Latest / Mechonomist Podcast / Saturday Night Story Time… Why I Hate Critical Race Theory

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Saturday Night Story Time… Why I Hate Critical Race Theory · Mechonomist Podcast

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's story time,
• 0:02
  and I'm going to tell you a little bit about myself and some of
• 0:04
  the work that I've
• 0:04
  done in the past and why I came to the conclusion that I did
• 0:08
  about critical race
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: theory.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: When I was in grad school 15 years ago,
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: I guess now,
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: I was doing my dissertation research in Birmingham,
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Alabama,
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: which is a majority black city.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Most people know the history of Birmingham.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Pretty well known,
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  SPEAKER_00: the Children's March,
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Bull Connor turning the dogs on black people,
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: just horrible shit.
• 0:40
  And I started an organization there called Magic City
• 0:46
  Agriculture Project,
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: which was an anti-racist and community development organization.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: And we worked with some community leaders and
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: to build urban farms in the west side of Birmingham.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: That went pretty well.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: That went good.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: But I also got involved with a lot of activists in Birmingham,
• 1:10
  and we all sort of worked under the assumptions of critical
• 1:15
  race theory that white
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: privilege was a huge thing,
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: that white supremacy is a major driving force in oppression,
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: And that whiteness is,
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 1:32
  what causes white people to feel anti-black feelings or have
• 1:39
  anti-black attitudes.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: And we did this for years and years and years.
• 1:44
  And the main reason I did this,
• 1:47
  and I should have told people this,
• 1:49
  which I didn't.
• 1:50
  But the main reason I did it was because I wanted to do some
• 1:53
  young patriots type
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: stuff,
• 1:55
  which was to bring rednecks in Alabama and black people in
• 2:01
  Alabama together to do
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: some revolutionary shit.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I started in Birmingham,
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: and I wanted to organize Birmingham,
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: build relationships with activists and community organizers there,
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: and then possibly move on to another place.
• 2:16
  So we worked for many years,
• 2:18
  probably about eight to ten years in Birmingham.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: We did end up getting a mayor elected, Randall Woodfin.
• 2:25
  He turned on us immediately,
• 2:27
  which just about put me out of activism permanently.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: that was 2018.
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  SPEAKER_00: And my wife got a job in Montgomery,
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: and we moved to Montgomery,
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  SPEAKER_00: and I got out of activism for a few years.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then when the pandemic hit,
• 2:42
  I decided to do the other part of organizing for Rainbow
• 2:51
  Coalition-type stuff,
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: and that's to organize Rednecks.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, when I started organizing Rednecks,
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: I slowly started losing relationships with people in Birmingham,
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: black activists in Birmingham,
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: because they thought I was turning white supremacist.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't trust me to actually organize rednecks.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: They had a lot of weird assumptions about rednecks that are not true.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: and they basically just didn't trust me to make the right decisions,
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  SPEAKER_00: which tells me they never really trusted me.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, they're not bad people.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: They're not nefarious or evil or anything like that,
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  but they're guided by a theory that assumes that white people
• 3:43
  are oppressors.
• 3:46
  doesn't prove that it doesn't prove that at all but it makes
• 3:50
  the assumption that
• 3:51
  all white people are oppressors i can't make that assumption in
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  redneck communities
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  because it's not true white people are rednecks are not being
• 4:01
  the oppressors in
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  redneck communities they're the oppressed and they see
• 4:06
  themselves they don't see
• 4:07
  themselves as oppressed because it's not in our culture to be
• 4:09
  oppressed and
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a part of our culture to think of ourselves as oppressed.
• 4:14
  It's a part of our cultures to sort of blame ourselves for that
• 4:18
  oppression,
• 4:19
  which is not good.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: Not everything in culture is good.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think that's a good thing.
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  SPEAKER_00: But we don't see ourselves as oppressed, but we are certainly oppressed.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: If you look at any of the economics of the American South or of Alabama,
• 4:32
  a lot of the same things that are happening in black
• 4:34
  communities are happening in
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  SPEAKER_00: redneck communities.
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  But these black activists from Birmingham did not trust me
• 4:43
  enough to make decisions
• 4:47
  about organizing rednecks the way that the Black Panthers
• 4:53
  allowed the young
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: patriots to organize themselves,
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  SPEAKER_00: even using symbology like the Confederate flag,
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: which I've never used.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so I lost all these relationships and
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I blame critical race theory.
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  SPEAKER_00: I blame a very recent theory that was not around in the 1960s or 70s.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I believe that it operates on a logical fallacy,
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  SPEAKER_00: which is that all white people are oppressors.
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  SPEAKER_00: I do not think that is empirically true.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I don't even really think that there is such thing as white people.
• 5:35
  I think it's such a diverse grouping that it can't be
• 5:39
  empirically verified.
• 5:40
  And it would make more sense to address white supremacy by
• 5:46
  getting white people to
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  SPEAKER_00: no longer identify with white and whiteness.
• 5:50
  than it would be to try to guilt and control white people into
• 5:56
  helping black
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: communities through their oppression.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's never going to happen.
• 6:02
  Rednecks are never going to go to black communities and help
• 6:05
  black communities
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: fight against their oppressors.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it should, maybe it shouldn't.
• 6:10
  It's just not because redneck communities have their own things
• 6:13
  to do and their own
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: oppression to fight and their own battles to fight.
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  SPEAKER_00: What can happen,
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: maybe,
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  SPEAKER_00: if we could get rid of critical race theory,
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: is that black and redneck communities could see mutual self-interest and
• 6:29
  mutual cultural forms you know the you know i was arguing i was
• 6:34
  talking to someone
• 6:35
  today and i said you know the south is the only place in the
• 6:38
  united states that has
• 6:39
  undergone ethnogenesis southern culture is shared by black and
• 6:43
  white people alike
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  and they say well you know it's all stolen from black people
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  and you know i don't
• 6:49
  know whatever they're not that black and white southerners are
• 6:53
  not alike but i was
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  SPEAKER_00: like
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: eat similar food,
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  SPEAKER_00: evangelical Christianity,
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  SPEAKER_00: nuclear family,
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  SPEAKER_00: love of sports and college football,
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: use of similar idioms and language.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: It looks pretty similar to me,
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  SPEAKER_00: and from somebody who is way far away from the South,
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: it looks very almost identical.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah,
• 7:15
  there are gradients within a culture of difference within a
• 7:20
  culture as large as the
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: South.
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  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the South is the size of Europe.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: So,
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: I mean,
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  a black person in New Orleans is not the same as a black person
• 7:30
  in Memphis,
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  just like a redneck in Montgomery is not the same as a redneck
• 7:38
  in Western North
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  SPEAKER_00: Carolina.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: But it's all under the very large umbrella of Southern culture.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: So, if we can see shared culture here,
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: shared interests in fighting against oppression.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um,
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: something could happen in the South very significant,
• 8:01
  but until we pass through this moment of critical race theory
• 8:08
  and come out on the
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: other side with a new theory that is not going to be able to happen.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway, I know some of y'all just joined in, um, I'm about right.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm wrapping it up right now.
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  SPEAKER_00: Are there any questions?
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: We'll see y'all next time.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: Peace, y'all.