ah, the first episode of united shades of america. such an innocent time. i know many of you remember it, because i heard about it all the time. you re the kkk guy. why would you film with the kkk? america doesn t even have that type of racism anymore. hmm. you re right. it s gotten way worse. jews will not replace us! and that was all before covid-19 and before four cops in minneapolis killed george floyd. rather than just treat him like a human. before protests, a police station burning to the ground. i m in trouble, there s an african american man threatening my life. before too many karens, before flattening the curve. and through it all a president incapable of handling any of it at all. oh, look, baby s first bible! america is finally ready to get real about white supremacy. so, let s start super easy and basic. these are white supremacists. 44 white presidents out of 45 in a land originally 100% native american is white supremacy. white supremacy is a big c
Suburbanization had largely moved the white population of braddock up the hill and out of the valley. while black folks remained. along with discriminatory home lending, all legal until 1968. but in the more than 50 years since, it is clear that changing the law has not changed the reality. the jobless rate is over 15% in pittsburgh. and when the united states steel industry collapsed in the 80s, braddock, the town that had lived and died for steel, was left with the problems and little else, except consistently some of the worst air quality in the u.s. of a. when we look at wages, when we look at environmental issues, when we look at education, when we look at the school to prison pipeline, mass incarceration, we see those as issues in and of themselves. in reality, they re all part of the cycle of racism. a perfect example. take my town. black folks, most of them live there because at some point they were red lined. government policies, predatory lending. those things all coll
Home of the santa monica pier and the birthplace of stephen miller. we are not here for that stuff, we are here for this lad y my mom. doesn t she look good in this light? it would be great if it was warm. yeah, but you are always cold. i think something happens and you get older. yeah, and you are old. i mean, old. like, old. i acknowledge that. i mean like, martin luther king jr. would be 91 the idea being that my mom experienced every part of america s racism except for slavery. janet cheatham bell, born in 1927, in indianapolis indiana. she is fighting racism wherever she goes. mostly, she s happy to know that most can t believe she is 83.
I m debbie kamau bell. we re all white supremacy. we filmed the show in early 2020 which means we filmed weeks before covid-19 hit and months before the police in minneapolis killed george floyd and before all the protests that followed. before many of us had ever heard of reforming or defunding the police. before the president and his cronies used racism to describe the coronavirus, which led to a rise in hate crimes against asian americans. yep, you don t have to look to history to see racism. just watch the news. but the question is, are we finally ready to do the work it takes to make america the just, equitable, and great place it s always claimed to be?
Into communities where there were more opportunities. so you re in these insular communities, ghettos. our supreme court says education can be funded by the local level. which means that you live in this town, you get one educational experience. you live in that suburb, you get a vastly different one. you live in this community, you re more likely to live by an environmental hazard. we have u.s. steel in this community. you re more likely to live in a medical desert in a food desert. we have, in the 15104 zip code, we have no grocery stores. we had a hospital that was notoriously closed down. and you are less likely to have transportation in and out of your community. so you are literally and physically trapped in your communities. so, that means you have bought your kid a one-way ticket right back into that circle. right back into that cycle. that s cyclical racism. where do you even start? where do you even begin to dismantle that? you just broke it all the way down, didn t you? th