DEBBIE WILLIAMS's Podcast
DEBBIE WILLIAMS's Podcast
EXPOSED – Time to Put an End to Social Injustice & Inequality
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Deborah Burris-Kitchen is a Teacher, Educator, Social Activist and Author. She is currently a Professor of Criminology and Department Chair at the Tennessee State University in Nashville. She has served as President of the Association of Humanist Sociology. She has also been a member of the American Society of Criminology and the American Sociological Association, and an activist who fights against violence, racism, exploitation, greed, and capitalism. In this episode she shares her story about writing her latest book - EXPOSED – Time to Put an End to Social Injustice & Inequality.
Links
https://deborahburriskitchen.com
debbiewilliamspodcast.com
Welcome to Storytelling. Dr. Kassett is a teacher, educator, a social activist, and offered. She is currently a professor of criminology and department at the Tennessee State University in Nashville. She has served as a president of the Association of Humanist Sociology. She has also been a member of the American Society of Criminology and the American Sociological Association. She is also an activist who fights against violence, racism, exploitation, greed, and capitalism. Please welcome Deborah Boris Kitchen. Hello, Deborah, and welcome to the podcast. Thank you.
SPEAKER_01I'm very happy to be here.
SPEAKER_00Deborah, your book exposed Time to Put an End to Social Injustice and Equality. Can you tell us a bit more about your book?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's basically an uncensored raw critique of our American political, economic, and class structure. It's a memoir of short stories and poetry that I try to get at an unfiltered look at the social injustices through the eyes of myself, a sociologist. And I do this by challenging toxic masculinity, by challenging women's victimization, by challenging the power structure and the inequities within our American caste system.
SPEAKER_00Was there something in particular that made you look at the system and say, no, I need to share the story on this or highlight the injustice in the system?
SPEAKER_01Yes, I've been a sociologist since the early 1990s. I got my PhD in sociology from Western Michigan. And so I've always been interested in the injustices and mostly as it's related to social class and racial issues. But recently we had a situation where we nominated and elected a president called Donald Trump. And after four years of watching our democracy crumble under his administration, I just felt a passion to get back to writing, not just academically, about the injustices, but I wanted to write a book that would have a much broader audience than an academic piece would have. And I also have always had a love for poetry and writing short stories, so I thought I would put poetry short stories together to get out this anger and this sense of desperateness, basically, to talk about what is going on with our American democracy.
SPEAKER_00What are the main changes that you saw during that administration?
SPEAKER_01Basically, just the bifurcation of people based on race and on politics. If you were a Trumpster and you were on the other side, you hated those people. I mean, there's just a lot of hate and anger and I think a lot of desperateness to get back to being one group, United States of America. We were not united going into the pandemic at that time. Didn't help because people were isolating themselves, not intentionally, but isolating themselves because of the pandemic. And it just made people more open to criticizing each other through social media and other forms where they didn't have to really face people, but they could just say things without the consequences of retaliation or even debate.
SPEAKER_00What would you say is a difference between previously when you were in your early years of studying sociology till now?
SPEAKER_01I think the injustices are still there. We've made some strides, but again, they got reversed, I think, during the Trump administration towards more equal and fair system based on race, but our social class system, I think, has gotten incredibly worse. I remember growing up, I thought it was incredible that someone had a million dollars, and now we have billionaires. We have people who live on the streets, we have people who can't pay for health insurance, they can't go to the hospital when they need help, they can't feed themselves or shelter themselves, and we've got people with billions of dollars, and it just blows my mind that we can live in a society where there are people who have so much, yet there are so many people that have so little. I mean, it's just a handful of people that have those billions, and then the rest of the people are fighting over the scraps that are left.
SPEAKER_00I think that's pretty much the same in so many societies, unfortunately, as well. And what can be done, would you say, to make our society more equal?
SPEAKER_01In the United States, I think the main thing is to have legislation that forces the very, very rich to pay their fair share of taxes. There are so many loopholes that these millionaires and billionaires can use to get out of paying their fair share, and I mean their fair share is in paying the same amount that the regular person pays. Like we pay a huge percentage of our income towards taxes, but when you look at, you know, they pay maybe 1% versus our 10, 15%, or 25% based on where you fit in as far as your income is concerned. And yeah, they they can find loopholes, even if we change the legislation to make them pay a little bit more. There's still so much out there as far as games they can play to get away with not paying taxes. And without taxing that group of people, they just keep getting wealthier and wealthier while everybody else trying to scrap to pay or to make what they make, and then they have to pay a big percentage of their paycheck to help social welfare programs. When I don't think the people in positions of power that are wealthy are paying their fair share to help people out that need it.
SPEAKER_00On the question of racial inequality, particularly from an outsider looking in, there appears to be lots of racial injustice which is being demonstrated and played out. If we think of the George Floyd, if we think of everything else that's played out in the media, why do you think that there still continues to be disinjustice within the US?
SPEAKER_01I think one of the most recent things that has happened is there was eight years of President Barack Obama, an African-American president. Most people were very, very happy with Barack Obama. His presidency was he was a very brilliant man, did great things for our country. Um I think that scared this group of people that jumped all over voting for Trump. I think it terrified them that equality was starting to look close, closer than what it had looked like in the past, as far as between blacks and whites. And I think that people who jumped on that wagon see blacks as a threat. And I have to say that in this country, we've always played the game of if I don't have something, it's somebody else's fault. It's because they have it or they're taking it. And we've played this game between black and whites throughout American history where if blacks gain, whites lose. And that's not necessarily the truth. If everybody wins, we all win. The history of slavery, I think, has really just continued to manifest itself in the way that we do business between blacks and whites in this country. There's still a lot of hate and anger and for any kind of social progress that people of color make. I'm not real sure why. And again, I think it comes back to if I don't have it, it's because you have it. And if you don't have it, then that's gonna make me progress further. So I'm gonna stop you from getting your piece of the pie so that I can continue to have mine. It's a threat, I think, when African Americans start making progress, to many white Americans who still have this sense that their positions being threatened by people of color.
SPEAKER_00And what would you say is the way forward?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's a really, really good question. Um, and again, I think we need to make sure that everybody pays their fair share so that everyone can benefit from our economic system. Right now we're a capitalist economic system, and I think if we moved more in the direction of a social economic system and redistributed wealth more justly and more fairly, and invested in our schools and invested in other resources, that everybody could be on equal playing ground. It wouldn't be I'm scrapping to get my piece of the pie, and I have to hold somebody else down in order to get my piece, because if they progress or if they do well, then that's my piece of the pie that they just took. It's really complicated, but I think the bottom line is it's more about the economic struggles and who we blame for those economic struggles. We blame each other and the working class or the middle class as opposed to blaming the people who really probably need to be blamed.
SPEAKER_00That's so true. I mean, I think a lot of countries need to look at their economic systems and work out a way of making it fairer for everyone. Are there any other breakthroughs that you have seen over time?
SPEAKER_01Um, I think women have made great progress, and some of the short stories in poetry are about women and their domestic violence and things like that. But I think we've made some pretty good strides with gender relationships or gender equality, but you know, we still have a long way to go. There's still too much women being victims of human trafficking, too much disparity in income. Like women still make 70 cents on the dollar. And if you break it down by race, it even gets worse than men. And it still puts women in vulnerable situations when economically they're falling behind men, especially single mothers. They're very vulnerable to being abused in our safety net system or accused and looked at poorly if they have to use welfare or food stamps or you know, government housing program. They're still seen as bad people that can't pull themselves up by their bootstrap for lack of a better term. So I think we have to really continue to investigate why women make less, why women are not in positions of power at the same level men are. But like I said, we have made some strides. We have several CEOs that are women, we've got Supreme Court justices that are women, we, you know, this is all stuff that's happened over probably the last 30 or 40 years. That's very impressive. But we still have men making decisions on women's bodies, that kind of stuff has to stop.
SPEAKER_00Yes, and as you rightly say, especially with the cost of living crisis as well, it just highlights even more some of the unequalness within the societies in which we live. Deborah, I'm going to invite you to read one of your poems. Exposure of a cat.
SPEAKER_01I watched as racism rushed out of you like blood from a deep cut. I could see bloodstains on your hands and regala as you chose white privilege over democracy that night. You think your white skin is translucent, but is clear what lies inside. Detestation and fury for any person of color that proves, even with your exploitation and alienation, they still can rise. Governing with your fake crown, protesting you are deserving. You proclaim you fought hard for your high rank in the oligarchy. Who are you kidding? Your worth was ascribed, not earned. You were born into wealth. Yours is not a story of ranks to riches. Only your arrogance allows you to believe that that is the truth. You are frustrated when you are dismissed by someone of a lower caste, infuriated when a black or brown brother or sister castes you in the ranks. You have justified in your mind it's okay to call blacks and browns criminals and illegals, pronouncing your superiority while them ye belittle. Lock them up and throw away the key, you say. I have no use for them. Shoot them, starve them, enslave them, take their rights away. No longer off my tax dollars will their children be nourished. Why should my hard-earned tax dollars be given to them with the expectation that they will flourish? Continue to live with a blindfold over your eyes. Preach your creed about how this country was pledged to people like you, bestowed upon the pale skin under the assumption of the manifest destiny. This allows you to be deliberately obtuse about the damage you cause others with your brutality and gluttony. Keep kids in cages so that your children don't have to compete. This only benefits you, but white privilege you can't see. You wear your tainted sacred thread like an honor badge, telling everyone your war stories about how you labored to get everything you have. You speak with righteous indignation to your MAGAHT wearing crowd, brainwashing your followers into believing you're bringing America back to that nation it once was when only people that looked like you were worshipped, respected, and deserved being treated like loyalty. Demanding your believers charge the White House, ordering them to kill anyone who demonstrated their disloyalty on Capitol Hill, convincing your henchmen that blacks and browns are replacing them, and soon whites will be placed dead last in the cast ranks. You recruit your ignorant to wage your war to eliminate the threat of having to live in a world where your white skin is seen as repulsive, dangerous, and no longer any worthy. You quake at the thought of not having any value in this newly colored world. You will be dethroned and forced to see that you were never worthy. I see that smirk on your face as you push that will bear of generational wealth down the street, piled so high with things you claimed you earned, while exploiting, raping, robbing, lynching, beating, and brutally murdering blacks and browns, so that you can continue to keep your place of sovereignty. You are burning books so you never have to speak about the past, apologetically, hoping your children and grandchildren never see the truth. The grand finale is soon to come when you become accustomed to disregard, and your work will be devalued. Serving the regal should be done without financial reward. Your schools will be lined with police acting as the Department of Correction and Arts, preparing you for your future in the prison yard. Or your white skin will be viewed as apparel. We will count your young to predict how many prison beds will be needed in the coming decade. We must lack away your young adults before they revolt against the policy. We must incarcerate your youth before self-repugnance and killing become a commonality. No books to read, but we the people have determined education's lost move. No food to eat unless you bathe. Free lunch comes with a loss of dignity. Once the revolution is over and we take that one last name, you will be forced to beg for favors from people who lynched, burned, and left in poverty. Good luck with your future once your new destiny is discerned. There is no returning for those bridges you have already burned.
SPEAKER_00Deborah, thank you so much for reading such a wonderful poem. And thank you for your time on this podcast.
SPEAKER_01Thank you so much for having me. It's been an honor to talk to you today. I appreciate it.
SPEAKER_00If you would like further information about Deborah and would like details about her book, then please follow the link in the show notes.