The Bulwark Podcast - Bakari Sellers: We Are in a Dark Moment

Episode Date: April 30, 2024

In the very hot summer of George, Breonna, and Ahmaud, we seemed to be on the brink of a third Reconstruction. But that moment from 2020 was lost. Now, we're in a time when people like Tucker and Charlie Kirk talk about racial equality as white oppression. Bakari Sellers joins Tim Miller today. show notes: Bakari's new book, "The Moment: Thoughts on the Race Reckoning That Wasn't and How We All Can Move Forward Now."

Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller. It's Tuesday, April 30th. I'm with my pal Bakari Sellers, CNN political analyst, attorney, host of the Bakari Sellers Podcast, his latest book. I got it right here. The Moment, thoughts on the race reckoning that wasn't, we can all move forward now it was published last week it's why are you looking so handsome on that cover bakari look at that youtube viewers that's a gq that is a gq pose right there man i gotta tell you when i wrote a book nobody even floated the idea that they put my face on the cover so i don't i'm not gonna take that the wrong way but uh but you're looking good. Also, congratulations, Erdue. You're back home in Columbia. The USC Gamecock women's basketball team, they just beat LSU a couple times. We just couldn't make it happen this year,

but I made a little money on you in the finals, so I was happy for Don. Yeah, no, I mean, I don't want to say a couple times. I think we've beaten you guys the last 13, 14 times. 13, something like that. Who's counting? Who's counting? I was actually in Greenville when we had the the kind of uh the rumble in greenville it was

an intense battle actually went down jay's brother jumps out of the stands he threw me all off and he he jumped out the stands and then he grabbed camilla and he saw camilla was six seven and he made some business decisions he reaped all life at that point well congrats those guys it's so fun this year it was so fun anyway before we get down to business i got one clip from your your book tour we got to listen to and then when i got one little bit of news item then then we get down to the topic of the book but on this book tour i can tell you my feelings were hurt i was listening to the breakfast club and uh let's just listen to what you had to say on the breakfast club i think that he appreciates the white gays and i think that he's made him the white gays g-a-z-e

what you got against me? Bakari, what's the problem? You're going on the Breakfast Club? You know, I took a shit. Yeah, no, I mean, Tim, that was my first interview, and it almost spiraled downhill quickly. The whole tour was almost canceled. But I've learned that you have to now spell for Charlemagne and DJ Envy. So when you go on the Breakfast Club, make sure you spell the words, okay?

I'll make sure. You're talking about Stephen A. Smith there, and we don't need to get into where you're going, but I enjoyed that moment. People should listen to your whole interview with Charlemagne. I think it brings a different kind of juice than I'm going to have to the table here. But before we get to the book, you're a lawyer. You're an attorney. I am. You're not an attorney. I am. I'm curious your thoughts on where we are in the Bragg case, in the case up in New York.

Trump's been violating his gag order. You know, I feel like he's not getting punished enough for this gag order violation. I'd like to see a little bit more aggro treatment of him. But, you know, maybe this is just my outsider, you know, reality TV, you know, kind of experience watching Boston Legal type experience. I'm wondering what your courtroom experience says about how you deal with somebody like this. You're not wrong in your analysis and your thought and your gut. I think where you're going is that Trump's not being treated like every other defendant. I can tell you that I've had people that have stood in front of a judge, had outbursts. I'm not talking about the guy who I pled guilty to a PWID marijuana

who actually had on a marijuana shirt or those type of things. I'm talking about those people who make those outbursts, who still go on social media and talk about the judge who violate those orders. The problem, though, with punishing Trump is that it borders along the lines of impracticability, like putting Trump in the jail downstairs what does that do if he violates it worse bad enough that you have to put him at rikers how does that look what does that mean the secret service i mean do you i'm getting excited now because my imagination is running wild over here he's tingling guys he's tingling uh no, you know, I'm not sure how you actually get him to a point where that punishment fits. I do think there are other things, fines, et cetera, to get there. But I

think this judge is doing a very, very good job. He's very forceful with both sides. And look, I am somebody who echoed a sentiment from the beginning of this trial that this was the weakest of the cases. I still believe it's the weakest of the cases. I think that George is probably the strongest, although we won't get there for two years. I think classified documents and the insurrection are decent cases as well. But I do, after listening to the prosecution's case, I do look at it in a different light now. I don't, I think it's still the weakest case of the four, but I don't think it's a weak case, if that makes sense. I think that the violations committed by Trump were egregious. I think the evidence they have to prove that. And my concern was whether or not this case was stale because of the age on it, et cetera. And it's proven to be something that

is ripened for the moment. So he'll be a felon by the time November comes around. You think so? Yeah. You think they're going to convict him? Yeah. I mean, the evidence is overwhelming. Yeah. By the way, let me just say this. For the first time, Donald Trump has a good lawyer. Like most of the cases that Donald Trump has gone through this process, the civil trial, you know, all of those things, just terrible, terrible. The New York State Attorney General trial, terrible, terrible lawyering on the part of his team. But he actually has a really good criminal defense lawyer. The problem is you can only work with as much as you have. He ain't got a whole lot to work with.

One more thing on the legal side. So a lot of panic, a lot of rending of garments here in our pro-democracy coalition over the Supreme Court hearing last week on whether Trump is immune, whether presidents are immune from various of these crimes. I noticed you said that the January 6th and the documents case were just decent. What did you think about the kind of immunity arguments and the state of play on that case? I think that the justices, save for Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Thomas, and Alito, I think they are going to find that he does not have immunity. The problem is that they're going to delay these trials and send it back down to the D.C. Circuit. And that's going to be the problem that we find, or the Tenth Circuit. And that's going to be the problem that we find or the 10th Circuit.

And that's going to be the problem that we have here. They're going to slow this down. And that means that these trials will not be had until after November. And so at the end of the day, Trump gets what Trump wants. The weakest case going first, that's the only one out there. He's able to beat it up pretty good. Most legal commentators are beating it up pretty good. The cases with strength being pushed back to after the election. And if he's president of the United States again, God forbid, that makes it even more difficult to bring him to trial. And he's gambling on himself like he always does. He's rolling the dice. If he loses, then there is a high probability Donald Trump will go to jail in the next 18 months. All right. Your lips to God's ears. Okay, let's get back to the subject

at hand here. The subtitle of the book is not exactly subtle. We have that in common. My face wasn't on the book cover, but my subtitle, The Republican Road to Hell, was also not subtle. But it's also a lot of words, and they just wrapped it around my head. A lot of words, both of them. Thoughts on the race reckoning that wasn't. Why do you assess that it wasn't? Because I don't know. I could take the counter case that we have had racial reckoning and certain types of progress. So why do you assess that the reckoning didn't happen? I think 2020, 2021, there was a belief that we were on the brink of some third reconstruction.

And I was a proponent of that, a believer in that. I think that we had a very hot summer with the deaths of Ahmad, Brianna, and George. We forget that all three of them were murdered within, and you see the videos within a matter of moments, right? And so between that and COVID, you had an entire globe that was coming out for things like social justice. And you can't discount the fact that we were in COVID. I think COVID played a huge role in George Floyd and the reaction thereof because we were stuck in our homes. You couldn't go anywhere and you were forced to look at this video of this Black man

being murdered over and over and over and over again. And so your eyes were compelled like a laser on those images. And you saw, I mean, Black, white, Democrat, Republican, you know, Yankees from the North and those of us from the South all marching in the streets together. I mean, it was fascinating all over the world. And I just thought that we were on the brink of having this reckoning around the issue of race, having these robust conversations about not necessarily somebody calling you nigger. I don't care about that. But these underlying systems that are still in place today. And I do agree with you. And I don't think that we are saying anything different.

I think we've made a lot of progress in this country. I mean, I acknowledge that my dad is somebody who disagrees and he disagrees on objective measurements. And just for context for people who don't, you've been on the board podcast before and talked to Charlie about your family story, but for those that missed it, just give some context about who your dad is before you explain.

Yeah, my dad was one of the founding members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Uniquely enough, one of the stories about my dad that not many people know, but I'll share with you, he doesn't find it funny, but I find it hilarious. I always say that King didn't get everything right because King performed my dad's first wedding in the basement of Ebenezer Baptist Church, and it lasted about six months. Dang, I think about those pictures that now you can't put on the mantle. You can't put them up anymore. You can't put them up anymore. That hurts.

My dad was an organizer. He actually led the search mission in Philadelphia, Mississippi for Goodman, Scherner and Cheney. And probably most famously or infamously, I guess he was incarcerated and the only person incarcerated fordleton, and 28 were wounded. My dad was shot as well. The officers were tried. They were all found not guilty. They tried my dad. He was looking at a maximum of 75 years in prison. They ended up backdating his indictment and saying they lost all the evidence, but they did charge him, try him, and convict him of rioting. He became the first and only one man rioting in the history of this country. My dad went to jail not once, but twice. He went to prison for that, for rioting. And he also went to prison for refusing to go to Vietnam. And I grew up, I tell people I'm a product of the proverb, it takes a village to raise a child. It's just my village is probably doper than most because my village was like Kathleen Cleaver and Julian Bond and Marion Barry and Stokely Carmichael and H. Rap Brown. I'm a contemporary and I know little Jesse and I know Bernice King and I know all of Malcolm's kids. And it's kind of like we're in this little,

little civil rights nexus of children of the movement. And it's just a fascinating badge of honor that we wear. How can that guy think we haven't made progress? But yeah, help me understand. Well, and exactly. So my dad in the book, I actually drop a quote from a conversation we're having, and it stems from a picture.

And, you know, my dad is somebody who has all of these pictures up. And the picture of my dad is my dad. It's John Lewis. It's Stokely Carmichael. It's Willie Ricks. It's Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte, right? And the picture is unique because it's in front Harry Belafonte, right? And the picture's unique because it's in front of Rikers, right?

And Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte had just bonded these young civil rights activists out because they were protesting apartheid at the South African embassy. And so you have this picture and it's this cross-section of black intelligentsia, pop culture, wealth, and black grassroots activism. And me and my dad from that picture begin to have

this conversation and kick out the book and my dad is like you know it takes a collective effort it takes a cross-section of individuals if you're going to make progress and then he goes off on his tangent about kanye west and i'm like dad kanye west hasn't been the same since college dropout he's like kanye west can do more i'm like dad kanye has been lost for a long time. Find somebody else to put your hopes on. That ship has sailed. That ship has sailed. Yes. And so, but he says he believes that we're back in 1954, which is pre-Brown v. Board of Education.

And on metrics, he's not necessarily totally wrong. I mean, black homeownership in this country is the same as it's been in the 1960s, right? That's a remarkable statistic when you think about it. Homeownership is the key determining factor of wealth. And we're at the same rate of homeownership as we were in like 1967, 68. Wow. Pre-Cert housing act. But I push back on him and disagree and say that I cannot ascribe to that notion that we have not made progress during that point. I'm more in line with your thoughts because I know Jimmy Lee Jackson.

I know Medgar Evers. I know Emmett Till. I know Henry Smith and Samuel Hammond and Delano Middleton. I know all these people who laid on jailhouse floors who were shot. And if we say that we have not made progress, then I question whether or not we're saying their lives were in vain and their struggles were in vain. And I refuse to do that. And also for me, it's also acknowledging my dad's struggle as well. And the things my dad went through and letting him know that that his life and his sacrifices have meaning and have value. But it brings up a larger point that, you know, a lot of times when we're having these discussions around where we are as a country, people like to say, well, why are you talking about stuff in the past and i'm like well my mom and dad are still alive like my dad was shot i gotta tell you i mean we know each other a bit like but not so well i

know your family i've been invited to the barbecue or anything you can't dance you can't you can't dance can you cook i mean what are you bringing to the barbecue if i invite you i season my food i season my food i was in louisiana now we got tony's on there so i could do okay but trust me i for whatever reason you know just because it's not my experience i guess that's the reason even though we're the same age i kind of assumed your dad was dead yeah i know it's like right you know until you start doing these interviews i started reading your interviews because it's just like you think about stokely carmichael and like that just feels like the past you you know, and it's just not. It's not. And my mom, my mom was a part of the desegregating class of her high school, right? She was born in 1951 as well to think about.

By the way, next time you do your book, you have to do Washington Journal. Like you have to do C-SPAN and take live callers. It's a thing, right? It's a whole thing. You know, we haven't been a full democracy that long. Like, we just got the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act in 1964, 65. We had a country where people weren't able to drink from the same water fountains, go to the same libraries, go to the same schools, have the right to vote until 64, 65. And so you're talking about less than 60 years in which you've had a full, full democracy and people who were fully able to participate in that democracy. And when you think about how young that is, it kind of reframes the discussion. And the reason

that I say we missed that moment is because we had an opportunity to talk about the progress that was made. And we had an opportunity to analyze where we have to go. And instead, we just got these like 1600 or 1800 dollar checks with Trump's name on them. And then Joe didn't put his name on his checks. And then everybody turned the page and moved on. Yeah. The actual policing side of it, though, I pulled this up because I was listening to you talk about this. And I was like, is this really right? You know, I was trying to match my feelings about how things have changed to the reality you know there have been a couple hundred policing bills in states you know that made very reforms obviously certain states blue states purple states

more than more than a red states awareness is up correct i've got some cop friends you know who who kind of complain about this actually but and that's good that they're complaining about this right where they feel like they have to be much more cautious about like using force, you know, that they've got eyes on them. I've a couple of cops have said that have like expressed that to me. That's anecdotal, but you kind of sense that that's a common, you know, feeling the George Floyd policing act didn't pass. What would have counted for you? What would have made you feel like, yeah, the moment was met. So let's back up and let's look at it all together. And some of the things we just talked about, one of the things that drives me nuts is the fact that I think that the change that we have

in this country usually comes with a steep price for many black folk, right? Like you don't get the 64-65 Voting Rights Act without the Edmund Pettus Bridge. You don't get the Fair Housing Act without the assassination of King. You don't get the Confederate flag taken down in South Carolina without nine people dying in a church, contrary to whatever Nikki Haley may tell you. We're not even having this robust criminal justice conversation on a large level without George Floyd dying the way he died, right? And so the price is really high. I've been in rooms. I actually, this is a funny room. You'll laugh at this. But in this room, I had the family of George Floyd, the family of Eric Gardner, the mother of Eric Gardner. I had, oh man, it was like five or six families of individuals who were killed by law enforcement. And we had Tim Scott in the room.

We were in his office at his table. And I wanted them to have an opportunity to meet with Tim to talk about criminal justice reform and where we were. And guess who stopped in? Guess who came to the meeting? Guess who peaked their head in? Jared Kushner. Lindsey Graham. Oh, your boy. My guy. My guy. Our guy. Lindsey peaked his head in and Lindsey said, Lindsey wanted to hear from them and said that they were empowering, you know, Tim Scott to get this done and listen to the stories and the pain of these families, and then nothing happened. And so when you think about the things that haven't happened, you're talking about just on criminal justice reform, the fact that there's no national database for bad actors, right? So if you get fired from, you know, the Arlington

Police Department, you can just go down to Richmond and get hired, right? There's no database. There are no psychological evaluations required there. There's no ban on chokeholds. There's no ban on no-knock warrants. I mean, you're from the South. Imagine what's going to happen in Louisiana if somebody serves a no-knock warrant in Baton Rouge or one of the parishes at 2 a.m. Tell me what's going to happen. Everybody in there is going to die because they're going to shoot back.

The police are going to shoot. Everybody's going to shoot. Innocent people are going to die. It happens more often. No shortage of guns. No shortage of guns. So there are just some things that we could have done to meet that moment. And you're right. I mean, you have to give Minneapolis, for example, has done great work. The state of Minnesota has done

great work, although it's not being realized per se. And some of the actions I represent a family out there now, Ricky Cobb, who was gunned down by Minnesota State Police. But there's some things that could have been done to meet that moment, particularly on a national level while we had that momentum. On the kind of other side of the coin, the more kind of awareness, representation, DEI. Again, I feel like there's been some change, at least in my circles, you know, among the white moms, you've seen some change, but it's also resulted in a backlash, which maybe speaks more to your father's point of view. I want to play a little clip from Tucker Carlson last week. In 1994, the operating assumption of virtually everyone in the United States was the main lesson of the civil rights movement, of the letter from

the Birmingham jail and the Edmund Pettus Bridge and all the different sacred moments that we grew up hearing about, the main lesson of those moments was it is immoral, in fact, unacceptable to attack people on the basis of their race. So then if you fast forwarded 30 years to find the same country engaged in a public hate frenzy against people because of their race, you would find that bewildering. How did this happen? Of course, there would be the discrimination, the institutional racism of hurting people on the basis of their race in hiring, in admissions to schools, in federal contracting, in promotions. There would be all of that. But there would also be the public

manifestation of it, of saying out loud, we just don't like you. You're not as good. You are morally defective because of your skin color. You say this about white people, people who founded the United States. You'd be shocked by that. People who founded the United States, Bakari. Look, there have always been these guys, right? But this is something, no?

Yeah, this is something. I actually talk about it in the book. I have a whole chapter dedicated to Tucker and and people like tucker and clay travis and ben shapiro etc some of some of your old road dogs you've come a long way i don't know if any of those guys were my old road dogs i had some bad dogs but i don't know if any of them clay travis maybe clay travis but he was but he moved the other way all right he moved we were moving opposite directions down the trail yeah i don't know what happened to Clay. Clay's actually very smart.

I was going to say, I can't say the same thing for Tucker. I don't think Tucker's very well read. And one of the reasons you know that is because he mentioned a letter to the Birmingham jail. And the letter to the Birmingham jail wasn't about any of that stuff. The letter to the Birmingham jail was actually written to black folk, in particular, black ministers who didn't like Martin Luther King Jr. I would challenge Tucker to actually go read the letter from the Birmingham jail. That's first. Second, I define white supremacy in this book, and that statement and clip embodies it, because white supremacy is when equality feels like oppression.

And, you know, for my children, all I want is equality. I want them to be able to have the same opportunities. I don't want them to have more opportunities. I just want them to be able to get on the same dance floor as their counterpart, regardless of who they love, what they look like or who they pray to. Right. That's freedom in my mind. That's equality. And for a large swath of maybe not large, but for a swath of white male conservatives, particularly white male evangelicals, there is a fear that that equality is oppressive to them. And that is what is echoed in that sentiment from Tucker. And one of the initial things that bothered me about Tucker was when he delved into the great replacement theory. Do you remember that segment that he did on that? Yeah, of course. Yeah, of course. And it wasn't the fact that he did it, but it was the fact that he did it and had a primetime news slot. And then there were ads. that he did it, but it was the fact that he did it and had a primetime news slot.

And then there were ads. They were making millions of dollars before and after. Yeah. He did an openly racist segment. Right. On an openly racist sociological theory. I forget. You might remember. Was that before or after the Buffalo shooting? After the tops. It was after. Yeah. Because we were having this conversation about about how racist a little crazy motherfucker was. I, he was just, he was nuts. Yeah.

You know, his manifesto. And remember he had on the barrels of his gun, I believe he had, and we were having those conversations and then the New Zealand shooter, the same manifesto. Yeah. Yeah.

And so, you know, Tucker went into this great replacement theory and where I got to in the book is that racism is a commodity. Now, you know, we're old enough. We're not that old, but we're old enough to remember when like race is that racism is a commodity now. You know, we're old enough. We're not that old, but we're old enough to remember when like race is like hitting the

corner. Right. Right. They might talk to each other, but they really didn't come outside. And now they have their own shows. Yeah, this is kind of my point. So I wrote about this a little bit in my book about that World Net Daily. You remember that World Net Daily?

Yeah, I do remember that. Joe Farah. Okay. Yeah. So these guys were openly racist and they had a decent readership on their site of course because there's always going to be a market for open racism but like that guy occasionally would get invited on fox you know but he wasn't the keynote speaker at stuff you know what i mean like he was around it wasn't like he was shunned in republican

circles but it was always a little bit like i don't know you know what i mean like none of the candidates i worked for would like had him be the opening speaker at their thing they would have had somebody who did a little bit more proper dog whistling you know we would have had rush or something you know what i mean and like that is a category difference though right like it just is like going from having to be a little bit shameful a little bit in the corner to being like no on x i'm just going to read this exact the tweet that accompanied that clip. There is systemic racism in the United States against whites. Everyone knows it. Nobody says it. How come? Question mark 75,000 likes. Like that's KKK shit just right out in the open. Yeah. And, and it's valuable because that that's my other thing.

It's not anything that's ostracized or set aside. It's right out in the open. But also, he's getting paid by Elon Musk to do this. Right. He was getting paid by Fox News to do the same thing. It wasn't until the emails got exposed and everything else that they let him go. But there is an inherent value. And you see that in people like, what's the guy who's not that smart oh man the young one he runs like he's like michael no no no no keep going charlie kirk charlie kirk yeah he's talking about airplanes he's scared of going on the airplane to the black pilot now playing to the black pilot yeah oh my goodness oh this man this man called yentonji brown jack, like a DI appointee. Yeah. And I'm like, dude, you dropped out of community college. Like, like the audacity of some of these conversations to be had. And so, you know, they, they get paid again. I call them grifters, but I don't, I don't really know if they're grifting. I mean, every year they come around and what is it? TP USA makes a killing.

They have these donors that give money to them to go out and rile up young voters. I don't I don't know. But it is a problem. It is a stain. That is some of the racism institutionalized that we talk about. It's kind of out in the open that you can see and touch. And the question is, how do we unravel that? That's a good one. And that is how these guys feel. Equality feels like oppression. That's a good one. I'm going to steal that from you. Please do. guys feel equality feels like oppression that's a good line i'm gonna steal that from you please do i want to kind of put these terrible people just aside for a second and talk about like what what is attracting people you know i do a snapchat show thanks to our buddy hamby for like teens and i have a lot of getting you paid by snapchat and he hasn't called me yet barely barely barely

trust me it's it's more it's more work than it's worth let's be honest i like doing it i like doing it because it's teenagers and it's early 20s guys that read it and for and coming to my thing it's mostly like white guys young white guys who like and i'm glad you're talking to useful you're you're you are a good messenger correct i'm protecting them from like the jordan peterson pipeline the tucker Carlson pipeline. You know what I mean? They might be turned off by some of your Andrew Tate pipeline. Yeah. And so anyway, but when I hear from them, they're good natured ones that I worry might be on the line of tipping down the pipeline, falling down the wrong path.

And, you know, their complaints are like, some of this stuff is crazy. You know, there are classrooms out there where they're like we're gonna separate you by race it feels like it's the 1960s again and like i don't i'm not gonna get a job you know someone's gonna get a better job than me because they need to you know fill some quota again some of this stuff is is maybe overwrought and you know you want to play your tiniest violin for them but like should, should there be some consciousness of that? Are you worried about that? There, there have been some DEI folks, Robin DeAngelo, some of the shit's a little overkill, you know, some of the shit's a little overkill. I don't disagree with that. I mean, some of that, you look at it and you're like, damn,

that's not helping the cause right now, especially since there is a microscope on it. Right. But like, why are you eliminating, why are you eliminating a scholarship for black students to Duke? Right. What does that do for anybody that just, that's what happened after the Supreme court ruling is what you're saying. The crazy part about it is, you know, I still know people and I go to these graduations in South Carolina and everything where you have first generation college students, like black folk, first generation college students, their daddy and uncles and everybody didn't go to the same school. You know, we got legacy admissions and all of those things, but that doesn't help assuage the fears of the young men you're talking about. You know, me talking about the fact that if you really want to be honest with you, white women benefited from affirmative action more than any other segment of

the population. It wasn't black folk, but it was white women. That doesn't assuage that either. What I would tell them though, is say, look, for a long period of time in this country, we had an unequal playing field. And the playing field now is not going to benefit one person or over another. It's going to be equal. That may mean that you have to work harder and that may mean mediocrity from you may not be acceptable. For a long period of time, one of the most successful people in the entire country was a mediocre white man. Right. Because you could

just navigate through life. Especially a rich one. Let's just be like, yeah, a mediocre white man in rural Iowa probably not doing that great. You're correct. And I'm glad you checked me on that because you sound a lot like Reverend Dr. William Barber, who I interviewed for this book and will articulate that we need to start looking at the similarities between that voter, that person that you're talking about, that middle class rural farmer in Appalachia, and also the working class individual black person in Jackson and start talking about the similarities they have with each other. I want to talk about the outreach in that kind of world to working class black folks. William Barber is great, by the way. He is so thoughtful on this stuff. I'm very lucky to have a chance to talk to him

a couple months ago. But there's some worry about this, right? There's some worry that that same guy that I'm talking about, that's a white guy, there's a black guy that's a kind of a version of that, that also feels like they're not getting spoken to by the Democratic Party. They don't like the DEI stuff. They don't the oh for sure some of the cultural stuff they feel like maybe they're getting left behind what they bring to the table isn't valued i think there's a big worry that rfk might have an appeal to that kind of we're painting with a broad brush but like that there's some sub-segment of that demo that rfk might appeal to they might stay home what what do you think are the democrats kind of failing that demo at all Or what would you think that the party could do better?

I have a whole chapter about it. I mean, for a long period of time, you know, in my first book, Vanishing Country, I kind of give the flowers to black women and them being the kind of the backbone of the Democratic Party. But in this book, I kind of raise the blinking lights and say that there's a demographic, which is the second largest demographic for Democrats, which is black male voters that we haven't paid attention to. And you're starting to see slippage. You know, the best example I can give you is I was asked, what would I like to hear from Joe Biden when he goes to Morehouse this weekend or next weekend for graduation? And I was like, you know, number one, the world seems like it's on fire. Talk about globally what peace looks like. Number two, talk about reproductive rights and the role

that men can play in ensuring that we help secure reproductive rights for our sisters, our daughters, our loved ones, our wives, whatever it may be. And number three, I said, you know, I have a robust agenda that includes things like voting rights. But if you go up there and talk about criminal justice reform for 25 minutes, I personally will riot. There are young black men that have concerns besides jail. Exactly. Right. So, oh, you guys all know somebody who's been in jail.

Let me fix that problem for you. Like, no. So, you know, for me, it's a very interesting time because we have to do a better job of listening to these voters. And we simply have not done that. And you are seeing a slippage. Now, I analyze this race different from most. And you probably some people have stolen it from me. But I would argue that this race is not between Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

I think it's between Joe Biden, Donald Trump and the couch, because I think there'd be more black male voters that stay home than vote for Trump, West or RFK. And part of the thing is RFK is decently transparent because black voters would be like, man, he sounds great. Man, he sounds good. But what, what he been doing for us the last 10 years? And the answer is that his resume is a little thin when you start looking at, at what he's been doing for these communities that he's, he has a bit of a Bernie Sanders problem in terms of resume connectivity and history with the community. Now your vision may sound good, but you don't have the connective tissue. I was in one of these kind of off-the-record things with some Democratic politicians, so

I guess I shouldn't reveal who it was. I was like, okay. Sorry, this is halfway out of my mouth. I'm trying to figure out how do I phrase this question. This isn't that big of a secret, but I just don't want to get me in trouble. There was a Black commentator that was speaking to Democratic politicians, and his advice to them, I'm interested in your take on this, was stop talking about people of color when you're talking about black men. He's like, sometimes black men want to hear about the problems facing

black men. I don't know. I just thought that was an interesting take. And I was just wondering if that was something that resonated. That's a true sentiment. Yeah. I mean, and also, I mean, a lot of my good white progressives and good white liberals, they like to do like a rising tide to lift all boats thing. Right. And these race neutral policies. And we want to hear race specific policies that are going to fix race specific problems. And that's right. I mean, listen to black men and talk to black men the same way you listen to black women and talk to them. Democrats are kind of silly in our messaging because we are also the same party that goes out and is like Latinx and Hispanics. They don't even call themselves Latinx. Right. Come on.

And we talk about Hispanic voters in Florida. And I'm like, it's like twenty seven thousand subsects of Hispanic voters. Like, why are we lumping them all in? Why are we having this global conversation instead of going to these communities and talking to these communities and listening to these individual communities about their needs and addressing them appropriately. We have a messaging issue. One group on that that I was interested in your take on it as I was thumbing through your book last night. It's a quick read right now. It's a good read, but it's a quick one. So folks, you can go together. Don't get intimidated. You talk about a lot of folks in the book, a lot of older black folks, really, but yourself included, who are like religious Christian black folks. I want to separate you from it a little bit because you've gone a little bit, you're a little bit urban, you're a little bit of a globalist, you might live in Columbia now, but folks that have kind of traditional values, Christian values, sometimes I feel like the

Democrats forget about that group. And like that they're not, you know, you do have Raphael Warnock, right? But like when you're on TV, when you're like, you're looking at MSNBC and CNN or on any of these places, surrogates, like that's a big demographic of the party. And it feels like they get forgotten about like religious. We have to fight that battle, right? Because there are a lot of GOP voters who believe that GOP stands for God's only party. There is a way to message to black voters. And you saw that in Georgia a lot, which changed the dynamic in Georgia and made it a purple state over time where you're messaging to those black traditional Christian voters. Raphael Warnock is probably the better person to talk to along those lines, as you pointed out. But that is a segment and it is an interesting way to. And I was speaking to Terrence Woodbury, who's at Hit Strategy, who does a lot of this focus grouping.

Yeah, I've been wanting to have him on. Yeah, you got to have him on. I mean, he'll bring his PowerPoint. I mean, it's fascinating. He's really, really good. But he talks about how you message to black male voters and you use those talking points like around the issue of abortion. It's God granted everybody free will. And so why does Glenn McConnell or Donald Trump get to take away that free will from, you know, your wife, your daughter when it comes to her reproductive rights or, you know, you are the head of household, these traditional kind of Christian values. So if you're the head of household, why is somebody else making these decisions instead of you and your wife and your doctor for you? And so when you message around those times, just around the issue of reproductive rights, you bring in these group of

kind of disenchanted black male voters, and you message along the same lines that you're talking about. It's a fascinating theory, one that I never really even thought about. We're running out of time. Two more heavy things for you, then I'll get you out of the row. Quick and heavy. How about that? Can you do quick and heavy? I can do quick and heavy. I want people to hear about, in case they don't buy your book, they should buy the book, in case they don't, the story about the woman, the Gullah Geechee. I had heard about this. You know what I mean? It's like one of those things that exists in your periphery, but I just, I didn't know a lot about it. So maybe just give a quick version of that story. So Josephine Wright was amazing. I learned about her story on X. X has gone to hell

in a handbasket since Elon bought it. But I follow all my local reporters, and please, local reporters do the best work. Post and Courier is running an article, and these developers from Savannah wanted 20 feet of her land, right? And she was like, no. And like many individuals along the coastline, she's had that land since the Civil War, like right out since Reconstruction, like 150 years in her family. And they sued her. She's 90 years old, like paid taxes, done everything. They sued her for this land, for this development. And there are other folks in that like community, the Gullah Geechee that I kind of live out in that same area, basically. Yeah. And a lot of times they don't, I mean, you, you'll be surprised the, the, the number of individuals who lose their land simply because of tax issues or it's referred to as heirs property issues.

It's very complicated legal issues. You've got to go through and make sure it was passed down from one generation to another. And these big companies, because the land is pristine, it's right along the water. These large development companies, they literally prey on these individuals who may not have had it passed down appropriately or whatever and go in and swoop in. So anyway, I go down and represent this young lady. I call her young. She was 90-some years old. We take this picture together.

She's 4'10". I'm 6'5". We're barely in the frame together. And we get help from Snoop Dogg and Kyrie Irving and all these people. And she died recently. And after her death, we settled the case. But her family will get to keep the land in perpetuity. I love that. People should read more about that. It's a fascinating community.

It is. I just didn't know a lot about. All right, last one. You've got a chapter. It's called Dear Stokely. Stokely is the name of your son. It's obviously named after your dad's friend, civil rights advocate, Stokely Carmichael. So, my question for you is, I have a black daughter. This is to your black son purposefully, but I've got you on the podcast. You know, you have all this lived experience. You've got decades of lived experience. What advice would you have for her that maybe I might miss based on my suburban Denver, crunchy, crunchy experience? That's a good question. I mean, you're going to do something that can fill any void, which is you're going to love her and feel that void of love that she may not otherwise

get. So I'm not concerned. I think the only thing that I would recommend, and I don't get parenting advice, but it's just to allow her to appreciate the contours of her lips and the way that her cheeks are shaped and the way that her hair feels. And when she sees other images that look like her, allow her the opportunity and the space to feel the beauty of those things. The Kenneth Clark doll experiment is something that I think about all the time. I would ask you to go Google it, but it was one of the kind of expert opinions given in Brown versus the Board of Education. And you had all of these Black kids and they were asked to choose the dolls that they identified with or found to be the most beautiful.

And all the dolls these Black kids found to be the most beautiful were white dolls. And they deemed the Black dolls to be ugly. And it was this kind of really reckoning with yourself about are we giving young black children the space to understand their beauty and that's all i would ask you to do you should give parenting advice that is great maybe that's a second maybe that's the next life for you after that lawyer commentator author parenting advice columnist i don't know that's so good bakari sellers man let's do this again soon it's so good to hear from you. Congratulations to the Gamecocks and Don Staley. Go out and buy his book.

We're going to run the streets at the conventions. I look forward to drinking beer with you and Peter. Let's get the group back together. All right, I'll see you out there. The book is The Moment. Thoughts on the race reckoning that was and how we can all move forward now. Go out and get it. We'll talk to you soon.

We'll be back here tomorrow for another edition of the Borg Podcast. Peace. Brown-skinned girl On the another edition of the bulwark podcast peace brown skin girl on the other side of the room brown skin girl staring with the brown eyes oh baby don't you know you're a cutie pie? Princess little honey with a polka dot dress on Ooh, belittling lady whose name I don't know The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.