It Could Happen Here - It Could Happen Here Weekly 119

Episode Date: February 24, 2024

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That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into tech's elite and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. Hey everybody, Robert Evans here, and I wanted to let you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode of the week that just happened is here in one convenient and with somewhat less ads package

for you to listen to in a long stretch if you want. If you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, there's going to be nothing new here for you, but you can make your own decisions. Welcome to It Could Happen Here, a podcast about things falling apart and putting it back together again. I'm Mia Wong. I'm with Garrison. And it is my singular honor and pleasure to introduce our guest, Dr. Julia Serrano. She is the author of many books, including Excluded, Making Feminist and Queer Movements More Inclusive, Sexed Up, How Society Sexualizes Us and How We Can Fight Back, Outspoken, A Decade of Transgender Activism and Transfeminism, and most famously, Whipping

Girl, a new edition of which is coming out in March. Dr. Serrano, welcome to the show. Hi, thanks for having me. I'm really, really, really happy you can join us. So, okay, Whipping Girl, I think, is really one of the, one of quietly the most influential books of the 21st century to the extent that in kind of classic trans woman fashion i don't think i don't think people realize that the ideas that it introduced have an origin so for for people who haven't read the book and you should this book is great you i guarantee you have seen its influence if you if you've ever heard someone like who's not trans referred to as cis, that's from this book.

The concept of misgendering is also from this book. The word transmisogyny, also from this book. And this, I think, gets at something from the 2015 second edition preface that you wrote, the the 2015 second edition preface that you wrote which is something i've been wondering about is what is it like to sort of experience writing a book and have it just like ripple across society like this yeah it's uh i was very much hoping and you know as i was writing it i was hoping that i thought that it would resonate with a lot of trans female and trans feminine people, and I hope trans communities more generally. And the book, this is something that a lot of times people who pick up the book now in like the 2020s don't necessarily realize is that nobody was reading anything about

trans people outside of feminist and LGBTQ plus communities. And so I was basically just speaking to those groups. And I thought it would resonate with some people, but yeah, definitely it kind of went out into the world and did a bunch of stuff that I wasn't necessarily expecting. And I'm very glad that the book has kind of touched a lot of people's lives and changed, you know, kind of societal understanding and and quote unquote discourses about trans people so yeah it it must be kind of bizarre like being 20 years ago

writing about you know like a niche term like cis um and now the richest man in the world thinks it's like the most evil word. Yeah. It's, it's quite bizarre. I, and I do want to definitely kind of clear this up and I kind of make this clear in the preface. So I did it in vet like cis versus trans,

like a, that's like a prefix that has existed a long time. Yeah. And, uh, I've since seen other people like point out, Oh, this person was using it in 1990 something or some German writer like coined cisvestism or something like back a million years ago.

So what I will say is that when I when I put out the book, I was inspired by Emi Koyama, who was and is an awesome activist, intersex activist, who's written a lot of really influential trans-related essays over the years. And it was from her blog post that was the first time I saw cis and trans and the idea of cis-sexism. And at the time, it was while I was writing the book, and it really, I was like, oh my God, this is kind of the overall idea. I was talking about all these different facets of basically double standards between trans and non-trans people. And so I kind of grabbed onto it and I was really worried about it, actually, because almost nobody was using those terms. It was very niche at the time. And so the book popularized that language and so now it is kind of funny every once in a while seeing yes um overreactions

by cis people to the idea of of cis being a slur or whatever so yeah um and so yeah so that's definitely something that is um kind of bizarre the one thing i uh one thing i did coin in the book that has kind of also taken a life on its own is trans misogyny. So that is something that kind of originated with this book and particularly a chapbook that I wrote in 2005 that some of those essays became chapters for the book. And yeah, and so there are other ideas that kind of are out there. Like I think it was one of the first, I think it was the first book to talk about like the idea of cis privilege. Misgendering as an idea was out there, but I kind of dove into it a little bit deeper.

So yeah, there are definitely things I was doing at the time that I didn't know whether they'd be too abstract or how they'd be taken up. And so, yes, it's been very interesting. Yeah, I wanted to talk about misgendering a bit because I think it's become this word that just means not saying someone's pronouns correctly. And I think that's at the very best, like an incredibly reductionist and simplified version of the analysis that you're presenting. So I guess I have two questions here. One, can you briefly sort of talk about what you were trying to get at when you sort of did your analysis of the process of gendering? And two, what do you think about the way that it's kind of become flattened into this, I don't know, kind of weirdly narrow thing in modern discourse? Sure. And a lot of the misgendering definitely dovetails with the idea of passing. And a lot of

my kind of diving into it in a particular way came from critiques that I had and other trans people had as well. But I kind of, you know, put them together in a particularly in the dismantling, I think it's dismantling cissexual privilege chapter, where I kind of go through all these steps that lead to misgendering. Because I think people talk about trans people passing and also the people talk about other marginalized groups passing as whatever dominant majority group. The term obviously had long been used with regards to people of color passing as white and in kind of white racist, you know, US and other societies. So it's an old term and a big problem with it is that it makes it sound like we're doing something active, that trans people are actively trying to deceive other people with huge scare quotes

around the word deceive. And I really wanted to highlight to people that actually all of us very unconsciously and very compulsively gender every single person we meet or at least that's how we're socialized to be and you know you can work towards get you know overcoming that but I wanted to really highlight the fact that we see people, we automatically gender them, and that puts people who do not quite, who your presumptions are wrong about, it puts us in difficult situations. It's a double bind where do you reveal what you supposedly really are, or do you just allow people to read you that way? And it works out very differently, for instance, between trans and, say, cis gay people.

Because when cis gay people talk about passing as straight, their passing is something that they know that they are not. Whereas for a lot of trans people, if people read me as a woman and I understand myself to be a woman, it's a very different dynamic because it's not like I'm not hiding anything but people are presuming what I'm really passing as is I'm passing as cisgender and people are assuming I'm cisgender when the trans is the thing that

I might need to or feel like I need to clear up or other people might put pressure on me to either tell them that I'm trans or be accused of deceiving them. So that's a little bit of kind of how I was approaching it when I started working on that idea and really stressing the idea of you can't understand misgendering unless you understand that we make assumptions all the time. We gender people very actively. And, you know, so trans people are often just reacting to that and dealing with that double bind. about like kind of this this issue with some with some of the sort of prevailing gender theories which thought of which think about sort of like femininity and gender is pure performance but and this is i think like the argument that you were making that i think is really interesting

is that something that i think is very obvious to trans people is that so much of gender is how people perceive you and how, you know, and stuff that like you don't have any control over. It's how people sort of gender you. It's how people like construct a gender around you in ways that you don't really have control over. Yeah.

And that was a big thing. So in, in kind of, I was writing the book in the mid 2000s. And so the 1990s is when Judith Butler publishes Gender Trouble, which Butler never said all genders performance or all genders drag. But those are like slogans or soundbites that other people took from their book, right? And they were very popular at the time. There's also, there's a famous sociological article about doing gender. And so people were very focused on the way in which we create gender by doing it particular ways. by by doing it particular ways and a lot of the slogans within trans communities were sort of like oh well you know i just have to do my gender differently like more transgressively and that will like tear down all of gender and i felt that there was you know that is an aspect

of things and and most of us whether trans or cis most of us have had the experience of maybe trying to perform our genders in a particular way in order to like, you know, not, you know, in order to get by in the world, in order to not be harassed by other people. So we've all had that experience. So while that's true, there's the other partner of that dance, and that's perception. And we're all perceiving people very actively, and we're projecting our ideas and meanings onto them. And I felt like that was being under-discussed at the time. And that was not only a huge part of Whipping Girl, but that's become a part of a lot of my other books, including my most recent book, Sexed Up, but that's become a part of a lot of my other books, like include my most

recent book, Sexed Up, how society sexualizes us and how we can fight back. One way that I would describe that book is it's talking about sex and sexuality, not from what people do, but from how we perceive and interpret sex and sexuality, because there are a lot of unconscious ideas, often really horrible ideas, really hierarchical ideas that are kind of built into the way we view the world and interrogating that. And so, yeah,

that was a very big part of both with been girl and then my writings since then. Yeah. And I think, I think that is something where things have gotten better in terms of in terms of how we think about gender which i don't know like things aren't perfect but it definitely it definitely improved things a lot agreed we're gonna take an ab break and when we come back we're talking transmisogyny.

We're back. Yeah, so another thing I wanted to sort of talk about was, I think in like exactly the opposite process that happened to misgendering, transmasogyny has become a lot more expansive than your original sort of kind of narrow conception of it. And I think this has been changing a lot, especially in the last about half decade or so. So I was wondering what you think about the way that this concept has kind of taken on a life of its own

in recent years and what it's been doing since yeah so i feel like transmisogyny that there are a lot of different dialogues and discourses um about it coming like people coming from different perspectives with it and some people feeling like the word is doing things that i never suggested it was doing. It's kind of hard to know like where to actually come in on this but for me when I was first writing about it I was first just noticing that a lot of the quote-unquote transphobia that I was facing when people know I was a trans woman was actually a lot of it was just misogyny and a lot of it targeted like kind of my femininity rather than my transness and so I wanted to write about that and kind of the way that I framed it in the book was which I think is a really useful kind of model for thinking about it, is that most of

the types of sexism that feminists have described over the many years fall into two sort of camps, one of them being oppositional sexism, which is the idea that men and women are kind of perfectly opposite, mutually exclusive sexes that have different interests and attributes and desires. exclusive sexes that have different interests and attributes and desires and so a lot of transphobia and homophobia are kind of like built into this idea that men and women are completely distinct and then the other one is traditional sexism which is the idea that femaleness and femininity are less legitimate than maleness and masculinity and a lot of cis feminists have kind of viewed all of that as just sexism, right? But when you break it down like that, it makes it clear that the double bind that a lot of feminists have talked about is actually kind of these two different forms of sexism. So if a cis woman acts

appropriately femininely, so appropriate with scare quotes, if a cis woman acts appropriately femininely, so appropriate with scare quotes. If a cis woman acts femininely, she'll be seen as appropriate, but she'll be dismissed because femininity is dismissed in our culture. So that's the way that she'll be delegitimized. Whereas if she acts in ways that are coded as masculine, if she acts assertive or aggressive, then people will malign her for being kind of aberrant or deviant, right? And so oppositional sexism helps keep traditional sexism in place because you can say that maleness and masculinity are superior, but that only works if you can also make a clear distinction between, you know, those people and people who are female and feminine. And so I think this plays out differently. And I want to be really clear

about this, because some people have interpreted trans misogyny to mean that trans male and trans masculine people don't experience misogyny, which is something I've never said. And obviously, the fact that oppositional sexism is a form of sexism and obviously trans male trans masculine people experience that but also depending upon how you're viewed by other people i feel like the same double bind that affects cis women affects trans male trans masculine people differently where there's this tendency like in a lot of anti-trans discourses to to dismiss trans masculine especially trans masculine youth as being merely girls quote unquote who are like you know misled or seduced by gender ideology right and there's a lot of real anti-feminine

and anti-misogynistic ideas in there in addition to the fact that it it misgenders trans male trans masculine people and then if trans male trans masculine people when when they experience transphobia there's often you know like they're seen as deviant for kind of breaking that rule but often the maleness or their masculinity themselves are not you know denigrated in the same way because being male and being masculine are seen as good in our culture it's just that if you're trans male trans masculine it's like well you're quote unquote just a woman so you can't do it so i think it plays out in this very you know complex way for a lot of trans male trans masculine people

i think for trans female and trans feminine people because our crossing of oppositional sexism also involves us kind of moving towards the female towards towards the feminine, that there's kind of those two forces intersect in a way so that it's like exacerbated. And some of the ways I talk about this in Weapon Girl is that, well, we live in a world where masculinity is seen as natural and femininity is seen as artificial. And since trans people are also seen as artificial compared to cisgender people, a lot of times we're viewed as doubly artificial. Furthermore, the idea that like women are seen as sex objects whereas men aren't seen as sex objects often are transitions or gender transgressions towards a female towards a feminine

are presumed to be driven by sexual motives that can play out in all sorts of ways whether this is the idea that we're like hypersexual or promiscuous or that we want to be sexualized by other people or you can see it a lot with the kind of the the transgender predator is often coded as like a man who either has some kind of fetish or perversion or is just literally deceiving people to get into women's restrooms to do something horrific. So those are some of the ways that it plays out. I feel that sometimes people view it in a cut or dried way that either they'll assume that transmisogyny means that trans male, trans masculine people don't experience misogyny which again is not what that's about or sometimes people will like try to make really clear distinctions

um there's kind of language like transmisogyny affected versus transmisogyny exempt are the terms yeah tme and tma um which are not terms I've used and which or that I didn't coin them they're not in the book and I think that when I first saw that language and I've seen people use it in a way that appreciates the fact that some people are non-binary so it's a non-identity based way sometimes this can play out in a really cut or dried sort of manner that you know sometimes you know whether it's intended this way or not it can make it seem that like you know just boiling down a really complex experience people's complex experiences with different types of sexism into some people are privileged and some people are marginalized

um which i think is a more general problem that happens kind of throughout all social justice movements so yeah and trans people are not uh alien to having complex experiences be boiled down to three and four letter acronyms so yeah i mean i i did this in in twitter form so it was like a thread so like now people can't access threads unless you uh have an account with twitter and and it's from a couple years ago but one of the things that i talked about was i wrote this essay about 10 years ago about how cis and trans is kind of a useful, those are useful terms, but sometimes people fall in between cis and trans. And sometimes they can be used in a way to talk about different double standards, like cis people are treated one

way, trans people are treated another. But sometimes it can be used in like a sort of reverse discourse way where it's like, you know, cis people have all the privilege, trans people have none of the privilege. And it can be used to kind of create this strict dichotomy that ends up excluding and invisibilizing some people's experiences. And I feel the same thing is happening with TME and TMA. So I don't think that those terms need to necessarily be like, I don't think there's anything bad about those terms per se in and of themselves. But I think sometimes they can be used in ways. And part of why I referenced this, this cis and trans essay that I wrote many years ago, it appears in my book Outspoken. forget the complete title right now which is but um the reason why I bring that up is so sometimes what happens is that when people learn about cis sexism or cis people might be like oh I face the sexism right if I if I'm a woman and I don't shave my legs I'm facing cis sexism and so people say, yeah, but it kind of plays out differently for us. And so sometimes in order to stop people from kind of

making those claims, which I think it is true that, you know, a woman not shaving their legs, or if a man decides to put on a dress one day, regardless of whether they're cis or trans, they could experience cissexism or transphobia but it plays out differently for people who are actually members of that marginalized group and then so then the marginalized group makes the distinction even sharper and it just kind of becomes this uh escalating uh situation where the language and kind of battles over it become even more intense in a recent piece one of the most recent pieces if you go to like my medium uh site where my essays usually are now

is it talks about the uh trans mask versus trans femme discourse in terms of what i call the cultural feminist doom loop where that and the doom loop refers to kind of these ideas where everyone like but like both sides are trying to talk about the reason why their experiences are legitimate and then that seems as though the other sides are not legitimate and then that kind of cascades in a way that ends up not being very productive but uh takes up a lot of energy on places like Twitter. Yeah. And I think, I think that's something we've all seen about 1 trillion times variety of

toxic ways, but what isn't toxic is the new third edition of whipping girl coming out in March, which you can ask your local bookstore to pre-order now. And yeah, join us tomorrow for our discussion with Dr. Serrano of the anatomy of moral panics. This has been It Could Happen Here. Trans people are great.

Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, Thank you. and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel-winning economists to leading journalists in the field, and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com.

On Thanksgiving Day 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian.

Elian. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami.

Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly. I am talking to a felon right now, and I cannot decide if I like him or not.

Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world as a fake gecko therapist and try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot. Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show. I live with my boyfriend and I found his piss jar in our apartment. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. I have very overbearing parents.

Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of their house. So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head, search for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the one with the green guy on it. Welcome to It Could Happen Here, I'm your host Neil Wong. I am happy to be here once again with Garrison Davis and Dr. Julia Serrano, the author of, among many other works, a new edition of Whip and Girl coming out in March. So, kind of pivoting a bit one of the really bleak aspects of being trans in a hostile world is that we've we've effectively been forced to become experts

in the architects of our own extermination and i think that's a lot of what kind of the new afterward to the upcoming 2024 30 edition of whipping girl is about so i guess i wanted to ask what do you see as the biggest shifts in sort of the struggle for trans liberation between the end of the sort of mitch fest like fighting over mitch fest era that you wrote like dream which you sort of wrote the the second uh the forward the preface of the second edition and then the stuff that's happening now is the sort of wrote the the second uh the forward the preface of the second edition and then the stuff that's happening now is the sort of third edition is coming out sure i think a huge aspect of trans activism from my perspective of like first coming to trans communities in the 90s

a lot of 90s and zeros era um trans activism was overcoming basically people's ignorance their their lack of awareness about trans people and so and and this is one of the things that you know whipping girl for example there are a lot of bad ideas about trans people that have been circling lating for a long time especially with the culmination of Janice Raymond's book, The Transsexual Empire in the late 1970s, 1979, I think. And that influenced a lot of people at, say, places like MishFest that had trans women exclusion policies. And I felt like during the 90s through the zeros, we were constantly making gains that was largely due to people learning more about us and then recognizing basically shared goals shared things in common i think that trans people are marginalized

because of you know mainstream assumptions about sex gender sexuality and those assumptions also hurt lgbtqia plus people more broadly they you know, in a sexist world, they hurt, you know, cis women, you know, all women, all people who move through the world perceived as female and feminine. So we all have this kind of shared thing that we're working towards. And I feel like that was where a lot of the progress was happening. And I think what really changed in the mid-2010s, especially the year 2015, which is literally the year after the so-called tipping point, Time magazine declaring the transgender tipping point, was when it was the beginning of what I would describe as organized anti-trans activism. as organized anti-trans activism where it wasn't just that people didn't like us or they detested us but it was where there was actual coordination between different groups in in the afterward i describe there's the social conservatives and far right who have always been anti-LGBTQ+, who took an even more intense focus on trans people. There were groups that, at the time that I wrote Whipping Girl,

the term TERF wasn't around, or the term gender-critical wasn't around. Now we would call them gender-critical or trans-exclusionary feminists. They've become kind of a part of that. And both those groups working together in a lot of ways on policies. I think one of the things that the average person might not know if you're not like, like really in kind of highly aware of trans communities and issues is that probably behind the scenes, the anti-transparent movement has probably made more of an impact than any other group. And they are very much like the anti-vax parent movement, where it's a lot of people who are, you know, from their standpoint, they're just concerned

about their children, they want what's best for their children but they actively seek out and often get involved in you know websites social media forums and sometimes actual activist campaigns that that buy into a lot of ideas that uh of children being indoctrinated into gender ideology or being infected by social contagion and there's all this pseudoscience that that grows out of that so i would say that that was the main difference that there was this organized campaign and this campaign has just grown and grown and grown to the point now where it's just this astoundingly large moral panic that um the types of things that large moral panic that um the types of things that like 30 percent of people in our country believe about trans people is abhorrent but that's kind of how it played out yeah i mean there's there's been a lot of a lot of very common weird pseudoscience myths that sort of came out of that

i wanted to talk a little bit about quote-unquote rapid onset gender dysphoria because that's been all over the place i mean there's like a new york times article talking about it like two weeks ago and it's i don't know really been a fiasco especially given how unbelievably tenuous the the stuff they sort of faked or not as they fake like unbelievably tenuous the like quote-unquote study they did that got retracted was yeah and this is something that i actually um saw developing firsthand and then did research on in 2019 so let me frame this i'll tell like my personal a short version of my oral history of this so it was around 2017 that i first heard the idea of of children you know becoming trans because of social contagion and it just seemed to come out of the blue and it's like what you know it's

gender identity is not contagious um if it was, like, you know, trans people would have infected way more than, like, the less than 1% of us that actually exists. Not a very effective contagion as far as contagion is concerned. No. 30% and rising, like, no. Yes. Yeah. Exactly. Like, once you start looking at it it seems kind of ridiculous a lot of it was

because well you know you know my kid was hanging around a trans person or started watching trans videos on youtube and now they're trans it's like yeah well maybe they were hanging out with that trans friend and watching the youtube videos because they are trans and they just hadn't come out yet or they're just, they're still figuring it out. Anyway, so in 2018 is when the Lisa Lippman paper on rapid onset gender dysphoria came out and I wrote this essay at the time talking about all the things wrong with it, and then in 2019 I'm like, where did these ideas come from and i should say that rapid onset gender dysphoria is basically transgender social contagion wrapped up in a medical sounding diagnosis okay so if you read the the initial descriptions of transgender social contagion and the description of rapid onset gender dysphoria they're basically the same it's that kids are infecting one another but the idea of rapid onset gender dysphoria was meant to describe this quick infection of transness that supposedly was happening

and so in 2019 I basically did a deep dive I'm not an investigative reporter but that's kind of what I did into like where the origin of this was and basically all of this kind of came down to the website fourth wave now which often worked in coordination with two other anti-transparent websites so fourth wave now is an anti-transparent website arguably the very first one that that came out and a parent posted the idea that her child was like being infected by transgender social contagion and it's almost definitely clear now i will leave a little caveat even though i think the evidence is pretty strong that that was lisa marciano who's a anti-trans therapist who's very very involved in anti-trans activism right now okay so and like all everything points to that being her. And she also

seems to have, in some capacity worked with Lisa Lippman. So basically, the first paper about rapid onset gender dysphoria that came out was not Lisa Lippman's, it was actually Lisa Marciano's, which came out in 2017. So basically basically kind of grew from these anti-transparent websites. It really quickly within six months, not only was Lisa Lippman doing her survey, Lisa Lippman being someone who has no experience in trans health ever before then just decides to go in and only survey parents from three anti-transparent websites. And it gets taken very seriously just because the media fanned the flames. A lot of these groups were very excited to have something that seemed to be

a case study on their side. The paper was heavily critiqued when it came out. There are now, and I described this in an online essay I have, it's free. If you Google my name and all the evidence against social contagion, it's in there. There are now 10 papers that have tested the idea of rapid onset gender dysphoria and or social contagion and found evidence that contradicts the hypothesis.

So it's still being talked about that Pamela Paul, it was an op-ed that looked like an article in the new york times it's not the first time pamela paul and or the new york times has done this um they seem to have a um a particular axe to grind against trans people and putting out specious articles suggesting that gender affirming care especially for trans youth is bad when actually all the evidence points to the opposite so so yeah that's a brief discussion of rapid onset gender dysphoria which i think is the most popular of these kind of pseudo-scientific ideas but there are definitely others or there are like about

like four or five others that i could get into and i do get into in the afterward and in some of my other writings but uh yeah and and you know i don't use the word pseudoscientific lightly basically there's like science which is where different research groups try to answer a particular question. And if they all get similar answers, then that becomes okay, well, that seems to be established. Now let's work from there and ask more questions and do more studies. Junk science is when you do kind of a crappy study that doesn't really interrogate all the possibilities that either doesn't use controls or or you know only looks at you know a bias sampling size or a bias sample or small sample sizes and comes to a conclusion that it wants to come to that's junk science

and then pseudoscience is when multiple independent groups all find something different to what you're saying but you keep touting the thing you're saying is science. And that's definitely where RGD is right now. Same thing with one of these ideas that I talked about way back early in Whipping Girl, and I've written other, you know, both academic papers and online essays about this concept of autogynephilia, which is this really old theory that just like it's kind of like this zombie it doesn't matter how many groups find evidence to the contrary contrary it jibes with what basically certain you know gender disaffirming practitioners practitioners and researchers and anti-trans activists it jibes with what they want to say so it just kind of continues to be out there so yeah yeah i mean something that garrison we were talking about before this is the extent to which the extent to which the the rapid onset

gender dysphoria study is almost exactly the same study as the first anti-vax study like it has it has almost exactly the same it's the same thing-vax study like it has it has almost exactly the same it's the same thing where you you find a group of people who think their kid has autism because they got vaccinated or you find a group of people who think their kids are trans because social contagion or something and then you ask them about it and then you report the results of the study and it's like well now and you report the results of you asking the people the thing that they believe and now it's a study and it's it's i don't know it drives me insane the extent to which it is literally exactly the same thing yeah i mean that was something so i didn't know this until uh h bomber guy who's a

youtuber who does really good investigations and video essays and uh i saw his autism and so this is something that, you know, I remember, I'm old enough to remember the Wakefield paper being in the news. And then you hear lots of people debunking it, and then it's officially retracted. And basically all, you know, the scientific field has settled that it's like vaccines do not cause autism. A lot of that is just like a coincidence of the time that you first start noticing that children may be autistic is like right around the time after they've had vaccinations but but yeah it wasn't until the h bomber guy video that he talks about that the wakefield study

is a study of parents not the children a study of the parents and the parents already had, were already suspicious of the vaccines. And so they said, oh, well, it happened right after they had these vaccines. Just like rapid onset gender dysphoria happens. Oh, it happened right after, you know, one of my child's peer, their peers came out as trans. It's like, yeah, maybe they're connected. Maybe that's why they're good friends. trans it's like yeah maybe they're connected maybe that's why they're good friends you know most of my friends you know like when i go out and stuff like that you know a huge chunk of my friends way higher than the average person are trans people yeah and it's not because any of us

infected each other it's just that you have that thing in common you also really importantly when you're part of a stigmatized group being around other people who won't stigmatize you, often because they're a part of that same group, that can be really freeing and really supportive. So yeah. Yeah, so we need to take another ad break. But when we come back, there will be more. I don't know.

I'm really kind of blowing the ad pivots on this one. I'm very sorry and we are back so i guess speak speaking of moral panics speaking of social contagions yes moral panics are always very socially contagious yeah it's really truly really truly they they have described their own ideology and they projected it onto everyone else so what one of the things that you talk about both in the afterward and in sexed up is about the relationship between stigma and contagion and how it's this incredibly powerful force for mobilizing moral panics. Can you explain sort of how that works?

Sure, yeah. And this was something that when I was first working on Sexed Up, it wasn't kind of my idea. I didn't think I was going to write about the concept of stigma that much, but it really ended up being very central the more kind of research I did into it. And so I think most of us are familiar with the idea of stigma in terms of like feeling embarrassment or being made to feel lesser than other people because of some aspect of your person, right? And there is that aspect of it that's often called like felt stigma. But then there's the way that other people view stigma, right? And so, you know, people aren't necessarily stigmatized in that way themselves. They might view people who are stigmatized in particular ways. And one aspect of uh i i learned a lot of this from uh psychologists uh

i think it's paul rosin i know the last name is rosin and uh also carol uh nemeroff and they they both worked together and they had other colleagues who worked on this but a lot of this comes from this really unconscious idea of contagion that seems to be, it's like pan-cultural, it's just kind of a way that people tend to view the world, kind of like a lot of people in a lot of cultures have essentialist views. Contagion is sort of along those lines. It's often described as a type of magical thinking. And the idea is if something in your mind has this contagion if you get too close to it or you interact with it it can like permanently corrupt or taint you

and so it has this kind of contagious like property in people's minds and so people often view groups who are stigmatized especially groups that are highly stigmatized, as essentially contagious, where that stigma that they have could rub off on you if you get too close to them. And so this happens, like, when I was really young, the idea of, like, if you were friends with a trans person, a lot of times people, or even someone who was gay back then, people would be like, oh so what are you? You must be gay too, right? It's almost as if that stigma would then like kind of migrate to you. And that's a lot of why stigmatized groups face a lot of ostracization in society. And so this idea of contagion has been around, I think, groups who are lesser stigmatized. One of the ways that that plays out is they're viewed as less contagious. So, you know, when I was really young, the idea of if you had a trans person in your life, people would really question you.

Whereas by the time I came out, you could have a trans friend and that would be fine. It wouldn't necessarily be contagious unless, of course, you were interested in them. And then that stigma would, if you you were interested in them and then that stigma would if you were like attracted to them then there's that stigma and i think that stigma plays a lot into kind of dynamics of and i write about this in sex up that the whole idea of like fetishes and chasers and all that that's basically all this stigma contagion stuff playing out in different ways anyway so uh i also think that and i write about in sex up i think people view sex and stigma as really closely intertwined such that i think people view the average person views heterosexual sex as a stigma contamination act where the male is the corrupting force and it's the woman

who is corrupted by sex which is why you know virgins are pure but then once a woman has sex she's like you know she's become contaminated or tainted and as she has a lot of sex then people view her as like ruined right so so that idea is built in there and i think this combination of viewing sex and stigma is kind of intertwined leads to the sexual predator the sexual predator stereotype that we're seeing play out in really strong ways with trans people right now but actually if you look history, like a lot of marginalized groups, like deal in different ways with the sexual predator trope. And so I think this really clearly plays out with the kind of what I call the groomer explosion that started in 2022, where, you know, people were accusing trans people being groomers before then, but it really exploded in 2022.

And if you listen to what people are saying, they're using the word groomer, which sounds like a sexual predator thing. Like, there's a real thing of grooming children that sexual abusers do. But they're using it against trans people in a way that has nothing to do with that. But what they're talking about is corrupting, you know? know so their children who are presumed to be cisgender um are and who often i think this is why a lot of these anti-trans discourses continue to paint like trans children as being girls right like because then it kind of plays into these feelings of like you know transgender people are the adult men corrupting young girls it plays into a lot of people's view like messed up messed up

heteronormative views of sex and and fears of you know sexual abuse child abuse being a very real thing, but people greatly misinterpret it so that the people who are the usual perpetrators, which are usually, you know, by and large, straight men who are like adults who are close or sometimes even family members of the child in question. But like when they say grooming, they just mean corrupting or contaminating. And I think that both grooming and social contagion,

I think both of these basically play off of this stigma contamination idea, right? The kids are pure, but then transgender is like a type of cooties that if one kid becomes trans, then they spread it to the other kids. And so, yeah, and so I feel like it plays a really big role, not only in moral panics, which almost all moral panics are,

there's some kind of corrupting force that is often attacking otherwise pure and innocent children. Sometimes it's technology, right? And so people will be like, oh, we ban you know social media apps you know because it's hurting the children or it could be transgender people who are the things we need to ban because they're corrupting the children but i definitely think that both these ideas of stigma and contagion play a big role in the way in which moral panics, why they resonate with a lot of people, even though they don't make any rational sense, if you just think about them kind of from a very realistic,

practical point of view. And we have to go to ads, but we'll be back in a second. and we're back this is something that you mentioned briefly in the uh afterward and that's something that we've reported on is how a lot of this groomer thing that started in 2022 and a whole bunch of this kind of modern wave of transphobia is mirroring a lot of the anti-gay stuff from like the 80s uh that was pushed forward by a lot of like evangelicals and into just like mainstream conservatism and specifically how it functions as this yeah this is sort of like moral panic and even social contagion the way the way uh homosexuality was treated as as this thing and this this sort of social contagion aspect is so

common now i mean even even the way we've already alluded to musk even the way he mentions like the woke mind virus is is is exactly this thing and it's really like moral panics and stuff right this this was kind of predated by the critical race theory debacle uh which then got you know turned into the groomer thing and it is now the dei thing yeah exactly and and now it's even changed again and these moral panics can have like devastating results in terms of pushing forward legislation that outlasts the actual moral panic but the actual things themselves are very short-lived they don't seem to have very much like staying power as cultural moments. They move on so quickly.

No one talks about critical race theory anymore. You don't even hear this sort of groomer rhetoric as often as you did two years ago. It's being replaced by new versions. And yeah, like Mia said, the DEI thing is the current thing that is wrecking American society, if you ask about maybe one-third of the population but yeah how do you feel about like the life cycle of these moral panics and how they relate to like the social contagion aspect yeah yeah no i agree with what you're also all the the things you're citing that like i think these are all different variations of kind of the same idea.

And I do really appreciate the idea of the woke mind virus as being kind of like the perfect, like the exemplar of this in that, you know, people were, you know, people were complaining about, you know,

stuff being woke for a while. And, you know, it is usually it's often coded as something that's woke is like anti-racist or you know is something like it's very much associated you know infused with like when people complain about wokeism a lot of times they're like they're racist or they're um or at the very least they have fears about kind of the corruption of pure whiteness being corrupted by increasing, you know, people of color and, you know, like making gains in society, right? But the woke mind virus, because no one could really explain what woke is because then it keeps shifting and it refers to trans people or critical race theory, etc.

people or or critical race theory and etc and the woke mind virus is like perfect because that's how they think it all works like it's just this thing that infects people especially children and the way in which there is a recent thing just today i think it was ackerman the billionaire who's been involved in a lot of this dei stuff um complaining about his child being infected in college with marxism and elon musk had similar issues with his trans daughter like becoming pro-marx or anti-capitalist and so they just assume that like no my child was pure but now they're infected it's like well maybe there are other ideas out there that are better than your idea yeah and maybe that's all it is but but yeah so i think in all of these cases yes i think that there's this idea of a contagion or corruption often involving children and it is yeah a lot of the moral panic a lot of the literature

like the social sciences literature all moral panics they often describe them as fleeting you know this one the anti-trans one isn't fleeting enough right now from my perspective but people will tend to kind of move on like the satanic panic of the 80s. That was a really big deal, and then all of a sudden it was just gone, and no one ever talked about it again. I think the difference here is that a lot of these moral panics are really tied together with what's happening in the country, more generally with anti-democratic um and authoritative you know views coming from you know particularly the the right wing of the country you know like one of the two major political parties is really pushing a lot of um just generally across the board you know they're against feminism they're you know against people of color against

lgbtq plus people and i think it's all wrapped up into the same thing i think that while individual parts of the moral panic may go away they may talk about critical race theory for a bit and then shift to trans people being groomers then shift to deiI but I think a lot of this is they're all intertwined and actually I think that's like the last couple paragraphs of the afterword I talk about that as a potentially good thing because even though it's been a harrowing time to be a trans person with all the anti-trans legislation and all the anti-trans news stories um all the pushes back on gender affirming care despite all that i think the good thing is that i think there are clear sides here and i think while this wasn't true early on in the anti-trans backlash in the like late 2010s

i think most people realize now that all these things are tied together from like kind of the, you know, the right wing perspective in this country is just against all these things. You know, they want a white Christian, straight minority of people running everything about this country. And so I think the rest of us really need to recognize that and work together to defeat that. Yeah. I mean, I think,

I think that's a pretty good place to end on. Do you, do you, unless you have anything else that you wanted to make sure you get in? No, I mean, I feel like we touched, we covered a bunch of the book past present and hopefully future being better

than the present right now hopefully hopefully hopefully yes so okay where can people find a the new uh the the new edition of whipping girl and be you and your work on the internet and or other places sure yeah so the book should be available. So it's available for pre-order right now. So you can do that through like, you know, online places. I often suggest people go to the Seal Press, my publisher, because they give lots of options there.

But you can also go to your local independent bookstore and say, hey, I'd like to pre-order this book and they will do that for you. So the book will be available everywhere and should be in stores starting in March um as for me I my website juliasarano.com particularly if you go to the writings page there I have like literally links to everything I've written online over the years so it's kind of a clearinghouse of free writings of mine there are also links to my books there and then if you're looking for me on social media i'm at julia serrano on most platforms

that i'm at i don't know how much stronger i can possibly recommend reading whipping girl it had i don't know it had an enormous impact on me when i first read it and yeah it will it will it will do good things for you if you read it too um yeah and it's all still incredibly relevant like i i yeah i was breezing through like 50 pages just to refresh my memory this morning and i'm like oh wow so many of the like inter-community trans discourses that are constantly happening have already been addressed like 20 years ago. So many of like, I, all the time I spend trying to write about like,

uh, trans misogyny and like, oh, I, I forgot this is already like all like written down. Like I spent, I spent so long writing about the daily wire movie and like, oh,

this is art. All this work's already been done. I can just like stop. Oh man. Uh, yeah. uh yeah cannot cannot recommend enough yeah thank you thank you so much for coming on yeah thank you all for the kind words yeah thank you for having me and uh it was great and thanks for all you. Oh, thank you. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search,

better offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel-winning economists to leading journalists in the field, and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology.

I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, you look so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere.

Elian Gonzalez. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba.

Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly. I am talking to a felon right now, and I cannot decide if I like him or not.

Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world as a fake gecko therapist and try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot. Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show. I live with my boyfriend and I found his piss jar in our apartment. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. I have very overbearing parents. Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of their house. So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head,

search for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the one with the green guy on it. Welcome back to It Could Happen Here, your favorite podcast for a daily dose of dystopia. I am once again your guest host, Molly Conger. Today I'm talking to a good friend of mine, one of the brilliant minds behind the melting of Charlottesville's Robert E. Lee statue. Dr. Jelaine Schmidt is going to tell us a little bit about the history of the statue, from its planning and placement to its current state,

melted into ingots in an undisclosed location. I'm joined today by Dr. Jelaine Schmidt, a professor of religious studies at the University of Virginia, the director of the Memory Project at the University of Virginia's Karsh Institute of Democracy, and a steering committee member at the Swords into Plowshares Project. As both a scholar and an activist, Dr. Schmidt has been a leading voice in the Charlottesville community

for racial justice and against the Confederate monuments that once stood here. The Swords into Plowshares Project announced back in October that they had successfully dismantled and melted down the bronze statue of Robert E. Lee that once loomed over the Market Street Park in downtown Charlottesville. Thank you so much for joining me today to talk about the past, present, and future of that hunk of bronze. Thanks for having me, Molly. It's great to talk with you about this. I don't think I've called you Professor Schmidt since 2008 when I took one of your classes. It's been a while. It's been a while.

Yeah, yeah. Now we just call each other comrades, you know, because we're out there in the streets and in city council and, you know, doing the things. So before we get to the final fate of that melted bronze, I want to ground this in the history of that particular object. This isn't just any Confederate monument. This is the statue that made Charlottesville a household name, the statue that brought Unite the Right here, a statue that killed someone. It's a statue that had history in that park for a century before it came down. And before it was removed, you led some really incredible walking tours of the downtown parks to try to tell the story of the way those statues existed in those spaces for generations, why they were there, what they meant, what impact they had on the landscape and the people in the community.

I think I went on about a dozen of those walking tours, and I learned something new every single time. So can you talk a little bit about the political atmosphere in 1924 when that statue first went up? atmosphere in 1924 when that statue first went up. Yeah, well, you know, just kind of to back up a little bit, like the history of Charlottesville, Virginia, at around the time of the Civil War, over half of the population of the local population was enslaved in Charlottesville and surrounding Albemarle County. And Black people were actually the majority of the population of Charlottesville until about 1890. And then it has been on this steady decline since then. So to think about it, if you look at the history of reconstruction in Charlottesville, black people came out and registered to vote and got politically organized very quickly in the 1860s already. and got politically organized very quickly in the 1860s already and were very influential in electing a black delegate from Charlottesville to go to the constitutional convention this is when

in order to rejoin the union all of the former confederate states had to get their state constitutions up to snuff and so Virginia as the other uh former confederate states you know had a had a constitutional convention um and our delegate from charlottesville was uh james t.s taylor he was a black man from charlottesville he'd been in the united states colored troops and he had a coalition had coalesced around him of some progressive whites or savvy whites, you know, that threw their lot with him and former enslaved people and went and, you know, and represented us and put, you know, Charlottesville in the mix for starting a new state constitution in Virginia for finally getting public schools. You know, that's one thing that we can thank, you know, all those

reconstruction governments around the South, you know, for getting us's one thing that we can thank you know all those reconstruction governments around the south you know for getting us those public schools that we wouldn't have otherwise had that we didn't have before you know so i say all that backdrop that if you read the the historical sources of the time during reconstruction and post-reconstruction in charlottesville the white elites were quite upset with the state of affairs that had emerged after the Civil War in which formerly enslaved people were in leadership, in political leadership, you know. of, you know, then finally, as the new, you know, there was a Reconstruction era Constitution that started all those wonderful things such as, you know, public schools, you know, and voting rights for black men, you know, but then as the neo-Confederates or their Confederate sympathizers start to get the upper hand again at the end of Reconstruction, and in Virginia, that's, you know,

more or less in the 1880s. And then there's this steady imposition of Jim Crow that's going into... In Richmond, they put in their giant General Lee statue in 1890 there. And then in 1902, there was this final push that pushed black people out of political office in Virginia. And in 1902, a new Jim Crow state constitution was put into effect in 1902. And so you have to, when you think about all of these statues being installed, we have to see it as this, it's really resentment politics, you know, that's come about. you know that's come about that is if you look at the speeches that are delivered at the installation ceremonies of these statues and this is where i'm getting to our general lee statue in charlottesville specifically with this you go back and look at those at the occasion for the day and these these installation ceremonies they were a time for the neo-Confederate organizations, the hosting organizations, in our case, the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the United Confederate Veterans, and the Sons of Confederate Veterans, from all over the state, you know, and, you

know, there's this buildup, you know, in the days ahead, you know, leading up to the installation. This was in May of 1924, you know, so you see, oh, this delegation has arrived from Roanoke, and now the governor is coming in, and now this, and now, you know, and so, you know, the town is just a Twitter, you know, that this, that they are hosting the statewide reunion of the United Confederate veterans. And there hardly are anymore at this time. They're, you know, quite elderly at this point. So, there's quite this, you know, celebration. And this is also an annual meeting of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

of Confederate veterans. And so, the fact that Little Charlottesville is hosting a statewide reunion, you know, of the statewide, all the chapters, you know, of these neo-Confederate veterans is a big deal. And then, you know, they're doing this, you know, and within this context is when the unveiling of this statue is occurring, you see. And so, it's this whole buildup of kind of lost cause nostalgia, which is occurring. And in the speeches at the Lee statue unveiling ceremony, it's very instructive to listen to what is being said, you know. You have, of course, you know, kind of local dignitaries and statewide, you know, dignitaries are there. The national commander of the Sons of Confederate Veterans is there. He gives a speech. He was also a Klansman, you know. You know, so this says something there that, you know, 1920s Charlottesville, you know, elites were not averse to rubbing shoulders

with a known Klansman, you know, who had been invited to give a speech, you know, elites were not averse to rubbing shoulders with a known Klansman, you know, who had been invited to give a speech, you know, other invited guests. One was a minister who was a graduate of the University of Virginia. And it was, you know, just kind of revealing, you know, what he said in his speech, you know, when he was talking about he said that that the days of reconstruction were worse than war you know um you know and so this right exactly yeah does beg the question um and that yeah goes without saying of course that this is you know almost exclusively white audience and you know the white school kids school has been canceled for the day the university has classes you know um canceled for the day and you know the businesses are closed i mean this is just you know quite the community event that's going on so yeah so reconstruction was worse than

war um you know we're celebrating today you know that you know the spirit of lee the regeneration you know of our values you, there's just a lot of conversation in these inaugurations ceremonies, you know, for the unveiling of these statues that hearken to rebirth and regeneration and, you know, and also, you know, kind of recalling, you know, the days of old, you know, and the values, you know, of our veterans, you know, who are now, are now, of course, in dwindling number, these Confederate veterans who are there. And so, as I've said, there's been this whole buildup for days and days. I mean, of course, for the planning committee, this has been going on for weeks and months, the fundraising and reserving blocks at, and all guest houses and all this kind of thing, you know, banquet halls, etc., you know. an uptick in Klan activity before and after the installation ceremony.

And while we don't have, well, we do know, but one Klansman, the Commander Lee, no relation to the General Lee, but the President and the Sons of the sons of the confederate veterans you know but but to just see all of this uptick in lost cause nostalgia and then these these acts of intimidation of you know clan rallies clan posters that were you know put flyers around town you know uh and this sort of thing it just it there the atmosphere of intimidation you know that this must have been for black residents you know of the time uh you know it just it really gives you pause you know just just seeing how public space was commandeered you know by these people these neo-confederates you know to kind of uh relive what they consider you know kind of the glory days you know um of the nation you know and the kind of values to which they want to

return you know and and this sort of thing so yeah so this this is going on you know in the 1920s as you know charlottesville's you know locked into jim crow by Jim Crow by then, and we're 22 years into that Jim Crow state constitution. This is the milieu in which this is taking place. Now, of course, black people have their own institutions that they founded, namely churches, the Jefferson School, what's now the african-american heritage center but the jefferson school which was a school for black children um and uh the founding of the high school of a black high school um so this was you know the the black community had its own uh nodes of organizational strength you know and and goings on that were happening, even as, you know, there were these pressures, you know, going on with the consolidation of Jim Crow, should also mention that, you know,

at this, at around the same time in spring of 1924, was the passage of the Virginia Racial Integrity Act. And this was the kind of the codification of the so-called one drop rule which designated anyone with a perceived um uh admixture of of uh african-american or or native american ancestry to be designated as colored you, and kind of bifurcating the population of Virginia into two categories, white or colored. And so, this is also occurring, you know, in 1924. There's a very, you know, there's very much of a legal, you know, a kind of strengthening, you know, in terms of the tools that are being used to separate the races, quote unquote, you know, and what we're seeing then in the parks, you know, in our public spaces, were, you know, kind of designating what were, well,

not public spaces, I mean, they were, you know, kind of designated, you know, almost shrine-like, you know, as white spaces, you know, and that this is, it's a kind of broadcasting of who's in charge is what's going on. And I think, you know, today the Sons of Confederate Veterans very much separate themselves from the Klan, right? That we're a heritage organization. We're not, we're not the Klan, but you were talking about this sort of Klan activity leading up to the unveiling of the statue.

And I was actually just looking back this morning at some of the archival newspapers from that week. And so when the day the statue was placed, if you know, a few weeks before the unveiling, it was still covered, it was shrouded, you know, it's leading up to the big day. So in the front page of the Daily Progress, the day that the statue was put in the park, that little snippet appears in the newspaper right next to a headline about a cross burning like these things are happening on at the same time right and there was absolutely a big clan march through town that week and i think one of the it's easy to forget that these historical moments were experienced by people whose words that we still have like people who were living

in this moment i think one of one moment in your historical tour that really has stuck with me all these years is an anecdote about John West, who is, for the listener, a man who was born into slavery and in this era was one of the largest black landowners in the area, was a successful businessman. And when the Klan marched by that week, they're wearing their hoods, you don't know who they are, it's mysterious. It's intimidating. But he knew who every single Klansman was because he was their barber and he recognized their shoes. And that just feels so intimate to me, right? That he's looking at the shoes of these men that he knows.

And then tomorrow they're going to come in for a shave and a haircut. And he has to say, you know, yes, sir. Thank you, sir. That's right. That's right. And so if you can just imagine like, you know, and here, you know, John West, you know, so here's one of the most, you know and here you know john west you know so here's one of the most you know influential black residents of charlottesville at that time and he has to live

yeah in this you know that there's this this atmosphere of intimidation that you that yeah his clients are coming in you know they're coming in every 10 days or 14 days to get a get a trim get a you know touch up you know here and there and and yeah and and he knows that these you know that that these are you know the folks who are kind of maintaining you know that this this public order you know that is so uh you know that you know you better not step out of line and so just to have one's public space you know be you better not step out of line. And so just to have one's public space, you know, be demarcated, you know, in such a demonstrative way, you know, in a monumental way, you know, yeah, exactly, is it really illustrates what's going on, you know, and even in, you know, relationships like that, you know, relationships like that,

you know, that are so like, you know, intimate, a barber and a client, you know, and knowing, you know, what your clients are up to, you know, and how you better stay in line, you know, it's scary. that's what that statue was here right for for almost a century so skipping ahead that century right when the statue finally came down in 2021 so not not too long ago right so the city solicited proposals for what was to be done with it right a lot of cities put them into storage or move them to battlefields or um museums didn't want them people say well why can't it go to a museum museums didn't want it right yeah so so because uh of my work i get pulled in on a lot of different statue statue uh related consultations let's put it that way. And I was on the George Rogers Clark Committee at the University of Virginia when the university was trying to decide what to do with the very hideous, I called it the genocide trophy. It was a statue of George Rogers Clark, the conqueror of the Northwest. It literally said that on the facade.

And so we were in consultation with Native tribes. We were contacting the various tribal nations who suffered the onslaught of the so-called Northwest Campaign. So, these tribes that are in what is now Illinois and Ohio, etc., you know, and just asking them, you know, would you like to kind of weigh in, you know, on this? And, you know, really sad. Genocide is a real thing. Some folks are just no longer there, you know, or, you know, were, you know, became such a remnant, you know, as they were so decimated that, you know, they kind of, you know, morphed into, you know, other tribes. Others were, you know, went on, you know, later on to, you know, to Oklahoma or other places, you know, just dispersal,

you know, really was, you know. You know, so we're in this, you know, kind of year-long process trying to figure out what to do with UVA's own statue there, you know, also a gift of Paul Goodloe McIntyre, you know, the same donor who gave the Lee statue to the city, gave this George Rogers Clark statue to the university. And so in doing that committee work, we made appointments with all the big players, all the, you know, and here we are, we're from the University of Virginia, you know, and we've got this, you know, big, big monument here, you know, the Smithsonian that, you know, and, you know you know we talked to not about this one but in another instance talk to you know the civil war museums battlefields you know i mean we contacted all

the responsible you know the folks who are going to curate this in a in in a responsible way you know we because you know that's it it is a monumental work of art you know it has stood here for a century uh it does have historical value of a sort You know, it has stood here for a century. It does have historical value of a sort, you know. And, I mean, you know, and as someone who has, you know, teaches history and researches history, that's my inclination. My initial inclination is, oh, yeah, well, we should preserve. I mean, that's, you know, kind of where I go to. But the problem is it's a very practical one. This is a material object that is taking up space

literal and figurative space in the world and it's six six thousand pounds yeah yeah the very materiality of it it is taking up space and you let you have to figure out what space is it going to inhabit this is a very practical question if it's not in your park anymore where is it going to inhabit this is a very practical question if it's not in your park anymore where is it going to be we contacted all these museums you know and in several you know different consultations i've been a part of where we've been trying to get rid of statues nobody wants them nobody responsible wants them and and it you know and even if they did have an inclination to want to just the expense of it you know who wants to reinforce their floors to put a you know century-old you know artistically not exemplary you know monument in it you know and then care for it i mean museums

have very limited budgets they're non-profit organizations. Why should they be expending all this energy? I love my colleague, Erin Thompson, from John Jay College at CUNY. She's an art crime professor, and she said, you know, she talked with somebody at the Smithsonian who said something to the effect that, you know, we're not America's attic for racist art. That's not our role. It's like, you know, and it kind of does throw back the responsibility to individual communities too. It's like, you know, you have a part to play in this, you know? And so anyway, yeah. So we tried to do the responsible thing. We contacted all the responsible actors out there. they don't want them. And so, then the question becomes, okay, the city also doesn't want it sitting on its back lot for forever in perpetuity.

They've got things, they've got equipment there, they've got things, this shouldn't be sitting there. Where is it going to go? Again, this is a material object that exists in the world. It is a problem. What physical space is it going to occupy? We're just such brute practicality here. I don't think people quite get what it means to deal with this. And the only people who want it are the very people who shouldn't have it, you know, who want to take this object that's caused us so much pain and to make a shrine out of it, you know, that would continue to attract bad actors, you know, and that it would, you know, the sorts of emotions that are you know evoked you know in the ceremonies around you know objects that are that are held to be sacred you know that that attract you know kind of devotees you know and so you really have to think about what does it mean to be a responsible ethical actor you know it's like now we're we're in grown-up world now

it's like okay it's like we want you, it's like there is a material object. Where are we going to put it? It's like having a junked car. What do you do with it? You just let it sit in your driveway and make your neighbors mad at you? Right. And these Confederate statues are sort of the junk cars of the lost cause, right? Because they're not rare, right?

Like, you know, especially right after Unite the Right, a bunch of cities all of a sudden were like, we got to get rid of these things. And so suddenly the market is flooded with Confederate statuesate statues where are you going to put them that's right at that and that is the question and they are and i've used this this metaphor before the the metaphor of toxic waste you know it's not responsible to say, we want to get rid of our toxic trash here and then ship it down the road to the next town and say, okay, well, we're done with that. That's not responsible to make that next town have to deal, you know, or maybe there were some people in that town that wanted it, you know, but that's not fair to the other people to have to breathe in that air and drink that water that's poisoned by this that's not that's not being responsible you know what i mean so it really is an ethical question you know um what what space these toxic objects are going to inhabit and so we were unable to find any responsible actors who would take this on. And so then it kind of, it's like, well, I guess it's kind of on us.

We have to, you know, like the Smithsonian, it's like, we're not the addict for your racist trash. You know, it's like, it's really, it's on us. It's on communities to figure this out, you know, and if there isn't, you know, some sort of organization that can responsibly curate this, you know, and care for it, then, you know, we really need to think about it. And in the case of this Lee statue of Charlottesville's Lee statue, you know, there are about, I think there are about 16 monuments of Lee, like kind of equestrian monuments of this sort, you know, in the country. I can say with confidence

that all of the others are of better quality than Charlottesville's. It's the absolute worst. Such an important point, right? Because people are like, well, this is, you know, an important historical piece of art. And that's true of some of them.

Some of them are legitimate pieces of, but this one is not. No, it is not. I mean, it looks like he was smuggling hams in his sleeves. Oh, well, yeah. So, yeah, it's, it's terrible. It's really a case, the Lee statue from Charlottesville is really a case of too many chefs spoiled the soup. You know, they, the, was commissioned to do this work, and he got behind on the commission because he was finishing another work of his, which is generally regarded as his magnum opus, which is a monument to General Grant. I just love that. It's just perfect poetry. Sorry, Lee, you got to wait. I'm working on my best piece. Right. He finished a beautiful statue of Grant and then he died. And then he died. He died. And supposedly, it might be apocryphal. I kind of like this tale

that supposedly when he's on his deathbed, Shreddy's on his deathbed, and he's still thinking about that unfinished Lee. He's like, oh, mind the cloth, keep it damp. Keep the plaster wet, right? Yes, keep the plaster. He'd made a maquette. He'd made a model, play model of the Lee statue for Charlottesville for that next commission, the unfinished commission.

And he dies. And so now it's like, well, you know, this is a problem, you know, for the philanthropist and the community or the community leaders of Charlottesville who wanted this Lee statute. So they find a ringer, you know, this young guy, you know, Leo Lentelli, interesting, you know, Italian immigrant in the 20s, which is kind of interesting, you know, when you think about, you know, all the hate that was being whipped up. Back before Italians were white, right? That was before Italians were white, yeah. But he was, yeah, kind of direct from Italy and from a sculpting background, so maybe they made a little exception for him.

I don't know. Anyway, so this young guy, you know, Leo Lentelli, he takes over. And, you know, he probably needed a little more practice. i don't know it just didn't turn out well it's like the lego tail on traveler like a chunky no it's just yeah um there was we had a sculptor from around here who himself works in in bronze and does monumental work and he kind of just kind of came and looked at it and he was just you know just everything's out of proportion the gauntlets on the glove are too thick you know the sword is too long the tail is too fat I mean his feet are bigger than his head yeah that Lee's head on top of his shoulders it just looks like you know kind of like almost a transformer toy or something I mean it's just

really weird you know proportions it's just it just really was not very well executed because apparently the maquette the model that had been made uh just was completely destroyed the model the original model by schrade was completely turned to dust and so linteli the successor sculptor had to work from the drawings that that that remained you know and you know it, it just didn't really go very well. And here's the thing, that even the boosters at the time, that is, you know, the folks that were planning for the installation of the Lee statue in the 1920s themselves did not think it was very well executed. We have diary entries from the master of ceremonies of the installation ceremony, R.T.W. Dukes. And he says, he writes in his, it's like a day or two before the installation.

He says, went on a walk, you know, tonight, you know, went by the park, you know, saw the Lee statue. I do not like it. Me either. you know saw the lee statue i do not like it me either this is the guy who's please damn see at the unveiling ceremony in you know the next day or two how embarrassing yeah and there's op eds even you know also they're saying like wow you know that that just doesn't look good at all you know um so and these are the these are supporters, these were the neo-Confederates, the one there, and they've noticed that too many cooks

spoiled the soup, you know. And then apparently the murmurs were sufficient that one of the speakers at the installation ceremony, if I can harken back to that, you know, at the Lee installation ceremony, you know, I guess felt compelled to address the complaints that were apparently circulating.

And he said, you know, I'm talking about the proportionality problem that I mentioned before that just so many, it's just very disjointed, you know, so many parts of the monument are out of proportion to other parts. are out of proportion to other parts and so this speaker at the installation ceremony said you know there are those who say that the pedestal you know upon which the lee statue is is you know is set is too small but i say the world itself is too small a pedestal for General Lee. Just like, oh yeah, good save. Good save. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The proportions, I mean, the whole thing, the plinth was too small. The statue was too large for that tiny park. It just, it was never a good spot for him.

It was never a good spot. So anyway, all that is to say, it's a very, it's a very poor work of art. Just, just on an aesthetic. I mean, and I'm not one that, that wants to wants to remove you know kind of any moral considerations from aesthetic there are some people philosophers who want to parse that out and this sort of thing and but even if you believe you could do that which i do not you know it's just really a a not it's like having a high school art project. A C. I give it a C. It's a high school art project. It's not worth saving, right?

No, it's not. It had not been this sort of lightning rod in our community, right? That even if this were a beautiful piece of art that was worth saving, I don't know. There's two separate concerns, right? Like it's not beautiful enough to put into a museum regardless. Right. separate concerns right like it's not yeah beautiful enough to put into a museum regardless right but then also preserving this object in any capacity just allows it to sort of continue to be this lightning rod like you know for anyone for anyone sort of still asking about well what's the problem with recontextualization why can't you just put it somewhere else and i think that's

sort of a broader conversation about these statues in general but for our statue for for that robert e lee statue right that it had become sort of a pilgrimage site for vigilante violence oh yeah and i don't know that like just out for for the listeners in radio land just for folks out there um listening that even after the 2017 Unite the Right rally, this statue stood for another four years in our park while we had to wrestle through legal issues, legislative and judicial entanglements that prevented Charlottesville from removing that statue even after the Unite the Right rally. And during that time, that four-year interim it's crazy to think about it huh four years that for four years after after unite the right it was still there right like this this statue made everyone else realize they needed to get rid of theirs but

because of state law and these lawsuits we were still stuck with ours charlottesville was still stuck with it and there were and these you, different groups, some of the same constituencies that had attended Unite the Right continued to come and make their pilgrimages to the Lee statue and to antagonize community members by putting up their propaganda near the statues. statues, and even, you know, going to the fourth, you know, the crash site on Fourth Street where a neo-Nazi drove his car, you know, into a crowd of Charlottesville counter protesters and killed community member Heather Heyer. These fascists, you know, who would make their pilgrimage to Charlottesville would make sure, still do upon occasion go to Fourth Street and put up their propaganda there as well as if to kind of further antagonize the community at a site of our trauma you know and so it was very clear that this statue would just wherever it would be it would continue to be a beacon for these people. And so really, it was just kind of a question of responsibility.

Knowing this, knowing that no responsible historical or artistic institution has the capacity or desire to take it in, what does one do with it? And that it's not an exemplary piece of art. There are 15 other monuments that are of better quality of Lee. We're not going to forget him, you know, if this particular specimen goes missing. And the way we see it, we're doing the art world a favor, because as I've said, it was really, you know, not a very good, well-executed piece of art. So, you know, in considering all of that, you know, in seeing in prior removals, for instance, the Johnny Reb, the courthouse Confederate soldier statue was removed and there was kind of no plan in place about where it would go. And so it ended up, you know, getting sent to a battlefield that is maintained by a group of Confederate leading folks that folks that that that uh seemed to favor uh kind of lost cause interpretations of the war so we'd seen that happen already the year before

in 2020 that when there isn't a plan it's one thing to remove it but then where does it go again this is a physical object that exists in space in physical space where is this material object going to go if you don't have a plan then um bad things can happen the path of least resistance but the path of least resistance is just if someone says i will pay to move this and the city is paying to store it then that's an easy answer and you can't let that be the answer right yeah and so that that went so when the when the county uh albemarle county removed the johnny Johnny Reb statue, the Confederate soldier statue from in front of the courthouse in, I think that was September of 2020. Right. And we saw how quickly that got sent to this battlefield that is, you know, maintained by these, you know, kind of lost cause type folks.

That's when Andrea Douglas and I, and Andrea Douglas is the director of the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center here in Charlottesville. We said, you know, we still do not have the legal authority to remove Charlottesville's Lee statue. But we anticipated that perhaps, you know, in the coming year, we might. I said, we need to start making plans now about where the statue should go after its removal. Because otherwise, the same thing that happened to this Johnny Reb, to this Confederate soldier statue, just kind of getting sent down the road, you know, to whatever entity organization that wants it, the same thing's going to happen. And we need to have a plan in place in order to kind of capture that so that it doesn't just kind of continue to circulate and to do harm. So that was our motivation. So we kind of, you know, in September of 2020, that's when we really, you

know, put the pedal to the metal on starting the planning of this, you know, and we and mind you, we did not even get permission until I think was April the 1st of 2021. When finally, the Virginia Supreme Court ruled in favor of the city of Charlottesville in our efforts to remove the Lee statue, you know, so this was, you know, six, seven months before we even knew if we could do this, but we said, let's start making plans. And so we started having these kinds of conversations with battlefields, with museums, with foundries, just learning kind of the nuts and bolts, what are the possibilities here?

And it turns out it's very complicated. Right. So I know there have been sort of jokes around that was going back over some of the public discourse over the years that we've been sort of joking as a community for years. Like, why don't we just melt it? Why don't we just melt it? Yeah. But when did that become a real idea? Like, when did it when did it when did that sort of coalesce into something that felt possible? I think, you know, in September 2020, I think when the Johnny Reb statue was removed and it went on, you know, to the Shenandoah Valley Battlefield Foundation, you know, and they have this horrible plaque that they're putting up that talks about how these men died for Virginia. And it's like they died for 38% of Virginians were enslaved at that time. So how are you saying that they died for Virginia?

Also, this is from Albemarle County, the majority of people here were enslaved. So how did the people supposedly represented by this statue die for Virginia, fight for Virginia? You know what I mean? So we just like, that was so disturbing, you know, in September of 2020, when that happened, that that's really when I just really started working in earnest, you know, calling foundries. So the idea was always melting. I mean, it wasn't until then, because see, this is funny. When this whole controversy started in 2016, when Zianna Bryant brought up her petition, you know, to consider removing these statues, the position of the activists then was just move the statue.

Go back and look at the signs and at the t-shirts and it says, hashtag move the statue. We just wanted it moved. Just take it from the Central Park and put it out in McIntyre Park where there's more space. Don't have it downtown. I mean, that was kind of like, that was the edgy, you know, and then they should have taken the opportunity back then. See, right. Exactly. That was the opening bid. And you should have took it.

You know, that offer is not on the table anymore. Yeah, exactly. That that that that would have been good. It would have been in Marne McAteer Park on the outskirts of town. in Martin McIntyre Park on the outskirts of town. So, you know, when the city appointed this Blue Ribbon Commission on race memorials in public spaces to have a series of public meetings

to hear from community members what they wanted to have happen with the statues, should they be removed, you know, what should happen. And, you know, and this Blue Ribbon Commission, you know, hands their final report to city council, you know, and then city council takes a vote, you know, Charlottesville city council in February of 2017 and surprising many people,

not some of us who are in the know, but one of the council members said, yes, I would like to propose a resolution to remove the lead, not just move it, not just recontextualize it, because that's, you know, if you go back and read that report,

it's actually fairly, there's a couple of different suggestions. It's like, well, you could move it or you could just do this. And, you know, and city councilwoman, you know, Kristen Zekas said, I would, you know, make a motion to have it removed completely. You know, so it's like, whoa, okay. We're, you know, we're making steps, you know make a motion to have it removed completely you know so it's like whoa okay we're you know we're making steps you know so it was it was about you know it was getting from move

from move the statue to remove the statue as in take it away you know um and then it really wasn't until after all the strife you know I mean i i think there were some people all along who's you know would say tongue-in-cheek oh we should just melt it down you know or we you know she'd you know but but the thought it was just so you know talk about there's much talk of overton windows these days but they're just they're just when that was being said it was always in a kind of jocular manner like oh of course that could never be but we should melt said, it was always in a kind of jocular manner, like, oh, of course, that could never be, but we should melt it down. It was this kind of offhand, right? It wasn't serious. Because how could that ever be? Right? I mean, that, right, really, that was behind. But what it takes is somebody taking that seriously, and like going through the practical

steps of what would that look like. And so's what i started doing in september of 2020 it's like i keep hearing people say that they want it melted down what would that look like what would it look like physically do that yeah how would this happen i'm a humanities person this was breaking my brain learning about alloys and you know compositions it becomes an engineering problem yeah it really did. Yeah. And I did. I consulted with, you know, metallurgists, engineers, you know, folks at various foundries, you know, to, you know, consulting and say, well, you have to do this. You have to, you know kind of in earnest started having conversations you know with with foundry men and with engineers with folks that work in bronze casting you know but most of the time people didn't want to talk to us right when they found out oh you want to do something with

this with the staff oh no they they just you know they were they didn't want to be involved in any controversy or we would get someone who was on board with it yes we're gonna do it and then for instance you know the company got sold and the new owners were like what nothing to do with it you know or they won't call us back anymore or no or you know i mean just things just kept coming up so it was hard to find anyone who would just engage in a serious way about the questions and then even when you could it was kind of like you know you'd get somebody in for a little bit and then it was you know like the fish it's like you know catch the fish would swim away you know kind of i don't know it just you know so it was it was a lot of different conversations with a lot of different people, you know, along the way to figure out, like, what are the, you know, literal and figurative nuts and bolts of doing this, you know. I learned a lot, like, you know, about standard width of trailers.

It's eight and a half feet. Did you know that? Yeah. Eight and a half feet. Yep. Right, right. It's eight and a half feet. Did you know that? Yeah. Eight and a half feet. Yep. Right. Right. You know, and, you know, 53 feet long and, you know, and, you know, kind of what kind of what's the hauling capacity? What's the payload? You know, how do you balance the load? You know,

what is dunnage? I mean, you're just like all these things, you know, that just the very practical steps that one has to take to melt a statue and so it seems like you know the conclusion that you reached was this object can't keep existing because the fact that it does exist will always be a problem so that this is the decision was made that it needed to be destroyed but what was sort of the process of thinking through what do we do with it now right like what is this sort of the vision behind not just yeah you know taking the statue down and putting up a different piece of public art but a different piece of public art that is physically repurposed right that you've you've remediated this material

right right yeah well we we prefer the the word, you know, to destroyed or I mean, it is, you know, definitely it is, you know, kind of morphing the material, it is taking the materials, you know, these raw materials, and, you know, transforming them into kind of usable, you know, kind of ingots, brick-sized, you know, pieces of bronze so that they can be made into something new. It's not that we hate art. We want art. Right. You know, Dr. Douglas, her background is in art, right? Yes. Dr. Douglas is an art historian. I mean, we are the two most unlikely people to be in charge of such a project. I mean, I'm a religious studies scholar. It's like, I've spent years of my life, you know, studying, you know, how people, you know, make sacred values and specifically how they gather around material objects that they regard as sacred. So, I don't think that's unlikely at all, right? That this was an object of veneration for a very harmful cause.

I spent 17 years researching a book about a very beloved 400-year-old effigy of the Virgin Mary in Cuba. I don't know if you can see my book up here. Well, there's Cuban flag. This right here is my book. I'm going over too far. Yeah, I see the Virgin Mary back there. Yeah, anyway. So, yeah, so that's my book up here. Yeah, right here. This is my book, Cachita's Streets. I mean, if somebody, oh, and this has happened before.

There have been folks, you know know iconoclasts if somebody went and and and destroyed her image there in that shrine in in in cuba i i would be incensed i would just i would be beside myself i mean it'd be like somebody killed you know a family member i mean you'd be on the next plane to get you know you have to console people i mean a 400 year old you know it would just be terrible you know um it doesn't have all the hate wrapped into it that these you know statues do and this sort of thing so what i'm saying is i understand that people have very tender feelings toward these material objects that they have had experiences around them that have bound them together uh religiare you know the the binding that's the original you know root latin root of of religion you know it's to bind you know i get that um and so yeah i'm not a reflexive iconoclast you know um i'm a catholic i'm a you know i i'm also a you know participate in these uh african

um inspired religious practices and stuff that, you know, that put a lot of, you know, emphasis upon, you know, sacred material objects. So, I am kind of, I mean, it is kind of weird that me, I would be involved in this and that, you know, and Dr. Douglas, you know, but it's precisely because we know the power of these things and that we're eyewitnesses to what happened here, you know, that we know the power of it and and that we're eyewitnesses to what happened here, you know, that we know the power of it and so how to be responsible for it. And so, to take something like that that was so harmful and to be able to use its materials to transform them and to make something that's meaningful and beautiful and that expresses our community's

values and that includes people rather than kind of sets people apart you know or kind of you know symbolizing moments in our history where you know over half the local population was completely debased you know um to be able to take the material that that was part of that and transform it into something else, it's just seemed like it just has so much potential, you know. And the name of the project is Swords into Plowshares, which comes from a verse from the prophet Isaiah, that they shall turn their swords into plowshares,

they shall turn their spears into pruning hooks. So we'll take these implements of destruction and of violence, and we will transform them into instruments of, to cultivate, you know, sustenance, you know, you know, nutrients, you know, for a community. I mean, it just, you know, to just to just really transform it, you know, from from something so ugly, you know, into something beautiful, you know, and we just thought, you know, let's, let's take the chance, let's try and do this. Let's do something that's never been done before, because none of these statues have ever been like, I don't think ever completely the Confederate ones anyway,

have ever been completely destroyed, you know, like this. Most of them are just in storage somewhere. And we said, let's take this chance to transform. Let's be responsible, first of all, and not send our toxic waste down the road to another community. And let's try to do something transformative, you know, for our community. And maybe this can also move the needle, you know for our community and maybe this can also move the needle uh you know in a national and international conversation about art and the reparative values you know potential reparative values of art you know and community building you know and so in our you know we're the swords project we're hoping to put out a request for proposals, you know, to artists this year in 2024,

which is the 100th anniversary of when the Lee statue was installed. You know, ideally, you know, fingers crossed if, you know, it would be wonderful if we could have a completed statue in, in 2027, which would be the 10-year anniversary of the Unite the Right rally, you know, to have something else to give back to our community, you know, that's of lasting value that, you know, and for us, it's important that we write our narrative. There were people who attacked us, you know, who tried to kind of imprint on us, you know, you know, who tried to kind of imprint on us, you know, some sort of narrative about what we were about, and also kind of, you know, reverberated in a, you know, national and international way.

And we're really taking control of the narrative here. We're saying, you know, we are going to say who we are, and we're going to express that, you know, and we do value art, you know, we want it to be an art that reflects our values. Right. I think that this is a recognition that art does have power. It had the power to harm, it had the power to bring great harm to this community. But it was, you know, that art was harming people just by existing in that space even before Unite the Right. And now those same materials have hopefully the power to to bring some repair yeah so it wasn't it wasn't just the practical you know i think when you were saying it started out as sort of a a practical question is what do you do with this large object and so the practical answer is you reduce its size you melt it down you remove

it and you melt it down but it's not just practical right there is there is incredible symbolic value in using that material that metal right in some of the articles you all talked about um as it was melting there were impurities in the metal so as the statue was being melted down the impurities are being extracted from it it's being purified and now it can be repurposed and that's really beautiful yeah it is yeah the slag getting pulled off the top and just yeah just it it was incredible you know to to see for sure and so at this stage you guys are um soliciting community input i think there's a sort of a community survey out about sort of what parks people frequent how they're using the parks how they're engaging with the parks And he said this year there'll be a request for proposals for artists

to sort of put forth their vision for this bronze. Right. And it's nice because this is all coinciding with the city of Charlottesville has for some time wanted to do a renovation of its downtown park. And this has been a long time coming. Years. You know, all of this drama with the with the statues um but it's just really a nice opportunity to just kind of for the community to just kind of take stock it's like okay we're

you know we're what are we you know going on seven years out from unite the right you know we're eight years out from you know zionistist initial petition, you know, you know, this, this statue has been, you know, taken away, it's been melted. And it just feels like a literal and figurative clearing of the land. You know, it just feels like, you know, people have asked, you know, sometimes it's like, oh, there's, you know, all that empty space at the parks. I was like, yeah, isn't it nice? I mean, to just kind of, I think it's nice to just have just push the pause button for you know in terms of things that are there for several years and just kind of allow our our minds to open you know just like the the the space itself and just to just imagine what that

space can look like i think it's really instructive and i i wish more communities could have the opportunity to do this actually yes by you know by, you know, for instance, taking that survey, you know, that community members in Charlottesville are doing now about, you know, yeah, how, you know, where, where do you, what parks do you go to? What activities do you engage in there? What do you like? You know, what would you like to see more of? You know, this sort of thing. It's great to, you know, to consider this. You know, this is something that has been, you know, America's, you know, the United States' public parks has been something that, you know, since the 19th century is something that's been a real gem, you know, in some of our public spaces, you know, in some of our cities. And, you know, and this is something to, you know, to celebrate. And it's nice to be able to kind of take stock and to really, you know, think about how public spaces can express our professed values,

you know? Instead of sort of reacting to hate, like taking a moment to envision, not our reaction to or, you you know what we don't want but think about what we do want in that space exactly what would what would serve our community and i think that's um sort of where the project is now right just sort of envisioning a positive future rather than trying to remediate a negative past it's and it's so nice because i felt like we were fighting fighting fighting for so many years you, we're in court or we're protesting or we're going to lobby at the General Assembly or now we're going to city council. I mean, there was just, you know, all, you know, so, so fraught.

And so now it's just so freeing to like, oh, to be able to imagine, you know, and to be thinking forward. Yeah. And constructively and creatively. That's a great feeling. Yeah, and constructively and creatively. That's a great feeling. So how can people sort of keep up with Swords into Plowshares, stay up to date on the project and its progress? And more importantly so sip seville that's swords into plowshares seville and we have um occasional updates there with uh news stories about what what we're doing and upcoming meetings um which will be happening at the jefferson school uh where we'll be you know kind of presenting results of uh of uh you know surveys that we've done yeah and uh and also um visiting speakers who will be coming to talk about you know what what does art mean in public spaces you know so

we'll be able to kind of you know talk with uh you know some experts that have come in you know to advise us on on you know how to think think about what we want in our parks going forward. And can people make donations to SIP on the website? Yes, on the website. There is a portal right there on sipseville.com. Definitely welcome that as well. And those donations go towards the ultimate creation of this piece of art? Correct. Right. It is not cheap to work with that much. It is not. Yeah. So we're, we're, you know, putting together, you know, funds to pay the artists, you know, for the

commissioning the artists, you know, we're also applying for, you know, grants from foundations and this sort of thing too. But of course there are other expenses associated with, you know, and this sort of thing too. But of course, there are other expenses associated with processing materials and all that. So, yeah. So that is S-I-P-C-V-I-L-L-E dot com slash donate to make sure that artist gets paid. Absolutely.

Well, Jalene, thank you so much for joining us today. And I'm looking forward to seeing our new beautiful piece of art, hopefully by 2027. Yeah, yeah, it's great. Well, thank you for your interest, Molly. And thank you to all the listeners and supporters out there. It means a lot to us that, you know, your interest in us and your support. Appreciate it. I think we all love those photos of Lee lee's melting face it is icon i gotta say

it's iconic you know i yeah we'll always uh have that have that memory thank you so much all right Thank you. generative AI to the destruction of Google search, better offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel winning economists to leading journalists in the field and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong though, I love technology, I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening

in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHot Radio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere.

Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba.

Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly. I am talking to a felon right now, and I cannot decide if I like him or not. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world as a fake gecko therapist and try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty

interesting if you give it a shot. Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show. I live with my boyfriend and I found his piss jar in our apartment. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. I have very overbearing parents. Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of their house. So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head, search for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the one with the green guy on it.

Ah, welcome back to It Could Happen Here, a podcast where the host, Robert Evans, one of the hosts, has recently recovered from a terrible, terrible sickness by engaging in some fascinating experiments with Theraflu, largely using a friend's diabetic needles, just shooting it straight into the veins. My co-host today, Garrison Davis. Have you ever shot flu medication into your veins, Garrison? No, I've only shot one thing into my veins. your veins garrison no i've only shot one thing into my veins well speaking of shooting today's episode of it could happen here is about a shooting and before you are like oh man i don't

really have it in me to listen to a horrible story about people dying today don't worry nobody gets shot in this story thank god miraculously no one gets shot like Like, against all odds. It's stunning that nobody got shot. This is the tale of a police officer fucking up, not worse than any cop has ever fucked up, because, again, he didn't kill anybody, but fucking up in a way that's, like, more baffling and incompetent than I think I've ever seen before. It's probably the most embarrassing.

Certainly the most embarrassing. And not even really malevolent, just like outrageously incompetent. But I'm going to let you take over from here, Garrison. So yeah, we are going to be talking about an acorn-involved shooting today. That happened in Florida last November. Finally, we know what the A in ACAB stands for. That's right. We know what the A in ACAB stands for.

That's right. So we're going to play some clips here, but I think it's important to set the scene so you kind of understand what you're hearing. So this cop walks up to his patrol car. There is a suspect locked in the back. Sunny day, Houston suburbs, big houses, wide streets. Yeah. Now something happens as the cop is about to open up the door.

He then dives onto the ground, does two like action rolls. Double barrel rolls. And then starts shooting at the car and starts yelling to another officer who's in the area. And I think we'll just, we'll just play the rest here. Yeah. The first clip's about 30 seconds long. And then I just have a few shorter clips kind of that i've kind of stitched together that just just to get a sense of like what he's saying and what he's communicating after he opens fire on this patrol vehicle so

here is here is that audio shots fired Shots fired! Shots fired! Shots fired! Shots fired! You know! I'm hit! I'm hit! What? I'm hit! In the car! I was shot! In the car! Oh! I'm good. I feel weird, but I'm good. I might have hit my vest.

It might have hit my vest. I don't know. I'm not. I don't know. It felt like it. Jesse, move over to me. I got you. Move over to me. Jesse, come back.

Dude, am i hit let's get further back further back to the back all right so that was a lot of gunfire again it is shocking that no one died because yeah it's not immediately evident if you just watch the video, but there is somebody who's trapped in the back of that car and there's multiple officers shooting at the car. And here's the thing. The distance the guy is shooting from, from when I watched the video last, I would estimate maybe about 20 yards. Probably even shorter than that. Maybe shorter, maybe more like 15. It's medium to maybe medium long range for a handgun.

For a full-size handgun like that, I'd say it's about medium range. So a competent shooter should be able to hit a target about the size of a human torso at that distance with most of the rounds. But he is not, when I say competent, that is somebody who is bracing themselves and who has two hands on the gun. He is shooting like a character in an action movie. And I cannot imagine. So a lot of those rounds did not even hit the truck, I imagine.

They went flying into a neighborhood where we can hear children playing. Yes, yes. So the officer who encountered this acorn, which we will get to in a sec, was named Deputy Jesse Hernandez. He'd been a cop for almost two years. And we'll learn more about his background as we as we continue on with this little story. The second officer, well, not officer, but a sergeant of this sheriff's department named Beth Roberts. And she's been a cop since 2008. So she has a little bit more experience under her belt. So let's kind of explain what happened here. So there was a series of calls that happened earlier in the day about a vehicle who was kind of driving erratically around a nearby neighborhood, honking its horn, kind of just like making a lot of sounds at like 3am. The suspect was described as a black male in his late 20s. And then a few hours later, a separate call was made by someone talking about how her boyfriend has been refusing to

return her vehicle and has been sending her threatening text messages. So this caused police to go to this girlfriend's house. She showed some of these threatening text messages, and they were talking with this woman when her boyfriend approached the scene. So the suspect approached the police in front of his girlfriend's house. Deputy Hernandez himself did a pat down to search for weapons and observed a more thorough search once the suspect was handcuffed. The missing car was located a few miles away and Hernandez was on his way back to the car to do a tertiary search of the suspect who was currently locked in the back seat with handcuffs. And then as deputy Hernandez passed the passenger side door, an acorn fell onto the roof of his car, which is barely, barely audible

in the body cam video that we have access to. So you would not notice it were you not listening for it? No, no. Three days later, Deputy Hernandez was interviewed by two investigators as a part of the Office of Professional Standards investigation into this incident of discharge gunfire. And this this interview in this report is probably one of the most telling things about how police psychology operates. And wow, okay, so I'm gonna read through a few quotes here from Deputy Hernandez. He talks about how, quote, I'm about to reach for the door handle and simultaneously I hear to, at the time, what I believe would be a suppressed weapon off to the side. I definitely heard this noise. About the same time, I felt an impact on my right side, like an upper

torso area. I feel the impact. My legs just give out. I don't know where I'm hit. I think I'm hit. I'm struck. I roll back. I roll to the back of the car. Describing this like he's the hard-boiled detective in a novel. I roll to the back of the car. Now I'm stuck in the street.

I knew where the shots came from i or i believed where they came from it was right there as i'm reaching for that door handle so i'm laying behind the car i'm yelling shots fired shots fired shots fired i returned fire once i could get cover behind another vehicle that was parked in the driveway there so when asked to describe what he like felt because he's not just claiming that he heard a sound he's claiming he felt like he got hit yeah he felt an impact he felt an impact and his legs went out from underneath him yes which again in the video he clearly does a double barrel roll he does that is not i have i have seen people get hit and drop. They do not do double barrel rolls. No, he thinks he's like a little action star. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

He says, quote, it felt like an impact to my upper torso around here. And he motions up to his right shoulder on the right side. It was like a sound impact, like almost that quick, I guess. I just love the phrase. It was like a sound impact yeah i think he's saying i think what he's saying from from reading it is that like we're we're missing some of the the body language that he was going it was like sound and then like moving his hands together sound impact sound you hear the sound and then we got impact i think he was actually trying to

which is not like the most which is actually not in person probably very awkward, but yeah, it comes across weird. And so more funny than sound impact for, again, an acorn that's falling on a roof, we have, quote, my legs weren't working the way I wanted them to be working. I think I yelled at one point to Sergeant Roberts, I think I might've been hitting the leg or something along those lines

because I was struggling to get cover. I think at one point I reached up to touch my head. I think I still had the sound in my head. I wasn't sure if I had been hitting the head. I was getting a funny tingling around all sides of my body. And I think some of that might have just been adrenaline putting together the fact that what I just heard and the impact that I felt. I've never never been shot before so i don't know what that's like or um you know unquote great oh man so he is he's unsure if he would be able to notice if he got

shot in the head or not uh which is kind of interesting i mean i'm sure you could get grazed but like come on buddy yeah yeah i mean it's one thing it is true that like you can be hit like an armor and not be sure if you've gotten hit because it didn't penetrate but you would also not mistake acorn shrapnel hitting you reasonably for a bullet like that's simply not a mistake a reasonable person is going to make so the the investigator asked him like if there was any other sense that there could have been gunfire like if you saw any like shattered glass coming from the car and hernandez said no when asked why he decided to stop firing her, Hernandez said that he stopped firing once he emptied his clip, moved to cover behind a nearby Tesla, and, quote, didn't observe any rounds coming back at me. It's just great because there's no...

I wonder why. There's the eye. Hernandez claimed that he was never able to see the suspect while in the patrol car. And Hernandez remained behind cover until other deputies arrived and was rushed to a hospital where only then he was informed that he did not in fact get shot. It's amazing. He made it all the way to a hospital.

You had a lot of chances. You had a lot of chances to not fuck that up, man. As soon as the other cops arrive on the scene, he's like, I don't know. I just feel so weird. Yeah, buddy. You had an adrenaline drop because you panicked like that is why you feel weird like a lot of ways this like mirrors um the the police fentanyl things how they can like talk themselves into feeling

into like feeling symptoms yes but all right so hernandez hadn't been a cop for very long he had he had no prior law enforcement experience before joining this florida sheriff's department but he did attend west point and served as a special forces infantry officers in the army for 10 years so one could maybe assume that the deputy's outrageous behavior was the result of some kind of ptsd from serving as special forces like maybe maybe i could kind of explain some of what's going on here i had multiple people when i posted this on twitter be like oh this is maybe people with like ptsd shouldn't be cops and i had to be like no Well, see, the funny thing about that is that he never actually served in combat. No, this guy flew a fucking desk.

Yeah, which, like, you need that in a war. But, like, this man did not have any combat trauma that caused him to react this way. You know, like, I've had PTSD. You know, I've certainly gotten, like, I can get really jumpy with certain sounds. Yeah. That is not the case for this guy. There was that six month period where fireworks made us all very unhappy. Yeah, or like keys dropping was the big one

for me because it sounded like a tear gas canister rolling on concrete. Keys or bottles. But you know, in the many times that I had bottles fall near me and set me off, or that fireworks went off near me and set me off, I was often carrying a gun and what I never did was empty it vaguely in the direction of a car. So he never saw combat. He did claim that he was aware of what suppressed gunfire sounded like,

and he affirmed that the noise he heard reminded him of suppressed gunfire. I'm sorry, bro. What the fuck? Under questioning, Hernandez said that he did not perceive any other sounds, visuals, or physical indicators of gunfire besides the initial tapping sound and his upper torso feeling. In the interview, he was asked why he decided to fall onto the pavement. And he said, I'm not sure if it was adrenaline or just what,

but the numbness in my legs and realizing, okay, I'm going to be on the ground. But also realizing the windows are right there, you know, I need to be on the ground anyway, so I'm not exposed. So yeah, and that just kind of led to my legs just kind of gave out on me. Fascinating. He then was asked to explain the two action roles he performed on the road. And Hernandez replied uh the rolling I pressed r and x at the same time what was I supposed to do pretty much he said uh the rolling um kind of reaction to what was going on and me realizing like my legs are not working the way I

need them to work right now but I can roll over to the next vehicle so that's kind of where i was trying to get to unquote sure okay bro so after his little action rolls this is where he started yelling shots fired he emptied his clip into the car and told the sergeant that shots were coming from this vehicle and she began firing at the vehicle as well at what point hernandez tried to move off to the side because he was concerned about being shot by the other cop he says when i was done engaging the vehicle i was trying to get off to the side over there because i was worried about possibly having um possibly me being in her line of fire now sure which is great this is this is the first reasonable threat that he has expressed i would also be concerned about one of them

shooting me in that instance yes so after hernandez's initial explanation of events the investigator showed him video stills of an acorn coming into frame and bouncing off the roof of his car i'm just going to read directly from the uh from the report quote deputy hernandez asked acorn investigator hogan answered acorn unquote amazing amazing just an amazing sentence this is this is so perfectly how you would like scripted in a really good police procedural comedy like if you had some a-game writers on the team and it's it's gonna take some really good you need like the wire quality actors to pull those lines off bunk and bunk could have pulled them off right like there's two more lines i want i want to get

to before before we take an ad break here when asked if the sound he heard could have been an acorn instead of suppressed gunfire the deputy answered quote i'm not gonna say no because i mean that's but what 10 second pause in speaking what i heard three second pause in speaking sounded almost like 12 second pause in speaking what i heard sounded what i think would be louder than an acorn hitting the roof of the car but there's obviously an acorn hitting the roof of a car unquote amazing uh the investigator then had to ask hernandez if he was in general familiar with the sound of acorns which must be so embarrassing that is that is that is a low point in your career that is hernandez said that he was he was then asked if the sound could have been what led him to believe the car theft suspect shot him to which the deputy answered it could be seven second pausing speaking but i don't think so but it could be unquote

great so then hernandez's lawyer said that they could maybe watch the video again and see if see if the acorn striking matches the time that he says that he heard the sound and then they deliberated for a little bit and ultimately hernandez refused to watch the video a second time once he was told it was an acorn i mean yeah like come on what's there to do understandable no that's uh that's that's gonna really do some damage to your self-esteem right there less than a month later just a few days before a second interview was scheduled he quit the job so you know what first decision he's made that i mean yeah like what what else can you do at this point this story starts with a bad cop but it ends with a good one like imagine returning to work and

everyone's gonna call you like the acorn guy like you can't you can't yeah it's just no anytime anytime there's like a there's like a fucking acorn tree anywhere near you like you okay man you okay do you need to take him do you need to take a minute? Do you need to call it? Do you need to call the SIF? I saw a squirrel over there. Watch out! Watch out! A hundred times a day, guys would be getting on his radio being like, I just saw an acorn. Dispatch, we got a

322 on a possible acorn. Negative, negative. That is a pinecone. No need for assistance. Just some gunfire. We're good. We're good. Not an acorn. Repeat. We're safe. Scene is safe. No ac a pine cone. No need for assistance. Just some gunfire. We're good. We're good. Not an acorn. Repeat. We're safe. Scene is safe. No acorns in sight. All right.

Let's take an ad break, and we will return to hear about Sergeant Robert's recollection of events. welcome back to acorn cop streaming now on the discovery channel two cops one acorn no survive actually no thankfully everyone survived this would be much much much less funny we would not be laughing about this now there is some permanent psychological damage done to the guy who was shot at but not shot and that is that is unjust and sad but not enough that we are not willing you folks we you have a right to laugh at something like this you know even if there are some consequences to it that's just keeping yourself

sane in this world so sergeant roberts was a member of the Sheriff's Department for 15 years. She has a bachelor's degree in criminology from the Florida State University. So that's cool. She's been teaching at the Criminal Justice Standards and Training Commission for 10 years. So I think one thing that led to some of them thinking it could have been suppressed gunfire is that in the threatening messages that the suspect had shown to or had sent to his girlfriend, included was a close-up

picture of this dark kind of gray cylinder pressed up against the center of the dash in his car. Less than two inches of the cylinder were visible. No parts of a firearm could be seen, but they believed that this was a suppressor. And the victim said that he owned a suppressor. So I think that is one thing that happened in

the interview or in the exchange leading up to this incident. But no one got any confirmation that he had a gun on him. Again, he was searched two times. There was no gun found on him. that he had a gun on him. Again, he was searched two times. There was no gun found on him. It is possible to hide a gun on you. It is much more difficult to hide a gun with a suppressor. That is a pretty big object.

They are larger. It basically doubles or more than doubles the length of the firearm. And it also does so in such a way that makes it difficult to carry in a concealed fashion. So when Sergeant Roberts was collecting an affidavit about the stolen car, she said that she heard, quote, some type of noise.

And shortly thereafter, Jesse, who is Hernandez, screaming shots fired, quote, it was loud enough that it got my attention and made me think we're about to have a fight with a prisoner or the suspect. Either he's escaped somehow and Jesse is in a tussle with him. I can't tell you exactly what it was, but it made me look and then immediately heard Deputy Hernandez screaming shots fired. So Sergeant Roberts ran out into the street, quote, I saw that Hernandez was down. He had his gun pointed to the back of his patrol car. I was drawing my pistol, and my magazine that was in my mag pouch somehow flew out. Again, amazing police work.

These guys, incredible stuff. That's someone who never practiced, yeah? At which point, I thought there was a malfunction. I thought that I dropped the magazine, somehow I hit the mag release on my firearm, and that that was the magazine that fell out. Turns out it wasn't, it was the one from my mag pouch at which point i think i fired so you just have magazines fly you freak out you start pulling your trigger yeah i will say that last part extremely common experience police officers are not well trained and most of

them in terms of combat stuff and most of them do not shoot regularly when the fbi has done studies of like people who kill police officers and they nearly always train way more often than the police officers they kill trained it's very most cops are not putting 150 rounds a month down range and like i fire 300 rounds a month in training and i'm not particularly good. That's what I consider like minimum level of competence. And so it is extremely common in police shootings for the officer to say, I don't know how many I fired, or I fired two shots, and they fired 17. That happens oftentimes even more than that. People will reload and not realize that they

reloaded and emptied a second magazine because in an actual violent situation, and it is for that lady, I will say that she just knows that her partner is emptying his firearm. Yeah. So for her, she's, this is less unreasonable, right? It is more complicated for Sergeant Roberts, but I think it also points to some of the inherent problems with policing. Oh, good God. Yes. And the way police are trained like the how quickly it was for her to start firing at a suspect who's locked inside of a patrol car yes who she

knows has been searched multiple times and who she has not seen shooting yeah she has not seen any gunfire she's not seen any evidence of that she's heard one man screaming um and how quickly they decide to use lethal force is is is i think very notable um quote i fired at the vehicle because i saw deputy hernandez down on the ground and he tells me that shots are fired and he's hit and it scared the hell out of me i thought i was watching him be killed so which is yeah it gets to like how they are trained to constantly be in fear for their lives their fellow officers lives quote lives. Quote, it was the patrol car. That was where the threat was coming from.

I'm thinking we've missed the gun in the pat down. Somehow he shot Jesse from the car and Jesse's down. Shots were being fired. I couldn't tell you exactly where they were coming from, but I fired because of my concern. Unquote. Yeah, and you get, this is a thing that like does not get represented in fiction.

People don't like to talk about it. This happens with soldiers, too. I have a friend who was shot in the leg by a.50 cal, by one of our.50 cals, one of his guy's guns, because they were told anyone from this building over that you see on the thermal scope is an enemy. They saw him on the thermal scope and they lit him up. It was just a series of bad calls being made and nobody checking to confirm because you're in an actual chaotic, dangerous situation, checking to confirm, is there actually a threat in that area? They're just shooting.

You know, it's people panic all the time. It's one of the problems with sending people with guns into neighborhoods. Like this is part of why the way we do policing is such a bad idea because there's no way to train out all of this. You can train out acorn guy. Maybe, maybe.

But they didn't. But you cannot train out people panicking and doing things with guns that can never be taken back. Well, and one other aspect is like Hernandez starts firing his gun very shortly after he's yelling shots fired. Like getting that linear cause of events can be tricky, because, like, you are hearing gunfire at the same time you are hearing him yell shots fired, because he is shooting. And Roberts said that she wasn't sure if she or Hernandez even shot first.

Like, all of your memory in these instances can get really kind of blurry. Like, all of these, like, high-stress scenarios, it actually can be hard to remember the exact, like, manner of events. Oh, yeah. Easily, yes. She said, quote, I'm seeing him on the ground yelling shots fired i'm hit i'm hit i thought i thought i saw a deputy get murdered i was close enough to see his facial expression that was fear anxiety it was it was

horrible i am seeing him kind of trip fall stumble something behind the vehicle at some point he's able to kind of post up but he was stumbling crawling on the ground i don't know how to explain it he wasn't standing up straight he was not in a tactical position he was he was off his momentum he was off balance he was standing behind that car it did not look like he was in control of himself yeah no yeah that's like what she is saying i'm not going to say this is like a good response but it makes sense to me that she reacted the way she did. Most people would, right? Which is why most people should not be given firearms and legal immunity to do whatever with them, right?

But most people would have reacted in a broadly similar manner without training, you know, without training and experience. Now, there's one way that she describes his kind of like weird stumbling on the ground quote the auditory tone in his voice was terror the best way to describe it was like watching a baby giraffe trying to walk for the first time trying to get out of the road oh that is that is gonna echo in his mind until the day he dies um so baby giraffe stumbling fucking incredible learning to walk for the first time do you know what else is learning to walk i don't know that doesn't really work now do you know what else uh could perceive acorns as a threat to business? Oh, yeah.

We, I mean, the one thing all of our sponsors agree on is that acorns and all trees should be eliminated in the interest of better profit margins. They're dangerous. They're dangerous. Kill the natural world. Live free. I want to know one other thing as I'm talking about like why they I'm not surprised they reacted this way and what it says to me about like how I think like I think that a group of. Moderately competent civilians with concealed firearms would have responded better than both officers in this situation large not for the reason that they're more smarter or better trained

because they probably aren't but because they go through the world carrying a gun knowing that if anything they do with that gun they're legally accountable for every shot fired they're accountable for which is a different mind state than what police are trained to do which is the instant you're you feel endangered you should draw and be prepared to shoot or shoot immediately because nothing matters more than you getting home and you have qualified immunity on your side right yeah which allows you to interpret a very quiet tapping sound as a lethal threat to your life now sergeant roberts said that she did observe hernandez move himself into kind of a kneeling shooting stance on his left knee with

his right foot planted in front um but still quote it seemed like his motor functions were not operating properly from what i saw he told me again shots are fired he's completely out in the open no one would think that's a good place to take a knee to tactically fire so yeah he was he was still trying to respond in some way but still very very baby giraffe coded it seems yeah yeah i mean that seems like a constant thing for this fella so roberts also admitted that she did not ever see the suspect she couldn't it's she could not see inside the patrol car and she couldn't hear anything coming from that area quote if there would have been something going on in that vehicle, I don't know if I necessarily would have heard it. Was I hearing or seeing the windows be blasted out?

No, I couldn't see the right side of the vehicle. But based on the circumstances, I'm thinking that somehow he shot Jesse from the back and it struck him some way, somehow. I don't know if the individual has gotten out of the car and he's on the other side, you know, like he's escaped somehow. I couldn't see if the door was wide open. I don't know if he's gotten out and they've had a little tussle. Is he shooting from the back of the car? All these things are going through my head. But the main thing is that he's in the back of the car, he's got a gun, and we missed it. And somehow he shot Deputy Hernandez. So she also couldn't remember who shot first, but she denied the notion that she started shooting because she thought Hernandez fired his gun first. She was confident in her own use of gunfire before she could tell that Jesse was firing. Yeah. Interesting.

was someone had shot him. We had an armed suspect in the back of the vehicle. Jesse was shot. I'm watching him, you know, fumble on the road. How do I give him more time? How do I draw the attention to me? How do I save him? I thought I was watching him get murdered. The tone in his voice, look on his face, the physical reactions. I'm thinking we missed the gun and this is it. How do I get to Jesse to save him? She talks about how she, quote, couldn't let him be shot again. Again, all of this is like so confident that this has happened, and they're so confident in their own use of force. She was also concerned that if the suspect got away, other people's lives could be in danger,

like his girlfriend who was nearby and the friend who was talking to police about their domestic issue. Quote, There was a threat in the back of the patrol car. I had a deputy that was on the ground that was still a threat to Jesse's life. I needed to provide him some sort of cover or bring the attention to me.'m watching him die i've got to

do something i've got to do something there's that just like overall just constantly throughout this interview with uh the the um the professional standards uh investigation she's just constantly saying how she thought that this man was going to die that's why she responded the way she did like she talks about how she can't render aid if there's still a threat she has to like get regain control the situation all of those are reasonable things to say yeah all of those are reasonable things to say in a real gunfight yes it's just a little bit less less valid when the inciting incident is an acorn falling on a roof yes and you're shooting directly at a man who's your own car been searched two times and is trapped inside who has handcuffs on like so yeah after both cops fired off this large valley of bullets they both repositioned behind

cover called in more backup and roberts attempted to manage the situation and the other individuals in the area and eventually check in on Deputy Hernandez. Quote, the threat was still a threat until we were able to remove him from the car. Again, they're not viewing him as a person. They're viewing him as a threat. Like that is, that is, like he's no longer like a human being. He is, he is a threat. That is what he represents now. Yeah.

Well, and that is how they're trained to talk. And that is, by the way, like in a court of law, how you should talk, right? You don't, you would not say if you were involved in a legal defensive shooting, I shot to kill. You would say I shot to stop the threat. That is like how people are trained because that's what plays best in a court. Yeah. No, she, all of, all of her interview is very polished. She's like, she's very, she's, she's been a cop for 15 years.

Like she is, she knows what she's saying here. Yes. She's been coached before. Yeah. She's, she's aware. So after they were able to get to cover, she called in more resources, quote, that's when we were able to treat it as more of a barricaded armed suspect situation. This poor dude yeah like what

do you do like you're hanging in the back of the car just bullets flying everywhere like like it seems like this guy is guilty of having a little bit of having an emotional breakdown with his partner and doing things he should not have done none of which the penalty for is getting shot at while strapped into a car yeah he he stole his girlfriend's car he sent her threatening messages he was described as being abusive in the past yeah he doesn't yeah there's bad things but that doesn't mean you can get executed by police because they heard an acorn like no that that is not that is not what our society has deemed the punishment for those options for those behaviors should be so uh ro, Roberts closed this interview by saying,

quote, I don't think there's anything funny about it. It just went from zero to 100 within the drop of a hat. I know we talk about it all the time, but when it does,

it does. And she's talking about how fast the situation escalates. Like, from a very standard interaction towards, you're now, multiple people are shooting.

Like, this is, it happens so quickly. It went from zero to 100 within the drop of a hat. Yeah, that's, that is what happens with shootings. She knew that Hernandez was prior military. And when in training, Hernandez was training on her shift. She described him as quote, a very squared away person.

Somebody that if they tell you something, you don't question it. I wanted Jesse on my shift. When I observed him in high stressful situations, he reacted appropriately. He wasn't afraid to respond. And he's, I think that last part

is certainly true. He was not afraid to respond. Well, and this is why, again, the response from a lot of people when I would talk about this to them is suspecting it had something to do with his military training, that he responded this way. Soldiers aren't trained this way. Again,

this is panic in the field, but soldiers are generally trained to not err on the side of opening fire blindly because war crimes are a thing they're concerned about. And they have a sense of professional pride against, again, not to say that they do not kill innocent people they do all the time because that's what war is but this is not the way so this is police training this guy is biased towards reacting this way is the result of police training not special forces training she kind of reaffirmed her trust in hernandez as a person who was like reliable uh saying when they were on night shift during training quote he, he acted appropriately. He did not lose control of his emotions. I have a lot of respect for him, actually.

When he tells you something, it's not something like, are you sure, you know? He tells you something and that's what's happening or that's what happened. I don't think there's anything malicious about what he did. I'm not mad at him. I'm not upset about it because I truly believe that he thought that's what was happening, unquote, which is just. I'd be pissed you almost like i don't if i was tricked into almost killing someone i i don't yes i don't understand this reaction like it's it's this thin blue line shit right yeah like they have to group

together so so hard yeah it's it's and it's like this guy got you into a situation where you could have shot a child like i would never forgive someone who put me in that position for no good reason right like it's why that's such such an insane response to me that's so cop right she has to keep affirming that he has like a good judgment and it's it's so bizarre no he doesn't like he he very clearly doesn't no he doesn't watch the video yeah it'd be one thing if like they were under fire and he shot and his bullet went wide and hit a civilian and it's no that's like a completely different that's just a horrible accident but like his judgment wasn't bad that was just a terrible situation this is so different. And that she's still going to bat for him says everything about cops, cop brain.

Yeah. There's a few lines that I want to read before we close out here that are in the conclusion of the report. Can't wait. They describe Hernandez's legs as quote, stopped working correctly. I think it's just a really funny way to phrase it.

I would describe his brain that way, but yeah. His legs weren't responding as he intended, but there was no evidence to support anything impacted Deputy Hernandez. No defects were found on his uniform or his ballistic vest to support the impact. Hernandez's response was not objectively reasonable. So they ruled that Hernandez's response

was not objectively reasonable, that it was not appropriate. Positively surprised about that. But they found Sergeant Roberts' response as being reasonable because she believed Hernandez has been shot because of his tone of voice, his stumbling attempts to move and stand up, and his apparent, quote, lack of control over his body. Yeah, I would not call it, I wouldn't say her response is reasonable. I would say her response is what I would not call it, I wouldn't say her response is reasonable. I would say her response is what I would expect most people to do. Or it is reasonable in terms of how police procedure operates. Like she followed the correct protocols for interacting as a police officer. Yeah, I don't believe under the law she would have been found liable by any court.

No, they said, quote, Roberts found Deputy Hernandez to be a reliable deputy that she could trust she had no reason to doubt what hernandez had been telling her she described the auditory tone of hernandez's voice as terror the look on his face as being quote consistent with being in fear which i i love that kind of cop speak consistent with being in fear yeah he looked scared yeah amazing oh i love i do want to go over one thing before we come out because this is again something i've been asked by people and you know maybe this is actionable if you ever find yourself handcuffed in the back of a police car and they start shooting at you you should know how this guy survived because reading the interview with him he was like as soon as i realized they were shooting at me i like bung myself down

sideways and laid flat i think in front of the seat. He might have been on the seat. I would get in front of the seat if you can. But the reason he survived is that handguns, number one, police carry hollow points in their handguns, which is a bullet that has a hole in the slug, the thing that goes into somebody. And the reason why you make a hollow point is that a hollow point expands immediately upon impact. So it doesn't penetrate as well. It will not go through armor and it will not go through objects very well. But when it hits meat, it expands. And so instead of going through a body, it stops and it imparts all of the force from the bullet into that body. So it is better at stopping people. But what that means is when someone is shooting at something like a car and shooting into the back of a car and you have that whole reinforced trunk and backseat of a police car to go through, those 9mm rounds are unlikely to penetrate very far. So if you are laying down in front of the seat or flat on the seat, your odds of not getting hit are pretty good.

I'm not surprised he survived having done what he did. If you're sitting up and you've got body parts that are in view of the windows, you're very likely to get hit. But because he did what he did, he essentially saved his own life is what it sounds my interpretation of of what i've read yeah no i mean it's it is a terrifying scenario that there was there was an incident recently of uh this officer who made his first ever arrest

he had two two suspects uh locked in the back and he got distracted while driving he drove his car off the road into a lake and both of the suspects drowned jesus fucking christ like this is this is like all these things point towards just inherent problems with the policing system cops bad avoid at all costs it's terrifying like it's it is like these people can just act like this can kidnap people can do all these things and face basically no repercussions. At least Hernandez is no longer a cop, which is good. But like that doesn't fix any of the underlying problems with training that cause people to react like this in the face of a squirrel armed with an acorn being the most dangerous thing that you can encounter. Yeah, it's very bad police work avoid cops uh yeah yeah

pretty much pretty much so yeah that is that is what we have to say on the acorn involved shooting yeah great stuff watch out for acorns watch out for droops also dangerous they can fall off a tree yeah uh pine cones can sometimes be lethal oh yeah they call those the widow makers eyes on the sky folks you never know all right bye hey we'll be back monday with more episodes every week from now until the heat death of the universe it could happen here as a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources.

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