The Daily Beast Podcast - A Visual History of U.S. Racism Articulates What Words Can’t

Episode Date: March 31, 2024

From the site where George Floyd was killed to places where Black people were lynched, “Ghosts of Segregation” illustrates a history of racism in the U.S. that can’t be ignored. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN HLN guy, and current cable news conscientious objector. I'm a former libertarian who now sits pretty comfortably on the left. Hi, I'm Danielle Moody, former educator and recovering lobbyist. But today, I'm an unapologetic, woke commentator on America's threats to democracy. And I'm producer Jesse Cannon, and I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails. We're here to have fun, smart conversations with some of the most knowledgeable and entertaining people in politics, media, and beyond. Our goal is to try and make sense of our current crazy world, our new abnormal, and hopefully even make you laugh through the tears.

Hello and welcome to another Sunday bonus episode of the new abnormal, and we thank you so much for being here. Today we have two extra special guests with Richard Frischman and B. Brian Foster, the authors of Ghosts of Segregation, American Racism, Hidden in Plain sight. They're going to tell us all about their new book that's a collection of photographs documenting America's history of segregation, slavery, and institutional racism hidden in plain sight. But first, let's have some fun. Are you guys ready to listen to some clips?

Clips. Andy. Clips. Okay, okay. So, to let the people behind the scenes of our biz, as hosts and producers, you often book a guest with the hope that they will bolster and give greater thought to a subject you're passionate about. You also try to pick a guest who would be credible on the subject.

But apparently not everyone has this view as Foxx's, News is Laura Ingraham will demonstrate with her booking of Newt Gingrich here. You have to decide. Soon or later, you're going to realize the bills have been worse since McCarthy was gone. The Democrats are in greater control. The hardliners on the right have done nothing except make it worse. The Freedom Caucus right now has been a disaster in public policy terms. Do you think your job in life is to grandstand and complain while the other team runs over? are you. They're doing a great job. I mean...

Wow. There's a lot of levels here. Talk about levels. Well, I mean, he's not wrong in what he's saying here, but this is a little like the pointing Spider-Man meme. Say more about that. I would disagree it's pointing Spider-Man. This is more like, I think we do, who started the fire as Billy Joel questioned.

Yeah. Or, I mean, I think you should leave a hot dog costume. do mean, we're all looking for the guy who did this. Yes. This is all, these are all the children of Newt Kingrich. I guess the one area in which he's right is Newt was actually, you know, effective for his agenda. Yeah. And I guess that's where the current crop differentiate themselves because, as he said, I think that's more, you know, I guess that's maybe more of what he's getting at is, you know, that these people have been a disaster, not because they're hardliners, but because they do in their,

job as hardliners. Like they're making it worse for their agenda. But it is still really funny for for newt Dingrich of all people to be going after this kind of thing. I mean, it's just like, they don't mind evil, but it has to be the right kind of evil. You know, it has to be strategic evil. And so it is kind of like the, all of the Spider-Man's pointing their finger at each other. But yeah, one group, the earlier Crocker Republicans who were still deeply racist, still cared only about the rich and themselves just had better strategy, better policy and talking points, and were a lot more polished, right, and palpable. This group are just, they're like the gremlins that you poured water on.

You know, like that's what they are, right? Like, so that's the comparison. I like that. I was personally waiting for him to say, you know, in my day, we got caught for our hypocrisy, not in real time. People didn't know for quite a while that I was having an affair while trying to impeach President Clinton for having an affair. What's with these new guys?

Mm-mm. Yep. So speaking of this, God-forsaken party, so with the warring fascists in the Republican Party, we saw the abrupt exit of Rep. Mike Gallagher, as he left to go to Peter Thiel's surveillance outfit Palantir, leaving the Republicans with a one-seat majority by

technicality. Well, one of the stupidest reps, who's always in the running for stupidest, rep Anna Paulina Lunatic, tries to put a band-aid on it, and that's not her name. You know, I might have had a Freudian slip there. I don't know. Okay, let's hear her.

So, Congresswoman, is that intentional? Put the house in a horrible position. After Mike Gallagher leaves, you're going to hang on to the majority by a hair. One vote. Yeah, I absolutely agree with Representative Birchett, and I've heard that there's some personal issues with Representative Gallagher, so we're praying for him. But what I will also say, Maria, is that the timing could not be worse. And I agree that if he waits, that we will essentially not be able to fill that seat. So I would publicly ask for him to do the right thing and step down early.

We unfortunately do not have the votes for expulsion. As you know, an expulsion vote requires two-thirds of Congress in order to do that. And the Democrats are hoping that this seat remains open because if it does, it essentially will put us in a bad predicament. So we're hoping that he does the right thing again and steps down early. My sources tell me that he's got a job with Palantir, Peter Thiel's company. Palantir, of course, has lots of government business. I'm sure if he wanted to go at a different time, Palantir would still have the job for him.

But Joe, look what's... Was this like an on-air LinkedIn? Like, what? Did she just advertise the job opening? Like, what are you doing? We don't have the votes, but hey, we have a cushy job that pays a million dollars. Good benefits I hear, too. You get your own hood.

Like, what are they doing? That was so bizarre. That was so bizarre. I'm confused by this whole thing. So she wants him to leave early? Mm-hmm. She celebrated the joys of capitalism for going to a billionaire surveillance company that gets government contracts in order to spy on people. Come on. Wow.

Okay. Yeah, sure. I mean, look, I think we're all celebrating him leaving Congress, but okay. Didn't we just do the advertisement for 1984? Where are we? we guys. Like, oh my God, I need a liquor sponsorship. Statt. You wouldn't judge box of wine. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe Maria Bart Romo was reading those LinkedIn ads and she's looking for a new career change. Well, fortunately, she still is at this career and I have another clip of her for this week. As we know, everything must be a culture war issue. And somehow Ms. Bartromo is going to really

shoehorn and test the waters with a one around the collapse of the Francis Scott Keybridge. Let me also get your take on what's going on in terms of world affairs. The White House has issued a statement on this saying that there's no indication of a nefarious intent in the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge. The ship involved in the collapse of the bridge is 948 feet long called the Dolly, a Singaporean flagged container. But of course, you've been talking a lot about the potential for wrongdoing or potential for foul play given the wide open border. that is why you have been so adamant. Why has the Republicans had such a hard time securing this border? The president says he's not going to take his executive action.

You know that. Well, we all have to stand together. We all have to say that it takes 60 votes to pass anything in the Senate. And so Republicans have to stand together and say, look, we're not going to do anything else unless we secure the border. She is, of course, referring to the border between us and Singapore. It's very porous, Andy. By porous, I mean, wet, very wet.

Yes, yes. And it's big, too. Yes, yes. Few instructions in between, but hey, what stranger things have happened? Yeah, I mean, look, we talked about this on Friday's episode a little bit, but I mean, the theories, they're not even theories. Like, she doesn't give any reason why there's a connection between the quote-unquote open borders and what happened with the Key Bridge. There's not even an attempt to say why one led to the other. All she's doing is taking something that happened and then linking it to something she wants to talk about.

But like, I mean, man, my segues are bad sometimes, but, you know, she's not even trying. Yeah, it's just, oh, my God. The bridge collapses. This is why we don't have health care. Like, it's just, what are you talking about? Yeah. And, like, again, just to remind people, people lost their lives. And without the people who were on the.

bridge that then stopped the cars from going on, there would have been so many more casualties. And so to, again, like, the depravity, the cold-heartedness, the ignorance, like, I can keep going. But the fact that this is not called out, and these people are just allowed to continue to spew their bullshit and their racism and their lies and make no connection whatsoever, because they know the media trick. All we have to do is wave our hands and yell and we'll get coverage. And no push back and they'll they'll transport our bullshit for us. I'm particularly struck by like how lazy this is because they've been trying this for 20 years and it doesn't really move the needle.

Like literally there's an episode of the Sopranos from season five, which is 20 years ago where Tony gets mad about the shipping containers. And then the FBI tries to be like, it'd really be a shame if one of those shipping containers had a terrorist in it and Meadow got blown up going through the tunnel to college. It's like they've been doing this and it's been parodied for, fucking two decades. Yeah. It's so pathetic.

Pathetic. Well, I have a segue. That's also pathetic. Oh, dear. So this week, Trump Media went public, thrust back, and has been hailed as the saving grace of Mr. Trump's legal woes.

So, of course, our greatest minds in the media are going to discuss it. Here we have the five's Jessica Tarlov, who is a good mind, where she tries to talk some sense into the lesser minds of Judge Box of Wine, Piro, Jesse Waters, and Greg Gutfeld.

Jessica, have you scored on yourselves? I don't think so. Just also Charity Navigator has a very high rating for the Clinton Foundation. Listen, I have always said this. Donald Trump gets really lucky. Oh, that's what it is? Of course. Oh, it's the genius of true social that has under 500,000 users

through the last nine months of 2023. What have you built, Jessica? Yeah. Here we go. Are you guys kidding? How many buildings? I mean, I'm always interested in. I love it when people who have a media,

a footprint pretend to know how things are built? I don't know how things are made. No, but I know that when something is doing well, that people want to be on it. Look at all these. Lucky. He's lucky. He was a billionaire before this stock. He was. He had two billion and out of six and a savings account. Okay. Yeah. And the government tried to take his money. Whoa. They want to lock him up. They want his money. And now they're furious because he's making money on his own. You know what? It's poetic justice. Good for him. It's great poetry. So in the last nine months of 2023, Truth Social generated $3.4 million,

and it lost $49 million in that span. The valuation, which is $11 billion compared to Reddit, right? Something that we've all been on, right? Something that people use. I don't. Okay. You're on Truth Social, but not on Reddit. Anyway, their valuation was $6.4 billion. So you think that a site that has less than half a million

users. I mean, this is what? You know what? Lost their money? Electric car companies. It's pathetic. I start. This is pathetic. The man, look, come on. We're reading into this conversation. It's other companies that just had ideas. All these valuations are ridiculous. Okay. Then he's the game. It's like GameStop. Okay. You know what? No? You know how to look at this. You look at this. Oh, you're on truth social. I'm on truth social. Show it to me. I'm not having you look at my phone. Show me your phone. How dare you? Show me. You're a fed. Wow. Wow.

I have lost total control. Do you want to comment? No, but I... Does anybody watch that show? I know I do. I honestly can't believe that this is on television. It's so incoherent and just so... Like, just start throwing food at each other.

Like, it's just like what I imagine, being at the zoo and watching a bunch of animals just go wild on each other. Like, that's what this is. It's ridiculous. And they don't listen to facts. She's offering, like, why this evaluation is bullshit. And it's only based on his name.

which Donald Trump knows. This site is crap. It has 500,000 followers that are on it, and it's been out since 2021. And it's being evaluated at $11 billion. How, Sway? How? Make the math make sense for me. Now, the American people love to go home on holidays and fight with their relatives.

Everybody's always tweeting that that's the highlight of their year, and they're just bringing that to the television. Yeah, I guess. Whose highlight is that? Oh, my God. I don't know. I don't know how Jessica. Jessica is an extremely nice person and smart,

but I don't know how she does that. I really don't. Well, the real icing on the cake is, it was proven that Jesse Waters does not even have an account on Truth Social, which I think speaks volumes for his bullshitting and for Truth Socials, 500,000 users is even the king of stupid theories on Fox

is not even on there. Oh my God. He's not even on, like, I would have assumed that he had a profile, but the fact that you're going, oh, my God, it's amazing he can talk with, you know, I want to say what I want to say, but I'm not going to say it. I stop myself, but I'll save it for when we go off air. The best part of it was Greg, like, laughing at the fact that Jessica brought up Reddit in this conversation. It's like, well, yeah, because Reddit just out an IPO. And Reddit is insanely popular. And the fact that Reddit's IPO and valuation was. like basically half of true social is absolutely insane. As Jessica rightly pointed out, so, you know, for Greg to sort of laugh that off and say, well, I can't believe you brought up Reddit.

Well, she brought it up for a really good reason. And she made a really great point by doing it. And I guess that was her mistake. Yeah, I have a feeling that this is going to be like many things Trump touches and it's going to be King Midas in reverse. Mm-hmm. Yep. Folks, I am very happy to welcome to the new abnormal.

the brilliance, the creatives, and the authors and the photographers behind the book, Ghosts of Segregation. It is, for me, I will say, before I introduce the two of you, any time that I travel in this country, every time I look at an oak tree in New Orleans or moss hanging in Savannah, I think about my African enslaved ancestors. There is not a place that I can walk around and not think of, oh, there were auction blocks here, or there was water stations here. And so your book is just that, just like this journey throughout these different destinations and places that have not been lifted up. And so I just want to thank you both Richard Prishman and B. Brian Foster for your work for this exploration. of a really resonant time in America, because I don't want to say that it is history. It is very resonant to this current time. So I'll start with you, Brian, first.

Talk to us from your vantage point about the importance of ghosts of segregation. First, I really appreciate kind of the tenor and nature of your opening comments. I share a very similar perspective. I'm born and raised in rural Mississippi to working class, bootstrikes, parents and sharecropping grandparents. And so everywhere that I go, I've worked at two very, very Southern universities, University of Mississippi, Southern Studies at the University of Mississippi Sociology now at University of Virginia.

Similarly, in my travels, I'm always thinking about my ancestors. But for me, it's personal. It's like I'm thinking about my grandparents. I'm thinking about those folks who raised me and who raised them. and what their experiences must have been like in times before now. And thinking about my own experiences as a black man navigating, you know, a space and time that's tricky and tough and dangerous. And so the project for me represents an opportunity,

maybe first and foremost, for me to remember and imagine and just kind of deal with the emotional weight of the reality of American racism, both past and as you kind of hinted at present. So first, an opportunity to remember and imagine and reckon and try to communicate to an audience what it's like, like what it is like to try and bear those memories and to navigate spaces that spaces in which you can feel the history, again, to your kind of opening point. So I think that's, for me, there's a personal component, but then also kind of an effort to nudge and push at folks to maybe go on their own.

own journey of whether it's memory or education, learning the histories maybe that they did not know. So kind of a twofold. For me, it represents a personal kind of project, but also an invitation to broader audiences. Amazing. And Rich, you know, you are behind the lens bringing these pictures and these places to life. So please give us your perspective on the importance of this project. I was motivated to begin this because of all the backsliding and the racism that is returning to our political and moral sort of world. The acceptance of racial biases, the encouragement of them has shocked me out of my stupor. I was rather complacent. You know, I'm white.

I feel like I'm on the outside. of so much of this issue, but it's because of white people that it continues. And I feel like it's my responsibility to step up and say, this cannot continue. So I'm a photographer. My gift is to open people's eyes, and that's what I said about to do. I'm scared that we are going to end up back in Jim Crow territory and the way that the racial hatred is being fanned in our body politic is unbelievable to me. I had bought into the notion that we were coming to a post racial place. And I was grateful for that, but it was a lie. It was like I'm waking up from a dream and finding that I'm living in a nightmare. So I turn my camera towards the places that represent

how far we have gone and how far we have fallen back, whether it's the site where George Floyd was killed or Brianna Taylor or the places where civil rights workers were murdered or black people were lynched. I'm appalled and I feel like I need to Shout out. This is happening. People do something about it. We all have to do something about it. Yeah. And I think why this is so important right now, and I will direct this to you, Brian, is, you know, I am thinking about all of the things that Rich just said about the responsibility, about the backsliding. And, you know, you are a sociologist. you have studied how society works, how people work, how memories work, how denialism works, and where I think that we are right now, but you tell me, you tell the audience where I think that we are right now is in a place of both deep shock for those that never imagined that America

would slide so far backwards. So it's this place of shock like, oh my God, I almost cannot comprehend where we are. And then at the same time, this deep betrayal of this country promised us to be better with each generation. Like, I'm supposed to be halfway through the marathon, not like trying to find shoes and an outfit and the gun has already gone off. And now I'm being told I'm so far behind. It's this place of shock, but also a deep betrayal. And for a lot of people, I think that that has them paralyzed with an inability to move. I remember when Trump was elected the day after his election, I was working at the University of Mississippi then. And I drove into campus.

And I remember everywhere outside, you know, the parking lot, the building where I work, Lamar Hall at the University of Mississippi named after a racist politician in Mississippi. I just remember everything felt quiet and surreal. You know, we're on the new abnormal. Like there was a surreal feeling to it. And what I felt then, I felt many times, sometimes I'll just wake up in the middle of the night, it seems. And I'll have to say out loud,

we really elected this person. We really elected Donald Trump. And there are so many other examples of things, like real things that have happened, or if you listen to how folks talk about the realities of the day, the denialism to use your language, it feels so completely, like it feels like it's completely jumped the shark. It feels like I'm in a different reality. And so it's, for me, it's not as much surprise at the reality as it is. It's almost like reality is gaslighting those of us who are plugged into, like, again, these real histories.

One way that I talk about the value of this project is that we didn't draw the pictures of the former colored entrances of theaters and the balcony entrances to churches where black parishioners would have to enter to view service. As Rich mentioned, there are all of these sites where people were lynched, thrown over bridges and gun down. We didn't draw these pictures. We didn't paint them. We didn't imagine them. They are the environment. that today actually surround us. The thing that stands out to me is just the heavy-handed, aggressive, and very much in-public efforts to obfuscate or ignore or just rewrite the things that

actually happen. And so, you know, I'm jumping around a little bit. But I think for me, it just, things just feel weird. And they have just felt weird for a while. And I think that weirdness has to do with, A, as a black man, having a lived experience of racism in the U.S. And as you mentioned, as a scholar, having an intellectual understanding

of racism in the U.S. And then as a collaborator on this project, you know, having this deep acquaintance with this really, I think, gripping visual history of racism in the U.S. At the same time that so many people around me are denying that those histories that I've lived and studied and can see from day to day,

that those histories are not true. And so weird, for me, captures a lot of what you've articulated. You know, there is a hopefulness. There are photos in the collection that do speak to the resilience of black American communities, the defiant ways that we have made places for ourselves, even as these histories have tried to erase us literally and figuratively. And so there is a hopefulness that we will continue to do what we've always done. I don't always know what I feel.

I don't always know how I feel. there's anger and other things too. But weird is a word that I've used a lot lately to get at some of these contradictions. And I think that weird is, it's the right, it's the, is the right word because there are so many feelings that I, for one, have never felt before, before about this country, about the sanctity of possibility and living and understanding what it, what it means to have lived. for a majority of my adult life inside of a country that always seemed possible, even if it has had some of the darkest, most depraved moments in our global history that this country still

seem possible. I direct this question to you, Rich, because I think that this is for me where photography, where visual artistry really comes in to help articulate what words cannot. I want give you the opportunity, you know, what is captured here is in many ways. And I, and I love the in plain sight piece of this book, right? Because we walk past, we drive on these roads that are named for Confederate soldiers. We send children into schools that are named for traitors. We walk past movie theaters and trees where people were separated and hung from. And I think, that art really allows us to connect with things that our minds can't wrap themselves around. Well, one of the things that I appreciate about photography is it's hard to deny what's there,

what you can see with your own eyes. Seeing this evidence that surrounds us makes it harder to believe that, you know, the recent comment by Nikki Haley that America was never a racist country is such a lie. It clearly has been, and unfortunately, to a large degree, continues to be. I feel shame about that. And the people who perpetrated should feel shame. And the people who perpetrated are, I believe, the ones inclined to erase or deny all of this because it is, it is shameful. What I've found particularly shocking from my point of view was how ignorant I was you know there's one picture in there in the book of the more theater in Seattle and you know when I was in my 20s and 30s and 40s I'd stand right by it in lines to get into the theater for either a

rock concert or the Seattle International Film Festival I never knew that door was a segregated entrance until about 40 years after I moved to Seattle and it is one of the things that I sought to reveal is how really broad the racism and segregation of people has been across the country. It is not just in the South. It's often easier to photograph in the South because the structure of segregation was built into architecture in a way that through much of the rest of the country, it's been erased already. the more theater is the oldest theater in Seattle. So you can see the evidence. That exists everywhere. And it is our responsibility to acknowledge the truth and to seek an honest reconciliation.

We can't do that by lying about the racism that has always existed and that still exists. Yeah. And I think that that is, you know, one of the many places, Brian, as you would say, the weird place that we find ourselves is at one time, I think, for a lot of Americans, particularly, that the rose-colored glasses have been removed, that who they thought that this country was and who it's showing itself to be, there is a great chasm that is between those two things. And so I wonder for you, and this is my last question for you to help close us out, which is what are your hopes for this book, for this point?

project for this body of work that I think should be on the, you know, the coffee tables and the kitchen tables of every household in America. What do you want people to take from the ghosts of segregation project? I want people to educate themselves to what's around them and what they can do about it. I think the most important aspect of the book to me is to educate and to raise awareness. And I think that it's always been the case, at least in my reading. Brian is a scientist. He will be able to address this more correctly if he chooses to. But there's always been a substantial minority of Americans that believe bullshit.

I think that there were 30% of Americans prior to World War II blamed the Jews in Europe for what was happening. And 30% were supporting the America First movement at that time, approximately 30%. And there were 30% approximately of colonial America supported the loyalists. So here we are now with another third of the country believing that we are not a racist country and that whatever was done to alleviate the pain of racism is either enough or needs to be rolled back. And those people who feel disaffected are clinging to that sort of narrow, ignorant view. I don't feel like I am a particularly articulate advocate for this remediation and reconciliation. but I want to stress that we cannot go back.

We can't do it. Yeah. I would echo everything that rich shared and first make a related point. Just, you know, I do think that for all of the conversations in different venues that we've had about various instantiations of American racism, especially since summer 2020, there's a lot more ignorance, it seems. I hope that ghosts of segregation can, along with all of the, the other wonderful how the word is passed by Clint Smith and Imani Perry's like I could go on. I hope that ghosts of segregation can be a part of that literature that either when folks go looking

for more information or when folks want to find a resource to help themselves educate, you know, to better educate themselves or to share knowledge with other folks, I hope that they find ghosts of segregation and find some use for it. In that way, I think that educated component that Rich mentioned, I echo. I also think about this project for the things that, you know, as an artist, as a creative, as a writer, a scholar. And, you know, Imani writes about in the board of the book that this tradition of writers and photographer, like there is a tradition of writers and photographers collaborating on

projects of this nature, of this sort. And so there is a secondary goal for me to show other academics, other writers, a way to do this, sort of storytelling and truth telling. For me, there cannot be enough projects that look like ghosts of segregation. There cannot be enough memoirs that talk about the experiences that black folks and other minorities folks have in this hellhole of a place. There cannot be enough textbooks. So for me, I hope that the project, among other things, can provide a model for other folks who are trying to engage in a type of truth telling that are trying to add to the kind of push a momentum to erase or to deal with or to help us reckon with the realities of racism.

I hope it can be an example and motivate folks to engage in whatever their part might be, to engage in it with creativity and vigor and defiance and so forth. So those are just a couple ways that I would talk about kind of, you know, how I think about the goals of the word. Well, I want to thank the both of you so much, one, for making the time for the new abnormal, but two for this creation, for this collaboration. Folks, the book is Ghosts of Segregation. It is American Racism Hidden in Plain Sight. The photographs are by Richard Frischman, essays by Dr. B. Brian Foster and forward by

Amani Perry. You can get it now. Thank you both so much. Appreciate you. Thank you, Daniel. Danielle, thanks a lot. Thank you for having us. Hope you enjoyed.

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