Today, Explained - American Nightmare

Episode Date: June 1, 2020

Professor Ibram X. Kendi explains how the protests and unrest are a result of black America’s living nightmare and what it will take to wake up. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Visit connectsontario.ca. Do you remember President Trump's inaugural address back in January 2017? He talked about crime, gang violence, drugs. He called it all American carnage. The speech left a lot of people scratching their heads. Violent crime in the country had been trending downward for decades. George W. Bush, who was actually just seated a few feet away from the brand new president, apparently turned to his neighbors when the speech was over and said, that was some weird shit.

But now, in the fourth year of the Trump presidency, American carnage doesn't feel like such a head-scratcher. We've got more than 100,000 people dead due to COVID, at least 40 million unemployed, horrifying videos of Black men being murdered by racist police and racist police wannabes, and now protests in the streets across our cities. Most are peaceful. Some are violent. Both versions are being met with police brutality.

The whole world is watching the American carnage. American University professor Ibram Kendi has been watching too. We reached him this morning at his home in D.C. And he said he's got a different name for it. He calls this the American nightmare. The American nightmare is, first and foremost, a horror story. And in a horror story, there are moments of joy and safety and laughter. But what's essential to a horror story is danger.

And Black people recognize that since they're viewed as dangerous in this country, they're constantly the victims of violence. And so it's dangerous to be Black in America. And I wrote about how really that you can't really separate the death and disease and destruction of Black people from the Black experience, which in its totality is the American nightmare. Right. You wrote about this American nightmare in The Atlantic, and you referred to this nightmare throughout history. But how is this nightmare a part of what we're seeing play out in the streets in cities across the country right now? I think where I'm seeing it play out first and foremost is you have people who are in pain, and they're in pain, particularly Black people, because chances are they've been subjected at some point in their life to police brutality, or they know someone. And typically, Black people experience other Black people's pain, and they certainly step into the souls of those who are dead,

whether it's Breonna Taylor or George Floyd, to really feel their pain, to really feel that nightmare. And so then they demonstrate, they protest. At times, they even get violent. And states call the National Guard not to protect their lives, not to protect their lives against police violence, but to protect the police and property. And so it then reinforces this idea that their lives don't matter. But this isn't the first time. It's not the 10th time. It's not the thousandth time. So why this time? I think for Black people, and I know certainly for me, it was having to deal with months of recognizing that Black people are disproportionately dying of COVID-19

and simultaneously being blamed for their own deaths. The unwillingness of racist Americans to look at the social determinants of health that are actually leading to disproportionate Black death. And then comes Breonna Taylor. And then comes Ahmaud Arbery. And then comes what happened to Christian Cooper in Central Park. And then comes George Floyd. I think all of that in its totality, combined with this sort of history of Black disease, Black pain, that's the result of racist policies and power. I think in its totality is almost becoming the American nightmare. And it's just so obvious for people. And obviously,

nobody wants to live in an American nightmare. These protests, you know, peaceful and violent both have people thinking back to the 1960s to 1968 in particular. And it's easy to make that connection, but so much has changed and so much hasn't changed. What's important about the connection? Well, I think what's strikingly different is the makeup of the crowds of people who are resisting, particularly violently. And so I think there's a much more interracial group of people who are resisting than there was in 1968, you know, after the assassination of Martin Luther King. And that's not to say that there were not any non-Black people involved in those rebellions, but it seems like there were more non-Black people involved in today's rebellions.

So that's fundamentally striking. And I also sort of think that the consciousness, you know, of many of these people, when you actually look at the signs, when you actually interview them, when you actually talk to them, you know, they recognize that police violence is not the American problem, but it is a sign of many of the problems that Americans face. And they want to grow up in a different type of America, and they're going to do all they can to create that type of America. How did the protests Act of 1968. So you had that sort of civil rights, major civil rights bill that was passed, the last major civil rights bill of the civil rights movement. And then you simultaneously obviously had a lot of police force that came down the head,

onto the heads of people, which large numbers of people were arrested and even brutalized. And so what's striking is it seems in this case that, at least at a national level, that only police force seems to be coming. How does it end this time, you think? immediate and fast and dramatic policy changes by bringing in state police, by bringing in national guards, by issuing curfews, that these are policy changes that they have the power to do, that they would similarly make striking and massive policy changes within their policing departments, within their neighborhoods and communities, that they would listen to the policy demands of local activists on the ground and immediately institute those policy changes. And I think that if they were to do that, then I think that that would have the capacity to potentially stop the resistance. But this is why people are resisting. They don't see any

change coming. Nobody's saying, not nobody, but they want change. And until change happens, they're going to resist. How to wake up from the American nightmare, or if that's even possible, after the break. Support for Today Explained comes from Ramp. Ramp is the corporate card and spend management software designed to help you save time and put money back in your pocket. Ramp says they give finance teams unprecedented control and insight into company spend. With Ramp, you're able to issue cards to every employee with limits and restrictions and automate expense reporting so you can stop wasting time at the end of every month.

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please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Professor Kendi, what does it look like when Black Americans wake up from this nightmare? Well, I know for me, something as simple as, you know, if I'm running down the street, I don't have to worry about being targeted by not only racist white terrorists, but also the potential that they wouldn't even get arrested if they harmed me or that when I run by a police officer, I don't get scared. I view them as somebody who's

going to protect and serve me. That sort of, I don't see racist barriers all around me while racist Americans are telling me I'm the reason why, and my own inferiority is the reason why my people sort of have less. In America, where there's equity for all, there's justice for all, and there's opportunity for all. That sounds nice, but how does it work practically? You wrote an entire book about this called How to Be Anti-Racist. How do we do it? I think first and foremost, it's critical for every American to stop saying terms like, I'm not racist. And I think it's critically important for Americans to admit the racist ideas that they have likely been raised to believe. It's critically important for Americans to admit the racist policies they've supported

that have led to inequality and injustice and death. And it's critically important for them to admit the times in which they were being racist because there's no way they can change themselves if they're still in that denial. And so to be anti-racist is to admit when we're being racist. And then not only that admission, but then we challenge those racist ideas. We adopt anti-racist ideas that say the problem is power and policy when there's inequity,

not people. And then we spend our time, we spend our funds, we spend our energy challenging racist policy and power. That just feels so, you know, insurmountable, especially right now. I mean, without question, even in How to Be an Antiracist, I write about racism as like a metastatic disease that literally has spread to every part of the body politic. And we can see those sort of tumor cells through all of the George Floyds and Breonna Taylors who are dying, through all of the injustices and the inequities. And so it's everywhere. And it's always been widespread in the United States. And so the question is, will we just believe that it's always going to be here and then guarantee our death?

Or will we basically acknowledge our diagnosis that we have this metastatic racism that we have to treat, that the treatment is going to be painful, and simultaneously believe that we can live. And I said this from the standpoint of someone who was diagnosed with metastatic colon cancer, who was basically told that only 12% of people survive this disease. And I had two choices. Either I just give up or fight and try to sort of live against all odds. The United States has been fighting this for so long, it just feels like a congenital disease, right? And that makes us different from just about every country on earth. It's so much more complex here and so much more intertwined with who we are as a country. I think you're correct when you say it's,

you know, understanding race and racism is extremely difficult and it isn't extremely complex. But something can be extremely complex while at the same time extremely simple. And the simplicity of it is that you have racial disparities in the United States, in Canada, in other countries, and that's why they have more. Or racist policy. Those are the only two options. And anti-racists believe that the racial groups are equal, and so they're trying to change policy. And racists believe that certain groups are better or worse than others, so they're either trying to get rid of people or segregate people or civilize people. Indeed, there's two American racial histories. There's the history of racist progress, wherein you've had those forces that are constantly seeking

to maintain racial inequity, and their policies and ideas have become more sophisticated over time. But you've also had a history of anti-racist progress, in which you had, obviously, the reasons why racist policies and ideas have had to become more sophisticated over time is because they've been constantly challenged. And anti-racist activists have constantly, at times, won battles only for them to potentially lose the next battle.

And so, you know, that's how you can have, in the same country, a manifestation of racial progress, as for many people, President Barack Obama was, and a manifestation of racist progress, who, for many people people is Donald Trump. You mentioned Barack Obama, and I think a lot of people hoped Barack Obama meant a new day for this American nightmare, as you call it, but here we are. And this weekend, you had the rapper Killer Mike come out in Atlanta and say, you know, don't burn the city down, vote, organize. And the mayor in Atlanta echoed that sentiment. But I think a lot of people don't think that that'll do the trick. What do you say to people out there right now who don't think voting in a black leader channel your anger is through seeking to vote into power anti-racist elected officials. And it's yet another thing to say that in reaction to people who are protesting or demonstrating against police violence in Atlanta. And instead of Atlanta's officials immediately making policy changes that have the capacity to reduce police violence against people, instead those Atlanta officials make immediate policy changes to stem violence

against property and police, and then simultaneously say to those very people, well, you need to channel your energy into electing people like me. But those very people who, those very elected officials, actually have the power in that moment to make changes, and they're not doing it. So you can't simultaneously not use your power to make change and then tell people, you should be electing people like me, and then change will come. All the attention right now is on the people who are out in the streets demanding change and, you know, the people who are angry, the people who are breaking windows, the people who are policing those people. But there are a lot of people out there who are concerned, who see injustice and violence and want to do something but don't know what to do, you know?

There's sort of calls to action on social media saying you got to speak up right now. And a lot of people don't know what to say. I wonder, what would you say to those people? Sure. So I think every individual lives in a neighborhood and chances are that neighborhood has racial disparities. Every individual operates in an institution, whether that's their job, whether that's their church, whether that's a club. Chances are their job, their institution has racial disparities or is doing nothing in the face of racial disparities. And so I think every individual can look around their own neighborhood, their own institution, and ask the question, well, who here is challenging

the policy that is leading to these racial disparities. And they can join with those people. They can join that organization. And if there isn't an organization, and I suspect there probably is, or an informal group of people, then you create one. Then you become that organizer.

Every single individual has the power to do that. Professor Kendi, thank you so much. You're welcome. Thank you. Ibram X. Kendi is a professor and the director of the Anti-Racist Research and Policy Center at American University in the District of Columbia. He's the author of How to Be an Anti-Racist, a book someone you know could certainly use right now. He also writes for The Atlantic sometimes. He published a piece this morning titled The American Nightmare. I'm Sean Ramos for him. This is Today Explained.