do now and access for black folks was far worse, we can do the same thing. We need to take heart from those struggles. Those i tell you, if bull connor didnt stop black and brown folks, if jim clarke didnt stop black and brown folks, donald trump is not going to stop black and brown folks. Thats our call. A lot of people, carol, are having difficulty in this moment to sustain their hope. And see and i know because it looks so dark. It really does. But where the hope is is that when you begin to see, for instance, after charlottesville, over 700 cities had mass antiwhite supremacy marches. Where youre seeing with the muslim ban, right, you saw lawyers flying into those airports, sitting on those airport floors, writing writs of habeas corpus, and you saw this kind of there is a sense in the larger american system, and we must not forget that the bulk of the people who voted did not vote for donald trump. There is a sense that this this trump, this trumpian world is not the world we want to raise our children in. Thats where the hope is, the fight is still there. 30 seconds apiece. What is the ultimate message if we can be so bold to White America about how we get a handle on this white anxiety . And i would say that its to reframe things, that this is not a zerosum game. When you think about the one trillion we wasted on the war and drugs and what it could have meant for lowering College Tuition and making college affordable, what it meant for making our schools better, what it would have meant for health care for all, then we can we have the ability to do this. It requires the will. I didnt plan it this way, but the white man gets the last word. I planned it that way. No. Teasing. I would say i would say white folks have a choice. They can look backwards or look forwards. When you put on a hat that says make America Great again, you tell me that youre looking backwards to some ficti ve time. Im saying to white folks, weve got a choice to make. We going to make it great again or make it great for the first time . If we say that it doesnt fit on a hat or bumper sticker, but its the kind of slogan you can raise your children with and that we can raise a country with. Tim wises recent text is under the affluence, and carol anderson, her text is called white rage the unspoken truth of our racial divide. The winner of the National Book critics circle award. Honored to have you both on this program. This is a conversation that we could do for hours and days and, indeed, we probably should. Thank you for coming on. You bet. Thank you. Great to have you. Thats our show for tonight. Thanks for watching, and as always, keep the faith. For more information on todays show, visit tavis smiley at pbs. Org. Hi, im tavis smiley. Join me next time for a conversation with novelist salman rushdie. Thats next time. Well see you then. And by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Be more, pbs. Good evening from los angeles, im tavis smiley. I have a conversation with Bernie Sanders. He talks about his plan to expand medicare to provide health care for every american and his new book titled, Bernie Sanders guide to Political Revolution which includes ideas about what it means to be a progressive these days and how to get involved with the americas democratic system. Were glad you joined us with Bernie Sanders in just a moment