The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Prejudice, Racism, and Tribalism: A Primer for White People by Anthony M D’Agostino MD

Episode Date: September 16, 2024

Prejudice, Racism, and Tribalism: A Primer for White People by Anthony M D'Agostino MD https://amzn.to/3XNP0tW We hear it all the time: Americans need to have a conversation about race. The obvious reason for that recommendation is what appears to be increasing racial polarization more than fifty years after the landmark civil rights legislation of the 1960s. Why is this happening at this time in history? Are these conversations only reinforcing existing attitudes and prejudices? Is it possible for White people to have a conversation about race, even with one another, without becoming angry? Is this why we (White people) have become so obsessed with military weaponry? When all is said and done, who's winning and who's losing? This book is the author's way of exploring these issues, one at a time. Prejudice, racism, and tribalism are, in a sense, variations on a theme. All people harbor prejudices. Racial prejudices are only one form among many. Raise someone in a racially homogeneous society, and similar prejudices are likely to appear. Tribal prejudices are so universal that they probably point to some biological imperative. What is racism? Is it just one of those things that we know when we see it, or is there value in defining it more precisely? Are all White people racists? Whose definition of critical race theory and/or the so-called great replacement theory do you like?

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And their insight and everything else Today we have another amazing young man On the show with us today His new book was out January 24th 2023 Called Prejudice, Racism and Tribalism, a Primer for White People. Anthony M. D. Agostino is a doctor who is with me on the show with us to talk about his book, his insights, and of course how we can learn a lot more about some of these issues that are plaguing our universe etc etc with anthony he's has five decades as a practicing psychiatrist studying the various iterations of prejudice racism and tribalism all americans encounter day to day his book a primer for white people is an attempt to look frankly at today's current racial and political divides

from the perspective of a traditionally right of center white person this is not any condemn at this is not an academic study as he's not an academic person but he does wonder why there's so much talk about book banning revisionist history elevating the ar-15 is a symbol of American freedom and white merit Americans feel there's some kind of assault and are scared unnecessarily by talk of critical race theory and great replacement theory. And they're offended by talk of white privilege and cancel culture. So it's time to take a look at these ideas. Instead of running around scared, let's take a look at them and talk to them with Anthony.

Anthony, Doc, how are you on the show? How are you? I'm excellent. So shall I begin with how I decided to write this book or what? Sure. Let's start off with your dot coms. We want people to know the plugs so they can go look you up and stuff on the interwebs. Okay.

It's Anthony D'Agostino, D-A-G-O-S-T-I-N-O-M-D dot com. I don't think it's up and running at the moment, but it should be by the end of the week. Okay. I think we're at the end of the week. There you go. Well, it should be close then. That'll be on the Chris Voss Show for the think we're at the end of the week so there you go well it should be close then that'll be on the chris voss show for the link give us a 30 000 overview what's inside your book books about it's a an examination of a lot of different things that i think we're concerned about these days we examine issues like you know why are we banning books i mean i've

lived yeah i'm kind of an old person thank you for saying I'm a young man, but I've been around for more than 80 years. And I'm sort of wondering why we're banning all these books now where, you know, in the previous 80 years of my life, I hadn't noticed that. I also am concerned about, you know, why we're afraid of real American history. Why are people banning talk of things like slavery, which was part of our past? And why has the AR-15 become the symbol of American freedom? It seems like the symbol of America now becomes kind of a John Rambo figure with a gun in his hand. And I was born and raised in the city of Chicago, and I lived there for the first 26 years of my life, and I never saw fit to carry a gun for some reason. And now suddenly, I guess I'm supposed to. So these questions concern me. Also, you know, in 2016, you know, Donald Trump seems to have been a very popular figure

in our culture. And so I decided, you know, you know, you know, why, why is this happening at this point? You know, why, why did we elect a person who had no previous experience in politics and didn't seem to actually care a lot about politics. And yet he's become a very popular figure. I was interviewing a patient of mine, you know, at about the time, 2015, 2016. And I said, and she was very, very thrilled by him. And I said, you know, why are you, why are you so enamored with this person? And she says, he's for us. And I said, what do you mean he's for us? He's for the white people.

So I said, okay. You know, I thought that was pretty good. And when he actually got elected, I thought, and he also made the comment at the time that, you know, he could stand on Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and not lose any support. And it turns out that he was actually right. He could do pretty much anything he wanted and not really lose support, even attempt to overthrow an election. So I thought,

gee, what comes to me with all of this? And three words sort of popped into my mind for some reason. The first was prejudice the second was racism and the third was tribalism so these are sort of variations on a theme and i thought gee i i think we ought to really look into this and it made me also think that you know us white folks we need kind of a primer or a reminder of you know things that might be have seen you know everything that's happening today has happened in the past you know in the United States nothing is really new but I thought you know maybe we need to sort

of go over our history a little bit and examine, you know, the meanings of these various words. So, for example, I, you know, I took a look at, you know, words and one of the things I'll examine in the book are different words, like, for example, the N-word, you know, what's the purpose or why, you know, why is it forbidden that white people should say the N-word? And again, what I come up with is that that word has been used as a way of subjugating people over the years. And apparently, it's still pretty good at doing that. So it's still fairly popular. The other word I look at is the word racist, which I call the R word. Now,

you know, racist is, you know, it doesn't have a very positive connotation in general, but if you look at the actual meaning of the word, which I try to do, I think it might be inappropriate, you know, I think we maybe use it sort of inappropriately. And I think the way we use it culturally right now is we're saying that that person is a racist, what they mean is he has prejudices about somebody of a different race. And I don't really, you know, I don't really think that's a good use of the word. We should use it somewhat differently. And for example, if you ask, I tried to address the question of are all white people racist? And I come to the conclusion that no, they're really not. But that depends on how we define that particular word. If we define the word as any person who has prejudices about people of another race, then maybe all of us white folks are racist. But I don't think that's an appropriate use of that word.

I think the word should have more of a neutral quality to it rather than as a slur. Let me ask you this. Does, if racist is anyone with a prejudice, one thing that we do in our brains, and I'm not trying to make an excuse for racism or prejudicism, but this is an honest question from a psychology standpoint. But if we all have prejudice, you know, we all judge each other whether we want to admit it or not. You know, women judge each other on what they wear.

Men judge each other on who's, you know, who's top of the tribal hierarchy of, you know, who's got more money or more things, you know. Exactly. You know, we forbes judges who their top richest people are we judge people as to whether or not we want to associate with them and i'm i'm not just talking in skin color i mean you know i i judge people on the quality of their character i judge people on maybe they have some really dumb ideas that I don't like, you know. And so, in a way, isn't that all prejudice in some way, shape, or form? You know, I mean. Exactly.

Exactly. If you use the definition of anybody who has prejudices about someone of a different race, we'll use race at the moment, but it can be prejudices about a lot of different things. I think it's two points in the book are that there are two things that are inborn in human beings. One is prejudice. We all have them in one way or another. And the other is tribalism. We're born with, I think, a genetic propensity to feel safe around people that are like us. So those are, I think, normal things in normal human beings. So nobody is free of prejudice.

Now, you could say that Abraham Lincoln was a racist if you're going to use the definition of anybody who has prejudices about black people, you know, then we could probably say Abraham Lincoln was a racist because he probably did have some prejudices about black people, you know, then we could probably say Abraham Lincoln was a racist because he probably did have some prejudices about black people. He grew up, you know, in the 1820s and 30s and 40s in the United States. And, you know, I don't know that we, when we're growing up, we question everything that we learn and just take most things for granted. And in the book, I use the example of, you know, when I was, you know, when I went to school, I went to, you know, grade school, high school, and undergraduate college. These were all in Catholic institutions. And, you know,

I went to Catholic schools growing up. My wife is Lutheran, and she went to Lutheran schools while she was growing up. So she's, I'm being told that Martin Luther is kind of, or she's being told that Martin Luther is a great person and a visionary and, you know, a really important person. I'm being told that he's a heretic. So obviously, we all grow up with a certain amount of prejudice. So we're not going to free ourselves entirely of prejudice. If we say that a person's racist because they have prejudices, we all do. You know, we grow up in a certain environment. And we, you know, actually part of socialization is teaching people, you know, the mores and traditions of your particular group. You know, in the United States,

we have what's called a multicultural society. So, we're going to have a certain amount of clashing of those things. And I just use the example of Catholicism versus Lutheranism as just one example of many that we encounter and we have to deal with, you know, as we grow up. That's what I talk about in the book, and that's what I think in many ways we should be talking about, you know, at this particular point in history. The other issue in the book is that I think, you know, my argument is that prejudice, racism, and tribalism is actually kind of profitable depending on how you're using these kinds of things. And, you know, for example, if you have a person who, you know, let's say he's 30 years old, white person with diabetes, you know, type 1 diabetes, and he's married, he has

two children ages. If we can exploit his prejudices, it's going to be very profitable for some people. So if this person, you know, dislikes black people, dislikes Mexicans, queers, and liberals, because the liberal is going to take his guns away, you know, then if you can exploit that, that can be a fairly profitable enterprise, because he's going to vote for the guy who dislikes blacks, Mexicans, queers, and liberals because they're going to take their guns away. And if you're going to elect that particular person, that person's going to go to the Congress and vote for very low taxes on billionaires, if any,

his insulin is still going to be $700 a month because he's not doing anything about that. He's going to vote for the guy who's against Obamacare, which, by the way, allows whatever insurance he might have to actually pay for the insulin, which he absolutely needs to live. And they're going to work against him in terms of, you know, no unions. And when his kids grew up, he's not going to get any college support. So if he makes, say, $45,000 a year, he's going to be in perpetual credit card debt. He's going to, you know, the drug companies are going to do whatever they please. The insurance

companies, if without obamacare would still be able to say to him sorry you know you're a lifelong diabetic we might lose money caring for you so we don't have to insure you anymore so if you can get him to vote against his interest that's a source of power that's that yeah and you talk about in the book then you know the politicians have been using that as a profitable source for power i think power brokers at the top of any society that try to be the oligarchs that try and shape society in the way that they feel certainly you know white power uh white voting power is a big deal in this country for uh certain parties and but you you bring up a great point as to why i've always wondered like why do people vote against their

best interests but you're right you know i mean this has been going on since the beginning of man where a politician goes that stranger guy over there that looks kind of different absolutely and stuff he's he's coming for you you should fear him and i will protect you from that man and they're like well he looks fine to me but you say he's scary so maybe we should believe you and and then vote against our own best interest which is kind of funny so it sort of puzzles me why that person would would vote for people who's going to vote against everything that he needs in order to survive in life. But that's a fact of life. So your book is targeted towards white people in kind of understanding why these issues are at the forefront of our politics, of our society, of our dialogue that we're having.

I think we need to talk about some of those things and that's what i at least i i try to do in the book in as frank a way as i can there you go well i mean the only way to address the problem of racism and prejudice and and stuff is to take a hard look at it and go hey are there things you know we've had a lot of di people on know, we've had a lot of DEI people on the show. We've had a lot of people that we've talked about the subject of racism and prejudice and the arc of history over, you know, 400 years of this republic, technically. I try to talk about, you know, what racism is and what it isn't. And the governor of former governor of Virginia was he was outed because I guess he graduated from medical school. And while in medical school, he was on blackface. And so there was a lot of talk, you know, on like public radio and other places about racism. And so I was listening to public radio one day and the interviewer was inviting people to call in to talk about their victimization under how you were racially victimized.

No black people called in. I was listening, although maybe somebody did when I wasn't listening. But one woman called in and said that she was a person of her father was of Iranian background and her mother was of Argentine background. And since it was radio, I really couldn't see what this person is, but she said that she passed for white. And I thought to myself, she passed for white? I mean, what is she? You know, I wish I could see this woman. So she said she was in a bar and somebody said to her, oh, you might not want to live in this neighborhood or in that neighborhood, or you might want to not go to that bar because there are a lot of Hispanic people that go to that bar or

some such comment like that. And she called that in as a victim of racism. That person was not a victim of racism. Patient had her feelings hurt and she, perhaps, I mean, I couldn't see her, but I've been in practice for over 50 years, I'm retired now, but for 55 years of practice, I practiced with a lot of doctors who were from Iran or were from Argentina. Now, 60% of the population of Argentina is of Italian background, which is my background.

And the others, I mean, the black population of Argentina is under 1%. Even the Native American or Native Indian population is probably under 4%, if that. So the rest are mostly Europeans of European ancestry. And Iran, I mean, a lot of my relatives come from a place called Armenia, which is right next to a place called Iran. And, you know, the Iranian, you know, I practice with a lot of Iranian doctors, and I never sort of dawned on me that they're sort of a different race. I mean, they're a different culture, clearly. And the people on one side of the border, they're all Muslims in Iran, and the people on the other side of the border in Armenia, they're all Christians. So we're saying that the Christians are white people, and the Iranians are Muslims, therefore they're all Christians. So we're saying that the Christians are white people

and the Iranians are Muslims, therefore they're not. I mean, really confusing sort of thing. So I couldn't see what this woman was up to, but she in no way was a victim of racism. She was a victim of bad manners. She was a victim of, you know, somebody hurt her feelings. But that's not being a victim of racism. You cannot just, you know, have your feelings hurt and be a victim. There's a lot of people doing that these days. Yes, yes. There are a lot of people doing that.

You know, and in the book, I also say that I was born and raised in Chicago, which is the home of the Nation of Islam. And if you know much about, black Muslims, they have, at least in the past, they used to have this view that all white people were actually devils. And that they're not really humans, they're just sort of devils. And I mean, they have a negative feeling. But I lived in Chicago most of my life, my early life, and I never felt victimized by the fact that the Nation of Islam didn't like me because they didn't do anything to me. They didn't cause me any difficulty. So if somebody looks, you know, if somebody called me a bad name,

which happens a lot when you grow up in the city, people call you bad names. You know, that's not being victimized. That's just having your feelings hurt. So I try to distinguish in the book between being victimized by actual racism and having your feelings hurt, which are not the same. But you have to read the book. I don't understand what I mean. There you go. And, of course, the book will help stuff.

So did you deal with a lot of this, you know, my experience as a psychiatrist is that we're all awfully alike in our, you know, inner life and in the way we and the things that motivate us and the way we operate. So it's very difficult to say that somehow, you know, one group is better than the other based on what I experience, you know, with them. I think also most people tend, I think most people, black, white, Asian, they tend to be conservative in the sense that they don't like change, a lot of change. They don't like a lot of surprises in their life. They don't like, you know, they're not radical in their thinking process as a rule they just want things to be you know they just want to live you know they're just trying to get through life like like most of us and there really is no other agenda going on here. I've never been able to figure out, you know, how all these people differ from one another, because in reality, they don't. I mean, we're genetically extremely

similar to one another. The only thing that makes us different, you know, the color of our skin or, you know, the character of our facial structure or things like that. These are all just minor variations in the genes that control these things. And I mean, there was a time, you know, back in the 19th century, especially where, you know, black people, white people, Asians, were all different kinds of evolution. They're, you know, we all have a common origin. We have a common origin with worms. And we all have this four base structure in our DNA that does not vary whether you're a worm, whether a human being, whether you're a tree, whether you're a rhinoceros. So there's an awful

lot of similarity in people. And I think that maybe the only thing I can offer as a psychiatrist is that I maybe see that more often than other people. Most definitely. There's a lot of issues people have, and they're unresolved. Do you think, let me ask you this, this is a conversation we've had on the show. Do you believe that prejudice and racism is taught by parents and influenced by, you know, sometimes by... I mean, just to some extent, I mean, to some extent, yes.

I mean, but, you know, it's like I use the example with my wife. You know, she was taught that Luther was a great guy and I was taught that Luther was a heretic. So, you're going to get different views. You know, part of maturing is being able to step up beyond that. Now, there are some people, you know, that just can't get beyond that and they're not going to get beyond that. I think racism, the way I've defined it in the book, and which I think is a better way of defining it, not just prejudice, because we're all prejudiced. I mean, I have prejudices about black people. I have prejudices about everybody who's different than I am.

I'm prejudiced against broccoli. You're right. You know, so there's all kinds of, we live with it. We're there. You know, however, however, when your prejudices are exploited, either politically or financially or even socially, you know, you're just, you know, you're going to have a bad time, especially in America, where, you know, we have multicultural, whether we like it or not. We're here. And I see in some of the local political campaigns, there are going to be these mass deportations of all the people we don't like. It's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. You know, in the 1840s and 1850s, we had something called the Know Nothing Party. And the No Nothing Party was against all immigrants and all Catholics. In the 1840s, you know, who are the Catholics here? The Irish. And they just, they didn't like

these folks. You know, and then, you know, then at the turn of the century, when my grandparents were coming here, you know, they were against these people. In fact, there was a book published called The Passing of the Great Race, which was a book that described how the Anglo-Saxons of the United States should not be interbreeding with these, you know, new folks like, you know, the Polish people or the Italians or, you know, it was sort of like, you know, the Polish people or the Italians or, you know up passing this absolutely rigid immigration law that said, no more, we're not going to take any more Europeans here, except the Europeans that don't want to come here. Those are the ones we will welcome, and the Europeans that want to come here, we won't take. So we've been through this before. I just thought as a

primer, let's review some of our history and look at some of our attitudes and see if we've changed any. Maybe we haven't. It seems like there's an ebb and tide to it, doesn't there? It seems like before Donald an ebb and tide to it doesn't there like it seems like i mean like before donald trump you know came in the escalator made that humongously racist comment about mexicans coming across the border and you know they're they're they're sending their worst people is what he was quoted as saying from of course the worst person in the world the and it and it reignited this whole thing that i thought we'd resolve with racism

under obama i think a lot of white people and i know a lot of people like me were like okay we've we've come a long way you know we've we've achieved a lot of things we have a black president now that can show there's no ceiling or glass ceiling or you know there's a pathway there and and then to see the racism come back and i had no idea i remember when donald trump was elected i sat there just going what is going on where our country's going back to this racist sort of 1940s 50s sort of attitude and i remember taking a look at you know white nationalism and what it was. I didn't understand where that came from. It turns out it was just a rebranded Ku Klux Klan.

But to see that take hold in a grasp of our country's narrative, and then, of course, you had the Jews in all places folks that showed up in Charlottesville. And to see all that, I just was in shock. I was like, I thought we resolved all this or at least you know we made we made good inroads but we're just clawing us seeing the claw back and drag back to some time where we were much more or less enlightened and dumber it just was insane i i i wrote the book because i've you know white folks today are a lot of, not all, but, you know, many white people today feel that they're being somehow persecuted in the world. And I think, you know, Trump forces that belief that we're somehow being persecuted and that, you know, only he can save us.

But what he's saying, in effect, is, you know, I will save white supremacy for you if you elect me. And, you know, I don't think even if we elect him, I don't think he's going to be able to do it. So there are these kinds of issues that roll around. And I thought, let's try talking about them again. I'll do it in a kind of simplistic way. I'm not really an academic, really. Let's talk about it in a kind of common sense way and see if we can come to any kind of conclusions. I mean, really an academic, really. Let's talk about it in a kind of common sense way and see if we can come to any kind of conclusions. I mean, I'm a white person and I don't feel like I'm being eclipsed or pushed aside because other people, you know, blacks and Asians do well. That's fine. I think that strengthens the country and that doesn't depreciate me. But I think a lot of white folks feel that if somebody else does better,

we're going to do worse. And I don't get it. But anyway, I wrote a book to discuss those issues. There you go. And so as we go out, what do you hope people come away with when they read the book? What do you hope you achieve? The feedback that I've been getting from people who they read the book what do you hope you achieve that the people you know the feedback that i've been getting from people who have read the book and which is kind of what

i was hoping for was you know i i didn't think about things in that way you know i feel less threatened in the world there's a section there's a section in the book where I, you know, one reviewer was criticizing me because I said it's better to be white than black. And I didn't quite say that. But what I said was, I was quoting from another book, that when you look at your positioning in the world, you know, is it better to be male than female? Is it better to be rich than poor? Is it better to be able-bodied than disabled? Is it better to be black than white? And what I said was, I was quoting from this other person, I said, for most of my life, I would have to agree with all of that. I mean, because that's the way I thought. You know, yeah, I'd rather be white than black.

Yeah, I'd rather be male than female. Yeah, I'd rather be rich than poor. Yeah, I'd rather be, you know, she was setting up these binaries. And so I was simply saying, and, you know, one of the critics said that it was a good book, but he said it's better to be white than black. It's amazing what people pick up on especially when you're hoping that they learn something from it mostly most of the feedback has been pretty positive oh there you go yeah i think it was even chris rock said in one of his stand-up things super funny chris rock he said you know most of you white people wouldn't trade places with me because i'm black

and i'm a millionaire. And I think it was from Bigger, Blacker, Better. I think, I can't remember the name of it, but yeah, he's so funny and he has so much great material. So there you go. So as we go out, I guess the message is try not to be so darn racist and prejudiced and tribalistic people. Is that a good summation maybe? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Think about some of the things you assume that might not be true and you might want to... I mean, learning real American history is not offensive.

It's not. You know, the one thing, you know, this is my quote, the one thing man can learn from his history is that man never learns from his history. And thereby we go round and round. And until we, you know, face the ugly truth and face, you know, some of the different issues that we have, we can't repair them. And that's the fallacy of our situation. So there you go. Well, we're going to have to find a way to deal with this.

And I think we will, ultimately. I would hope so. I would hope that in the end, for sadly all the damage it has to cause to learn this lesson, like I said, man does not learn well from his history. But I'm hoping that if we survive the signposts we'll be able to look back on a day someday with donald trump and realize how ugly that was and how how that was the last clawback of a very ugly generation yeah that's what i'm hoping for yeah and and it will be a signpost. People will look back and be like,

yep, there was that time. There was that time, and that was the marker. That was the final straw that broke people's back that went, God, we really have some issues we need to deal with. So there you go. Anthony, thank you very much for coming to the show. We really appreciate it. Thanks for having me.

Thanks for being honest, for tuning in. Go to goodreads.com, FortressCrispFoss, LinkedIn.com, FortressCrispFoss, and all those crazy places on the internet. Order up wherever fine books are sold to understand what's going on. Remember, the one thing man can learn from his history is that man never learns from his history.

So let's learn some stuff, folks. Order up wherever fine books are sold. The book is called Prejudice, Racism, and Tribalism, a primer for white people. And probably, you know, a lot of different people should read that because there's all sorts of different levels of prejudice and and racism even in different segments of other cultures and race so y'all need to knock it off and just learn to get along as as a man once said that was a good man anyway thanks for

tuning in be good to each other stay safe and we'll see you next time