Race Matters

Ken Taylor
Do black lives really matter in America?

Debra Satz
Have they ever mattered in our sordid racial history?

Ken Taylor
What can we do to make sure Black Lives Matter today?

Debra Satz
Welcome to Philosophy Talk, the program that questions everything…

Ken Taylor
…except your intelligence. I’m Ken Taylor.

Debra Satz
And I’m Debra Satz. And we’re here at the studios of KALW San Francisco.

Ken Taylor
Continuing conversations that begin at philosophers corner on the Stanford campus, where Debra and I teach philosophy.

Debra Satz
Today we’re thinking about race and why it still matters.

Ken Taylor
You know, Deborah, as a black man, I have to say, I find it kind of depressing that here we are pretty deep into the 21st century. And there’s still a question about whether black lives really matter.

Debra Satz
It is depressing. But there’s not only bad news, we’ve eliminated formal discrimination and housing, we’ve made progress. We’ve removed many of the old barriers in voting. Sure, our schools and neighborhoods may be segregated, in fact, but at least they’re not segregated in law.

Ken Taylor
I wouldn’t deny that it’s all well and good. But it’s not nearly enough. To ease my depression, I’m afraid. I mean, think of the racial inequality in our so called criminal justice system and take away cops gun down young black men with impunity, or the fact that we stuff I mean, stuff, black and brown bodies, into our prisons till the field to the brim. Did you know, Deborah, that there are more young black men in prison than in college?

Debra Satz
This is a moral disaster. Our prison system is a moral disaster. But it’s not only a disaster for black people, it’s a disaster for white people to and if you want white people on board with fixing racially problematic institutions, like our broken criminal justice system, you’ve got to show them that it’s their problem, too. It’s not just a problem for black people.

Ken Taylor
Yeah. But then instead, are you saying that, instead of saying black lives matter, we have to say, all lives matter? Because you know, my child just so tired. There’s old tired of dealing with black grievance. And then black people have to kowtow to white sensibilities just to get a little racial justice. Wait a second,

Debra Satz
who’s talking about black people cow towering? I’m talking about getting all people black, white, brown, to recognize our common problems. We’re all in this together.

Ken Taylor
Yeah, no, no, ever sounds like you’re demanding colorblind solutions to problems that are so deeply colored by race. And you know, that’s never worked in the past. I don’t think it can work. Now,

Debra Satz
focusing on common problems doesn’t mean being colorblind. Besides, it’s the only way forward. Look, I grant that the criminal justice system disproportionately affects the lives of black people. I’m even willing to grant that it was explicitly designed to work that way.

Ken Taylor
No, you’re talking Deborah. Yeah, but But what are you going to do about it,

Debra Satz
replace it root and branch with something more just more equitable, and more effective, and not just for black people, for all people? And once we do that, you know what’s going to happen? Black people will disproportionately benefit, since they’re disproportionately harmed by the current system. Look,

Ken Taylor
I get your strategy. You want to do an end run around our racial divisions, you want to focus on what unites us and not what divides us? Yes, yeah. But you know, Deborah, if we go that route, I think we run the risk of ignoring the urgent problems that black people face. And history has proven over and over again, that America needs a constant reminder that black lives matter. I agree.

Debra Satz
But history also teaches us that when we frame our problems in racial terms, we end up pitting one racial group against another. And when that happens, we all lose. But

Ken Taylor
saying black lives matter isn’t pitting one group against the other? It’s not saying that other lives don’t matter. It’s not about excluding others. It’s about finally including a black people in the collective we, you know, you know, I think what we really need, we need a way to combine two things, a passionate plea for racial justice, with a full throated acknowledgement of the importance of justice for all, that’s what we need. I agree.

Debra Satz
But my point is that given how racially divided Americans are emphasizing race is a risky strategy.

Ken Taylor
No, I can’t deny that given our history, but avoiding race is a risky strategy too, because let’s face it, black people don’t hear themselves included in an insincere all lives matter.

Debra Satz
So can the Black Lives Matter movement be the vanguard of a social justice movement for all? Or is it just for black people?

Ken Taylor
To answer that question, we send a roving philosophical reporter Liza veal to take a closer look at Black Lives Matter. She filed this report.

Liza Veale
In September, a St. Louis police officer charged with murdering a man named Anthony Lamar Smith was acquitted. protests broke out and they’ve continued to every single night for the last five months law people tired it is. So whatever happened. I just pray for my seat. It’s likely that the story of the verdict and the protests didn’t even penetrate your news cycle. From the sound of the media, it might seem like the entire Black Lives Matter movement is over. It was an outcry of pain with hard to trace results. But that’s what how St. Louis organizer Kayla Harris sees it.

Kayla Harris
In three years, my life has completely changed. When

Liza Veale
Michael Brown was killed in 2014. A local movement was born in the St. Louis Ferguson area. Paris became politicized.

Kayla Harris
I was going to protest every day and I was working two jobs.

Liza Veale
And now she organizes full time to change the systems that create police abuse.

Kayla Harris
What we have been fighting is divestment from the institution of policing. You’ve been pushing against systems like cash bail,

Liza Veale
and predatory fines, and building an electoral strategy. And

Kayla Harris
right now what we’re fighting, there is a proposition on the ballot this November that seeks to give the police 20 million more dollars. So we’re actively fighting that

Liza Veale
these local campaigns even when they win don’t always command our attention. What has easily dominated the news lately, is the All Lives Matter backlash and the alt right. White supremacist aren’t the only ones to critique Black Lives Matter. Their critiques from sympathizers to hashtag Black

Touré Reed
Lives Matter to simply summed up the visceral frustrations that so many black and brown people felt myself included.

Liza Veale
Touré Reed writes about politics and he teaches African American history. He supports the fight against the prison and policing industrial complexes. But he worries

Touré Reed
framing an issue that impacts albeit black people and Latinos disproportionately, but quite a few whites, as well as simply a matter of black lives as simply a racial issue, I think, you know, contributes to the kind of tribalism, that gets us the conservative backlash, or Trumpism

Liza Veale
really doesn’t blame black lives matter for the existence of white racism. But he’s skeptical of the movements ability to end it without working on the class systems that keep us segregated physically, professionally, culturally.

Touré Reed
I mean, I grew up in southwest Atlanta and New Haven, Connecticut. And I really didn’t, I didn’t have any white peers. Before I moved to New Haven, Connecticut. I heard a lot of crazy things about white people. And thus I believed a lot of crazy things about white people. I had had these unexamined prejudices that had festered and isolation,

Liza Veale
read worries that a movement for and by black lives just won’t be inclusive and big enough to change the conditions that divide us. He says Black Lives Matter is morally right.

Touré Reed
But frankly, in a democracy 13% can’t win. So there’s no there’s nothing lost by pointing to the fact that that whites are the majority of people who were murdered by police officers. And it makes sense then, to strike alliances with poor and working class, whites and Latinos.

Liza Veale
In the local campaigns that Kayla Harris fights for. She knows her wins will also benefit poor people who are not black.

Kayla Harris
The class portion of the conversation often includes non black people. And that’s okay.

Liza Veale
Her campaigns are not all strictly racial justice issues.

Kayla Harris
We are following that path to collective liberation by deeply deeply focusing on the group that historically in this country has been the most pressed,

Liza Veale
maybe leading with a racial message alienate some people from the cause. But Harris says for her, it’s the whole reason she shows up. For Philosophy Talk, I’m Liza veal.

Ken Taylor
Thanks, Eliza, for that really thought provoking and deep moving report. I’m Ken Taylor, with me as my Stanford colleague Deborah SATs, and today we’re thinking about how race matters.

Debra Satz
We’re joined now by Christopher Lebron. Chris is a professor of philosophy at Johns Hopkins University, and recently he’s the author of The Making of Black Lives Matter. A Brief History of an idea, Chris, welcome back to Philosophy Talk.

Christopher Lebron
Deborah, and Ken, thank you very much for having me

Ken Taylor
on. So Chris, I know as a political scientist, I think you haven’t always He’s worked on racist, why don’t you just call me a political scientist and philosopher, you haven’t always worked on race issues, right you’ve and what changed to get you focused on these things. So

Christopher Lebron
in a manner of speaking hadn’t always worked on race. But it’s been been a long time since that wasn’t the case. So I when I first got to grad school, determine to not be while she gives some background, given the low diversity in grad and top graduate programs, I got my PhD from MIT. Going into grad school, I was determined to not be that guy, you know, the brown black guy who of course, he’s brown, and black is going to study race. So my initial research agenda was to do something with with the philosopher John Rawls and global justice at the time, I was very preoccupied by the idea of war and how we go about justify killing people. Mentally John Rawls helped me out with that, but didn’t last long. It was actually the absolute absence of diversity both in the classrooms at institutions, but also on syllabi. And the cat what’s count was called, you know, counted as being part of the canon. That really got me going to think that I need to actually be working on race because it just wasn’t enough of it. In my view, that there wasn’t any of course, there were people working on it. But compared to the flood of liberal theorists to working on some page of John Rawls, his theory of justice or law of people, there’s some such there just wasn’t enough work. And I had to also figure some stuff out for myself I was I felt deeply alienated very alone, and really quite frustrated by the fact that I was reading these works that were considered great works of political philosophy, and of course, a certain degree. They are great works. I can’t deny the rigor. But there’s certain kind of failure of imagination of sociological, capacious, so

Ken Taylor
we got it. We got. Yeah.

Debra Satz
So Chris, I want to harken back to something Ken said in our intro, he said that black people don’t hear themselves in all lives matter. So is that true? Like, and and what does that? What’s that about?

Christopher Lebron
So no, we don’t don’t hear ourselves. Because the it’s a disingenuous country towards that idea that black lives matter. And we don’t hear ourselves, I don’t think, because part of it seems to be an obfuscation of the deeper ethical claim not to prioritize or make black lives superior, but to just bring them to an equal playing field. And it’s turned out that America even asking that much just for equal consideration seems to be a great source of difficulty for many Americans.

Ken Taylor
But suppose I was a liberal minded, progressive person, and I, and I sincerely meant, I sincerely mean that all lives matter. And, and I want to see to it that all lives matter. Right. I mean, I think there are some people who think that way, and I think they think they feel the white lives matter, people, they’re just denying that white black lives matter. But the people who think of themselves as liberal progressives who assert, yes, you to all lives do matter. Is there something wrong with that? Is there something they’re missing?

Christopher Lebron
Well only depends on when it’s being said. Right. So as an ethic, people who say black lives matter also believe that all lives matter. And they can actually say all lives matter quite consistently. It’s a matter of when those three words are said in the conversation. So if a black man black woman has been shot in the street, and we say, see, that’s why Black Lives Matter. And this liberal progressive says it’s true all lives matter. They’ve actually they’ve actually missed the point of actually introduced an unhelpful kind of location in a moment where we’re trying to figure out why is that black body ministry come? I mean, nobody, no bodies should be initiative. Why is that black body street? So I’m trying to figure that out. And it’s clear, because it’s a black body, saying all lives matter actually moves us away from it, figure out so

Ken Taylor
you think it’s highly contextual, right? It’s the context and the tone and the situation in which that’s offered as a retort in a different situation. It might not be so much of a retort just on the gray shirt. Let’s go with that. Sure. Okay. So well, we’ll dig we’ll dig deeper into these things. After a short break. You’re listening to Philosophy Talk. Today, we’re thinking about how race matters with Chris Lebrun from Johns Hopkins University.

Debra Satz
In our next segment, we’ll ask why are we still talking about race more than 150 years since the abolition of slavery 70 years since the end of Jim Crow, and after our black president was elected to the White House

Ken Taylor
civil rights, Black Power and Black Lives, plus your calls and emails when Philosophy Talk continues?

Now is the time to make Black Lives Matter is what Lena Horne was saying in 1963. Well, what about now? I’m Ken Taylor. This is Philosophy Talk the program that question Students everything except your

Debra Satz
intelligence. I’m Deborah SATs and we’re thinking about how and why race still matters. Our guest is crystal Braun from Johns Hopkins University. He’s the author of The Making of Black Lives Matter.

Ken Taylor
So Chris, I think that litany that Deborah cited, as we were going to the break, you know, slavery is overcome. Jim Crow is overcome the Voting Rights a black president, somebody could believe I’m not saying I believe, but somebody could believe that racism is a thing of the past, we’re past all that. Okay, take such a person, what would you point to, to convince such a person that they’ve got it completely wrong?

Christopher Lebron
So we should be clear, there are two classes of people, there are certain one class of people that just will never be convinced because they simply don’t care. And ideologically, they’re committed to the idea that blacks are somehow just inferior people. So whatever their problems are just their problems. But then there are other people who just are ignorant. And I mean, in a very strict sense, they just don’t know. And that part is easily overcome to accent the hazard with ignorance. And that is just point to any metric of well being in this country and just show point out, statistically, and empirically that blacks just don’t have as much as anybody else. Whether it be jobs, whether it be income, whether it be wealth will be health care, whether it be access to healthy food, whether it be educational resources, legal resources, you just go down the list, and right off the board, blacks are just doing much

Debra Satz
less well off. But of course, you know, Chris, you know, this, there’s a narrative in this country that says, if people are doing worse off than others, it’s their own fault. And you’ve got, you know, so how do we, you know, deal with the person who’s ignorant, you know, but whose goes to the most handy explanation, the simplest explanation possible, which is people have different outcomes in life, because of the different choices they make, and they’re responsible. That’s the kind of American you know, we’re very quick to blame. And, and praise and blame for things that happen to people in life. So how do you get somebody committed to that kind of worldview? You know, how do you push them off that?

Christopher Lebron
So you know, there’s if it takes them that’s really a matter of just ignorance, just not knowing? Yes, that person a very basic question, do you think it could possibly be the case that a whole demographic is just inferior, less capable, more, be sure more violence can do they really believe that, and then they have to really check themselves and figure out what they think about their CO participants in democratic schema. And they might actually realize, hey, I’m really racist, I really think by people just are inferior people. But the person who’s ignorant, but isn’t committed to that kind of repugnant view has to kind of see that’s actually really difficult for a whole class of people be doing just systematically worse off in every way, shape, or form, which is not something that follows.

Ken Taylor
Okay, I’m gonna come at you from another angle. Again, I’m trying to know, I’m playing a little bit of devil’s advocate here. But Deborah gave you a kind of simple minded person in a way, right, who has a simple narrative of human well being and not well being and all that I’m gonna give you a person with a more complicated, a worldview. Yes, there are many factors, many factors. There’s race, there’s class, there’s gender, there’s urban, there’s rural, there’s, there’s the global economy, it’s grinding Americans of all stripes down, given where we started that, here’s the thing that isn’t there isn’t the government and its coercive power, as in slavery holding black people in chains. There isn’t the government and its coercive power holding black people in Jim Crow in segregated housing and all that sort of stuff. Yes, there is a loss of jobs, there’s an urban decay and all that. And part of this is grinding down everybody. Because black people started down, right relative to these forces. When these forces were allowed to grind us down, they grind the ground down black people more than white people. But it’s not racism, it’s all these other causes that we’re letting our racial division blind us to. So racism is a factor is one factor, among others. A diminishingly significant factor, and we should focus on the deep factors that are the root cause of all this thing. What do you think of that, say to that person?

Christopher Lebron
I’d love to hear more about the so called Deep factors, but we’ll probably let that person know if they want to really dig deep down enough that the bottom what they’re going to probably going to find is race. So you know, class, I’m not class. I’m sure a class class does play a role. We definitely have issues with poverty that have to do with class in this country. But what I often find is that when we want to talk about race and the distinctive aspects and distinctive features of racial inequality and the placebo, it’s really about class but it’s actually really moved to do is actually just move away from the race question and actually, in some senses bring the grievances back to poor white people and poor white people have legitimate grievances, but their grievances are not the only grievances. They don’t have to be afraid as by people do whether well off or rich for just walking down the street while breathing, it’s an a remarkable thing to just be in a skin and feeling danger. And that has nothing to do a class.

Debra Satz
What? So I guess one question would be, you know, the question that Ken and I were debating, you know, by taking these stylized positions is to what extent do you make progress on the real issues black people face by focusing on them in racial terms versus trying to focus on on them in other terms, so for example, integration, huge issue, but, and black poverty, huge issue, but you know, maybe the way to deal with that is to go for universal entitlement programs, housing, you know, vouchers that people can use, and low cost housing in various kinds of, you know, in neighborhoods, better schools for everyone, and so forth.

Christopher Lebron
Alright, on my view, and you know, there are people disagree with this view, but this is my view, this country can’t be redeemed until we faced ethical or ethical commitments, and what those kind of programs do, they may have certainly effective benefits for black folks. And I can see quite easily why people want to try and pursue those. But I’ve argued in previous work of my own that problem of reasons country’s a matter of social value that black folks are simply seen as worth less. And so you can have all these programs that somehow dole out the public goodies, on a more equal equitable basis, right. But we’ve also known that whenever we have laws that are passed, that are supposed to benefit black folks who’ve taken formal measures, the problem of social value winds up finding its way back into those policies. And somehow black folks themselves edged out to the margins of those benefits. So I’m actually very suspicious about any move that doesn’t just try and once and for all, get us to just grapple with the very idea that racially we’re corrupt nation, we have no we have very little sense of, of the sin, we commit and devaluing certain lives just because of the more pigment in their skin until that happens, you can have as many programs, I get around that by trying to dole out good and some of those may work and many people will benefit. But over the long term, black folks will always be more endangered than everybody else until we figure out are they human, or are they not? Do they count? Or do they not?

Ken Taylor
You’re listening to Philosophy Talk, we’re talking about why race still matters with Chris LeBron, and we have Anthony from Berkeley on the line. Welcome to Philosophy Talk. Antony.

Unknown Speaker
Oh, thank you very much.

Ken Taylor
Okay. What’s your comment your question shoot.

Speaker 1
This has been very interesting to see eyes go back and forth a lot of information and, and different perspectives. I should say. Me, unfortunately, right now, if that’s where you want to use that you live in a live social experiment, I’m born and raised. In LA, I moved here to Berkeley I with the police academy, I was with police department for six years, until I got my college degree left can move out here. Right now, I just recently purchased a cafe in the Bay Area, and I’m working to get it open. In the meantime, I’m working a very lucrative job in Silicon Valley. And by my parents, you would never know this just simply a young looking black man. And so on a daily basis I experience I guess what you would say programming programmed racism at every point every juncture when I’m working on a cafe to get open with MS is this global billion dollars silicone entity and it’s just the most amazing thing to see. And and and now I will say that the majority of the whatever you want to call it hate our you know, anti pro programming, it comes from a younger people and that just breaks my heart. I look way younger than I am. And it’s just so sad to see that you know, the way this I don’t know when you want to call this system society is set up the programming that goes forward through

Ken Taylor
Anthony media.

Unknown Speaker
It’s just it’s really bad.

Ken Taylor
Yeah, that’s, that’s a moving story. And I think I want to thank you for the call and I’m gonna give Chris a chance to respond and and maybe Deborah and I have something to add, but Chris, what do you want to respond to Anthony? Thanks a lot. I

Christopher Lebron
mean, I appreciate your story, Anthony. And it’s you know, it’s it’s it’s a common experience and this is that’s the exact reason why the class argument is in some sense disingenuous because to be even well off and black in America, you’re always seen somehow not as well off or not as worthy. You know, right now I’m in a studio wearing a hoodie and if I was walking down the street no one would give me the benefit of the doubt that I’m a fairly well paid university professor. I could be another corner board. Well, they know cuz that’s just what they see

Ken Taylor
Chris. Curious, I don’t think it’s right to say that the class argument is disingenuous. I think the class argument is strategic and tactical. I don’t think people who believe. I mean, there are lots of different people, all kinds of people, all kinds of different thoughts. But I don’t think people who believe that we should frame our solutions in class base raise are disingenuous, actually think they believe that America is so racially Riven, so racially divided, that if you try to have that conversation for redemption, that you talked about, that it’s just not going to work, because they’re not Americans aren’t in a frame of mind to talk to me.

Debra Satz
And I also think if you don’t take on the broad social justice issues, if you so to say race matters isn’t to say it’s the only thing that matters. And there are a lot of people out there who are hurting. So I mean, here’s just a data point that I think is interesting. One of our colleagues at Stanford has tracked there’s now greater disparity is in educational outcomes by income. So between the top quintile, and the bottom quintile, than there are between blacks and whites, this is the first time that the economic disparities between how children do in school has actually outpaced the class disparities. So I just think if you don’t grapple with that, you the chances of having a successful movement are, you know, like, non existent. So

Ken Taylor
we ganged up on you there, and we’re gonna give you a chance to respond. And then there are a bunch of callers who want it.

Christopher Lebron
So I mean, I’ll say this, I’ve made sure to be clear, I don’t think that everyone who offset arguments being disingenuous, I think some people are, but I’m gonna be very honest, in this point, maybe I’ve moved to more radical position. But black folks always being told to bundle their problems with somebody else’s problems in order to get some progress going. And I think it’s just an amazing thing. That to be able to get just respect as a black person, we have to say, but let’s let’s partner with the poor people, of course, you can do that as well. There’s nothing, there’s no shame or anything wrong and doing that. But it’s always just move in some sense, if you really want to get your respect, channeled through someone else’s cause or CO join causes somebody else just to get the respect you do in a very basic sense. And when you really think about it from that perspective, you really can’t blame bla bla, folks from saying, I don’t want to have that other conversation about class inequality, etc. I want to have a conversation about race, because I’m tired of having to have my problem transmuted. Do other people’s problems is a form of white privilege in a certain regard. So

Debra Satz
we have a comment from Rob, which says, should look. So Rob else, or comments? Should black lives should we say black lives matter to so that people can hear it? And I guess, Chris, you’re actually saying, Look, we don’t need to explicitly say to, we’re trying to make a point, we don’t need to say to we, in ourselves deserve respect, and we matter and in the context of America, saying to you, no, no, no.

Ken Taylor
What do you think about it? Chris? I don’t think the two is bad. I think the two is good. But what do you think?

Christopher Lebron
I think it’s unnecessary. And just, I think it just in some sense, dilutes the the assertiveness of those three words, they invite no compromise, when you include the two least when I think about this, philosophically, it go well to so who else matters. And he tried to do this comparative valuing identity and just seems

Ken Taylor
silly, I think, no, I think the two concedes to the component that you’re not excluding them. You’re not I mean, yes, your black lives matter. Yeah. If I say black lives matter to I, yes, there are all kinds of lives that matter. But I want you to include these lives. So I don’t think you’re right. I think I think You’re both wrong. But you know, there are lots of colors here. And let’s, let’s take a few of them. Alicia in Berkeley, welcome to philosophy tag.

Speaker 2
Hi. And I really appreciate you bringing this subject up. As a woman, I know that there are many minorities who are discriminated against to have problems in culture, but I think that African Americans deserve a special kind of attention. And this what really brought that home to me was listening to take the Toros One Mississippi, an episode of that one night and her father and her stepfather who’s, you know, sort of typical southern conservative is taking this very soft spoken black woman out for dinner. And they’re sitting under a picture of a plantation owner, who is kind of being spotlighted because she was the first person in that state who paid her slaves once they became free. And the woman’s comment is, yes, but she owned human beings. And those human beings are still recovering after 200 years. And I think we really need to talk about that healing that on top of everything else that black people have to put up with right now.

Ken Taylor
Thanks for the call. Alicia. That’s a that’s a good comment. Chris, you want to respond?

Christopher Lebron
I mean, that’s exactly right. I mean, if you look at the work of Joe Fagan, in the literature of structural injustice, one of the things he points out is that the reconstruction, the redistribution of land collapse for black folks, and we think about one two greatest sources of inequality in terms of assets in America it is property ownership. And blacks own their value of property owners a fraction of whites property. But property is a very generational thing. You see it happen all the time people have property, they take some wealth from that property and use it to buy help their kids buy their own property, and so on and so forth. Property is one of those things that brings enduring and transmittable wealth. But if you don’t have a starting point, and you’re denied that starting point will take generations for a group of people to catch up. And that has real empirical grounding in our in American history.

Debra Satz
Yeah, I actually, it’s Chris, Deborah, I think that’s a real important point. And, you know, reconstruction was a lost opportunity in America, to really, you know, eradicate the legacies of slavery and we failed as a country to do that. It was more

Ken Taylor
than a lost opportunity, it was a wasted and squandered opportunity. But we can talk about that some more and we waste and squander many opportunities for redemption. You’re listening to Philosophy Talk, we’re thinking about race matters with Chris LeBron, author of The Making of Black Lives Matter.

Debra Satz
What lessons can we learn from different racial justice movements? Is Black Lives Matter in danger of becoming like the Occupy movement? Is this just a matter of 15 minutes of fame?

Ken Taylor
How to build a movement for racial justice? One Philosophy Talk continues.

If those who wield power don’t think Black Lives Matter to then how do we fight the power effectively? I’m Ken Taylor. And this is Philosophy Talk, the program that questions everything except

Debra Satz
your intelligence. I’m Deborah SATs, and our guest is crystal Braun from Johns Hopkins University. Chris is the author of The Making of Black Lives Matter. And

Ken Taylor
we’ve got a caller Sriram driving in to SoCal, I hope you’ve got a hands free device there. Sure. But welcome to Philosophy Talk. What’s your comment or question?

Speaker 3
Hi, yes, yes, I do have a handsfree phone. Thank you for taking my call. I just sit there interesting conversation. I just wanted to add a brief comment. My, as a first generation immigrant from Iran, I do want to say that this is a business oriented society, America. And it’s as a result, it’s, you know, historically, black people have been, you know, delegated to the poverty condition. So it’s it should have nowadays because of improved improvement in people’s lives, you know, white people have, are just as likely to be poor as black people. So maybe it should just be called polarized matter, or low income lives matter.

Ken Taylor
Thanks for the call. Sure. I’m, I think Chris isn’t going to agree with you. But I’m gonna give him a chance to speak for himself. What do you think, Chris?

Christopher Lebron
No, I don’t agree. And that’s not to in any way. Again, I’m not against the idea of fighting for the poor, the poor. They do face real real struggles with that collapse does, in some sense, eliminate the distinctions of why some people are poor and why some people are not. For one group, there’s a 400 year history as to why those people are poor, that steeped in murder, rape and exploitation and the other group is a different kind of story. And that stories can be an important story to both you conflate the two, they lose a lot of ethical urgency that comes with addressing the claims that arise from Black from racial inequality.

Ken Taylor
I hear you and I don’t disagree with you. I don’t think we can. Yeah, no, no, no, no, on a moral basis. No, I don’t at all disagree with you. I mean, we have this radically imperfect union. And part of its imperfection is it was designed to enable and sustain the subjugation of black people first through slavery. And then when the set it was a collective project of part of America to subjugate black people through slavery. And when the self was finally smashed, the failures of reconstruction, the self said, we’re going to re enslaved by any means necessary. And that was the collective project of white Southerners. I don’t disagree with you. I did I agree with you profoundly. But given this country, given this divisions, given our inability to even have certain conversations, I think, well, what’s the way forward? Right, moral shaming and all that I want Americans to get to the place where they, they merely tolerate each other, to get them to the place where they affirm each other. I think, gosh, we got 10,000 miles to go before that. So I want to just get them to merely tolerate each other. You think that’s too small?

Christopher Lebron
Yeah, I do. I you know, my father wasn’t a philosopher, but one of the first important philosophical lessons he learned is that he actually taught me was the problem of the word tolerating to tolerate to simply bear. Yes, right. Yeah. And, and but when we bear people the criteria for stopping for ceasing to tolerate them is equal Yes, then we really want black respect to rest on such thin foundations will

Ken Taylor
build me another country, though build me a country in which there is mutual affirmation. How do we build that country. And I got a copy on I’m sorry that

Debra Satz
I just wanted to, again get to. So I absolutely agree with you that, you know, black people shouldn’t make their equal dignity conditional on other people being affirmed their equal dignity. On the other hand, if we’re trying to build a movement in a democracy that, you know, brings black people into the, you know, a better standing than they have in the society, you’ve got to get lots of people on board and you’re not going to get them on board unless you deal with the way their dignity is also ignored. I mean, that’s part of the I think the Trump phenomenon. There are many causes to it, but one was a sense of a lot of people that like, I don’t count. You know, a lot of white people don’t just poor whites, of course, because Trump had a lot of support among wealthy whites, but but some poor white, so

Ken Taylor
why don’t you answer that? And then I’m gonna try and get another color in here.

Christopher Lebron
Sure. So I want to answer it in two parts. One by referring to Dave Chappelle skit. You know, he had this part in a recent stand up comedy act where he says, you know, people, you know, they’re not, they’re not enraged by by the crime, they just, they just upset they didn’t get their cut. And that’s the way a lot of, you know, the argument from some folks about class, it seems to be that kind of thing. You were involved in the heist, you just didn’t like your cut. Yeah. And that’s not black people from can we weren’t the ones who committed the highest. I get, I just got put it just like that. But then the other part of that problem is I you know, if you ask me, Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday, I’m all about redemption. And Sundays, today, I’ll be by redemption I get to choose on Sunday. I want to invert the idea that blacks would have always had to speak about their equality in terms of other people’s equality and actually speak about why folks has dignity in terms of black they can hear you turn to somebody like Baldwin, and make the argument look so long that you treat me the way that you do, you’re actually shortchanging your own humanity. You’re an incomplete version, no matter, you know, the car you’re driving, and is that kind of art. Now, I’m not saying that is guaranteed to succeed. But if you ask me about one path forward, that’s the path I want to take. Because I think a path that can that can succeed is the most secure way that we can really learn to love each other.

Ken Taylor
I totally agree about if if it can succeed, that would be the preferable path. I’m just more pessimistic. But we’ve got Suzy from Berkeley here. Welcome to Philosophy Talk. Susie, what’s your comment?

Speaker 2
Thanks, Ken, I appreciate it. To your guests. Regards. I grew up here. And you know, when I first called up on the phone, I was all hot and bothered and angry, because I’m 62. I’m Caucasian. And, you know, Berkeley is a has always been considered a liberal kind of progressive community. And my experience, as a long time, a native resident is that it’s not the sinister veneer of progressive politics laid over as a bastion of old conservative of extremely deep conservative roots, academic roots. And I, you know, I must say, I have no words for racism. It is it raised me deeply and exists. All that old stuff is not old, its present today. And I guess I just would like to ask, ask you all if, you know, I went to school with a young man by the name of Hugo Blackwell. And his father was the first African American professor hired at UC Berkeley. And he got to tell me that when his family moved here, no one would sell a house to them. Now that was back in the 50s, or the 60s? I don’t really know. Do we know anything about Professor Blackwell? He was just given posthumously, the highest award of civilians to be given by President Obama some years ago. Anyone know?

Ken Taylor
I don’t know. Ask Chris. If he knows, but I’m also gonna give him a chance to make one last comment because we’re getting to the end of our time with you, Chris. So you can respond to Suzy, if you can help her or, or he’s close with one last? I’m

Christopher Lebron
sorry, I don’t I don’t know. I’m sorry. I can’t help you with that.

Ken Taylor
So give me one that your closing thought here? I don’t know. So my

Christopher Lebron
closing thought and I’m sorry, closes a stop. I do want to say this. We’ve been have a lot of conversations the past few years about the idea of white privilege. And I think that needs to now shift to a conversation about white rage. We’ve seen over the past two years a tremendous surge in this country of racial resentment that no longer fear is being used. and called out. It’s not the majority of people’s name, the majority of white people think but a significant enough portion to make the rest of America turn away from the hard truth about what it means to stand up for racial egalitarianism and the violence that’s being perpetrated. And we’re encouraged by our administration by people in Las Vegas by white supremacists in Charlottesville in the blind die, we turn to the rage on the lies of resentment there. I think we just talked about white rage as a form of identity politics, I don’t think we can move forward very much.

Ken Taylor
I think that’s a powerful thought. And I wish we had more time. But I got to thank you now for joining us, because it’s been a great conversation.

Christopher Lebron
Thank you very much, Ken and Deborah, I appreciate it.

Ken Taylor
I guess it’s been crystal Braun. He’s a professor of philosophy at Johns Hopkins University. He’s author of the very fine book, The Making of Black Lives Matter, A Brief History of an idea. So Deborah, what’s your What are your last thoughts? Yeah,

Debra Satz
I think Chris made a powerful case for the Black Lives Matter movement. I’m pessimistic. That with that this movement is going to be more than occupy because I don’t see any institutional legalization of it the way the Civil Rights Movement had the churches, the black churches involved, we are living at a time when people are so atomized and when we don’t have countervailing institutions for Yeah, the world that we’re in, and that’s a problem.

Ken Taylor
I totally agree with you. And I mean, and I and I just don’t I really agree with a moral aspects of Chris’s vision. But I don’t know that that’s a possible America that we can get to. From here. I just, I just don’t know about Americans ability to solve this. But this conversation continues at philosophers corner at our online community of thinkers where our motto is Cogito ergo Blago, I think, therefore, I blog. And if you have a question that wasn’t addressed in today’s show, we’d love to hear from you send your question to us at comment at Philosophy Talk, or G, and we might feature it on our blog.

Debra Satz
Wonderful conversation today. Now, over the summer, we asked you to submit your vexing problems to our conundrum contest. Our team picked three finalists, and we asked you to vote for the winner. Now the results are in. So let’s listen to Ken and our colleague, Josh, try to solve the winning conundrum from Beth.

Ken Taylor
Welcome to Philosophy Talk. Frank, you Where are you calling from?

Unknown Speaker
I’m calling from Stanford University. to that place? Yeah,

Ken Taylor
I’ve heard of that place, too. But what’s your conundrum Beth.

Speaker 4
So my conundrum has been for many, many years, whether as a Peace Corps volunteer in what was once called a year, but today is the Democratic Republic of Congo. Whether my two years there, as a teacher and a high school, really ever did any good. Before coming to Stanford, I was a foreign correspondent for the AP and I covered some of the world’s biggest stories and worst atrocities in the civil wars and West African uprisings and massacres. And whoa, you know, just amazing stuff. And so, I’ve seen my share of, you know, really vexing problems around the world. But nothing really ever vexed me more than this nagging question of whether I truly did any good and my Peace Corps village. And I always wondered whether my presence there did more harm than good, by you know, raising expectations, like, oh, great, I got into college, and now my life is going to be perfect. Students are back in the village working as farmers because, you know, they weren’t able to get any sort of a job in the big cities,

Ken Taylor
Beth, you’re selling like a person who’s really hard on herself. You sound to me, like you’ve had an amazing life, and have seen the world and, and has have contributed to the work that you did as a correspondent to our deeper understanding of the world. You sound like you’ve committed your life to the good. Now, the world is a complicated place, you will admit that and no one person. I mean, there’s all these tidal wave of forces impinging on on Africa, all kinds of forces impinging on the African continent, and surely, no one person will even be able to trace the kind of standing influence of their contributions to trying to make these forces harmonized to the good, right? I mean, is it aren’t you said, Aren’t you asking putting a really high standard on yourself? Well,

Speaker 4
I am but I also felt this real obligation to somehow give back to them. And like I said, there’s still always that nagging question of whether I left behind More expectations and I was able to meet.

Josh Landy
I mean, I think it’s you raise a really interesting question which is, um, so it takes, let’s take, you know, one case of a, of a person that you taught during your two years there. If you hadn’t gone, I assume that person would anyway have become a farmer. Um, it sounds like that’s what you’re saying. And instead, they went to college and then went into farming. So it’s an interesting question, Should we which life should be considered better? Should we consider a life, you know, life a better life B, Life A, is missing the experience of going to college and learning different kinds of things? And life be is, I suppose, missing the kind of dashed hopes and expectations? I’m not sure how to settle that question. I mean, is it is a life better? Because there weren’t hopes raised that couldn’t be fulfilled? Or is the life better? Because it’s richer in certain kinds of ways. There’s a diversity of experience and, and there’s a greater and broader kinds of knowledge.

Ken Taylor
I know how to answer that question. And hypothetically, take a person who has lived both lives and see and ask them to judge that. Well, that’s what mill would say. But of course, nobody lives to live. So Right. It’s pretty hard to actually carry out that hypothetically. But I bet you this, I bet you those students of yours who went to college and ended up on the farm, I bet you they don’t regret your involvement in their lives. I bet you they’re grateful for your involvement in their lives. However, it worked out after you were there, right? You touch these students in a, in a profound way. You sound a little bit like, I don’t mean this as a pejorative, there’s two kinds of people, there’s moral perfectionist, who think they have a duty to help perfect the world. And who think they’re not done doing their part until they’ve done all they could to perfect the world. And you sound like that. And there’s other people who think, Well, look, I’ve got my part, you got your part, the world’s a big place. I do my action cannot possibly perfect the world. perfecting the world is a collective ever ongoing thing. If you lay down and don’t do your part, like if broader society lays down and doesn’t do its part if, if the you know, various corporate forces don’t cooperate, if governments are corrupt, I can’t change all that, but I can still do my part. Now once I’ve done my part, and I see the world is still a mess. Should I recoil in horror? Should I say to myself, Well done, well done? Should I do something in between? I mean, it’s a complicated thing. But you sound like you’re you’re kind of holding yourself to a standard of, I’m not done until the world’s perfected

Josh Landy
you know, when you leave when you come home, the rest isn’t entirely up to you. And the world has a say in that right. And politics in XYY or later Congo, that has a say in that and other people have a say in that. Should you really fault yourself for the Peace Corps, because things could have gone in a variety of different ways, right? You teach people you give them opportunities? Isn’t that kind of the limit of your responsibility? And then you just have to hope that those responsibilities we’ll have a kind of a get will find a place for app of application.

Ken Taylor
Certainly the limits of your agency, right. It’s not much else you could have done. Yeah. Well, Beth, we’re gonna thank you. This has been really great. Thanks for your conundrum. Okay.

John Perry
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Ken Taylor
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John Perry
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Ken Taylor
Thanks also to Laurel Kessler, Angela Johnston. And Collin Peterson.

John Perry
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Ken Taylor
expressed or mis expressed in this program do not necessarily represent the opinions of Stanford University or of our other funders, not even when they’re true and reasonable.

John Perry
The conversation continues on our website Philosophy Talk dot o RG where you too, can become a partner in our community of thinkers. I’m John Perry. And I’m Ken Taylor.

Ken Taylor
Thank you for listening and thank

John Perry
you for thinking in the spirit of inclusivity. Let’s check in with an all lives matter. rally here Neil