It's high time we pulled back the veil on the darkened narrative of racism and its impact on people of color. Today's episode is a deep-dive into how history has been manipulated, and the damaging half-truths that have resulted. We look at how these distortions have permeated our collective consciousness, and challenge you to explore deeply ingrained biases and insecurities.
As we expose the harsh realities of racism and the psychological effects it has, we also shine a light on the potential for change. This is not about being 'non-racist', but 'anti-racist', fully understanding and confronting white privilege and its implications. We examine the laws limiting the movements of people of color and the reaction of white nationalists in attempting to rewrite history - but we also invite you to be a part of the solution.
Finally, we encourage you to join us in the journey toward empathy and understanding. We discuss the power of confession, the importance of open dialogue, and the strength in recognizing our shared human experience. Together, we can challenge the narrative, expose lies, and shape a more nuanced understanding of our history. Tune in and let's move towards a brighter, more inclusive future.
Thanks for listening. Please check out our website at www.forsauk.com to hear great conversations on topics that need to be talked about. In these times of intense polarization we all need to find time to expand our Frame of Reference.
It's high time we pulled back the veil on the darkened narrative of racism and its impact on people of color. Today's episode is a deep-dive into how history has been manipulated, and the damaging half-truths that have resulted. We look at how these distortions have permeated our collective consciousness, and challenge you to explore deeply ingrained biases and insecurities.
As we expose the harsh realities of racism and the psychological effects it has, we also shine a light on the potential for change. This is not about being 'non-racist', but 'anti-racist', fully understanding and confronting white privilege and its implications. We examine the laws limiting the movements of people of color and the reaction of white nationalists in attempting to rewrite history - but we also invite you to be a part of the solution.
Finally, we encourage you to join us in the journey toward empathy and understanding. We discuss the power of confession, the importance of open dialogue, and the strength in recognizing our shared human experience. Together, we can challenge the narrative, expose lies, and shape a more nuanced understanding of our history. Tune in and let's move towards a brighter, more inclusive future.
Thanks for listening. Please check out our website at www.forsauk.com to hear great conversations on topics that need to be talked about. In these times of intense polarization we all need to find time to expand our Frame of Reference.
Let's have it Well good afternoon, good evening, good morning, whenever you're listening to this podcast, right Cause we just don't know, do we Antoine? Do we know when they're listening?
Speaker 1:No, we don't, and we just hope you all listening. That's all that matters, just listen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we hope you're listening from Germany or from, you know, saskatchewan or wherever you're listening from, cause you know, lord knows we are saying important things, aren't we? Are we?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, oh yes, yes, yes, life changing things, things that could change the trajectory of communities and futures Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Wouldn't that be wonderful. So we're just, we're putting that all out there because we're not here to just kind of, you know, stroke ourselves. Here we're, antoine and I. We have no egos that we need to boost, except to see the kingdom of God and the kingdom of truth reign over a time where there are a few people that are willing to stand up, even people that are supposedly, you know, men and women of God, that are willing to stand up and say this this isn't right. There's something this does not fit with the gospel.
Speaker 2:I don't get it.
Speaker 1:Absolutely right. The Bible says the world is waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God, those that kept their Lord's commandments and are applying them. Love God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength, and loving people as you love yourself. We have fulfilled everything, but we're not loving. That's what. That's what. That's what the root thing we're not loving. We haven't been loving as a country for ever. So that's what? All right. Well, I mean right.
Speaker 2:I mean you see that manifested in all kinds of ways. You know if you're going to you're going to love people.
Speaker 2:One of the first things you you try to do, I mean, I think, is you, you know, like, think of your family members when they get into, you know, bad situations. You know loving them isn't starting out by saying you know, I told you that was the stupidest thing you ever could have done. Loving on people in those situations is it looks more like you know, gosh, that sounds awful. You know what? What? Tell me more about what happened. You know what? What were you doing? And you may, you may, be thinking that's the stupidest thing anyone could ever do, but you don't understand the whole situation. And until you ask the questions and until you, you show empathy for the fact that, hey, they made a dumb decision. I don't remember me ever being absolved or you know, immune to making dumb decisions myself.
Speaker 1:Right, I made a few at old. So absolutely yeah, still do some time.
Speaker 2:Just a few, right, oh jeez. So, anyways, why? What are we doing here, antoine? What? What is the purpose of this broadcast?
Speaker 1:This is a frame of reference coming together. You know where you got an older white guy, a semi-old black guy. Hey, come on. Yeah, that's not there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Older white guy, a semi-older. Why don't you just say a young stud of a black guy in an old? Yeah, we should, we should do something like that.
Speaker 1:I, I, I, I, I, I. Like I said I crossed 50, uh, my wife is like, okay, you're hanging up the cake, you know. It's like, you know, my body is telling me the same. It's like, uh, hanging up the game, the thing you did at 30. Nope, and the thing you did at 24. Nope, what, what's that?
Speaker 2:Have you ever seen the Incredibles? We're, we're, uh, oh God, you gotta see that movie. There's a point where, uh, Mr Freeze is like woman, where's my super cape? Okay, so she's like you, don't, don't you dare take that toe with me. It's just a whole area, so, but uh, anywho, yeah, we do. I have to hang up. Hang up my cape a long time ago. If I had, if I had kept my cape, maybe I would have flown all the way to that garbage can. That struck my head a couple of weeks back, Don't know for sure. Anyways, yes, frame of reference, You're coming together today. Uh, I asked if we could talk about a subject which is gets a lot of people's rankles up. I think, um, and I'm all for getting rankles up, because the only way you deal with things is to get rankles up. It's like, uh, alcoholics, anonymous, you don't.
Speaker 2:You don't get better from being an alcoholic until you can recognize that you're an alcoholic, and that's why they say hey, hello, my name's Raul and I'm an alcoholic Cause you have to recognize it, and everyone that I've known that went through a. As said, it wasn't comfortable. You know coming to grips with that, agreeing, you know recognizing it, One of the hardest things they did. So the same as true.
Speaker 1:First thing is confessing it. Right, you have to confess it and acknowledge it and confess it and be like, yeah, that's how you start to go through it. Yeah, absolutely, yep.
Speaker 2:And you end up being uh. In this case, we're talking about another one of those things that gets rankles up, and that's the narrative of racism, the narrative of, uh, you know how black history and how our, our country's, racial history has played out, and how easy it is to change that narrative to make it, uh, sound better than it was and to uh somehow justify what was, and that that's sort of like saying, um, I was trying to think of a good example without being really awful, but it'd be sort of like, um, you know yeah good.
Speaker 2:I mean, I keep thinking of things like you know, rape and how you know you try to turn a rape into a good thing by you know saying, well, I mean, he was a really handsome man, oh, great, fantastic, yeah, that's wonderful, he's a really handsome man and that should make me feel better about the rape, right? Um, or, you know, he taught me after he raped me. He taught me how to basket weaves and I didn't know how to basket we've and that's more appropriate for the, what we're talking about today, I think. Ultimately, or at least the event that prompted me thinking about the um and I am talking about and I called this up so I could read it exactly but, um, a few weeks back, uh, governor DeSantis out of Florida made, uh, a comment regarding, uh, a new rule or a set of of curriculum rules that were put into place in Florida and they have to do with how the curriculum is, uh is taught, the key points in their uh. You know talking about black history and black the, the things that have happened to African-Americans over history, and let me just take a second here and call this thing.
Speaker 2:So here's the story. Uh, this is taken from Reuters. So hopefully, uh. I guess I don't know enough to know whether or not people think Reuters is overly, uh, liberal or not, but Reuters has an international irreputation of of reporting the news.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so in Reuters on July 20th they reported that Florida's board of education has approved new guidelines for teachers on how black American history should be taught, despite sharp criticism from some educators and civil rights group. Among the new guidelines are ed uh are for educators, our benchmark clarification, including one for the middle school students that states instruction includes how skills slaves developed, skills which, in some instances, could, could be applied for their personal benefit. Let's think about that. Instruction includes how slaves develop skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit. I want to address something right away on that, and this is the insidious way that a lot of this stuff works is that there is and people may hate me for this, but there is some grain of truth in that, and from my perspective, that's how lies really gain their power. They encompass just enough truth.
Speaker 1:You broke up, so I didn't hear you, brother. I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:There's a there's an issue with these kinds of statements is that they they contain just a little grain, just a little smudging of truth, and that gives them their power. These kinds of statements don't have any power if they're just flat out lies. I mean, people use flat out lies all the time, but what they'll do and this is even more insidious is by using things like black people developed skills yes, they there were skills and in some instances could be applied to their personal benefit. Now, the in the example I saw later on is that the people that were slaves, that learned how to be blacksmiths, could then translate those skills as a blacksmith into other things once they were not Remember that time, blacks couldn't trade on the open and in the, in the Belemage, blacks couldn't even trade on the open market, so they had to barter for things.
Speaker 1:Yes, that skill did come about. However, how did it come about?
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:Well, and when you think about it, as a skill was taught to benefit the master in his household. Exactly, you know, and then Right, so you see what I mean.
Speaker 2:There's that grain of truth there that, yeah, that thing did happen, but you got to think about the context in which it happened. You know they were slaves. They didn't have a choice if they didn't want to be, a choice to learn. If I don't want to be a blacksmith, it's going to hurt my hands, it's horrible, it's super hot. Anyone never do any blacksmithing work. It's just some of the worst kind of work you can do. That's why machines do it. Now, you know. So it's just. I really hate how that sort of thing is done over and over and over again, where they take just some little thing that you know. Yeah, there's just but.
Speaker 1:But and this is, this is a, this is a kind of a tactic. You're starting to see this all over the place. It's like a playbook. You know they got. You know it's like, you know you're trying to spend the thing, you know, of course, like, again, because the whole purpose of everything is to minimize black history. It's the net, the whole control of the narrative and what he's going to do.
Speaker 1:Because, again, someone like us, being 50 plus, right, we have a hit read certain history books. We know history, we got books on our shelves like, say, but now, say, the younger generation, who doesn't read or even care about history as much, until they actually woke up, so to speak. You know the narrative can easily be implanted in them. And you know, and of course, it's just one of those things where you know it's a oh, it's a oh uh African proverb, right, it says until the lions have their own historian, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter. And, of course, and that's basically a narrative, or is, is, is a metaphor for how groups with power and privilege control historical narratives, and that's what they're trying to do.
Speaker 1:Now, right, and of course, but there, and the thing is, the attack on this thing is so blatant now. It's not even we're trying to hide it. I mean, you might they might as well just say that we're, we want to kill black history, we don't like black, brown color, we don't like people of color period. They just need to just say, because that's the action, says that, right, right. That it's also like when we ended the course, again trying to control the narrative uh, cause, again like this now it's like white people older, older, but let's say, people that are on white, people that are on the right, they're fighting with younger kids, the woke generation, right. And so it's like we got conflict on every side now. And of course, you get.
Speaker 2:It just irks me to how, the minute they say in that section about that, some instruction includes how slaves developed skills. Just break that down a little bit. When you, the minute you, start talking about that sort of thing, what you're trying to do is, as you said, minimize Slave-wise. You're trying to minimalize.
Speaker 1:Change the narrative of it Right.
Speaker 2:Right, I mean for anyone anywhere to think that anything about being a slave was like. You know the way they paint this. You would think there were black slaves out in the you know, doing blacksmith work, and they're going. Oh, thank God, my master taught me how to be a blacksmith Because now, when I'm not a slave, if I'm ever not a slave, I'll be able to be a blacksmith. I mean, you know, it's just, it's so weird.
Speaker 1:This is a narrative. Yes, because the narrative has been. It's flipped into like the fifties and sixties, like if you go to YouTube and you look up some of these older white guys, even back in the fifties and sixties. It's one particular video that burnt my toes. It was a guy from North South Carolina, light blue suit, talking about all the slaves liked it, they want it to be here. They're like no, they did not, they had no choice in the course.
Speaker 1:You know, recently, like well, in the Ken, people don't really know the history because, like, when you talk about why hit slaves, some ran, they were like you know what I'm getting out of here, but why some didn't run. It was called buck breaking. You know, you tie a slave up to four horses and rip his body apart in front of his family and then you tell the black woman to teach the black boy that if you do this, this is what's going to happen to you. And so that's why, people, you kind of beat and beat people into submission and just slay, kill them, beat them into submission.
Speaker 1:And now the narrative wants to be changed because, again, like even with this narrative, like, oh, they gained some skill, we. They gained skills. Through racism, through slavery, they gained skills, but the same skills did not allow them to get homes when the homestead that came about. All because they were agricultural workers, they were indentured servants and they were domestic servants. So they just they were disqualified for no homestead, like getting free land. So, and again, it's like so for them to say that they gave us a skill or gave black people a skill at that time. I'm trying not to cuss. I'm trying not to cuss.
Speaker 2:Well, you're doing better than I would be doing, that for sure.
Speaker 1:And, and, and, and, and, but. It's like again. But we, you know again Dave Chappelle said this a few years ago when he came back on the scene we live in the age of spin, deflection, projection. What about isms? You know it, just, it's a game, but the thing is it's, the whole thing was perpetuated from one side of the fence. They created this thing, this culture war. It's, it's made, it's always been here, it's just faced that. But they 2016,. It was made okay to say and show how you really feel about people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. And people continue to do it in the most, you know, angry, hateful ways possible, and I, you know, I'm faulting the church as much as anything, if not more, because I agree the church of Christ sits back and lets it happen, you know, and? And instead of standing up and saying this is wrong, not that.
Speaker 1:Half of these militias are formed in these Southern white churches. They've actually gotten militias in their own little military teams and that's the that's the sad part about this thing. This thing is happening in churches. But you know, let's go back to the church. You know we talk about. You know how Southern Baptist separated from the Northern Baptist because Southern Baptist own slaves and they want to keep them and it's like no, that's, that doesn't go, that's goes against the knowledge of God. But anyway, right, I'm with you when you say that there's a fault on every corner.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know, understanding how, taking taking things and misconstruing in, you know, twisting them, that that's an incredibly insidious thing that you have to. I mean, I seriously believe that that kind of statement, that kind of of twisting of truth around a well-crafted lie, an incredibly well-crafted lie, is satanic.
Speaker 1:I mean, there there's no, you have to thank you, brother, for saying that. You know the prince of the power of the air, Exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean we're. And when, when you hear anyone say things like well, some slaves were treated so nicely by their, their masters, they didn't mind at all.
Speaker 2:They, they were, they were in good position, I'm like wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. They were slaves. What does that mean? In in our country, it meant chattel slavery. It meant that if you were a slave, you were a thing you weren't. You weren't a person, you were three-fifths of a person. You know so how do you, how? What does three-fifths of a person look like in real reality? That means that I don't have to treat you like a complete person because you're only three-fifths of a person. I mean, those fundamental principles are are what we're talking about when we try to minimize slavery. And you know, am I. I'm not banging people's heads. I get so tired of this argument too. You know why do we have? Everything is racist nowadays, you can't see anything without being racist. It's like okay, take a step back.
Speaker 1:Actually, that's that's. I think that's a, that is a cop out, and also I think it's kind of false because you know, again this thing comes from one side and it's just like when people say they can't say anything anymore. Who, who they, who they speaking of.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Well, there's the one case of a guy I work with Right now go ahead.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:No, I was just saying.
Speaker 2:There's a guy that I work with who was just telling me and I forget I should look up the actual event but there was a situation where a guy was delivering something I think like a UPS driver or something delivering something, and he said something to the guy delivering it in. The guy that I forget who it was the guy that was being delivered to, or delivering having it delivered to, made a comment that the other person didn't hear because they actually had headphones at the time, but they construed it to be a racist comment. And if I, it must have been the driver that made the comment, because that guy then lost his job as a result of having made a racial slur that he says he didn't make. And how would he know if he made it or not? Because the guy had headphones on. And so they'll use examples like that, which, again, I can't attest to if that even really happened, because a lot of that stuff has become like urban myths that get put out there to make people you know feel like, oh, this is unjust too.
Speaker 1:Look at what happens to us. It's racism. Yeah, it's like you're using that analogy the other day, like the assault victim is actually become the assault victim becomes the Problem, so to speak. Right, well, you shouldn't have been wearing that provocative clothing right, right and, but the thing is no what this whole thing is about. When the With this, uh, the gentleman, uh this I'm trying to be nice the Santas that comment, you know that is not a word.
Speaker 2:Well, maybe call it mister. Okay, maybe we have mister.
Speaker 1:Okay, we have to look people right. Yeah, the Bible does say place true pray for the authorities that are above you. All authority comes from him. I'm like all right, lord, even him, and it's like yep, even him.
Speaker 2:I don't like it, but I'll do it.
Speaker 1:But what he's doing is like. What they doing, though, is like that they, they right, they want to control the narrative, because the narrative, whoever controls the narrative, controls the outcome. And, of course, like with putting this stuff, they say, okay, like they taking it, like they replacing the beatings and whoopings and all the hard-working things in the history books About slavery, and then replacing it with all they learned skills, they Well given how they do this and that and the other, and basically, again, that minimizing history. But also, this is what you're doing. You're putting it in textbooks to create a collective memory. Right, you take away one thing and replace it with another, then put it in a book, and then that's what we're teaching. That is good, that is the new history, because, like you say, if we us right now, you and I, I don't know 40, 50 years Lord willing, I was still here, but I think we might be gone and then, of course, that's what they'll be reading 30, 40, 50 years from now is oh, slaves were treated good, they were in this space, and that's that narrative, that it has to be crushed right now. That's why, you know, we it had.
Speaker 1:There has to be such a defense right now, because, again, that's what this is all about.
Speaker 1:You know, it's a basically taking racism or taking race out of the, basically taking the black struggle, black history, everything and making it irrelevant, because the argument is always going to be for equity and equality and Reparations, and so you want to minimize, as you take away, history. And because, I look at, this whole thing is running out the clock, you know you're kicking a can down the field. There's things that are old, that I believe, there's things that should be, there should be some kind of reparation to people, but they're gonna kick that can down the field and, at the same time, change the history behind it. So when actually the conversation is had, it's like oh that, that that's not needed, that's not necessary. So I think the no, we have to. Really, I'm glad that the here, that the teachers and the professors and the educators are standing against this, and I just think more people, just non educators, just us as people, need to stand against this as well, because again, it's not just happening in Florida one get educated.
Speaker 2:You know, that's the that. One of the things that worries me about Florida is there's unprecedented numbers of professionals leaving the state.
Speaker 2:Doctors educators, professors, are just bailing on the state because they can't.
Speaker 2:They can't tolerate what's going on and I appreciate the sentiment of that and, at the same point, I would encourage people to Bolster themselves up and stand and fight, because if we run from the fight, the bully is gonna keep getting stronger and the the reality is that, yeah, some of these people they're getting emboldened to the point where I mean we're seeing things like the, a meteorologist in, you know, iowa, that you know, quit his job because he was being threatened His family was being threatened with bodily harm because he would he started talking about climate change. So, if that can happen, about something like climate change, which you know if, whether if you believe it or not just talk about is it good to be doing what we're doing to our Earth? That it's the only place we all have to live? Are there sensible things we're doing and nonsensible things? And you know whether or not you believe that, you know we're making a difference in or not, it still makes sense to just treat the planet and treat our environment, treat our resources with respect, just believe that, why not?
Speaker 1:why not Use what the earth gives us for energy? The water that a current underneath gives us can give us energy. The sun, I can give us energy without. So do it.
Speaker 2:It's so silly so if they can do that, if they can drive weathermen out of their you know houses and jobs in Iowa, iowa, okay, not, you know, not some. You know we're not talking Alabama or Mississippi, you know we're talking Iowa. So if they can do that for that in Iowa, am I saying that enough? Am I saying that I, oh, wow, so I, oh wins. Okay, how, how much more are they gonna do something with something that really has some teeth to it, like slavery, I mean there and in a? Do we believe, belabor this too much? I don't think you can belabor something that is this big of a stain on our history and I don't think it's gonna get me better, unless we admit that. You know there's a problem here. Look at, you know, critical race theory. People are, you know, getting just losing their Marbles at school board meetings because you know we can't teach this critical race theory. It's Marxist and it's gonna ruin our kids and it's just demonic. From if I, you know they're not teaching critical race theory in schools. They're not, no dude. Critical race theory is barely understood by PhD students at university. It's a discussion topic that asks people to look at factors in our society, in our systems, that may be encouraging or allowing Racist ideologies to continue. Now, if there's none there, great. If we've done the research and we can show great not there, well, that would be one thing. But if we investigate and we find that there is stuff there, again, let's just look at these things to what keeps getting us in trouble as we go.
Speaker 2:Oh, I don't feel good. I didn't. I'm I'm. I'm a nice white person, I have black friends, I'm a, I'm a good person. Okay, all right. Okay, let's your good person, are you? It's not enough to be Not racist anymore, you have to be anti racist. You know, an anti racist means you come up against any shape form of it and you say you know what that's kind of a racist comment. You know what that's kind of a racist bug? No, it's not. Well, let's take it apart a little bit and see, I know maybe you didn't mean it as a racist thing and I'll give you that benefit of the doubt. But the fact that you're getting all bent out of shape because I'm pointing out that it's racist is not a good sign. That's kind of like the alcoholic that gets told you, don't you think you had enough enough? You know Tequila right now? Oh, no, I know tequila Me. Oh, I know how I handle my tequila. Well, you know. Probably not a good time to talk to the tequila drinker when they're like that.
Speaker 1:But you know, and it's almost like when the teaching of a DEI diversity, equity and inclusion really start to take form and take no Like, companies started to do it in the federal government, acknowledged that they needed that training and all these kind of things. And then, of course, both sides that said, hey, we need this, we desire this. Great. Then the groups that said, you know, this is not necessarily, we don't need it, I don't like it. What they do. They take the context of it.
Speaker 1:It is almost like when you start talking about white privilege, you start talking about unconscious and conscious biases and things like that. It's almost like these things are done deliberately. Yeah, so you can spark up the. That was racist. No, it's not. And it's like. You know they, it's like a mocking. You know what I mean Because it's it's like a mocking. You know we, what we're talking about here is like it almost it goes back to the Civil War. Like we're talking about changing the narrative, right, because the history books, even back then it was going to reframe and reshape Americans' thought-owned slavery. They try to make the horrors of slavery into this positive institution. You know it's like, but that's not the case. And again, we're just seeing it being perpetuated.
Speaker 2:Now I'm just looking up something here. Yeah, yeah, laws prohibiting. There's a law that I don't think people realize just how far back this thing goes and it's seeing. If that comes up here, I believe it's back in laws in. It was on the eastern coast like Maryland or Connecticut and the I've got to look that up.
Speaker 2:It goes way back that there, where it started in laws is several black people initially came to the country I don't know how many hundreds it was, but they came because it was a land of new potential and they became very successful at things like tobacco farming. So there were some instances of that happening. Well, there was so much already systemic feelings of we don't trust these people, they're dark skin, they're not like us that they passed a law that said if any black person was on the streets after nine o'clock they could be stopped and arrested by pretty much any white person. So there was already a system put in place to say we don't like having these black people on the streets at night. We feel threatened by them, so we want the ability to arrest them and tell them you have to stay off the streets To have it be that far back that this is well before anything like slavery, indentured servitude was there, but I don't know if we probably were already importing people to have them work on plantations.
Speaker 2:But you can see how deeply that whole thing goes and I don't want to. I won't try to self-flatulate either. I won't whip myself for being a white person. That's not the point, it's not. Don't feel bad about being a white person.
Speaker 1:Feel bad about the fact that black people still are not getting the same shot at things and the thing is, all you want, I guess, at the end of the day, is for someone to acknowledge that, tell the truth about it, Because you think about even like you ever seen the movie Rosewood.
Speaker 2:No, I haven't.
Speaker 1:About the slaughter in Florida. It's probably I can't remember the timeframe, but it's either I almost want to say it's a little bit before Greenwood in Oklahoma. But at the end of the movie, of course, reparations were made for that community, all the people that were that got killed by the white mob. But then the United States government writes a letter in 2002 or 2012 or whatever it was, and they acknowledge it, but they just apologize for it, basically. But they wouldn't acknowledge it because again in that letter, if they acknowledge it, they know that reparations were due to the rest of the country. But if you go, I'm almost got to go back and watch that movie just to get that letter from the government at the end. But again, it's this narrative that it goes way back even again, goes so far back. Have you heard of that lost calls narrative? They were trying to do way back when.
Speaker 2:Not ringing a bell.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just to pull this thing up and of course I was reading before we came on it was like talking about how white supremacists used textbooks as a vessel for neo-Confederate collective memory. During this period, neo-confederates and Reactionary and Revisionary branch of American white nationalism campaign for a narrative called lost calls, a myth which was a psychological response to the trauma of defeat. The lost calls attempted to preserve the honor of the South by casting the Confederate defeat in the best possible light. Two of the main components of the myth of the lost calls are that the South's concession from the Union had little or nothing to do with the institution of slavery and, number two, enslaved people benefited from slavery due to benevolent slave owners. That was a narrative that they tried to create. Even back in they campaigned it.
Speaker 2:Read that second part again about benevolence. I want to get that in my brain better.
Speaker 1:The two myths were the South's concession from the Union had little or nothing to do with the institution of slavery, and two enslaved people benefited from slavery due to benevolent slave owners. Doesn't that ring a bell to what that Joker is saying right now?
Speaker 2:Yeah, benefited yeah benefited from slavery. Right, right, I benefited, I boy.
Speaker 2:You know, I'll give people the fact that when you think, when you really stop to think about those things, they're awful, they're just awful. There's no way to feel good about that. And I part of the problem we have white people have I know I even have it still is that because we think of racism as being binary, we think of it being if you're a racist, you're a bad person, and if you're, if you can say you're not racist, then you're a good person, and most good people don't want to think about them being bad people, themselves being bad people. Well, I don't know about you guys, but I'm 63 and I have, well long ago, have accepted the fact that I try to be a good person. But there are times when I am not a good person. There are times when I lose my temper, there are times when I'm super selfish, there are times when I, you know, do things that I wish I hadn't done, and I, you know, some of them I do over and over again.
Speaker 2:So, and yet I still try to cling on to the fact that I'm a good person for the most part, I hope. But I also know that any good that's in me come doesn't come from me. So that acceptance of the fact that it maybe I am. Maybe I am still racist, and I know that I am because I can think of a couple of months, a year or so ago. I was walking down the street walking my dog and a young black man was walking down the street across from me and he had a hoodie on and I I had a reaction to that of being, oh, I hope he's. Oh my, there was like a fear thing that started, as we all are seeing a young black man with a hoodie on and like, okay, what is wrong with me?
Speaker 1:What is wrong.
Speaker 1:And again it's like these things, these behaviors, these images, like you know, of course, like this one thing, like I'm in the northeast part in the course of Wisconsin now, but we travel even to like places like Bloomer, wisconsin, and I'm talking to people that have never met a black person in their life, but they have a preconceived notion or thought based on what they've seen on TV or what they've heard from another person.
Speaker 1:And again, it's like this is like the human psyche, right, where a person will believe a bad thing they hear before they believe a good thing they see. And then it's like when we cause you know how, like they say, oh, a bad word spread faster than the good word, right? So it's like we'll take that bad thing that we hear and we hold on to it and but yet, like say you're show, you're being shown a different behavior, a different attitude, a different character, characteristic or whatever, but yet you want to hold on to that bad word. So what you want to do is take that bad word and you want to try to reframe what you're seeing and what happens to people. They become offended because what they are here and what they're seeing don't match and they're trying to make what they heard match what they see, versus trying to make what they see. Try to make what they see match what they heard. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:I'm saying it back but yeah, no, I mean, I think it's like when you have an argument, when I have an argument with my wife, and she points out something about my behavior that's inconsistent with what I'm saying, and then I have to go oh yeah, why is that inconsistent? But I usually don't go that way. What I do is try to prove that there is a reason why what I say I want and the inconsistent behavior are really the same thing. They really are, and I, you know, the thing that I said is really true, and that behavior thing. Well, I just had really thought about, you know, and it's just, it's so common that for us to not want to admit that, well, I, my words should match my actions.
Speaker 1:And but no, I guess, like, what I was trying to explain to a brother is like and maybe I did a poor job of doing that but all I'm trying to say is like people will believe a bad thing, believe a bad word about something, before they see the good in that same very thing. Like, say, we're talking like a black guy, you know, in Bloomer, wisconsin, you know I'm talking to these white folks in. It's like they're like looking shocked because I can complete a sentence. No, I got my haircut, I'm shaved, you know. It's like I got a belt on, you know, and it's like my wife and I were holding hands and it's like it, what they saw, just crushed their very Perception or image of what they've seen and heard. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah and that's where people like again. It's like some people become offended and they can't deal with that, so they'll just some people just tune out, they just like I don't care either way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, or they try to find a way to make it fit their narrative. You know, there it is, so they're just the biggest thing right. Well, you know they're just. There's something wrong there. They're just trying to look like they're, you know, regular folks. They're not. I mean, there's all kinds of ways that we can work our brains around. You know, something we've already decided is true Absolutely. The hardest thing to prove wrong is a person that believes they're right. You know so. It's just.
Speaker 1:Started way back, you know with the dehumanization of black folks, you know with slavery, and then, of course, with that movie when it depicted a slaves raping white women and just and that career.
Speaker 1:Exactly. And then, of course, because, again, at the end of the day, you know, this White supremacy is what this is what we're seeing at work right now white supremacy and it's it's got grassroots into lower Case people or like, say, a different class of people is rooted in the church and then, of course, you got these people in government again. And that's the sad part because, like, say, a minority business owner going to a bank or whatever for a loan, and then you come across someone with the wrong mentality. It just sets you back. But white supremacy is alive, is real and as well, and it's meant to distort the ideology, you know, of how people think, and it's actually and it's radicalizing some of these kids, and I don't, it's just, it's a sad, you know, because again, it's like it just I just cannot gather or fathom how you can look at another human being and and and treat them like dirt and look that like them and look at them like they're left a stand. No, I think I told us.
Speaker 1:No, I think I told this story before With you row, but there was another. It was just like treating people. It's like okay, treating like. It's like the. When I went a couple they mistreated the server so bad that you know we would never go out with that couple again. But also I had to go back in and I just had to talk to that server and say that's not how things really are. You know what I mean. So, but with this thing, when I'm talking about right, you know it's like you treating a person Based on what they do for a living, not who they are as a person. Yeah, because that's what this thing is you looking at me based on the color of my skin, not who I am as an individual right.
Speaker 2:Well, it takes time to get to know the individual. It's really easy. Yes, we, we, we tend to want to take the simplest path in most things. I get you mentioned the DW Griffith is the name of the filmmaker that made birth of a nation, and you know that. Yeah, there's yet another point where you can look at that and there, you know, earlier 1900s, 19, I had an O14, something like that and that film, you know it does it as a.
Speaker 2:It basically glorifies the Ku Klux Klan. They're they're seen, as you know, the great warriors, the great defenders of white society and you know, civilization. And Then there's a scene where one of the things that they do to Show how they're keeping our society safe, as there's a scene of a black man Trying to rape a white woman and, in order to evade, avoid getting raped, she throws herself off a cliff. The guy that is supposed to be a black man is a white man in blackface. So, yes, you know they're. They're taking a situation where, you know, back then, blackface was considered an acceptable thing to do For entertainment, because you couldn't let black people perform, but there were times when you needed a black Performance or you know, as somebody, that that would look like black, and so they do blackface. So here they are in a movie doing the same thing.
Speaker 2:The most reprehensible thing is, as if that wasn't bad enough, president Woodrow Wilson at that time saw the film and decided that it should be shown at the White House, and it was given a private White House screening. And after seeing that and you should look up the exact quote but Wilson said that it was a great American film and then it should be seen throughout the land by everyone. So here you have a president. Woodrow Wilson is considered one of the more intellectual Presidents we ever had. He's considered one a great statesperson in so many ways, and yet somebody that was that educated could be led to Make a decision after seeing a movie like that that that's okay and that that's actually a great film. And in fact, dw Griffith was renowned as one of the great filmmakers of the early film industry. He developed some techniques and things that are still used today and he was a pioneer. All that good stuff, right, but it shows you again how how this thing works. Here's an educated man who becomes president of the United States and yet he can think and that this is a great movie. Well, okay, you can give him all kinds of you know, get out of jail cards.
Speaker 2:It wasn't that far after the Civil War, yada, yada, yada. I mean there's you know all kinds of excuses for that, but there really isn't any excuse. It really isn't. And we're still using the same dang excuses today to keep from thinking about how bad racism is. And if, if we were still doing things in our society if we are still doing things in our society Make alcoholism okay, if we're still doing things to make Perversion of children okay, if we we want to do those things, we would stomp those out. We have enough collective conscience to realize that no, you can't teach kids. It's okay to become an alcoholic, you cannot.
Speaker 1:So why can't you turn off some of these cartoons today? Oh yeah, they're not cartoons, no more.
Speaker 2:No, well, and why would you teach, allow something like that to be taught? And it's, how is it different to allow Racism be taught as something where you know they learned? They learned good skills when they were slaves and some of them were treated really well and they would never run away because they enjoyed it so much. It's like who's gonna run away when they hear about their you know husbands being drawn and quartered? Who's gonna run away? You know I I'm not gonna. You know the people yet still did. I mean, area Dubman was a Testimony to how many people did run away and she thankfully did something to try to help them get safely away. But even then I mean it's just oh yeah, I mean I feel like I'm, I don't know, alone well in the wilderness or something, because I'm sure there lots, if there are white people listening right now they're thinking you're a traitor, you're not a real white person, you're one of those you know feminates or whatever.
Speaker 1:And the thing is it's like I look at you, brother, and say that you a man at the gods on heart, man, you can confess your faults and you can actually get it right and go and not make the same mistake twice. You know, look at King David.
Speaker 2:Oh, my wife would say no, I make the same mistake twice I.
Speaker 1:Haven't seen your brother, I've seen nothing but good in you, and. But I want to read something here else, man, I saw this thing on racism. It says racism is in fact, not just a byproduct of white supremacist ideology but a subsequent culmination of ignorance and fear and a psycho emotional detachment from the broader community of humanity. And an holistic understanding of our tangible Commonalities in life therefore coerce to adapt to a non-conscious bias and false reality. Does that sound familiar? Because I mean, we've watched a alternate reality just pop up right before our eyes, right, and then that's the second, the second part of this. It says this person who's writing his name is a cuckoo I can't pronounce the last name, but a cu? Cu.
Speaker 1:But the second part, that is, in my opinion, races are scared and filled with fear, loss and emptiness that are often associated with the skewed Understanding and purpose of human relationships. I also believe races as individuals with experiences of potholes in life. Who has had an experience of rejection and or dejection, in other words, a racist is an individual who, in my opinion, is most likely challenged by identity crisis, low self-esteem and mental weakness, a lack of belonging to a beloved community, thus forced to live the illusion of a manufactured consent based on false pretexts and notion. Any thoughts?
Speaker 2:Well, it seems to me there's a lot of things, a lot of ills in our world, in our country and everywhere that are fueled by insecurities and I agree, and I don't know of any real lasting security that comes from anywhere. But recognizing that we have a loving God and that's the thing.
Speaker 2:You know, I remember my mom on her deathbed. You know, like a day or two before she died, she asked me she didn't understand one thing she had never figured out through her life and my mom had been, you know, as good a Catholic girl as a Catholic girl can be and, you know, tried to. You know she did the rosary, she did nobina. I mean she was on top of making her faith, putting some, you know, feet to it, some legs to it. But she said she'd never understood all of her life how God could let his son suffer the way that he did and to let him die like he did. And I said, mom, you're missing the whole point. I said God loved us so much that he gave his only begotten son so that we could be saved. That's how much. That it's not about. He loved his son. Of course he loved his son and it broke his heart in every which way we can possibly imagine, by letting his son be sacrificed. But he also knew his son was going to a better place at the end of the world. But he loved him enough, he loved us enough to let that happen. So the same is true with, I think, any of these folks that are so insecure about things that they need to, you know, lash out the way that they do and they need to justify their biases. So you know, vehemently and so dynamically, that it comes down to just not loving yourself enough, not allowing yourself to be loved to be able to say, yeah, I want to do something about that. That does happen. I do see that I try not to participate in it in myself. I really do. But I also know that I'm probably missing 90% of what happens around me and not standing up and saying, hey, you can't do that. He's a person you don't get to not put their change in their hand. When you're putting everybody else's change in their hand, is that right? Are you afraid of touching a black person? What's the deal? I don't get it. You don't have to be combative to be, you know, illuminating the situation. Maybe they're not even aware, I don't know, you know, maybe they are aware. But you know, call it out, just like you'd call out bad behavior. If a you know young man was leering at your daughter and you know, you could see, because you're a guy, you could see he's mentally undressing her and imagine how you know fun it would be to hit that? Would you step out with any dad out there, not step up and say, hey, hey, hey, you should look at my daughter that way, don't you dare? Look at my daughter. Well, I didn't do it Anything. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've seen that. Look, I've had that. Look, I know what that looks like, buddy.
Speaker 2:So you know, can we at least set up and say, okay, maybe I don't believe that it's all over the place, but maybe I need to start looking for it too. Maybe I need to start challenging my bias that says it doesn't exist, or that, my bias that says, well, some black people really liked what they were. Huh, okay, no, really, show me a black person, please introduce me to the black person. It says oh, yeah, yeah, my great, great, great, great grandma was a slave. She loved it. She was really sad when slavery ended. Show me that, okay, because I can guarantee you you're not going to find it.
Speaker 2:It's not okay. No one, no one, no one, no white person anywhere would want to be a slave. We would not choose it. We would not, because it means your property and we. No one wants to be someone else's property and be treated like a chair. I'm done with that chair. That chair's worn out, it's got springs popping out of it. Get rid of it. Oh well, you know, if it's a black person. Yeah, I mean if they can't work anymore, if I've beaten them into the point where they can't work anymore.
Speaker 2:I can get rid of them. I can shoot them, I can do whatever I want, because they're my property.
Speaker 1:No, Well, yeah, man, that thing goes all the way back to reconstruction, right, yeah, and before, you know when we're talking about, and before, absolutely, you know, of course, with the reconstruction, no, even like, again, just like the white suddeners who refused to adopt to the vision of a more racially just nation, right, they couldn't do that.
Speaker 1:So what they did to oppose it, you know, of course, they used physical violence, you know, I lied, ku Klux Klan and whatever other groups, just racial violence. And they also used their political power to play the lone game to undo any kind of racial progress being made. And we see that today, again, they've been playing this game forever. And the thing is, it's just amazing how we have not passed a voting law, even though the Constitution gives us a right to vote. Yet why isn't there not a federal protection that gives us all the right to vote free and fairly? You know, and that's again these things are, some of these things are so blatant because the things that are being fought against tells you who they are. They are Right, we're counting down the number of people.
Speaker 1:How can you lose? I mean, what do you? Of course they're going to lose their power if more people of color vote against what they're doing because of the behaviors they've exhibited, because again it goes back. You know, they plan a political, political lone game to undo any kind of racial progress. And this is us. We're praying, we're praying. This is why we pray, man, amen, this is why we pray.
Speaker 2:Things can't stay the way they are. I mean you want to make an America great again. Let's make America great. Let's just forget about the again part of it, because that implies that somewhere we were better than we are now, and now is all we got. So let's just make America great. We can't go back to the fifties.
Speaker 2:People say, oh, like it was back in the fifties and the sixties. Oh, you mean like when they were still hanging black people, when they were still making it really hard for women to work out of the home, when they were making sure that, you know, everyone everywhere, you know, was just, you know, treated like chattel. I mean, I don't know. I mean you can look at any period of time and say what was so great about that. I mean you have fond memories of being a kid in the fifties and you think it was so wonderful. You know well, if you were an adult back in the fifties, you probably have a much different view of what things were like back, you know, being a kid and having those rosewood glasses that see, you know how things we want to see. I don't know. I'm struggling here because this is just a tough topic. It's another one we have to come back to if we're going to say, let's come back to it. You know it's just a.
Speaker 2:Just just think about for a second how history is written by the victors. Any war that's ever taught to us, it's written by the victors. They didn't go back, you know, to Napoleon's army after they lost the war in the 1700s in Waterloo and ask them what they thought about Waterloo. They talked about Waterloo from the standpoint of the victor. You know World War II, for all the things that happened in that. Where do you find a story that says what the Nazis were really fighting for? Or you know the things that they endured People, you know where is that? So it's the same throughout. Who's victorious in the history that's being written? Who wins in that?
Speaker 1:Exactly. And again it's like we think years from now the narrative and what will be the story. You know, if we don't fight right now to preserve history and again, not for the sake of beating somebody over the head with it it's just hey, let's acknowledge the truth so we can heal and move on. Let's talk about the equity that is needed to bring the make the scales balance. Let's talk about these things. That's, those are the hard parts to. Really a person can admit oh yeah, I've seen the room, but it's like the other things that come with it. That's where the hard part comes in and that's where you know we got to get to, but you know we're gonna. We're gonna get there next week.
Speaker 2:Next week we'll get there right, all right, all right. Well, yeah, that'd be nice if it did. So. Hey, bro, love talking, always a good time. Thanks to anyone listening to our, our rantings about the world as it should be, could be would be, yeah, but hope you enjoyed the discussion. If you didn't write, go write some comments at www.4sockcom, and you know, please make them questions. No, you know the attacking of one another. No one's out here to attack. We're trying to understand, we're trying to to answer questions that you might have, or if you think that there's something that we're way off based on, then present the information. You know I'm I'm willing to admit I'm wrong. I have to do it just about every time I have an argument with my wife. So you know just, I'm used to it. It's okay, it's not a bad thing to be wrong. That's how you become right, so right. And Antoine, you behave yourself Okay. Don't always don't be clutching yourself with your hands so your neck and shoulders begin, okay.
Speaker 1:I know right, yeah, Thanks man.
Speaker 2:All right, thanks bro, see ya.
Speaker 1:Bye.