Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 12/16/23: Former Chapo Host on Bernie's Israel Betrayal, Interview w/ Harvard Professor On Antisemitism and College Campuses

Episode Date: December 16, 2023

Krystal speaks with former Chapo Trap House host Amber A'lee Frost about her new book 'Dirtbag: Essays"Buy Amber's Book: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250269621/dirtbagThen James Li interviews a Harvard professor for his take on censorship, antisemitism, and protests on campus. To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/ Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. But there were some dark truths behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. Enter Camp Shame, an eight-part series examining the rise and fall of Camp Shane and the culture that fueled its decades-long success. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator,

and seeker of male validation. I'm also the girl behind voiceover, the movement that exploded in 2024. You might hear that term and think it's about celibacy, but to me, voiceover is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's flexible, it's customizable, and it's a personal process. Singleness is not a waiting room. You are actually at the party right now. Let me hear it.

Listen to voiceover on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in the United States. Recipients have done the improbable, the unexpected, showing immense bravery and sacrifice in the name of something much bigger than themselves. This medal is for the men who went down that day. On Medal of Honor, Stories of Courage, you'll hear about these heroes and what their stories tell us about the nature of bravery. Listen to Medal of Honor on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey guys, Ready or Not 2024 is here, and we here at Breaking Points are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election. We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio, add staff, give you guys the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that, let's get to the show. excited to be joined this morning by Amber Frost she is a writer activist former co-host of Chapo Trap House and author of the brand new book Dirtbag Essays and put it up on the screen available wherever books are sold now.

Welcome, Amber, it's great to meet you. Nice to meet you too, thanks for having me on. Yeah, of course. So first let's start with like, what made you decide to write the book now? And one of the things that you talk about is you felt like this particular arc, either in national left politics

or in your life had kind of come to an end. And so you felt like it was an appropriate moment to write the book. So what is the phase that had kind of come to an end. And so you felt like it was an appropriate moment to write the book. So what is the phase that you feel like came to an end that enabled you to write this book? Well, honestly, I started writing it before it came to an end, which, you know, obviously required some retooling. And we knew that sort of going into it. I knew that I wanted to start sort of with where I came from and how I ended up, you know, on the left, quote unquote, whatever that means. And I ended up in Occupy Wall Street. So I'd already seen that end. And I knew through a lot of smaller moments that most

of these things do kind of fizzle out. But, you know, when I was trying to get a book deal, Bernie was very much still on the table and very promising. And I think all of us on the podcast and most of the people I knew going into it were like, you know, not Bernie's going to win, but we're like, this is the best opportunity we've had in a really long time. So I went into it with like this baby kind of attitude. And then I was like, what's going to happen if what is most likely to happen will, which is that he doesn't win. And then I was like, I'll deal with that later. Figure that out if and when it comes.

Yeah, yeah. Which took a lot longer than I thought because COVID sort of threw me for a loop. And I sort of struggled with kind of trying to find a bow to put on the end of it. And then I guess at some point I just thought, well, you don't have like the happiest ending in the world. And you should just be honest about that. It doesn't mean it's the end of the world, but sometimes you lose. Yeah, that is life, especially life in left politics. I want people to understand this is not just like a,

you know, a retelling of what happened with Bernie either in 2016 or 2020. It's kind of, I mean, you can tell me if you think that this description is right. It's like part memoir, part, you know, description of the journey of yourself as an activist, but also tracking these major movements from Occupy to Bernie 2016 to Bernie 2020 and, you know, part of COVID that

unfolded in recent years. On the Bernie piece, though, you know, what do you think that some of the other retellings of Bernie's loss in 2020, what do you think that they sort of missed or what do you think that they sort of missed or what do you think that they perhaps got wrong? Well, I think that there were a lot of very early postmortems, which I wanted to avoid. I think people rushed in to say exactly what happened immediately, which I mean, you don't, I feel like my first impressions walking away were correct, but I did want to give myself some space. I think there were a lot of sort of, well, Bernie didn't win because, you know, whatever, his coalition was too woke or

whatever. I think that comes from a place of anger that I fully understand that there was kind of a cannibalistic, you know, whatever left that was a part of Bernie's coalition. But really, I think it was as simple as, you know, he faced more opposition from the Democratic Party than he did from the Republicans. We didn't expect him to catch on as much as he did the first time. But when we really went into it for 2016, like in earnest, they, you know, it was a kneecap job. And I think that's one of the most frustrating things is because, you know, maybe even if they hadn't have done that, he wouldn't have won. But now we'll never know.

Right. Yes. But that's also part of the nature of being a like, you know, a lefty trying to compete in the Democratic Party. You have to just assume that that's going to be part of of what you're facing and what you're up against. How do you feel like the quote unquote left broadly, however you want to define that in America, has responded to that loss? I mean, there's been a lot of you know, there's been a lot of fract mean, there's been a lot of, you know, there's been a lot of fracturing. There's been a lot of, you know, ugliness on Twitter. There's been, I feel like, a good amount of nihilism. What's been your reaction to sort of this, like, post-burning moment?

I mean, it's difficult because I think most of the people I know have pretty strong heads on their shoulders. I do have a few friends that just straight up lost it afterwards. They didn't know what to do with themselves. They had all of their eggs in that one basket. And that makes it difficult. You know, it's difficult to cope with loss. And I think if you don't sort of, you know, cut your teeth on smaller ones that can be really devastating with something like Bernie. I mean, as far as like the left, there's not really a left in the country. There are a lot of, you know, leftists or socialists or whatever. But if you were to describe the left as sort of a

powerful political movement, which I would say has something having, like, at the very least, a party and a labor movement. It's not something we really have. What we have right now is a lot of people that are even further diffused. Bernie really was kind of a North Star. And without that, I think people are really scattered. They're doing the best they can, obviously. I'm encouraged by a lot of the union work that's going on.

I'm very happy that I personally don't have to pay that much attention to electoral politics. Living in California, you know, I've lived in blue states for the last many years. But, you know, I don't have to carry water for a lot of things. And then it's partially upsetting because it means I have to wait for the odd, like very odd left insurgent candidate that has a shot. Yeah, it ain't great. But you just don't know what's going to happen until it happens. I never really saw Bernie coming in the first place.

And I still think he was an amazing opportunity and the closest we've come in my lifetime. But before that, I was just chugging away at kind of labor stuff. Yeah. You know, nothing is going to happen until one day it happens. So you have to sort of just leave room for that chaos energy and try to lay the track. Right now, it's the very dull, boring political work of trying to sort of keep people together and focused on smaller projects. Like you, I've been extraordinarily excited by the new energy in the labor movement, which is very different than anything we've seen in our lifetimes where you're actually like, it's not concessionary contracts. You see these democratic reform movements within large labor unions. You see them, you know, with the American people,

you know, firmly behind them. And it's not even partisan people overwhelmingly on their side. You see the grassroots effort. So I think if more of that had happened pre-Bernie, you would have had more of the infrastructure actually to support a candidate with his political agenda. So that does make me hopeful for the future. I was wondering also what you make of all of the grassroots organizing and activism in favor of a ceasefire and against Israel's assault on Gaza. And if that also – I mean obviously it's like one of the most horrifying things I've ever seen unfold, but the fact that there's been so much organizing and energy around it also has been sort of hopeful and inspiring to see as well. Sorry, I'm not going to give you a

good one on this. I'm not very optimistic. As far as what has already happened, it seems pretty, it's already pretty devastating. I don't think even at this point that, I mean, okay, so this happened for me the first time during the Iraq war. You realize there was huge popular opposition to this thing, you know? Right. And then you also realized that the nation as a political entity has zero accountability to the rest of the world, much less popular opinion. So I think, I mean, it heartens me and it gives me faith in humanity that this many people are disgusted and many of them deprogramming themselves from a lot of propaganda. What bothers me is the fact that we don't have a nation that's accountable to broad popular opinion or moral disgust. I think the fact that the U.S. is supporting this and has been, not just the occupation, but like, you know, just putting the boot down, this obviously,

and this brazenly, without any world support or popular support is really disturbing. But I do think, just to go back to what you were saying about, you know, the labor could have laid the groundwork. I actually don't, I think that Bernie in some ways invigorated the labor movement. I'm not sure that they would be where they were without that. It's kind of one hand washes the other thing. And one of the things I do see being more powerful is at some point when a trade union movement is large enough, they do get to influence things like foreign policy. Unfortunately, we have to have sort of a, you know, a hand in the government to to even get to that point already. So it's going to be a slow build, but I don't know. It's incredibly devastating to watch. It's really horrifying,

and I think we've already foreclosed on a happy ending. Oh, yeah. That ship has sailed. It's pretty brutal. What do you make of Bernie and his reaction? I just saw AIPAC tweeting out, you know, they're amplifying his opposition to a ceasefire. I know you describe yourself as a Bernie loyalist through and through in the book. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, at this point, too, okay, so there's, it's very interesting, again, to go back to labor. A friend of mine in a very large union will say has been a part of hostile internal debate about whether or not they should make a statement on Israel. And I'm sympathetic to both sides. One is like, well, we should talk about what is right and the horrible things that's going on there. Two, they're like, look, we aren't in the best position in the world right now. This is going to be very distracting from building the union. And, you know, weak unions grow unions. Strong unions influence things outside of the union.

As far as Bernie goes, he's always been to the left of nearly everyone on foreign policy. At the same time, he's a man of a certain age. I don't put anyone in Congress or the Senate or even local politics to the standards I hold for, let's say, a millennial podcaster in terms of foreign policy. It's just an old holdover. And at this point, I'm like, it's not, I don't mean Zionism in particular. I mean, like this idea of, you know, Israel as the good guy, as kind of a white cowboy hat. It's like a very Cold War mindset. Like, there's the good countries that are on our side, there's the bad countries that are against us.

It's a hangover. I, you know, for my part, it's the holidays. I try and stay on message and say, look, I'm against the occupation. And, you know, there are no excuses, but there are reasons. And if you turn up the heat high enough, water's going to boil. Amber, you have a chapter in your book that you talk about, like sort of you're discussed with the liberal theatrics around Trump and how you really rejected, you know, this sort of like

performative, who can act the most afraid, who can act the most outraged, et cetera. But what are you feeling about the fact that it is very possible, if not very likely, that we end up with another four years of Trump? I'm not sure. First of all, I can't really draw a bead on what the possibility for that is. I think it's really interesting. I mean, first of all, we didn't see it coming in the first place. And that was a real wake up call for me because I was like, oh, the death of local newspapers and the lack of news coverage and, news coverage and quote unquote flyover country has really missed some major sentiments going on with most of the people. Like, wow, that,

we didn't see that coming at all. And I think what that made me realize is that we don't really have a way to check the temperature anymore. You know, it's not not just having news desks locally, but it's about having local newspapers. It's about having labor press. So I would say the weirdest part of it is that I'm not sure what the actual possibility is. I do think Biden's infrastructure bill, God knows I hate to give him or whatever Spangali's running him any credit, but the infrastructure bill is very encouraging. It's something that should have happened a million years ago and Bernie would have done it better, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I would be interested to see if that has any effect on the ground with voters. I think what a lot of people voted for in Trump was like the return to manufacturing,

onshoring, American jobs. I mean, jobs are a big deal. People like them. They remember when they had them and they missed them. Good jobs. And i think with the investment in infrastructure uh it's actually going to it is creating more of those jobs we're now seeing a labor shortage and in the hard hats um which are a lot of times excellent jobs that you can get without you don't have to pay to get into them it's not like you know you have to have a four-year degree. It's skilled labor and you're in a union. You can get a pension and all your benefits. And I think if that shows any yield in time for a broader public, I don't see like the resentment, the resentment for the Democratic Party that really fueled a lot of Trump voting

coming to fruition. If he does get elected, I mean, I have no idea, man. The weird thing is that, you know, again, we all were sort of like freaked out when it happened. We're like, oh, holy shit, it's this crazy. And then you, oh, this is just kind of a consistently, like a consistent trajectory of things getting slightly worse. Like this is not a rapid decline compared to Obama. It's not great and it's not an improvement. But the strangest thing was,

there wasn't a huge disaster. It was just a little shittier every day, just like it had been for the past however many years. So that's sort of what you anticipate if we get a second Trump term. I mean, I could see it for sure. It is, you know, he doesn't want to get in strange wars. He always wants to see like who wins in the end. He tends to, I think, spend most of his, he spent most of his his last administration doing, I don't know, castle intrigue court politics. He was way more obsessed with his own cabinet and hiring and firing people and doing The Apprentice.

He wasn't that active of a president. Yeah, that's an interesting perspective because he was obviously incredibly visible. Like it felt like he was an active president, but then not actually that much. I mean, his biggest accomplishment was a bunch of tax cuts for rich people, which any Republican president would basically do. I mean, I guess the thing, the thing that does make him different is all of the insanity around the election and January 6th. And like, it was Keystone Cops, but he legitimately wanted to steal the election. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I would say, though, but like he didn't and i don't know but the interesting thing that i saw later after this during the january 6 stuff is um they talked to white house security and they said a lot of people that were there were a lot of people that were there january 6th calling in saying like hey um I left my purse there. I was there January 6th. Is there a way I could pick it up? Yeah. And like the head of White House security was like, they literally don't know that what they did. He's like, you know, these people are not fully in orbit. Like, it's like they believe that the president told them to do something and so that it was allowed that they did it.

It's like it's like the kind of American mindset when you get like pulled over and you see those people who are like, actually, I'm a sovereign citizen. And it's like, oh, my God. No one told you how things work. Yeah, yeah. And I think after that, one, that's kind of thing is less likely to happen because it wasn't effective. And two, I think Trump doesn't like the amount of trouble he's getting into for, let's say, yeah, waiving the— See, I actually sort of feel the opposite. I feel like once something happens once, it's actually more likely to happen again in the future. Yeah, definitely.

Sort of like rip the Band-Aid off of, oh, well, that thing is now on the table. That thing is now possible. Like an Overton window thing? Yeah, exactly. It did look like they were having fun, but a lot of them did go to jail. I could see it also happening in something like not particularly related to Trump. I don't know if the energy would be behind him in particular. I don't know if he seems to have, he doesn't quite have like the shine for the youth that he did during the time.

You know, the downwardly mobile young men who appear to have moved on. But I mean, I could see it around something else because that energy is still there, that restless resentment, that feeling of unfairness and that mental illness, they're all still there. So no doubt, no doubt. Well, Amber, I've been really enjoying the book. I think you're a fantastic writer. I think your, you know, your personality, your voice really comes through. And so I encourage people to check out the book. It's excellent. Congratulations. And thank you so much for sharing some of your insights today. Thank you so much for having me on. Camp Shane, one of America's longest running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often

unrecognizable when they left. In a society obsessed with being thin, it seemed like a miracle solution. But behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children was a dark underworld of sinister secrets. Kids were being pushed to their physical and emotional limits as the family that owned Shane turned a blind eye. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. In this eight-episode series, we're unpacking and investigating stories of mistreatment and re-examining the culture of fatphobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus.

So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. on the OK Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon. This author writes, my father-in-law is trying to steal the family fortune worth millions from my son, even though it was promised to us. Now I find out he's trying to give it to his irresponsible son instead, but I have DNA proof that could get the money back. Hold up. So what are they going to do to get those millions back?

That's so unfair. Well, the author writes that her husband found out the truth from a DNA test they were gifted two years ago. Scandalous. But the kids kept their mom's secret that years ago. Scandalous. But the kids kept their mom's secret that whole time. Oh my God. And the real kicker, the author wants to reveal this terrible secret, even if that means destroying her husband's family in the process.

So do they get the millions of dollars back or does she keep the family's terrible secret? Well, to hear the explosive finale, listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. To most people, I'm the girl behind voiceover, the movement that exploded in 2024. Voiceover is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's more than personal.

It's political, it's societal, and at times it's far from what I originally intended it to be. These days, I'm interested in expanding what it means to be voiceover, to make it customizable for anyone who feels the need to explore their relationship to relationships. I'm talking to a lot of people who will help us think about how we love each other. It's a very, very normal experience to have times where a relationship is prioritizing other parts of that relationship that aren't being naked together.

How we love our family. I've spent a lifetime trying to get my mother to love me, but the price is too high. And how we love ourselves. Singleness is not a waiting room. You are actually at the party right now. Let me hear it. Yeah. Listen to Voice Over on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. University campuses have once again become a lightning rod for free speech. Last week, three university presidents, Harvard's Claudine Gay, Penn's Liz McGill, and MIT's Sally Kornbluth,

appeared before Congress to testify about rising anti-Semitism on their campuses. I am asking, specifically calling for the genocide of Jews, does that constitute bullying or harassment? If it is directed and severe or pervasive, it is harassment. So the answer is yes. It is a context-dependent decision, Congresswoman. Calling for the genocide of Jews does not constitute bullying and harassment. I have not heard calling for the genocide

for Jews on our campus. But you've heard chants for intifada. I've heard chants, which can be anti-Semitic depending on the context. Anti-Semitic rhetoric, when it crosses into conduct that amounts to bullying, harassment, intimidation, that is actionable conduct, and we do take action. So the answer is yes,

that calling for the genocide of Jews violates Harvard Code of Conduct, correct. Again, it depends on the context. All three presidents have since faced calls for resignation. Many high-profile donors have threatened to pull millions in funding from these universities. One of these presidents, Liz McGill of UPenn, has already since resigned. Over the last few days, these developments have entered the cultural zeitgeist, so much so to the point that even the likes of Dave Portnoy have gotten

involved, tweeting, one down, two to go. Some university faculty have pushed back on such efforts to censor free speech on campus, one of them being Professor Walter Johnson of Harvard. In these past few weeks, I've become wary of my own words, of speaking my mind, of being overheard in a way that I have not been afraid since the days and then the weeks and then the months after 9-11 when I was living in New York. And people who I had thought were my friends literally lost their minds, their composure, their sense of proportion, and their basic human decency. And I see that happening again with the ferocity that has astonished me. I am aware of the irony of standing before those of you who have been

singled out and targeted, doxxed, harassed, and blacklisted to warn you that the boundaries of what you can safely say are closing in. So joining us today is Walter Johnson, Professor of History and African American Studies at Harvard University. Thank you for being with us today, Professor. It's my pleasure. First question, what compelled you to make such a public statement regarding free speech on campus? I think in the first instance, it was the palpable climate of fearfulness among many of my colleagues and many of my students. I guess I'd have to say I felt called to speak up. Many were, many of the students were. I felt it was important for somebody on the faculty to speak up and stand with the students. I was also, I think,

at that moment aware of things that later came to light about actual censorship happening at Harvard Law School, which was where that event took place, in the case of one student who had been involved in a protest and had the university president had issued a statement condemning the phrase from the river to the sea. So I think in some sense, that was an early response to a climate of intimidation and fear that I feel like has only become, has only intensified in the meantime. You mentioned the phrase from the river to the sea. Now, for a phrase like that, that could mean different things to different groups of people. Some, like Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, say it's an, quote, aspirational call for freedom,

human rights, and peaceful coexistence. Other groups, like the ADL, deem it to be a call for ethnic cleansing against Israeli Jews. For such phrases like this, how can we consistently apply the First Amendment right to free speech? What you said is exactly right. I mean, you said that it's been read to imply different things. I don't think that within that broad spectrum, there's a lot of room for contestation and debate. So what the letter, what the, you know, one of the letters, one of the many letters that I've been involved in over the past couple of weeks said was, well, the university needs to slow down.

The university needs to slow down, not to condemn statements, but to encourage investigation and debate. That's what a university should do. And I think, again, that was, you know, I don't want to get too braggy about it, but that was prescient, right? Because within a week, it comes out that this, you know, comes into general knowledge. There were specialists who knew this, but this very statement appears, this very phrase appears in the Likud Founding Plexus. So clearly it's history and multiple meanings need to be discussed. It can't simply be condemned. Yeah. I want to get your perspective more on what's going on at the universities. The fallout of Harvard's Claudine Gay, Penn's Liz McGill and MIT's Sally Kornbluth.

Collectively, in the mainstream media, their testimony has been seen as many as a disaster. All three presidents have since faced calls for their resignation. Major donors threatening to withhold millions of dollars in donations. Penn's Liz McGill has already since resigned. So what do you think? Does this set the right precedent for the future of university discourse? So I think that that, you know, to me, that hearing looked McCarthy. I do not think that a congressional investigation of words said on a college campus in which college presidents

are asked whether or not they believe in the principal values of another country is an appropriate mechanism of the appropriate usage of state power. I think it's a dangerous usage of state power. Now, I will say this, and I'll say this straight up. I think that there has been speech made on the Harvard campus that approached the advocacy of genocide because there was an affiliate of the university who stood in Harvard Yard and said the words, those who justify terrorism are lower than animals. I believe that was an episode of genocidal speech on made on the campus of Harvard University.

And as far as I know, there's been no coverage outside of a brief mention in the Harvard Crimson of that. There's certainly not been a congressional investigation of that. And as far as I know, that individual has not been subjected to university discipline. a shadow world where there is an inordinate amount of attention paid to certain types of speech, very little attention of the same sort of attention being applied to other types of speech at the very same moment that there is an actual, material, real-life mass murder removal, not by genocide, not to mention the history of the last 75 years. Yeah, I want to ask you, it's a slight pivot, but I want to ask you about the consistency of free speech on campus, because some have likened Harvard, other elite universities, newfound commitment to free speech as somewhat inconsistent. They're insinuating this kind of anti-Semitism is a factor in this.

People have brought up some past examples of universities having no problem silencing those who are critical of, say, BLM, DEI, LGBTQ ideology. So is it fair to say that there is a level of hypocrisies that underlies these rationalizations? Could there be something more sinister, like I just alluded to? Is this criticism fair? I mean, I think that's an important question. I think it's an important question to answer forthrightly. I believe in the first instance that the joining of the attack on DEI, on diversity, equity, and inclusion, to the attack on anti-Zionist speech or even speech that is critical of Israel is baleful and dangerous. Okay. But I am myself someone who thinks that the regulation of speech and civility on college campuses has come at this point to serve the universities as an alibi, universities like my university, as an alibi for the sorts of inequality that they represent and perpetuate.

And so I think in a way that the weaponization of the terms of diversity, equity, and inclusion is related to the way that those terms themselves have become unmoored from a larger understanding of justice. Yeah. Last question for you is how do we, because it seems to me free speech is kind of one of those things to your point, people love free speech if they agree with that speech and they will silence speech that they don't agree with. So moving forward, how do we consistently apply free speech? Yeah, I mean, again, I'm not sure there's a consistent application, because I think it's always going to be a field of political contest. And so then the focus for me is on, well, how do we imagine ourselves speaking in a way that is insistently honest

and also generous? And so for me, that does not involve the sort of activity that I think has been, you know, for quite a while now, we've been living in a world where the words free speech on campuses are associated with the right. And they are generally performed through acts of provocation, right? Well, I think that this campus is not ideologically diverse, and so I'm going to bring in an extreme speaker who's bound to offend. Well, what if we imagine our commitment to free speech, like to the freedom part? What if we imagine it is not something that's defined by our ability,

that we're allowed to do harm with our words. What if we imagine it as trying to really speak honestly, to really pursue justice? That's what I've been, you know, thinking. And that's not to say that that doesn't, you know, plenty of that is going to involve saying things that make other people unhappy or uncomfortable, saying that the state of Israel is an apartheid state, which I think it is, right? But I don't say that because I want to do harm. I'm not trying to prove some kind of point by that. I'm not trying to prove I'm allowed to say that. I say that because I want to do harm. I'm not trying to prove some kind of point by that. I'm not trying to prove I'm allowed to say that. I say that because I think it's true. And what if we just hold ourselves to that standard? I think that that would be, you know, that's the world that I want

to live in. And that's the world that I think is under threat from any variety of directions. And to come back to your first question, I guess that's why I felt compelled to speak out about any of this in the first place. Well, thank you, Professor. This has been incredibly insightful. Thank you for your time today. If this continues on, I'm sure it will.

We hope to have you back in the future. Appreciate your time. Camp Shane, one of America's longest running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. But there were some dark truths behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. Enter Camp Shame, an eight-part series examining the rise and fall of Camp Shane and the culture that fueled its decades-long success. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free

on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. I'm also theard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. I'm also the girl behind Boy Sober, the movement that exploded in 2024. You might hear that term and think it's about celibacy.

But to me, Boy Sober is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's flexible, it's customizable, and it's a personal process. Singleness is not a waiting room. You are actually at the party right now. Let me hear it. Listen to VoiceOver on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. DNA test proves he is not the father. Now I'm taking the inheritance. Wait a minute, John. Who's not the father? Well, Sam, luckily it's your not the father week on the OK Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon.

This author writes, My father-in-law is trying to steal the family fortune worth millions from my son, even though it was promised to us. He's trying to give it to his irresponsible son, but I have DNA proof that could get the money back. Hold up. They could lose their family and millions of dollars? Yep. Find out how it ends by listening to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast,

or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast.