America's Flashpoint Paradox: The Flash and SCOTUS rewrite history.

Ever wondered what a superhero movie could teach us about real-world politics? Strap in, because we're venturing into an intriguing intersection of pop culture and politics, with DC's The Flash as our cinematic pivot point. This episode will unravel intriguing parallels between Barry Allen's timeline alterations and the current attempts to rewrite history within the US government, as we navigate the depths of the Flashpoint Theory and discuss Ezra Miller's stellar performance.

We're not stopping at superheroes, though. This conversation also digs into the critical issue of affirmative action laws in the United States—originally designed to uplift minorities but later colonized and co-opted. We'll dissect how these mechanisms, tainted by white privilege and racial advantage, inadvertently contribute to societal resegregation and could be hindering the progress of diversity. And if that's not enough, we'll also shed light on the power of voting and its capacity to effect real-world change. So, are you ready to connect the world of superheroes with the hard-hitting realities of politics and societal norms?

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/20-

1199_hgdj.pdfhttps://www.britannica.com/topic/affirmative-action

http://holmesforhighpoint.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3tochTgPVc

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:33

Hi everyone and welcome to the latest episode of superhero politics. I'm your host, michael Holmes, and we're going to talk about jacking up some timelines. Alright, thank you guys for being with us and coming back at the end of this episode. We got some really big news from really great news that is going on both in the comic book world and the political world. I've got some announcements to make, but we're going to get into this episode and, for those of you watching on YouTube, you can see that I am wearing my flash t shirt because we're going to be talking about the flash today. We're going to do a quick review of the movie and then we're going to talk about the flash point theory and how it intersects today with the rewriting of history that is being attempted in our US government. So, really quickly about the movie.

Speaker 1: 1:31

Obviously, it didn't do as well at the box office as I think DC had hoped it was going to do. Certainly, they had high hopes for the production of this film, the script of this film, the place where this film was coming out in terms of the transition from the Snyderverse over to the new MCU or DCU. I'm sorry. And so, after a string of box office kind of failures, with one woman in 1984 and Shazam, fury of the Gods and Black Adam, just kind of misses from the DCU. There was hopes that the flash was going to be that Well, that flash point, that reset that they were able to jump off, and just only aesthetics of the movie. I would say, you know it was pretty good. You know there was some shoddy little quirks with the, with the CGI there, but you know, overall, I think, for what the flash is, I think it was a decent. I think it was decent. I think the visuals were decent. I mean the cast itself. They had some really big time cameos in there. I mean from you know, three different Batman with Keaton and Affleck and at the end, for those of you who haven't seen it, I mean Clooney shows up as Batman, and so they had Gal Gadot in there as Wonder Woman and Mamoa Michael Shannon as odd. I mean they had some really, you know, really big cameos in there, and so Sasha Calli was there as Carrizo or else. So I think, overall, I think the film itself had potential. I just think it got derailed by forces outside of its own power. And so you know, as we we look at what happened to the film and look at how it performed worse than Green Lantern, which was a surprise. It performed worse than Green Lantern.

Speaker 1: 3:48

I think a lot of that had to do with the controversy surrounding Ezra Miller and so but my review of the film has a lot to do with Ezra Miller's performance. Now, whatever you think about him personally, whatever you think about Ezra Miller personally, if you take a step back, if you just take a step back and really, really, really take a look at that performance, that was a S tier, god level acting performance. There's no really other way to say it. There's no other way to say it. For him to establish playing a dual role of the same character with completely and utterly different personalities, completely and utterly different personalities, and to have character development in both of those in opposite directions, to have character development of both of the variations of the flash in opposite directions, was astounding. I found myself literally sitting in the in the theater marveling at this guy's ability to portray this character. Now I try to suspend judgment. I just go to the film, watch the film and just review. But there is no way that you can sit there and say that that was not a top notch performance of not only Barry Allen the character, but the younger version of Barry Allen and the flash. I'm sorry, this was a fantastic acting portrayal by Ezra Miller and I hope everyone who gets a chance to see the film suspends everything that you know about him. I know that's hard in this day, but you got to take a look at this, this performance. It was to me, one of the most incredible acting performances that I've seen, not just in a superhero film but in the last 10 years in movies. I thought it was astounding. And I've seen people play to dual characters, but I've never seen I've never seen the entire film be centered around the interaction between the same character in the dual character, with that much of the dialogue being against back and forth between the two with completely different personalities. I'm sorry, but this was a fantastic performance. So I just wanted to give that quick review of the flash and then connect it to our political theme of the day, which is the rewriting of history.

Speaker 1: 7:02

In the film, barry runs back in time because he wants to save his mom, because he feels like it's a tragedy and it messed up his life. It messed up his dad's life. His dad was in prison, about to be sentenced to death because of his supposed murder of his mom. They couldn't figure out why his mom was killed and his dad took the fall for. So he's decided look, I bought this power and stability, I can run back in time and fix it all. And even when he was talking to Bruce, then I flex Batman. He said, hey, look, I can, I can say my parents, I can say your parents, I can go back, I can do all of this. You make it like it never happened. And obviously Bruce, being the genius that he is, said hey, look, hey, you have to understand. And even Barry was cognizant of the fact that. Yeah, you know, there's gonna be some potential pitfalls. I can't, you know, interact with myself. I can't do all this.

Speaker 1: 8:12

And immediately he comes across himself and so the the entire Endeavor shot the shit like right out the gate. But he tries to make the best of it. But then he starts to realize the incursion that he created had already Messed up the timeline and not to get all quantum. You know, e equals mc square here in this episode. But you think about time in the sense of like a rock hitting your windshield, right, you're going down the road 70 miles per hour and a rock hits your windshield and it glances off. So, depending on the size of the rock At this peak, at this point it could be a small divot or a small little crack in your windshield with little Splinters right like a little stars, little starfish, little snowflake, or you could hit it and it could just make a big singular crack and just kind of run along the expanse of your windshield. So, yeah, that could. That could be what Barry was intended. Okay, we're gonna make this encouraging point with little Indention and then this timeline is gonna go, but the potential for so many different timelines or what centered around that point of impact and we saw that later in the film.

Speaker 1: 9:39

As he's going back and he's keeping, he's keep trying to undo this cannon event. That is going to happen, regardless of what you do, and this is why I want to talk about what happened in the Supreme Court and how, across the country, conservatives are trying to rewrite history, specifically black history, in terms of education and affirmative action, and so they're attacking education and they're doing it by trying to rewrite history first in Florida before we get to affirmative action. In Florida, governor Ron DeSantis and the Florida legislature just passed the bill that highlighted how to teach black history. Now, no other, no other History has these caveats or these, these Designs around Misinformation or miseducation of groups, api, hispanic or Native. None of these groups have the type of stringent, divergent curricula that black history has, and so, in the latest, just frontal assault on black history, florida has decided that you can teach slavery, but you must teach that slavery had some inherent benefits for African-Americans or enslaved people. Slavery had inherent benefits for Slaves. That is what Florida is teaching now. It it boggles my mind and it makes, and it makes this episode all the more poignant, simply because, if you look at what they're doing, they're trying to rewrite how we view the atrocities of slavery, so the generations coming behind us will have this Watered-down view of how bad slavery was and the ripple effects that carried forward Hundreds of years later. This essentially cements the ability of certain of groups to continue to discriminate against African Americans generations to come, simply because Kids won't know how bad the history of this country country is. And so it is not just started at the K-12 level, it is now also moved into the collegiate level, because the Supreme Court rolled back affirmative action. Now this is just the next wave of assaults on civil rights era. So 1963 to 1968, lbj passed a series of civil rights acts around discrimination and housing and voting and so many things that have closed that had attempted to close the gap in achievement and wealth for black Americans. This is just the first wave of violence versus white Americans and they have never not stopped being attacked in undermined.

Speaker 1: 13:30

So 2008, barack Obama wins. Two years later, the Supreme Court gets rid of the VRA, section 4 and section 5 and since then voter suppression all through the south has been, has been rampant, whether it's been voter ID, the closing of polling places, the inability of DMVs to be able to issue the correct drive, the correct IDs, getting rid of Sunday voting, getting ready to same day registration, getting ready to register, registering 16 year olds, getting rid of all the things that would inspire a generation to be able to take part in voting All those things have been attacked. Gerrymandering, wiping out black centers of voting power, diluting, diluting them, splitting districts to that can further dilute power. Hell, in Alabama there's a town that's 85% black, yet the entire town council and mayor is white, and now we have a black mayor and they refuse to see them in a town in Alabama. They just refuse to see him. And the new mayor said that the town in 2023. A lady told the new mayor, the new black mayor that was elected, that the town wasn't ready for a black man. It's 2023.

Speaker 1: 15:11

But here we are now, fast forward to the Supreme Court. Who is just rolled back In the dobs decision? Just roll back abortion access and rights. Roe v Wade Now taking on affirmative action. So 100 years of precedent is gone in just one session of the Supreme Court. The John Roberts Court will live in infamy forever. But the rewriting of history is now front and center because we're talking about getting rid of vast sections of the Voting Rights Act because they are deemed discriminatory to white people. Now I really want you to hear that they are discriminatory to white people.

Speaker 1: 16:14

Now let's take a look at the statistics. Black people make up 3% of Harvard and Harvard and University of North Carolina. My home state was named in this suit because they explicitly said we are going to consider race in our decision making. Why? Because we want the most diverse counts. We want the most diverse campus, but the most diversity of thought, the most diversity of backgrounds that we possibly can. We understand that. That makes learning institutions, better we get that. So what are we going to do? We're going to consider that. So they were explicitly named in the lawsuit. When this decision comes down, it says Harvard, north Carolina, every no school can take into account race and admit on the basis of race.

Speaker 1: 17:14

Now the irony of all this is that Clarence Thomas, second African American to ever sit on the seat on the Supreme Court, benefited from affirmative action. He's literally where he is today because of affirmative action and now he's trying to rewrite history so that he can say that he made it on his mirrors. And I'm not saying he's not. I didn't say I'm not saying that Clarence Thomas didn't earn his way there. What I know for a fact is, in terms of being a, being a constitutional scholar, clarence Thomas was never thought of as that level of judicial thought. So whatever you want to say, maybe he's projecting a little bit, but right now they're saying that African Americans have disproportionately benefited at the expense of Asian Americans and white Americans. Now, asian Americans Asians make up 25% of Harvard's student body. Asians are 6% of the population, maybe less, so Asians are represented four times their population. African Americans make up 12%, which is right in line with the population, 13% of the population, the United States.

Speaker 1: 18:50

Now where the issue comes in is that legacy students make up 33%, a third, and of that third, 70% are white. 40% of that they would not qualify. Now here's the thing about affirmative action. Affirmative action didn't take a D student out of the inner city of Detroit and put them in Harvard. No, every single student, minority student, who would have otherwise been considered affirmative action, qualified on the merits of their academic performance, every one of them.

Speaker 1: 19:39

A lot was made by people like Joy Reed and Michelle Obama saying Sheila Jackson Lee, saying yeah, I went to Harvard because of affirmative action. And what they really said was hey, I was in a place where Harvard would never come to recruit. Affirmative action only forced Harvard to come to find me. They didn't lower the standards, they didn't change any of the admission process. They just had to come and find me now because there was a direct edict from the federal government that said they had to expand admissions for minorities to balance the playing field of his against historical inequities that this country never fixed.

Speaker 1: 20:34

And now here we are, just barely over 50 years and everybody saying, oh, everything's good. As a matter of fact, we've gone too far and we're hurting white people. Now this is going to be tough white people. It's about you, about to get some tough words. So you know, if you're still here after this, know I'm saying it in love the reason why you're so against affirmative action.

Speaker 1: 21:04

And white women have benefited from affirmative action more than any other group, any other group. White women have been the beneficiaries. White women were included as a protected class in the affirmative action original affirmative action case and white women have since. We've reached the benefits in education, in, in entrepreneurism and corporate America, finance, government, wherever. It is 77% of the jobs that are considered affirmative action with the white women. So even the laws put in place to help minorities were co-opted and colonized and black women minorities lost out.

Speaker 1: 21:51

So now, just like Barry runs back in time and damages timeline and has unintended consequences, this will also have unintended consequences, and the reason why I say that progress is a canon event is because it always happens. Now, if you're watching the movie over and over, barry tries to stop Sasha, callie, supergirl Kara Zorrell from dying. He runs back, he runs back in time, he runs back, back, back. But every single time she dies, every single time he runs back, she dies Every time he changes something, she dies, and it doesn't matter, it's a canon event, it is supposed to happen. It is going to happen, no matter what you do. It's going to happen and, by God, progress in this country is a canon event. Slavery ended, reconstruction, jim Crow, segregation All these things happened. In every single point, progress came through. Now, is it 100%? No, but the country is moving forward. African Americans are moving forward. We're making progress, and I think that is the fear is because here comes the, here comes the tough love.

Speaker 1: 23:20

White people, your privilege and your inherent racial advantage has made you soft, it has made you mediocre, and I always say this is the same. You keep talking about the meritocracy that you say you want, but you really don't, and the reason I say that is is because you can't hide mediocrity in a meritocracy. You can't do it. So as black people become more educated, as opportunities open up for Hispanics and immigrants, you find yourself struggling to compete on the field that you designed. And so what do you have to do? You have to take out the structural components of your competition. You have to take out the ability to gain a, an education equivalent to yours. You have to take out the ability to to acquire capital equivalent to yours. You have to segregate through policy rather than fear and violence, and it's getting harder and harder and harder for you to maintain those controls, especially in a world that is now seeing the value of embracing the diversity that is changing this country.

Speaker 1: 25:02

Now the problem, the unintended consequences of these actions, could be that white America suffers. And I say that because at some point it's going to occur to people of color that we are not wanted in your spaces and there may be a natural resegregation which you may see is you may see black kids, instead of their dream to get into Harvard and Yale and Stanford and Brown In Columbia, we're going to turn around and say you know what? I'm going to go to North Carolina A&T and I'm going to bring up North Carolina A&T. I'm going to go to Coppon State, I'm going to go to Howard, I'm going to go to Morehouse, I'm going to go to an HBCU and I'm going to bring that up, and you're going to see black academics doing that and ultimately, ultimately, what may be the linchpin is when the black athlete follows, because here's some more tough love. You may not want us in your classroom, but you damn sure want us on your field. You damn sure want us on your basketball courts and your baseball diamonds you damn sure want us there. So you can try to erase history all you want and keep us out of your classroom, but the history you're trying to keep is you used to segregate us and not put us in your locker rooms, but you don't want that to go away, and so the unintended consequences are going to be. Eventually, we are going to figure out a way to overcome this, and what?

Speaker 1: 27:00

One way that's always happened is guess what these same groups that have fought to protect affirmative action have now said. You know what the worst affirmative action is legacy admissions. You're unqualified. You're only at Harvard because your dad's name is on the building, your granddad name is on the building, your families and your family gives $100 million every year to an endowment. That's why you're there. You're a mediocre student, but you're at Harvard. At Harvard, you're at Yale, you're at Brown in Columbia, you're at Vassar, you're at all these Ivy League schools and you don't qualify. And so now they're attacking legacy admissions. And so now what you're going to have is you're going to have a bunch of rich scions who just knew they were going to wake up one day with their last name being whatever it is, and walk into an Ivy League school. And now that opportunity is gone, that entitlement is gone, simply because you couldn't accept the 3% of black kids who went to Ivy League universities via affirmative action.

Speaker 1: 28:22

I believe we call this hoisted on your own petard. Oh, and look at the here I am facing the consequences of my actions. And so what happens is, every time Barry went back, he tried to rewrite history, he tried to change it, but it just kept coming and just like, just like African Americans, we're going to keep coming. We are not going to stop. Affirmative action is just another bump in a long, winding road to ultimately, what black Americans are going to achieve. Polling after polling says that, no matter what happens in this country, the most optimistic people in this country are black people Because we know what we've overcome, we know the adversity we faced and we keep persevering because we know we're going to be victorious. So Barry ultimately came to the realization as I believe white America will.

Speaker 1: 29:29

I believe that, for whatever Clarence Thomas's machinations are he may not in his lifetime, but the generations that follow him will is that this country is better when it's diverse, and so economic studies have shown and I'm doing this because that's something that I'm working on right here in High Point, north Carolina, and I'm working on restorative economic policies as a member of city council. I wrote a policy brief on this is that over the last half century, the $50 billion in GDP has been lost Brookings, international Monetary Fund, cnbc, harvard School of Finance you can find this anywhere and I'll put some of those links in the show notes. But every single one of those studies has shown that this country has lost $50 trillion $16 trillion since the year 2000. Because of structural racism, because of institutional racism, this country is poorer and weaker. If we were less racist, there is not a single country on earth that would be within a millennia's, and that's the biggest chance of catching us as an economic power.

Speaker 1: 31:02

We're $30 trillion economy. We should be an $80 trillion economy, but because of structural racism, because of the denial of capital and entrepreneurialism, because of higher interest rates and higher full closure rates on African Americans, because of our xenophobic inability to embrace the immigrant population who comes in and is falling apart right now, is falling a fucking part, because the Santas and his policies have chased off that segment of the labor population and houses are falling apart that can't get finished being built, crops are riding in the field, you've got freaking hotels who can't staff because they don't have the people, all because mediocrity has won the day in the white community, all because you're trying to hide your mediocrity in a meritocracy, and it will stick out. And so what's going on is now you're suffering, and I'm trying really hard not to have Schadenfreude because I don't want the pain that's inflicted on my country, but it's hard not to sit back and realize what's happening. Because of the choices that you made, because you've tried to rewrite history, because you've tried to change the past, the future is in doubt. So, yes, we're at a flashpoint. We are at a flashpoint, we are at a reckoning, we're at a nexus and we're facing a canon event. Because, guess what? Progress has never been stopped. It's been slowed, but it's never been stopped. It's been delayed, but it's never been denied, and progress will continue in this country.

Speaker 1: 33:05

So, as we wrap up, I just want you guys to think about what it means to have a diverse country, what it means to have diverse opinions and diverse circles of friends, extended family, what that means, and how much better you're much, much more rich. Your life has been because of something, because you've learned from some folks and some people that you don't know. Think about the richness that diversity has brought into your life. Think about every time that you travel to a new country. You come back with a different perspective. You come back with an expanded worldview. But if you segregate yourself and you wall yourself off from all the things that are different from you, when you are faced, inevitably, with those changes, you can't cope, and that's what I'm afraid is going to happen years from now and this country will be torn apart because of it. I believe that we're going to overcome it. I'm continually optimistic, but we've got work to do, folks, and I am really grateful to be in the fight as an elected official. And so one thing thank you, guys for being with us today.

Speaker 1: 34:38

There's a lot of information that's going to be in the show notes coming up here, but big news, guys, big news. Next weekend, I and superhero politics podcast will be will be moderating my first fan panel at Galaxy con in Raleigh, north Carolina, and so I've already I've been checking it daily and folks are lining up and they're liking the event and they're going to come and we're going to film live from there and we're going to take questions and I'm going to get a lot of great footage there. But it's a really huge event. You know, speaking of the flash, one of the guests will be there will be Grant Guston, stephen Amell from Arrow, karen Gillian from, who plays Nebula and the the Guardian series, a lot of Star Wars fans, a lot of Star Wars folks there, billy Dee Williams a lot of a lot of great folks. Vampire diaries, folks in Summer Holder, paul Wesley a lot of cool folks are going to be there. I'm going to try to get some interviews going to try to, you know, not ambush folks, but maybe just step in and introduce myself and maybe, down the road, have some of these great guests on superhero politics podcast. So I'll be there next Saturday, the 29th, and we'll broadcast live from there and we'll also record our next episode.

Speaker 1: 36:09

And it is political season. Guys, you can't have superhero, can't have superheroes and not have politics, because it's superhero politics podcast. I am running for reelection. Guys officially launched my campaign on July 7 and things are going well and if you want to follow my campaign, if you want to get to know what we're doing, the issues that matter, my platform.

Speaker 1: 36:36

You can go to homes for high point dot com, hol MES FOR H I G, h, p O I, ntcom, and that'll be in the show notes as well. So please go check out my campaign If you want to contribute. Cool, if you don't just send a well wish and just say hey, I appreciate the support and the encouragement. This is a tough job but I love it and we continue to do the best that we possibly can to move high point and the state of North Carolina and ultimately the country for it.

Speaker 1: 37:12

So, love you guys, thank you, enrich your lives, get to know someone is different from you guys, be kind to one another, show compassion and remember we're coming up on political season and voting season. If you ever feel powerless, always know that you do have a power If you are eligible to vote. Make sure that you exercise that, because voting is a superpower and you can change the world with it, and I know that for a fact. So just remember, until next time, this is your host, michael Holmes, this superhero politics, and remember you don't have to be superhuman to be a superhuman. Until next time. Love you guys, we're out.