Latest / Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps / JOHN McWHORTER: Language, Race & Trump

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JOHN McWHORTER: Language, Race & Trump · Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

• 0:00
  a quick content warning, we discuss drag queen internet slang in this episode, including one specific phrase
• 0:08
  serving the C word, which means if you haven't heard it, sort of effortlessly and unapologetically
• 0:16
  exuding extreme self-expression or style, we actually misspeak and we repeat the phrase as
• 0:25
  slaying the C word instead of serving the C word because we're old and uncool and we have put
• 0:31
  silent bleeps on the C word so it's probably fine if you've got four-year-olds around but just be
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  aware that if you have 10-year-olds listening to this then there will be a conversation about adult
• 0:41
  language. Enjoy. Get a humans welcome to the safe space for dangerous ideas and what a treat
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  getting to sit down with one of my intellectual heroes, the articulate, the courageous John McWater.
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  He's a columnist for the New York Times. He's also probably the most famous living linguist.
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  He teaches linguistics at Columbia University. He's written a ton of books both about language and
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  also about race. He is frequently sort of betwent noir of both the left and also the right. The right
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  hates him for being so opposed to Trump. The left hates him for apparently not being on board with
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  every social justice maxim that he is supposed to mow of being a black American. He hosts a
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  delightful podcast called lexicon valley which is about language. He also sort of semi-cohosts
• 1:31
  the Glenn Show which is Glenn Lowry's podcast. Another black academic but someone who's
• 1:36
  much more conservative than John is and listening to the two of them wrestle with issues of politics
• 1:41
  and culture. Both large and small is a total delight. I have cherished reading so many of John's
• 1:47
  books both about language and also about race and the culture wars. I particularly recommend his
• 1:52
  recent and most courageous book called woke racism. How a new religion has betrayed America. He's
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  been published in every august publication that you can possibly think of and I was delighted to
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  see that he was scheduled to come to Sydney for a series of talks and events at the University of
• 2:09
  Sydney while he was here. He was generous enough to stop by the uncomfortable conversation studios.
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  Please enjoy him and me wrestling with Donald Trump,
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  wokeness, social justice and language. I want to know only John McWilliams.
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  It's about 70% male. Yeah that's the podcast. It's interesting isn't it? Yeah it's always like that. You
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  have a theory? Most of the hosts are men is I think a lot of it and then the question is why is that
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  because guys like to play with gadgets and that especially happened during the pandemic. I'm guessing
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  but if you get feedback from a podcast, it's usually a man. My linguistics podcast for example
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  is not that way because linguistics tilts female but if it's Glenn Lowry and me, all men for the
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  most part. Yeah. But is that because of the content because the linguistics podcast is
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  apolitical intriguing it stimulates the sort of intellectual. Yeah it's nerdy. Your other podcast
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  is I suppose red meat to a certain type of battling against an orthodoxy and so a lot of it is
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  in a civilized way us saying fuck this fuck that. Exactly and maybe that lends itself to a male
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  sensibility and so that might be part of it. I'm skeptical about the gadget theory because I
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  don't think that what's going on here is that we're playing with gadgets. I think it's something to do
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  with the kind of things that get said in a digital realm that the legacy media has not caught up
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  with figuring out how to articulate it. So it's the professional and I don't mean this in a cynical
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  way but the deliberate willful contrarianism you have something to say that you don't think is
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  getting out there. That's fighting that you've got boxing gloves on I think. That's the cynical
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  version of the explanation. I think the generous version of the explanation is that the legacy
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  media has been slow to keep up with the rambunctiousness of the public square in the past 10 years
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  and feels stayed and say in a gender neutral sense. Yeah exactly and but and that what and that the
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  kind of the spirit of aliveness that you can sometimes get the frisson of naughtiness maybe
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  from the podcast right yeah yeah is more appealing to men because it's it's it's sparring it's it's
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  boom that yeah you don't want to say it but that that is more male I think and it's not that there
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  aren't very successful podcasts run by and listened to by women many women women in my life say
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  I'm listening to a podcast but it seems that this kind like what we're doing right here yeah
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  man are going to listen to this more than women it is about this is about 70% our audience but
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  hello to the 30 percent of ladies out there we love yeah we love yeah share it with your lady
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  friends but I also wonder now that I'm just I haven't thought about this before but just hearing
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  myself talk out loud and hearing your thoughts I wonder if the the skew of the safety of the legacy
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  media over the past 10 years has been somewhat feminized I mean the nature of the orthodoxy yeah
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  has been quite has been to make conversations more polite more inclusive you don't wish to
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  abrasive exactly yeah and you don't want to say it but I think it's fairly clear even from science
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  that women are more inclusively inclined in that way than men probabilistically and so that
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  means the feminization in a way of CNN or MP as opposed to many alternatives that are now available
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  yeah yeah I would I would say that I guess the way of proving or disproving or falsifying this
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  is going to be if the current moment of sort of right wing backlash exudes through the mainstream
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  media I mean it won't come to the times but if like the viewership of one American news and Fox
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  news becomes large enough will you see a podcast an alternative media pushback that is more polite
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  and more intellectual right and would that then appeal more to women right that's an it may not
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  I mean it may still not that's an interesting sci-fi scenario but I actually think that there's now
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  this comes from how language works path dependence in general the notion of what a podcast is how you
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  sound like a podcast there's a grammar that has settled in a sense of how it's supposed to feel
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  that might be impervious to outside influences it might be that we just do it this way in the same
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  sense that I don't know in 1950 you knew that most of the credits of a movie were going to run
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  at the front not at the end the way they do now everybody just knew there was no particular reason
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  that's what a movie was like it may be that a podcast is the bro feeling it's just going to stay
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  that way because that's how things often work but we'll see we'll see I mean I should also acknowledge
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  that at least in Australia and I'm not sure if it's quite as big in the States there's a massive
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  business for female led podcasts which are sort of either either heartfelt sort of interview human
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  story interviews where you get to know public figures in a much more intimate way with a very
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  following this person around yeah charismatic female host yeah not following them around I mean just
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  an interview show okay like where you're where the point is to dig deep and to be compassionate
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  rather than to be provocative and then there's also one style of very popular show which is the
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  provocative usually sexy politically aware young female who has a show that goes places that
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  you couldn't on in the legacy media we usually far left usually very pro-Palestinian
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  okay yeah it hits and like you know and she's attractive yeah she's okay there I'm not
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  thinking of one particular person right there I could name a five of them yeah I mean generically
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  yeah yeah exactly I'm not sure what the equivalent that is in the United States but then just to tell
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  you the truth I do not listen to many podcasts as in I only listen to one and it's the nerdy and
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  magnificent the rest is history oh great oh with these these two brits and you just learn everything
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  about history yeah that's the only one and I've really tried I've tried to listen to podcasts
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  connecting to all of my interests I guess I'm getting old I want to read I just can't get past it
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  so I might not know that all of this exists in the United States too do you listen to NPR I
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  listen to NPR constantly yeah so why haven't sub podcasts push that aside because I listen to NPR
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  and that's enough of people talking and then I just want to read a book it's the weirdest thing
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  and I know I'm falling out of step with life and I really respect that there are so many podcasts
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  about so many things many people who never particularly like to read now read a lot in that they
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  listen to a lot of podcasts that that's great but I have a really hard time letting go of for those
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  of you can't see me right now I'm pantomiming reading a book I just do you read a book I do and I
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  love it because I stopped for a while during COVID yeah I had small children I had a very stressful
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  job at the public broadcaster there are equivalent of NPR and you know we just moved to Australia
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  from the States and there was just a lock on on and I think I had that psychological fraying that
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  many of us felt in 2020 and 2021 and also the voice was a bomb you might have wanted to listen
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  to more people instead of just reading yes and I found my attention not yeah my attention
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  span short huh I don't know if you noticed during that time yeah I couldn't follow the thread of
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  things easily I couldn't I would have to reread the same half page of a book over and over again
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  I remember that with when my kids were small because you're never really sleeping and you're
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  constantly preoccupied no I think my powers of concentration improved during COVID because there
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  was just so much time to not do anything else but I know what you mean when you find that you can't
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  follow the thread of pages that for me was just the fatigue of having tiny ones with you were
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  having to yes and are you reading mostly fiction or nonfiction I am a nonfiction guy and I wish
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  that weren't true because it's one of those things like if you are said to be a drinker what people
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  mean is not that you're drinking juice they mean alcohol and people say well do you read I don't
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  know why it's in that accent I don't know Elizabeth and English people ask you this question only
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  them but if somebody says do you read what they mean is fiction they mean are you reading you know
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  chimimanda etc I read constantly but it's almost always nonfiction I probably read about six
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  fiction books a year and probably three of them are ancient and so modern fiction I am very weak
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  although I recommend although if modern is 2001 the year of wonders by Geraldine Brooks is a
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  magnificent historical novel but see there you go there's a hint of nonfiction in it I'm writing
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  down it's about plague in a small English town in the late 1600s and as placid as that sounds or
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  as much as it sounds like I was reading it because of covid and it wasn't that it was something
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  somebody recommended before that a magnificent story beautifully told that's the last fiction
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  that I read but then right now I'm reading barchester towers by Trollop because one must read some
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  Trollop and say and you're why everybody says oh he's so good and I thought well all right so I
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  read the way we live now which was one of the best books of that kind I ever read then I thought I'm
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  going to do one more Trollop and apparently the second best one is barchester towers with that
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  means I'm not cool because I'm supposed to be reading you know something probably by a woman
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  and it's deeper something by Jessman Ward or something but I'm not I'm reading Trollop I apologize
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  I will never forgive you for it I have I've transitioned back to fiction intentionally because I
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  was reading a huge amount of nonfiction because that's my normal go to place because I'm an
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  ideasy person and you managed to fix it yeah fixed it I well I just I made a commitment that for
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  half an hour before going to bed each night I would read fiction because it does something
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  different to your brain I think it's a completely different thing than reading nonfiction yeah
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  every night before bed yeah not a podcast but reading never a podcast yeah I know a lot of people
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  do that but I read I will download a nonfiction book if it's good I listen to your books on you
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  you know narrated I really like that especially when the when the writer is articulate and
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  it has a great voice he's yeah but but read in terms of holding a chopped up tree you know and
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  reading the squiggles on it to get fixed to go into parachute into another world there's been a
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  there's just so much to read and it's so wonderful to go into those I mean there's been this
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  resurgence I don't know if it's a resurgence or a surgeons of black historical
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  fiction James I just finished reading I read you mentioned that you must go yeah yeah what do you
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  think damn good it's great and I dreaded James because I thought frankly I never enjoyed Huckleberry
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  Finn like I respected it you want to hear my heresy I've never read it I've never read it to be
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  honest my heresy is to say to you as a black person I wouldn't worry you should read about it
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  it's just it's really old the dialect is forbiddingly thick we've come a long way but it's a
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  respectable piece of work that one should read about but I did plow my way through it so that I
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  wouldn't get caught shortness setting like this Huckleberry Finn James is much better it really is
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  a fresh take on not only Huckleberry Finn but on what being a slave really felt like and we know
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  the worst parts of it you're working for no pay the physical abuse but every day in dignities
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  that you just live under and there's nothing that you can do about it and then there's this
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  wonderful conceit which is that Jim talks like me but then slips into the slave dialect in order
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  to assuage the whites but only then they teach each other this dialect to use when whites can hear
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  but really they talk like this which means that Jim seems like a human being to us whereas
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  in Huckleberry Finn well I know what I was supposed to and okay that is the way Jim would have
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  spoken but it's hard to feel a human being in that so yeah James was good but I was told
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  basically to read it everybody said oh you should read it yeah and I thought do I have to return
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  to Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer and Jim but boy was it worth it I highly recommend yeah I
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  thought it was fabulous and as you say the the idea that you can understand what it was like
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  to be a slave I that that came through more profoundly in that book than any other work of art
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  I think that I've consumed like did you see 12 years of slave the movie more heresy more heresy
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  no because at the time I thought I know this story I it's depressing I'm not going to learn
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  anything new there are a lot of movies so I could pretend to have seen it I could talk about it but
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  no I never never saw what's that movie like that did it do you see something no I might
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  point of heresy as to say that I was a terrible film and I was I was the white racist at the time
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  you know who said that 12 years of slave was a terrible movie because it's been a an item of faith
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  and education since I was born that slavery as a non-American this is not a controversial idea
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  this slavery was horrendously barbaric was terrible and was the like there is no confederacy
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  in Australia there is no like you know there is no pining for some lost cause there's no like
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  yeah it's just a it's a cut and dried thing it's a serious thing right and to see a movie I felt
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  quite manipulatively sort of pick at the scab in the most grotesque and gruesome ways where
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  there's really no story and there's no there's nothing apart from um set piece after set piece
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  that's what it looked for and Bob like we get it it was a shitty regime as if we needed to learn
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  this that yeah yeah yeah it's one thing if it's 1976 but yeah yeah yeah oh tell me give me
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  another moral inside this lynching is bad just what it looked like you know what was actually
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  better it was around the same time jango unchained was an actual novel on film with a take on it
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  that was interesting as opposed to saying did you know that people were beaten yes by now we do
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  know this yeah but it really did put a different spin on it which I yes I loved it I mean I love
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  Tarantino and I what I loved about James was it's not a sequence of horrendous things happening
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  is what it must feel like to be a wanted prey and to just live constantly as in fear of the dogs
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  yeah and anybody who you speak to and yeah exactly that you are hunted that's right you don't want
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  to come out into the open but you've got to eat and you're living in swamps and that all of that
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  was real and you and you have the people going through this who talk like us and so it makes it
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  seen even more searing than if they're speaking in what even if you know to respect the dialect you
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  don't speak it and it makes them sound far away I really enjoy the immediacy do you respect the
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  dialect oh yeah actually black English is more complicated than standard English in various
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  fascinating ways and if you're pawing your way through Huckleberry Finn it's easy to think this
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  is a minstrel distortion of the way black people talked but no all language changes all the time
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  including black English and so black English in 1875 was very different from the black English of
• 18:03
  Chris Rock yes I'm surprised to hear you call them the same name actually they're very different
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  in Twain gets you know almost everything right I always think to myself I can tell he heard
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  real people and so yeah I do respect this it seems like this drawing dialect full of distortions
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  because I can see in it complexities that some of them have been lost in modern black English
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  but it's hard on the eyes what are some of the complexities oh it's fascinating they have for
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  example um I'll choose um if they say um I am doing something sometimes they'll say
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  ahs are to doing this are to for one thing is after and what's interesting about Arter is that
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  you think well nobody ever said Arter but then you think about this Jack and Jill went up the hill
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  to fetch a pale of water Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling after and
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  you always think well that's a shitty rhyme it must be that people were dumb back then but no it was
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  tumbling Arter so if I'm gonna do a bad accident you know Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a
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  pale of water Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling Arter so it rhymed and so
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  that and also that you're after doing something is a way of saying that you are in the process of
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  doing it which actually is taken right from Irish which is what white people spoke who learned
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  English and came as indentured servants to the United States so a gym his parents probably
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  learned that Arter from these Irish English speakers but that's a construction that we don't have
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  and that modern black English doesn't have does it add anything though this author yeah
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  let me give you something that does in modern black English you say she be going and what that
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  means is she goes on a regular basis we would just say she goes and you have to guess that it
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  means on a regular basis you would never look at somebody and say oh there she be going that would
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  be inaccurate in earlier black English that is all often am and so there was no B in that usage
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  but they use am and it's I am you am he am we am and it sounds to us like it's just wrong
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  but it's not wrong it's a different grammar where they can indicate the habitual that every day
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  in an explicit way that we leave the context yeah that's interesting isn't it yeah it's funny when
• 20:31
  you're trying to translate between languages and it's funny to think of a dialect as being a
• 20:36
  functionally a language the loss of what was that something happened to me recently oh I was at
• 20:42
  I was at a friend's place in France and I don't drink and I showed up at this dinner party
• 20:49
  and I said I don't drink but as you know in French I don't drink and I'm not drinking
• 20:55
  are the same phrase exactly so the host would later in the evening offer you drinking now yeah
• 21:04
  would you like a drink yeah I'd be like no I don't drink yeah and he would think that I was saying
• 21:10
  I'm he was like it sounded to he he took it as I'm not drinking tonight because I'm like you know
• 21:16
  driving I don't know how do you say in French I don't drink at all I don't know just sweet
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  something that's going to be an adjective or something that's I never thought about that yeah yeah
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  it's going to be just something or is your blah blah la guele or something like that
• 21:31
  to specify that all right that hopefully if you say I'm not drinking alcohol they get the gist
• 21:36
  just to suck I'm not speaking of linguistics there's I have a sense that there are terms and phrases
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  and terms of phrase that are escaping youth culture and sub the culture of some sub communities
• 21:57
  like the gay community faster into or the tech community in Silicon Valley faster into modern
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  parlance than previously and I can't figure out if this is because I'm getting old and so slang
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  sounds weird it to me because I didn't grow up with it or whether the whether social media is
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  injecting is allowing slang to spill out but things like someone living rent free in my head
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  or I heard someone on the radio saying you're putting someone on blast you heard that
• 22:31
  terminology or like someone said don't sleep on something have you heard this sleeping on
• 22:37
  something means you don't want to not pay attention to it you should be mindful of this thing
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  like don't sleep on this new McDonald's burger that they've got and now I'm going to hear it tomorrow
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  exactly you'll hear tomorrow and then there are gay things like slay or something like that
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  that you start seeing a lot of gay stuff yeah another environment yeah is it speeding up or am I
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  just getting old I used to say nobody knows but it's gotten to the point that I am confidently saying
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  yeah it's it's speeding up the churn is faster than it used to be because of social media putting so
• 23:10
  much language out there and so an example if you talk about gay slang jumping the rails there's
• 23:16
  that's a major source is referring to things as she that are inanimate objects and so I heard
• 23:23
  from some of my gay students at Columbia seven years ago that you can know six years ago that you
• 23:30
  can say something like I don't like that dress on you she's giving old lady vibes or don't go
• 23:35
  up that hill she's steep that is now something that all hip people are using and at the time I
• 23:42
  thought well that's an in-group piece of you know slang but now that's becoming real or it's giving
• 23:49
  and so oh it's giving old lady yes it's something now my daughter who's 13 and definitely not gay
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  and her friends are using that and it's really become just general that's happening faster and it's
• 24:00
  because basically of phones more of us can talk to one another you you see more slang when I was
• 24:07
  that age there were certainly things said many it's a lot of it no longer said but it didn't come
• 24:12
  and go so quickly it's fun to watch yeah another one that well did I annoy you or do you find them
• 24:17
  curious I love a pen oh it's just it's it's it's always new it's always clever like whoever thought
• 24:24
  that the verb give would be used in that way it's giving old lady somebody 10 years ago hearing
• 24:30
  somebody say that now would have no blessing with that yeah it's it's creative and it's not that
• 24:35
  anybody sat down and did it or talking about a burrito as I heard somebody say oh this burrito
• 24:42
  she's hot what we're beginning to have meaning with gender it's like we're becoming French I think
• 24:49
  that's fantastic I wonder whether the whole gender and trans thing has maybe that's a stretch has
• 24:54
  anything to do with the playfulness around he and she like she's I don't know I like not be
• 25:00
  surprised yeah the the instinct to deformalize gender yes you know to de-biological biological
• 25:07
  fire and to make it flexible and play with it maybe I would be I would not be surprised if that
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  would be explanation but yeah slang is rich today and rich partly in that it goes by so quickly
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  it's it's fantastic or it we're allowed to curse yes that um that is really um what is it
• 25:26
  slaying come you said the expression has that has that gotten here um it depends on the
• 25:32
  circles you swim in it means that something is wonderful all the Columbia kids are saying it
• 25:38
  right so boy that's am I getting the expression right I'm almost sure I am it slaves come means
• 25:43
  that it's really cool I learned that a year ago and they're all saying it okay wow that's a
• 25:52
  slay cut John McQuare you's definitely slay cut um the there was a turn of phrase that you're
• 25:58
  just reminding me in the terms of being or getting um I was just on holiday last week with some
• 26:07
  American friends and I took them to this beautiful remote cliff top in South Australia and there
• 26:12
  was a big sign that said do not go past this sign on the cliff face in the water it was at the
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  ocean um four people have been drowned uh in the past year alone um and my American friends looked
• 26:25
  at that and said they've been drowned they've been drowned uh making fun of the construction
• 26:35
  of they've been drowned yeah they said why isn't it just four people have drowned yeah and I
• 26:41
  couldn't quite answer that question here it sounds normal to me to say four people have been
• 26:46
  drowned but as I said it should just be four people drowned or four people have drowned four people
• 26:54
  have been and so then I tease them for the rest of the day saying don't be drowning or like don't
• 26:59
  be drowned don't go down there you could be drowned instead of you could drown four people in
• 27:04
  American four people have drowned he here probably in Britain four people have been drowned it's uh
• 27:14
  it's euphemistic it it implies although technically it implies that somebody drowned them
• 27:22
  four people drowned means just four people died has been drowned pulls the camera back from it
• 27:30
  somewhat rather than just naming what happened to them have been and you're thinking well
• 27:35
  by who god or something and so I find it polite I also have never thought about that um
• 27:42
  gotten is the one that really classically defines I have gotten so what have you got what have
• 27:48
  you gotten but that's that's interesting I can see why the Americans thought that was funny it's
• 27:54
  interesting isn't it yeah sleep on that I think sleep well I think I think that the meaning
• 28:01
  might be the ocean is wild here and you can't tell what will happen to you what will be done to you
• 28:10
  by the fate the seeds here right you could get drowned right you might not want to drown
• 28:17
  yeah you might not drown yourself but you could get drowned nonetheless
• 28:21
  you know what I mean there's something in the in the helplessness of it yeah get usually
• 28:26
  implies that you you didn't want it to happen you got fired or you you know you got laid off
• 28:33
  although there's get laid which is different and so it implies that maybe was it was unexpected
• 28:38
  it's a peculiar scenario in which you don't want to get laid and you get laid nonetheless against your
• 28:44
  it's called the got passive and it's basically unexpected so if you get laid presumably there
• 28:50
  was a chance that you weren't going to and you got lucky but yeah I've gotten laid I've got laid
• 28:57
  and so I've got laid I've gotten laid gotten is American that that's from the 1800s that's the
• 29:04
  difference but I never thought about that then yeah yeah to be honest I must admit that I was
• 29:08
  thinking you've got this sign don't walk past this sign and my first thought was Benny Hill
• 29:13
  and so of course who's going to walk past it and what's going to happen is that music in the
• 29:17
  bathroom but I wasn't thinking about the drowning yeah do not throw rocks at this sign as the
• 29:22
  as the aquacruple sign says exactly is there are there any particular grammar rules that you
• 29:27
  would abolish if you could snap your fingers oh hell yeah um in my next book pronoun trouble I
• 29:34
  have a whole chapter about this because I wanted to get through it the idea that you can't say
• 29:39
  Billy and me went to the store because you would never say me went to the store yeah is a lie
• 29:46
  that is a complete hoax nobody talking about that I correct my daughter I correct my seven-year-old
• 29:51
  daughter you have to because formally we have to obey this silly rule but then until very recently
• 29:58
  you had to wear ankle socks instead of having socks that covered up your leg a little bit
• 30:02
  even though they're mosquitoes and moles and mice and dirt it's better to have the tube socks but
• 30:09
  no starting and I guess about 1995 you have to have the little socks you have to observe it you
• 30:14
  can't walk around in tube socks well with Billy and me went to the store we've been told that
• 30:19
  that's wrong because you don't say me went to the store but nobody talks about how in French
• 30:23
  Guillaume et moi sums allé au magasin Billy and I went to the store Guillaume et je sums all
• 30:31
  it no you would be smacked on the head but for some reason in English we have to observe this
• 30:35
  Latin rule that's just something some people made up starting in the early 1700s and now we're
• 30:40
  stuck with it but I really wish you could roll the camera back and get rid of one you know slavery
• 30:46
  and the idea that you're supposed to say Billy and me Billy and I went to the store the rule
• 30:52
  makes no sense on so many levels I do like that slavery made it to the top of the list I think you
• 30:58
  don't need to see 12 years of slave now I think you've got the memo now I clearly on board my
• 31:02
  bonafide yeah exactly you've taken yourself the you've got the memo Billy and me sucks okay in my
• 31:08
  real life I say him and me went to the store not he and I went to the store you know and for
• 31:14
  example why can't you say I and Billy went to the store if it's all about subject object
• 31:18
  why is it that when you say I and Billy went to the store you feel like immersion it's not a real
• 31:23
  right at all I mean there's an interesting thing that Americans do here which is which sounds
• 31:28
  overly formal formal to a non-American here which is to pick up the phone and say this is he
• 31:34
  or this is she have you ever heard anybody say yeah my roommate in New York used to she would say
• 31:39
  she would she would say hello and then they'd say is this someone so can I speak to someone so
• 31:43
  she'd say this is she was she Patricia Patricia Routledge playing high since okay was she was she 80
• 31:51
  no but she was a well-spoken Southern was she doing it in a certain frisky irony or did she really
• 31:59
  mean no she had been told by parent by pedantic parents that the correct way to say it is this is
• 32:05
  she and what's interesting is that we all know how awkward that sound is so weird and the
• 32:09
  I had to look up whether it was correct or not the ancient grammarians always make an exception
• 32:14
  for it even if the funny thing is back in old English and middle English nobody ever made this
• 32:20
  quote unquote mistake nobody ever said Billy and me went to the store everybody said Billy and I
• 32:24
  people started saying Billy and me because the grammar started changing but even in old English
• 32:30
  you know where everything is you know growth car and I engaged in battle when somebody knocks
• 32:36
  on the door an old English or middle English it's it's me because of the way English really works
• 32:41
  and then nevertheless you have some people who say it is I out of a sense that that's how the
• 32:46
  rule is supposed to work yeah I mean I think one reason why people instinctively say me instead of
• 32:52
  I when they're talking about multiple people is because sometimes you start the sentence with me
• 32:58
  and then you want to add on the other person and you don't want to go back and change it to I right
• 33:02
  you might you might start the sentence thinking I'm going to say oh well hang on no that would
• 33:07
  work the other way right there would say I if you want to say I was going to the park then you would
• 33:11
  say yeah I cancel that that's not correct but I think my something else is happening with my
• 33:16
  daughter when she says me and Piper went to the park to tell you the truth there's no such thing
• 33:21
  as an anglophone child who spontaneously says well Hannah and I are going to play with marbles now
• 33:28
  all children say Hannah and me because as you learn the rules of the language this idea that
• 33:34
  I is always the subject is not something you follow so for example let's say that your daughter is
• 33:39
  named Hannah and she broke a lamp so Hannah who broke the lamp come on tell the truth
• 33:47
  what she's going to say is me now she would never say me broke the lamp but she would never say
• 33:52
  I no kid would do that but unless she was saying I did if she said I did yes but what she's
• 33:58
  really going to say is who did it me or who did it them you would never say who did it they
• 34:05
  no and that means that right there you're breaking the rule yes English's rule is that there is one
• 34:10
  first person singular pronoun that's default subject or object me you use I I'm oversimplifying
• 34:16
  but when it's right up next to the verb and by itself so I changed a tire the minute that you've
• 34:22
  got an and involve though it becomes a me and so Billy and me change the tire who did it me who's
• 34:29
  at the door it's me me is the first person singular pronoun I is this quirk that happens when it's
• 34:35
  next to the verb or I actually did it something that comes in between yeah that's the rule like in
• 34:41
  French like what is the real pronoun it's either more or more is something that happens right next to
• 34:48
  yes but we're not allowed to admit it okay let's do it let's change it I'm done it happened
• 34:52
  right here do we need do we need apostrophes no we do not good that's another thing and frankly I
• 34:59
  couldn't imagine writing without it but that's an accident we could use it in order to disambiguate
• 35:05
  here in there but German has the same so as we do and they don't use an apostrophe and look at how
• 35:10
  persnickety and precise yeah with the apostrophe is an accident and I believe you'd be surprised how
• 35:17
  quickly you forget what you write or let's say I think I did a New York Times piece about the
• 35:23
  apostrophe not making any sense and I didn't get that much pushback either I think people get it
• 35:27
  but because of path dependence I would have a hard time letting the apostrophe go it would look
• 35:33
  wrong on the page yeah but if you could roll the camera back it will be good to one get rid of
• 35:37
  slavery to get rid of billion me three the apostrophe I mean I think we should just get rid of it
• 35:42
  because the people who don't really know how to use it are being forced to use something that
• 35:48
  they don't need to use and the people do know how to use it get constantly irritated by how many
• 35:53
  people don't know how to use it actually when there's a plural right the green grosses apostrophe
• 35:57
  of you know oranges five dollars a bag you know within apostrophe yeah but sometimes it looks
• 36:05
  wrong not to have it like I understand if like oranges not a good example but there would be
• 36:09
  something which ends in like a vowel that doesn't look quite right if you put a actually potato
• 36:15
  there was a famous case in the UK where there was a senior politician who went to a school
• 36:20
  and was spelling in front of the class and there were cameras there and he wrote potatoes
• 36:26
  incorrectly I don't think it was an apostrophe problem but like and he got absolutely annihilated
• 36:31
  for not knowing how to spell the word potatoes Josh you know that that story is better
• 36:37
  if it's in Britain I wish it had been in Britain but that was in the States was that was
• 36:42
  vice president Dan Quayle get out who was known for being kind of idiot and he was in a school
• 36:49
  and misspelled potato and he never never got it actually was it that he put it in the end
• 36:53
  put it in the end in the singular because that's the plural the poor man he never got past it
• 37:01
  oh he's still alive and he's still down I love it no that would be better in Britain but it was
• 37:06
  he sitting in a tank wearing a helmet at the time that he was misspelled in the word potato
• 37:12
  if it would be caucus the only thing I know that wasn't even the same guy this is the file
• 37:18
  this is the very thin file folder in Josh's brain which contains hapless American vice presidents
• 37:24
  in the movie it's the same man who was in that helmet and that goes in potatoes that's right
• 37:31
  yeah I would go into the apostrophe um also it makes no sense that we don't have a possessive
• 37:36
  apostrophe on the word it's that you know you teach your children all this stuff about how the
• 37:41
  apostrophe's work and then there's this one exception where the dog and its bone like the dog's
• 37:46
  bone has an apostrophe the dog and its bones should have an apostrophe people fuck that up all
• 37:51
  the time because it is versus it's and yours versus yours yeah it's a it's a complete it's a
• 37:58
  company no there's no your sorry folks that's my jet lag but yeah it's and people tend not to get
• 38:03
  it right even rather literate people yeah and it would be nice to just kind of get rid of it and
• 38:08
  just say ITS in both cases and get rid of this thing that seems almost designed to allow people
• 38:14
  like you and me to laugh at people who didn't get it right yeah yeah exactly but I don't and I won't
• 38:19
  and I will just get I mean let's just get rid of it let's vote to get rid of it um the the
• 38:24
  sort of fame and renown that you've acquired over the past decade I guess as a result of the
• 38:29
  social justice revolution and your courage and I suppose contrarianism on and possessive and
• 38:35
  compulsive yeah which is really what it is uh if you could turn back time would you have that
• 38:40
  I mean is this a welcome attribute in your life that aspect of your reputation or not welcome
• 38:47
  huh uh huh I'm I hate to say this because I've seen people in my position right and say this
• 39:02
  sort of thing and they look they they look ungrateful I don't mean to strike that note but when it
• 39:09
  comes to the social justice anti-woke park that did after 2020 put me in a new place and no it's
• 39:19
  not what I chose and the truth is being known mainly for that and elevated as one of the brown
• 39:28
  faces who can be depended upon to tell the truth about these social justice issues I didn't choose
• 39:35
  and although it's nice to be made a big deal of sometimes deep down on somebody who was at home
• 39:44
  reading my books and you know raising my two daughters I'm a very musical person I like to make
• 39:50
  food I've got a lot of hobbies that's me whereas there are other me's where I think that really
• 39:57
  their essence not that they don't like to cook and read too but they want to be out and about
• 40:01
  pressing the flesh and you know being being famous you mean literally are the human beings or
• 40:06
  parts of you um what do you mean when you said there are other me's do you mean that there are
• 40:12
  other people no other other parts of other other men and women right who are you know in a similar
• 40:18
  position to me where I think they really enjoy the flesh pressing whereas for me deep down on this
• 40:25
  guy who's at home and all of this happened and it's a duty I think it's really important to be
• 40:32
  a black person now black person of a certain age but not old yet who upholds those views what I
• 40:39
  really get off on is that all of that meant that the New York Times tapped me and they are frankly
• 40:46
  wonderful to work for and it's a magnificent pulpit because everything you write all reading people
• 40:53
  read that is a high and with the column I write about language race and music not only race and I
• 41:01
  would say race isn't even half so if you know me from the times and if you think of me as somebody
• 41:06
  you want to shake hands whether invite me to something because of the times that's great but when
• 41:10
  it's calm and let's talk about wokeness let's talk about free speech that's a duty and their times
• 41:17
  when I think am I being pulled away from for example my academic linguistics for that and so yeah it's
• 41:25
  a bit it's a bit of a burden I've been weary over the past few years because and this sounds like
• 41:33
  I'm trying to make myself sound like I'm in some play but am I losing myself because of being
• 41:40
  called upon to be a spokesman for all of these things and the truth is a little but then on the
• 41:45
  other hand if none of this had happened my life wouldn't be nearly as interesting and I think I
• 41:51
  would be bored with my life as it was say just 10 years ago because I needed a third act so that's
• 41:57
  the the gloomy answer to that well I mean in addition to the liability of becoming weary and not having
• 42:05
  as much time to sit there with your pipe and your slippers and your and your brand there's also
• 42:13
  the liability I presume and tell me if I'm wrong of finding yourself unwittingly associated with
• 42:18
  bedfellows who you wouldn't choose and maybe being called upon by people who have a less nuanced
• 42:25
  understanding of the issue than you might and not knowing whether or not at some point you're
• 42:31
  contributing positively or negatively to the overall net conversation I'm very careful about that
• 42:38
  which requires effort that I then am not putting into you know the pipe and the brandy but I really
• 42:45
  don't want today's right wing to think that I'm one of them and so for example in advertising my
• 42:51
  books I always make it clear in the contract no manga people no fox news except the occasional
• 42:58
  exception no Hannity I want nothing to do with any of those people and so there's that I don't I don't
• 43:05
  speaking invitations from people like that I do not speak before federalist societies I don't
• 43:10
  speak before the conservative think tanks except for the Manhattan Institute who I used to work for
• 43:16
  and who always harbor a lot of democrats and so we have an old relationship but the other think tanks
• 43:22
  I make the very occasional exception if it's for a friend and it's not going to be me promulgating
• 43:27
  some right wing agenda and I think that that's actually worked like for example my
• 43:32
  loathing for Donald Trump is endless to the point that their times when I think I need to really
• 43:38
  take it easy and take a long hot shower I think he's one of the most disgusting human beings I have
• 43:42
  ever been aware of in my entire life and I make that clear so right there that means that none of
• 43:47
  those people would want to come anywhere near me but yeah there's going to be some bleed there's
• 43:52
  going to be there going to be some right wing people who think well look at what John McWater said
• 43:58
  but I can't stanch that bleeding because I don't want to be the kind of figure who is so worried
• 44:05
  about them that I hedge what I say so much that I'm not saying anything and there are black writers
• 44:10
  like that who are very worried that Newt Gingrich or you know Christopher Rufo is going to listen to
• 44:15
  what they're saying and frankly you know I turned down a podcast with Newt Gingrich the other day
• 44:20
  but if I'm going to worry too much about that sort of thing then between all of the well
• 44:25
  babies and to be sure etc. I'll write pieces that are very intelligent but don't make a point
• 44:32
  that sticks in your head and then nobody pays attention to me and then all I get to do is drink
• 44:37
  brandy and read about dinosaurs and that's not what I want so there's going to be some bleed.
• 44:43
  How do you what do you make of the willingness of many people in the anti woke center left and
• 44:50
  center right to tolerate Donald Trump and the current cultural right? I have had to wrestle with
• 44:58
  trying to get myself into the head of intelligent people who can break bread with that person
• 45:09
  because they would prefer him to what they think of as the hideousness of wokeness. I have to work
• 45:17
  to understand that I think I'm beginning to in most cases how you could listen to him and think
• 45:21
  this is a person who should be a steward of a mature society. I choose him based on the things
• 45:29
  that he's saying I would rather risk this than for example Kamala Harris because she's too woke
• 45:36
  and she has a silly laugh and she wasn't a great candidate but wow it really does it's funny you
• 45:44
  learn about the diversity of humanity I had a relationship 35 years ago where I learned from her
• 45:54
  how different two people could be who had had the same middle class upbringing same opportunities
• 46:00
  just our tastes our attitudes I feel wow people can be really different I'm learning that lesson
• 46:07
  again now in realizing that Amy can pull the lever for that man it's hard though and to look at what's
• 46:16
  happened over the past two months wasn't it clear this is the way it was going to be but for many
• 46:21
  people this is better than things would have been under a president Kamala Harris I have to work
• 46:27
  really hard and I'm trying because I don't believe in calling people crazy I don't get off on
• 46:32
  despising people I don't want to think that I'm living in a broken country but wow it's been really
• 46:38
  tough and I'm despised by many people on the right and even in the center for saying things like
• 46:43
  this because I'm insulting the person they voted for and therefore by extension them I'm sorry
• 46:49
  but I can't help it it's the only way I can see it how do you get on with Glenn Lowry about
• 46:56
  this a colleague and friend you know with you and you do a podcast Glenn and I have had some
• 47:03
  real set-tos about Trump especially because a lot of the listeners are disgusted with me because
• 47:10
  I'm so implacably opposed to and scornful of Trump we even had an off the record exchange about
• 47:19
  it the other day because it's hard it's getting really tough he and I will be okay because we both
• 47:25
  respect different points of view but it's gotten hard I would say our hardest conversations have
• 47:30
  been about that and then about Tana Hossie Coats's book about his trip to Israel we really that was
• 47:37
  that one because there's a certain amount of of histrionic that that's the wrong word there's a
• 47:44
  certain amount of theater involved in doing a podcast when you know that they're people who are
• 47:49
  watching Glenn and I know what we're doing I know when to cue him to one of the Glenn Rants
• 47:55
  something like that like we're like we're doing jazz the one time when I actually was upset
• 48:00
  when I was thinking I'm angry now and this is not just play acting was during the Tana Hossie Coats
• 48:06
  Israel Gaza conversation and Glenn felt the same way when we stopped that one just tell people
• 48:11
  the contours of that Tana Hossie Coats wrote a book where he went to Israel and he's a prominent
• 48:16
  intellectual black left wing writer yes very prominent he's a he's a superstar and his latest book
• 48:24
  is among other things but the main part of his latest book which is called the message is that
• 48:29
  he spent a short period of time being taken around Israel and being shown the situation in Gaza
• 48:37
  and he he came away feeling that there was a genocide happening and that what's going on
• 48:45
  with Gaza in Israel is what he would call an apartheid that is a view that he is allowed to have
• 48:50
  but I felt that he hadn't really studied the prelude to the current situation very much and that
• 48:58
  I found his analysis superficial and this was pre-October 7th he went I think he went to the West
• 49:03
  Bank right not Gaza but he was talking he was looking at he did not go to no I think he did
• 49:09
  he did see Gaza I'm pretty sure but it was before October 7th but as far as he was concerned
• 49:16
  coats in the interviews that he did everything that he said in the book pre October 7th applied
• 49:22
  he was one of the people who tacitly feels that what Hamas did while unfortunate or
• 49:30
  probably or troubling as people like him would say was an inevitable and in a certain abstract
• 49:36
  sense defensible response to what Israel has done all this is very front's fun all I find
• 49:43
  that an overly simplified view of what has happened in that area over the past roughly 125 years
• 49:52
  I just think that it doesn't take account of the complexity and coats as view is that there's
• 49:56
  nothing complex about it that their times when you have to stop thinking of things as complex
• 50:01
  as just a simple moral calculus Glenn thought that coats wrote a good book he didn't agree with
• 50:09
  everything but he respected what coats had done which is interesting because Glenn and I in the
• 50:13
  past on the show have criticized coats in general and Glenn has always lit into him more strongly
• 50:20
  than me but for reasons I don't completely understand and I genuinely don't Glenn was more patient
• 50:25
  with this book than I expected and so we just got into an Israel argument neither of us are
• 50:30
  Jewish but it got not nasty but we were both frustrated and when that show was over we said
• 50:37
  are we okay which had never happened before and we are okay but that was a tough show that was
• 50:43
  a really hard show it was because of that conversation that I read the book really hadn't been
• 50:47
  planning to yes huh do you like it no but I'm glad I read it I'm glad I read it I really think
• 50:56
  I think he's a really interesting writer and I think he has an incredible turn of phrase he's great
• 51:00
  with a pen yeah I know that about that but it is I I is it fresher in your mind he didn't go to
• 51:09
  Gaza you would you would remember because you had that conversation yeah yeah I think I read it
• 51:17
  about four months ago my recollection is that it was mostly the West Bank because I think he was
• 51:22
  mostly talking about the indignities of Palestinians having to go through checkpoints and stuff which
• 51:29
  is really a West Bank phenomenon where you've got the settlements and exactly like because the
• 51:33
  because Israel isn't in Gaza right or wasn't in Gaza prior October 7th at that time my assumption
• 51:38
  exactly my assumption was that he was in he was witnessing all of these indignities in the daily
• 51:44
  lives of Palestinians who are constantly bumping up against Israeli checkpoints and that's the West Bank
• 51:50
  yeah because in Gaza there was no bumping up against Israelis it was just a stronghold yeah but
• 51:55
  I think I mean I do think it's in the the the the single point that I thought that Glenn
• 52:00
  honed in on in an interesting way and you had great responses to it was this point that you just
• 52:06
  alluded to about like maybe we can sometimes overthink things and maybe you know treating a
• 52:14
  treating an Arab in the West Bank differently than you treated Jew in the West Bank is primer
• 52:18
  facey wrong and you can go through all of them as many you know as many millions of words and
• 52:26
  column inches as you want to to try to justify it but to take the analogy to for example the death
• 52:32
  penalty I opposed the death penalty Tunisie coach Tunisie coach would say it doesn't matter
• 52:37
  whether or not it's for a terrorist or for someone who stole all over bread it's a principle of
• 52:41
  the death penalty is wrong I impose it regardless of the circumstances similarly I oppose you know
• 52:47
  treating people differently on the basis of their ethnicity or religion regardless of what the
• 52:51
  excuses yeah you're not you're not pulled by the moral tug of no no no because the question is
• 52:58
  and this is relitigating what Glenn and I talked about yes the Arabs are being treated differently
• 53:03
  at the checkpoints but the question is why and if the reason why but the question isn't why
• 53:09
  if you just stop the conversation before you get to the why right but the question is whether
• 53:14
  that's a legitimate intellectual move to do frankly no you could say terrorism is wrong the death
• 53:20
  penalty is wrong and we are carving off and then we're just putting a full stop a period right and
• 53:26
  that you don't you don't get to the why right of course the issue is what do you do about what
• 53:33
  happened in the past the Israelis have a reason to believe that if they treated the Palestinians the
• 53:40
  way the Jews are treated they would be in danger of being bombed to death and that's a fact which
• 53:46
  I think many Palestinians would say was justified and I'm even open to the argument that it is I
• 53:53
  understand why they might say that this is the only way that we can reverse what happened in the
• 53:57
  past and I would say maybe you don't maybe you can't reverse it but there's a real argument to be
• 54:02
  had but I get impatient with the idea that we look at it just the way it is right now at this minute
• 54:08
  and say this isn't right as if it's obvious what would be you know what I mean okay if this isn't
• 54:15
  the way it should be how should it be should it be that all those barriers are just taken away
• 54:19
  because obviously you can see why Israel wouldn't want that and that's why this is probably the
• 54:24
  notiest geopolitical situation on earth I like that your accent makes naughty sound like naughty
• 54:31
  to me because it is a naughty geopolitical situation as well it's not it's naughty uh yeah no look
• 54:38
  I just think Tanasi Coates is a I am exactly his target market right you know a sort of center
• 54:45
  left vaguely guilty for my colonial past white even though I'm you know I'm of my grandparents
• 54:52
  were Holocaust survivors and you know it's complicated right but nonetheless he has a way of
• 55:00
  articulating what's what it feels like to be a young shat upon black man in fear of his life from
• 55:08
  you know white a white supremacist superstructure yeah that is compelling and is catnip to me I get
• 55:16
  there I think there's an aspect of him that sticks in my crawl and it's not his fault I would not
• 55:25
  do differently if I were him but Tanasi Coates doesn't like white people I've heard him almost say it
• 55:31
  on a podcast and frankly I'm black too and I know from his facial demeanor I've seen him around white
• 55:38
  people his history he's a type he doesn't like white people when white people on around he's
• 55:43
  the type of person with a beer who'll say I don't like them you know with a laugh I get it he doesn't
• 55:48
  like white people in terms of the way they've treated us and the way maybe they treat they treat us
• 55:53
  now he would think about the cops but what it means is that he's writing to that audience that you
• 55:58
  talk about and I don't think he thinks of himself as writing only for black people I think he knows that
• 56:04
  mainly it's these white people who think of him as catnet and it bothers me a little bit that he hates
• 56:09
  them that he writes all of this he gets you know paid by these people he gets lauded by these people
• 56:15
  I think a lot of his readers think that if they read him and they and they internalize the gospel
• 56:21
  then somebody like him or he won't hate them anymore I always think to myself you realize he
• 56:27
  still hates you and he will go to his grave thinking of white people as aliens that's a weird
• 56:33
  career to me and he couldn't do it any other way I'm not saying that he shouldn't take the money
• 56:37
  because he doesn't like white people but it's always I figure you're supposed to respect your
• 56:42
  audience I don't think he does and I don't think that it's a grift he's not thinking I'm going to
• 56:47
  get money from all these white motherfuckers it's not that if they're going to pay for if they're
• 56:51
  going to pay him why should he not take the money but I find it unsavory he doesn't like the people
• 56:55
  who are praising him that's that's weird trying to and analyze my emotion my reaction to that
• 57:03
  claim one part of me thinks well you don't know that he doesn't like white people I can't know
• 57:08
  absolutely another part of me thinks maybe I've earned his dislike somewhat by being part of a
• 57:16
  cohort that has done such things um another part of me thinks maybe it's better to read the person
• 57:24
  who doesn't like me and earn some brownie points in trying to understand my opponent I don't
• 57:33
  want to call it that maybe but maybe that's maybe opponent is too harsh but my the person who
• 57:40
  believes they have reason to condemn me rather than not reading it yeah and the I get it and
• 57:47
  another part of me thinks it's short changing him because he's not writing a screed
• 57:53
  he's not writing a screed he's not yelling at me no it's trying to articulate yeah what it feels
• 58:00
  like to be in his skin I think in an honest way yes definitely in an honest way he's not grifting
• 58:07
  at all here's the next level of it I think his sense of white people as evil is exaggerated
• 58:16
  and I think that there's a kind of person like him that nurtures a sense of white people as
• 58:21
  that kind of enemy as a sense giving you a sense of security and purpose I think that within his
• 58:28
  lifespan white people have not been what he writes about many people I know of him who you know kind
• 58:34
  of on the fence about him say reading him about race you would think that he grew up in the
• 58:40
  1950s and 60s you know and not 1910 but you know you would think that he was his dad and I think he
• 58:46
  gets a lot of this from his father but I've watched him in rooms full of educated white people and
• 58:51
  he's guarded you can tell he kind of wants to go home and I'm thinking Tonahashi what did they do to
• 58:56
  you all of these people adore you you're thinking that really at the base of it all is this quiet
• 59:03
  but implacable racism and you're thinking about the police but then there are a lot of holes in
• 59:08
  his story about his supposed friend prince et cetera and I also a whole other rant of mine is
• 59:14
  that I think that in our time now there is a vast exaggeration of the extent to which racism
• 59:21
  determines cops actions and it comes from basically the sheer statistics and so I don't think that
• 59:28
  Tonahashi goes and I could ever agree on that if we would ever have a debate about it which we
• 59:33
  won't but his sense that the cops are quiet racists where their racism comes out when they're in a
• 59:39
  tight situation and they pull the trigger I get what he means in 1970 I don't think that's true now
• 59:45
  and I don't think that it's so hard to see that that's not true now but he maintains that narrative
• 59:52
  so that's another part of it yeah I mean look part of the challenge for the majority audience
• 59:56
  of cultural theories like here's and yours and Coleman's and Glenn's and whoever else Thomas
• 1:00:03
  Chatterton Williams or Robin D'Angelo or you know what an interesting group I want to see that
• 1:00:11
  done by that would be fun part of it is that as a white person we don't really have the ability
• 1:00:19
  in part unless you're Robin D'Angelo who can apparently well she feels like a black person
• 1:00:23
  knows everything in our head yeah yeah a part of the challenge is that we don't know what it's
• 1:00:29
  like to be a person of color in the United States so I don't know what level of credence to give
• 1:00:34
  to claims that walking into a subway station or walking into an H&M store or walking into Tiffany's
• 1:00:41
  or walking through Central Park after dark is different if my skin were your color right I can't
• 1:00:50
  tell I don't get to have that second experience I don't get to see whether or not people look at
• 1:00:54
  me differently whether they shuffle away from me differently and so I have to take it on faith
• 1:00:59
  to some extent that the claims that people who say it's a problem that they're not making it up
• 1:01:07
  but they might be making it up and I don't know how how to tell Josh that's the hardest part
• 1:01:13
  they are and I don't say that as an opinion I say that as fact I've been walking around
• 1:01:18
  unmistakably black in the United States and mostly in cities for what's going on 60 years very
• 1:01:25
  aware of all these claims the idea that when you walk into a store you're trailed that you're
• 1:01:32
  walking down the street and you can hear people locking their car doors that white women hold
• 1:01:37
  their purses closer that you walk into Central Park and people are giving you funny looks and they
• 1:01:42
  think that you might be homeless no matter how you're dressed that in general you walk around
• 1:01:48
  being slandered and that's the fabric of your life Coleman Thomas Glenn and I all would tell you
• 1:01:57
  that that story that's been being told since about 1970 the people who say that are vastly exaggerating
• 1:02:04
  now do things happen black kids kicked out of a swimming pool by whites who think that there's
• 1:02:10
  something wrong with them being there a couple of black men being chased out of a Starbucks because
• 1:02:14
  they're sitting there and they're not ordering any coffee but what does that hurt they get chased
• 1:02:18
  out but white equivalents are not all of those things do happen they're very occasional they make
• 1:02:24
  big news but they are not the fabric of black existence today now in 1960 yes even in 1980 and I'm
• 1:02:34
  old enough to remember things like sitting on a commuter train car 1980 1979 and it fills up and
• 1:02:43
  I'm this nerdy black kid I'm wearing glasses I'm reading a book and I'm sitting in a seat the
• 1:02:48
  seat next to me is the very last one to fill up it's not that nobody's going to sit there I'm
• 1:02:53
  not I'm not Rosa Parks but finally a white guy will sit there but you can tell there's a reason why
• 1:02:58
  mine was the last one that was now 45 right 45 years ago it hasn't been like that for a long time
• 1:03:05
  and Coleman Hughes who is like seven has never never experienced that even and so there is a
• 1:03:13
  commitment that a lot of black guys in particular have frankly I'm going to say given the sort of
• 1:03:20
  things that they'd say very tart things about me and my supposed intentions they're exaggerating
• 1:03:25
  and you're thinking well why should I listen to him but then again it's not just me it's all of
• 1:03:30
  us heterodox people so Mark Lamont Hill who I respect very much he and I don't agree on anything
• 1:03:36
  but we don't hate each other Mark would say yes when I walk around I feel black I'm treated a certain
• 1:03:41
  way if Mark and I could have a real real heavy hour long conversation maybe with a glass of wine
• 1:03:49
  where I could politely drill him and he could drill me Mark is exaggerating and I'm not saying
• 1:03:54
  Mark has ever said it but I'm guessing that that's what he would say right no Mark and I have
• 1:03:59
  the same experience and no it's not the way it was if it were that way I would write very
• 1:04:04
  differently but the civil rights movement happened for a reason you said a couple of interesting
• 1:04:10
  things in that and so one was you were a nerdy kid and the other was that if you're walking
• 1:04:17
  through Central Park after dark dressed the same way as everybody else is it possible that part of
• 1:04:23
  what's going on is that there's there are socioeconomic biases which are being superimposed on race
• 1:04:30
  or vice versa in the sense that you know there are certain ways of dressing and walking and
• 1:04:34
  strutting and behaving that code as thug right yeah but and suddenly America that's racialized yeah
• 1:04:43
  but in a country with a less if there was more egalitarianism if you had I don't know if it was
• 1:04:48
  more like Sweden or Denmark or something then maybe these would all be white blonde blue
• 1:04:54
  eyed swaggering dogs who need to be trailed in supermarkets yeah and my point is that the claim
• 1:05:02
  is that it happens no matter what kind of black person you are so let's say that you've got somebody
• 1:05:07
  with what used to be called the short drop walk and the certain you know the big shirts and a certain
• 1:05:12
  way of present presenting themselves yes white people's response to that kind of person might
• 1:05:19
  be somewhat different however is it based on nothing or is it based on the fact that there are
• 1:05:24
  people who conduct themselves in that way and have those demeanors who are somewhat dangerous for
• 1:05:30
  example on the New York subway let's try this if you are a dangerous person chances are that is
• 1:05:36
  your accoutrement that is the way you walk etc then you could be somebody who
• 1:05:41
  fronts that way but it's not a criminal Thomas Chatterpton Williams writes about having been
• 1:05:45
  that kind of a kid I think we're expecting white people to be pretty good junior sociologist to
• 1:05:50
  always be able to tell the difference and this does not justify shooting anybody or anything like
• 1:05:54
  that but yeah bias that somebody like that might feel but it's not true that any black person
• 1:06:01
  labors under this constant quiet but ongoing abuse as in Ellis Koso Black writer who wrote the
• 1:06:09
  rage of a privileged class back in the early 90s where he wrote why are middle class black people
• 1:06:15
  so upset and he wrote about the sorts of experiences that middle class black people had been having
• 1:06:20
  in his time which is now the 70s and 80s it's completely different I mean I believe that they
• 1:06:25
  believe it I believe that they think that they feel I believe that they feel it right in the sense
• 1:06:30
  that you notice what you notice yeah yeah my grandmother who was a holocaust who's the holocaust
• 1:06:35
  survivor saw anti-semitism everywhere even in suburban Sydney where I could tell that it was not
• 1:06:41
  anti-semitism it was people being biased against the crazy old lady you know that's actually a perfect
• 1:06:47
  almost perfect analogy in if you rerun the history of the world a thousand times in how many of
• 1:06:55
  those universes are you a linguist all of them that's deep I I would have been a linguist of some sort
• 1:07:05
  I was five and there is this um book that we had I've gone on eBay and found that book I almost
• 1:07:13
  want to buy it it was a not very good dictionary but for some reason in the back of it they had this
• 1:07:19
  word list and it's still it's ingrained in my mind a word list of English French Spanish Italian
• 1:07:26
  German French Spanish Italian German Swedish and Yiddish I remember and that's a weird set of languages
• 1:07:33
  you know why you didn't say you know it's like and it wasn't a Jewish but they had those six
• 1:07:40
  and I just thought you've already got German in there as well which you they're close and that's
• 1:07:45
  in Yiddish I never thought about that so right now but that weird choice and I thought these
• 1:07:52
  languages and my mother had told me about what this thing called French was there were no Latinos
• 1:07:58
  in my life when I was a little kid in Mount Arian Philadelphia there were probably two Latino
• 1:08:02
  families so I didn't know from Spanish but these languages and you there these six ways that you
• 1:08:08
  can you can say a word and I now know that most kids would have looked at that thought well yeah
• 1:08:13
  and they have other interests but to me that was just mesmerizing and I you know at 11 I got a
• 1:08:20
  record set my mother gave me a record set of Spanish four LPs and you're supposed to teach yourself
• 1:08:25
  Spanish and the weird thing about it is that I actually did get through the set I didn't just do
• 1:08:30
  one side of one record I went through the whole thing and of course you don't come out of it
• 1:08:33
  speaking Spanish but the fact that I wanted to do that I just I am fascinated by other languages
• 1:08:41
  just this morning at the hotel there was a guy talking and on the phone and instantly because I
• 1:08:47
  couldn't get it thinking what is that language what is it and so I'm listening closely and I'm
• 1:08:53
  listening and I actually I thought it's Baltic okay because it sounds kind of like Russian but it
• 1:08:59
  isn't and so it's going to be either Latvian or Lithuanian I couldn't get it any further than that
• 1:09:03
  that I heard him talking to somebody and saying that he was Latvian and I kind of pet him myself
• 1:09:06
  wow and you know why do I care about that and so it's just it's a gene so you could roll it again
• 1:09:13
  and again and again if you rolled it even one time again the reason that I became a race
• 1:09:19
  commentator is such serendipity that wouldn't have happened at all but I would definitely be doing
• 1:09:25
  something linguistical yeah what was the nature of the serendipity on the race commentating it was
• 1:09:30
  just the fact that the particular cultural moment happened oh yeah I am I happen it's kind of like
• 1:09:37
  there would be no life if like the ions weren't like this like the cosmos has to be a certain way
• 1:09:43
  a teleological argument for existence right why you yes and the sun god must have set it up
• 1:09:48
  I was in the late 90s I happen to be in the Bay Area when the Oakland school system happened to
• 1:09:54
  propose using black English as a teaching tool I happen to be the black linguist in the area so
• 1:10:00
  the media called me and I said the reason black kids are having trouble learning to read is because
• 1:10:06
  the schools are bad which I thought was a pretty liberal point but I said you do not need to use
• 1:10:11
  dialect readers to help them learn to read it's been shown that that doesn't work it was just
• 1:10:16
  a perfectly logical argument well I didn't know about wokeness then I was not saying the right
• 1:10:21
  thing because I wasn't battling white supremacy so I got in trouble which meant I was notorious
• 1:10:26
  which meant and for me if you step to me what I do is I write a book and so I wrote a book about that
• 1:10:32
  and that kind of put me somewhere and I thought that was my 15 minutes I hadn't saw it and I thought
• 1:10:37
  that was it but and then we just pause on that why is it that you go off and you write a book
• 1:10:44
  to prove your case instead of sucking it up because no matter how many times you roll the tape I
• 1:10:52
  would be a compulsive writer it's that's another neuron of mine I I don't want to say it because
• 1:11:01
  you sound like you're bragging I'm just describing somehow I write fast and that was true when I was
• 1:11:06
  like three when I was five I told my mother I want to be a book writer and what I meant was not
• 1:11:12
  telling stories I meant I want to write nonfiction books like the kind of baby nonfiction books you
• 1:11:16
  could get from the library so when I get mad I want to make my case and especially back then
• 1:11:22
  there's no such thing as a podcast yet so it wasn't I'm gonna and it wasn't I'm gonna go on the
• 1:11:28
  radio because you can only go on the radio once and so my thought was I I need to have my say
• 1:11:34
  since I write so fast I'm gonna write a book about this and then I felt it was therapy but then
• 1:11:42
  hot on the heels of that was the debate over racial preferences and people were speaking in
• 1:11:48
  it was like Thomas Aquinas the code that people talked about racial preference issues in so much
• 1:11:55
  euphemism so much frankly lying so much distortion I understood why people were upset but I was
• 1:12:00
  frustrated at how coded the debate was and how the people who didn't like the demise of racial
• 1:12:06
  preferences wouldn't engage in a real discussion and I got frustrated and I was a fly on the wall
• 1:12:13
  at some meetings and I thought this doesn't work if these people want what they want which is to
• 1:12:17
  reverse the demise of racial preferences and the question is do you want that but if you want it
• 1:12:22
  you have to make a good faith argument it frustrated me that people wouldn't wouldn't listen to
• 1:12:27
  the other side so I wrote because I was teaching a lot of black and white students at the same time
• 1:12:33
  I wrote about my experiences in a book called losing the race and I think many people would think
• 1:12:38
  I spent two and a half years toiling but no I wrote it in like well literally in six months because
• 1:12:44
  I can do that yeah and I thought well okay people will know what I think because I thought a lot of
• 1:12:49
  people including black people think what I think and I thought this'll get around in the Bay area
• 1:12:54
  it'll make some more people hate me but I feel cleansed and I feel like this needs to be part of
• 1:12:59
  the discussion if I hadn't been at Berkeley to experience all of that if I had happened to get a
• 1:13:04
  job at UT Austin University of Texas at Austin then I wouldn't have written any of that and I would
• 1:13:10
  still just be some unknown linguistics professor so it was just I suspect that the events of 2017 to
• 1:13:17
  2022 would have dragged you into the culture wars in some way because it sounds like what you're
• 1:13:22
  talking about is a sort of intellectual catharsis where something for so agrees your sense of
• 1:13:28
  of common sense yeah you feel and the need to release your intellect into into into that sphere and
• 1:13:34
  and if all of the if I was at UT Austin as a linguistics professor that's an interesting hypothetical
• 1:13:39
  in 2017 I started getting angry at all of this hyperwokeness then I would have written something
• 1:13:45
  that maybe would have run in the New York Times one time but they wouldn't have then asked me to
• 1:13:52
  write more things I think it would have just been I would have somebody would have had me on two
• 1:13:56
  podcasts that's it yeah because by the time 2017 happened I had a kind of a footprint but it
• 1:14:03
  really all started with the Ibonics controversy as it was called the black English controversy
• 1:14:08
  and then the demise of racial preferences in the University of California schools and the fact
• 1:14:13
  that I happened to be a black linguistics professor at UC Berkeley University of California at Berkeley
• 1:14:20
  at the time if I hadn't been I wouldn't be sitting here I'm pretty amazing isn't it like they're
• 1:14:25
  just the random chance the chance yeah I want to get you out of here in seven or eight minutes so
• 1:14:29
  that you can make your your next event at the University of Sydney so I'm gonna do some rapid fire
• 1:14:35
  questions you can answer it with one word we can do it's like a sort of a raw shark or you can
• 1:14:38
  all elaborate if you want to okay and you can just tell me what you think of these of these things
• 1:14:42
  I'll fire a word at you TikTok never watched it my daughters were all about it they were very upset
• 1:14:50
  at the idea that it was going to be withdrawn from them that is not my format capitalism capitalism
• 1:14:57
  is the best of many evils I'm not sure how we work things out and I don't believe that Marxism
• 1:15:03
  would be better if we quote unquote really tried it or if it's true that's not gonna happen in the
• 1:15:07
  real world populism populism is becoming a very vague word and so I'm not sure what I think about
• 1:15:13
  it populism from the left populism from the right people power I mean William Jennings Brian
• 1:15:20
  no nothings pitch forks I think it's really more of a cudgel than an actual term Jefferson Davis
• 1:15:29
  Jefferson Davis is somebody I always think of him as someone who made perfect sense to himself
• 1:15:36
  as most people do you think of there being evil Jefferson Davis thought of slavery as a natural
• 1:15:41
  state of things I hate to say is a black person I can put myself into the head of a white person
• 1:15:45
  a long time ago and imagine how that felt right and he felt that what he was doing was constitutional I
• 1:15:51
  can imagine how that felt right he thought that he was founding another nation I also would not have
• 1:15:56
  him over for dinner for the obvious reason but he made sense to himself he may not have been so
• 1:16:02
  generous towards you I don't think he was Candace Owens I don't follow her I think that her
• 1:16:11
  ravings reveal a rather charismatic idiocy and I often say that I'm not aware of any black conservative
• 1:16:23
  figures who are saying the things that they're saying just to get out there and to make money
• 1:16:29
  you know all of the black conservative figures that I've been aware of even if you don't agree with
• 1:16:33
  them really they feel themselves as sincere pro black actors I can only think of one person in the
• 1:16:41
  whole set of black conservatives where I would say that wasn't true and I'm not gonna out him by
• 1:16:45
  by saying it because what would be the point but Candace Owens from what I've seen is a Huckster
• 1:16:52
  and she's a little bit embarrassing but then again I think I think anybody who matters has her
• 1:16:57
  number at this point Elon Musk there's something wrong with him I really do think that he's a
• 1:17:04
  little bit off the fact that he has become the prime minister of the United States is a
• 1:17:10
  travesty of anything one might consider that's such a good way of putting it I have a thought about
• 1:17:15
  that yes we have a prime minister you do have a prime minister and so that yeah that's interesting
• 1:17:22
  China um one I've never been um two I think that it's awkward to see how the authoritarianism
• 1:17:34
  of that nation means that in many ways for at least elite and middle class people it's a country
• 1:17:41
  that can actually get things done however they're Mach Vellian way of looking at things and
• 1:17:49
  their lack of interest in human rights their sense that human rights is not the moral absolute
• 1:17:53
  that we're taught they are which I definitely think they are it's chilling to see and I worry
• 1:18:00
  about the possibility of a World War III where one of our adversaries was a country that does not
• 1:18:07
  subscribe to our sense of what human value uh what humanity means and the sense that there are
• 1:18:17
  certain universal laws China well have we ever fought an adversary who shared those values no
• 1:18:23
  whether it's the Soviet Union or Germany and now we're going back to Japan to to that yeah and
• 1:18:31
  of course Japan has grown but China doesn't have to have grown and so yeah I worry sometimes um
• 1:18:37
  who misunderstands you the most the left or the right
• 1:18:44
  I'm supposed to say the left because not nearly as much as back in the day because I've been
• 1:18:51
  in the biz for 25 years now there will always be a hardcore of people on the left who think of me
• 1:18:57
  as a right wing conservative who's out to make money and get attention and doesn't like Black
• 1:19:03
  people there will always be that group most of them though form their view of me in about 2003
• 1:19:09
  and naturally haven't bothered to engage me since because we're all busy and why would you bother
• 1:19:13
  with me if that's the the the feeling that's now a small hard kernel and it's overrepresented
• 1:19:20
  in academia there some humanities and social science academics who think I'm just the worst person
• 1:19:25
  and I sometimes think have you had to read me you know what what what what I do the answer you know
• 1:19:31
  now but the truth is at this point I'm getting the most violent verbally feedback from the right
• 1:19:39
  since I've shown that I really think that Donald Trump is a gorilla in a suit and really just will
• 1:19:45
  not compromise on it even just saying that now my blood pressure went up and it doesn't mean I'm
• 1:19:49
  deranged not Trump derangement syndrome I think that it's an intelligent revolution but now a lot
• 1:19:56
  of people on the right think of me as this frothing baby and they thought that I was more with them
• 1:20:02
  than I am because I'm seen as the black person who maybe is not conservative but who was not
• 1:20:07
  woke crazy so now I'm getting it from both sides which means that I guess I'm doing something right
• 1:20:14
  well certainly in terms that that's an interesting point it's it's worth wondering whether or not
• 1:20:18
  your reputation is in is more secure under a Trump administration than it would have been under
• 1:20:24
  a Harris administration in the sense that you would have been co-opted more by the right you would
• 1:20:29
  have actually banging on about the craziness of the left and you would have become more perceived
• 1:20:33
  as being partisan yeah I've actually felt of that yeah yeah that is the weirdness of my situation
• 1:20:39
  these days but you know what's important is that I have a situation and I didn't expect to have
• 1:20:44
  one 25 years ago but here it is how long will it be before an artificial intelligence can write
• 1:20:50
  your New York Times column to your satisfaction don't tell anybody but it can already do it
• 1:20:54
  because actually I was this is like name drop I happened to be sitting at a table with Bill Gates
• 1:21:02
  of a couple years ago and he was showing me his the latest iteration of his and he put in
• 1:21:09
  writing editorial by John McWhorter about slavery reparations and he went boop and it spat out
• 1:21:16
  this thing that sounded just like me it had my terms of phrase it had my take on it and then it was
• 1:21:24
  what what was it after that oh and then translated into Russian and it did and my lady who was
• 1:21:32
  Russian read it and I said first of all is it good Russian and she said yes and she said it
• 1:21:38
  also sounds like you would sound in Russian get out what does that even mean it's it's so yeah
• 1:21:45
  frankly it's at the point where I could say like for example take um the Palestinian who has been
• 1:21:52
  disappeared by the Trump administration I need to write something about that and it occurred to
• 1:21:57
  me yesterday technically I wonder what would happen if I just AI it and just and I'm not going
• 1:22:02
  to do that but yeah it's getting to the point where if you're going to write an editorial that's
• 1:22:08
  less than creative basically AI could do it for you AI could write an editorial by me about racial
• 1:22:16
  preferences now at this point yeah um what's going to happen when you die to you but I don't intend
• 1:22:22
  to die no come on those people now that idea that you allow yourself to decay and and all of us
• 1:22:28
  I don't think there's any allowing going on I think you're getting drowned I think I think
• 1:22:32
  you're getting I think it's getting gotten it's getting you're getting gotten I do not intend to
• 1:22:36
  allow it and to the extent that that doesn't make sense and I know that one could argue that it
• 1:22:42
  doesn't make sense given that everybody has always died I wonder if especially with AI with new
• 1:22:49
  technology it will allow somebody my age to last a little longer I'm thinking in terms of being
• 1:22:55
  able to make organs and it's not going to be forever John and also whatever they come up with is
• 1:23:01
  probably not going to work on people past a certain age and why would you want to live longer than
• 1:23:05
  a certain period some day the grim reaper is coming for you what happens the day after that I don't
• 1:23:10
  want that because I'm not I'm never going to be finished um honestly I feel like right now at
• 1:23:18
  59 I'm about to be 60 I'm working on a third act there's some things that I want to do differently
• 1:23:24
  I want to maybe start a cabaret piano career now that I'm old enough that it won't look stupid to
• 1:23:30
  do it I love and you know if things start slowing down when I'm about 125 well that'll be that'll
• 1:23:38
  be a life why are you being so evasive about your spiritual intuitions I am well for one thing
• 1:23:44
  I'm an atheist and so I don't think I'm going to be in someone's arms and I've always feared
• 1:23:51
  not only death but aging even at like 10 I thought I don't want that you know watching
• 1:23:57
  you know people's hair changing color and people bending over in the canes and the hospital
• 1:24:01
  stays I always thought I don't want that I have never spent a night in the hospital yet for
• 1:24:05
  example if I did I've told people just shoot me just kill me it's going to be longer than one night
• 1:24:10
  and so I really have an issue this is the Ezekiel Emanuel theory of growing old do you remember he
• 1:24:16
  wrote so he was you know instrumental in the Obama administration and the introduction of
• 1:24:21
  Obama care and he wrote this famous editorial in I think the Atlantic saying that when I'm 70 or
• 1:24:27
  75 I'm just going to not take any I think I'm he said I'm going to disavow all medical even
• 1:24:34
  antibiotics or anything like that I'm going to have any medical intervention whatsoever and I'm
• 1:24:37
  just going to allow nature to take its course after 75 oh no no there's too much there's too much
• 1:24:43
  to do and also here here's something I had kids late-ish and so mine are 10 and 13 if I'm going
• 1:24:50
  to see grandkids I've got to take care of myself to at least get it get a peek at them but no
• 1:24:56
  the truth is I mean I I must admit I've written what 24 books gets to the point where you've
• 1:25:04
  written enough books like I'm not imagining I'm not going to be Isaac as I'm off I'm not going
• 1:25:08
  to write 50 books because then you start repeating yourself yeah after a while you've done it but I
• 1:25:15
  don't want to admit it and so let's wait until after act three I hope you haven't done it I think
• 1:25:22
  you're a what's the cons that we're talking about what's what's the phrase about being a great
• 1:25:26
  that you were saying what are the kids talk about oh slaying cut oh you were slaying cut so I think
• 1:25:31
  you should continue being a slaying cut for at least another 50 years John thank you I hope so thank you