Reflecting on the Bicentennial and Today

Among those sentenced was Daniel Sanchez Estrada, who wasn't even at the protest. This week, the judge handed down what amounts to life sentences for activists in Texas for, among other things, making zes and joining a book club. What most people would describe as protected F Amendment activity is the bulk of the basis for these charges. From WNYC in New York, this is on the media. I'm Brooke Gladstone. And I'm Michael Ooinger. Also on this week's show, America is turning two fifty With all the fanfare you'd expect This is the destiny of America to be the greatest country ever to grace the earth. We are one people, one nation, marching into one magnificent future. But are we Wherever you hear talk of cohesion, wherever you see this burning desire for consensus, Usually it's hiding the roiling chaos underneath. 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Please give at on themedia d. org slash donate right now. And when you give now, you get our brand new on the media Jumbo tote, an oversized canvas tote bag with an extra large on the media logo on the side. I use it to carry my groceries. You can get yours at on themedia dot org slash donate Thank you and enjoy the show From WNYC in New York, this is on the Media. I'm Brooke Gladstone. And I'm Michael Loinger. This week, a Texas judge handed down a major win for the Trump administration's crackdown on protesters and anti fascist organizing. This all happened july fourth. last year. The group of protesters saw a fireworks at damaged buildings and vehicles at the ICE detention Center in Prairieand twenty two people have been charged and nine were given sentences this week ranging from thirty to one hundred years. During the protest, a police officer was shot in the neck. He survived. Benjamin Song, identified as the group's leader, was sentenced to one hundred years in prison after being convicted of attempted murder for shooting and injuring an officer. Among those sentenced was Daniel Sanchez Estrado who wasn't even at the protest. He received a thirty year prison term for conspiracy to conceal documents after he moved a box containing anti fascist magazines and pamphlets. Acting U.S. atttorney General Todd Blanche welcomed the unusually harsh sentences, writing that quote TifA terrorists who attack law enforcement and federal facilities will face swift and uncompromising justice. What most people would describe as protected First Amendment activity is the bulk of the basis for these charges. Lex McMennaman followed the trials for the Guardian There's a lot of books in the exhibit files. there's political posters, stickers, photos of some of the defendants tabling at book fairs as evidence of their Antifa cell quote unquote Some of these people may not have known one another and yet they're being charged with participating in some kind of Atifa cell Definitely some of the twenty two defendants have never met, never knew each other. Part of the strategy here was that this case was undertaken as a conspiracy case. And what I was told by someone at the Center for Constitutional Rights is that This is usually a strategy used against drug dealers, for example. So in that case, it's not abnormal for someone who wasn't there, wasn't technically involved in the incident at hand to get wrped into these broader charges. What is novel is this strategy being successfully used against protesterors. The things that they pull together to make that case were in addition to the zes, the books are that some of them were participants in signal chats the government cast their usage of Signal chat for organizing purposes as proof that they had nefarious intentions and that it was a conspiracy in that folks were using pseudonyms or discussing whether or not they intended to carry at this protest via signignal And not all of them were in the signal chat. No, which they may very well have been using to organiz the protests, but that isn't in and of itself proof that there was a conspiracy to kill a cop. Yeah, absolutely. The whole reason that they were discussing self defense, quote unquote, is because they were afraid of physical violence from law enforcement for just protesting, not because they thought they were planning an ambush, which is how the government described it Let's talk about another one of your sources, Elizabeth Sdo who was sentenced to fifty years for quote, providing material support. terrorists fififty years, what evidence did they use for this claim Elizabeth Soto and her husband, Inez are among the defendants. Inez is getting sentenced next week But Inez, Liz, and Savannah Battten, another one of the defendants who was also sentenced to fifty years on Tuesday, are among those who were walking away when the shooting happened Thisiz is a stay at home mom The reason that the government felt that they were a part of this quotequote Antifa cell is because they were very active participants in the Emma Goldman book Club, which is named for the twentieth century anarchist They are the people who are photographed in the exhibit files tabling at book fairs. They would table as the Emna Goldman Book Club and sell zines, give away seeds for people's gardens, sell books, and host book clubs As part of that, they had a quote unquote printing press in their home garage, which was two big Xerox office standard printers and then like a book binder. The only thing that they ended up making with that is a poetry collection about the writer's sister dying of cancer. And so when the FBI raaided their house, they saw the printing press and then they actually conducted a second raid to come back for the printers and the bookbinder How did the prosecution draw a line between these political books and zes to some kind of conspiracy to kill a police officer Among the Zenes and books that are collected are a Zine version of a movie review from twenty nineteen of the Ari Aster films Midomar and Hreditary that is titled The Satanic Death Cult is Real It's an article by feminist theorist Sophie Lewis, who told me for this story, like it feels like they didn't even look past the first page they just saw Oh, Satanism signed Antifa. Those are two films in which spoiler warning It turns out that the villains of the film are in fact parts of Satanic Death Cults. Yeah. and also Sophie Lewis is a fear is a family abolition. and in the government's counter terror messaging, they've included anti family and pro transgender as being anti American. So it is kind of interesting because it feels like they are saying anything that depicts a possible negative family setup, which if you've seen hereditary or Mids Homar, they're definitely about having bad experiences with your family, I think is a very light way to put what happens. It's casting that as inherently nefarious anti American. Another example of what's in The exhibit Files is the book Emergence Strategy by Adrian Marie Brown. This book came out a decade ago. It's an extremely common book. It's certainly sold in a Barnes andnyl. So not exactly a terrorism manifesto. I would certainly not say so. Why do you think the government chose these books in these zenes to present as evidence if they fall short of showing some kind of violent conspiracy against the government I spoke to the wife of one of the defendants Autumn Hill, she was sentenced to fifty years on Tuesday. Her wife's name is Lydia Kza. and Lydia said they're anti intellectual Oh, these defendants read. That's so scary. You shouldn't trust people that read. They might be writing things that'll be dangerous to you A lot of the folks who are involved in this case do believe that the reason the case went the way that it did is because the government essentially try to otherise these defendants, cast them as being scary on the basis of having tattoos, being trans. Let's talk about a couple of the defendants, Autumn Hill and Meghgan Morris, both trans women who are being held in men's facilities. Morris was denied access to hormone treatments while in a Johnson County jail nearby the Prairieland Ice detention Center. They each received fifty year sentences for conspiracy to riot and ambush an officer, but they weren't even present when the shots were fired What's the court's justification here Autumn Hill and Meghan Morris were in these affiliated groups or in signal chats. The FBI rid on their house similarly collected scenes, literature, posters. I wouldn't say that these folks are being targeted because they're trans, but I would say that it is noticeable how the government's attacks on trans people are impacting the duration of their incarceration or even how this case is being conducted. Roughly a little less than a third of the twenty two defendants in this case are trans, but Autumn and Meghgan are the folks who had socially transitioned. They had legally changed their names. they had begun medically transitioning. They've been held in men's facilities this entire time. Criminal justice and civil rights experts are extremely opposed to trans women being held in men's prisons for their own safety. Just to be clear, the targeting of left wing activists is not itself newude. There's a long history of the US government conflating anarchists, communists, leftists with criminal conspiracies. Can you talk a little bit about that history and how you think this incident fits in Kind of ironically, ninety nine years ago Emma Goldman was charged with a conspiracy for organizing against the draft in World War one. And that charge was brought by a young Joseph McCarthy, who would then go on to start the red scaret of characterizing left wing ideologies, particularly communism threats to national security. You see the same tactics intensified in the wake of the civil rightights movement and the rise of the Black Panthers. The eighties and nineties were a time where a lot of those movements were crushed on the basis of these conspiracy cases This follows all the way through into Trump's first term, where there was this case called J twenty where over two hundred people were charged as part of a conspiracy over protests that occurred on an inaugperation day in twenty seventeen. And then that brings us to now, where the Department of Justice is pursuing several conspiracy case style prosecutions of anti Iice protesters across the country But as a pro publica investigation earlier this year found Over a third of cases built against some three hundred plus anti IC protesters have crumbled. What do you think sets Prairieand apart from some of those less successful prosecutions? Was it simply the shooting of an officer I think that the shooting of an officer is absolutely the main thing that ended up shaping this case. A lot of the folks who might usually come to their defense like the ACLUs, for example, that they did not make a lot of rcks about this case because there was a gun involved, and I think a lot of liberal groups just did not want to touch this compound that with the fact that this happened in the Northern district of Texas Court, which is a pretty conservative district. It ended up being like a very ideal setup of a case for the Trump administration to go after The fact that political literature is being used as evidence Is that not just a clear firstirst Amendment violation This is extremely concerning to legal experts. It goes all the way back to the basis for some of the Constitution. The federalist papers were effectively azine. They were anonymous pamphlets that articulate something that is anti authority that is not so different from the anti capitalist, anarchist, et cetera, literature that these folks had in their homes when I met Elizabeth Soto in jail for our interview When I asked her, do you think there's anything to this? Her response was, they didn't like my book club. It's very clear to the defendants that this is about the literature, this is about the ideology that they share. In support of that, the folks who are organizing around this case on the outside have responded by making their own anonymous literature. They have issued so many zines to inform people about this case, about the defendants and about the possible consequences and risks. A lot of national Zine networks have responded by even like selling collections of the zines that were included in the exhibit files to fundraise to help get some of the defendants who have not yet been tried out on bail The First Amendment is not dead, but this case is absolutely an assault on it Lex, thanks for keeping on top of this case and thanks for speaking with us about it Thank you for letting me come on to talk about it. It's really important Lex McMeniman writes about protest movements for the Guardian Coming up, Rembrance of Independence Dayss Past through a mirror darkly. 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Get long lasting battery life on the Dell XPS laptop powered by Series three Intel Core so you can work from anywhere now starting at six do and ninety nine cents with exclusive student pricing starting at five doll ninety nine cents And it's lightweight, portable, and packed with enough processing power to make multitasking a breeze. So say goodbye to distractions and hello to more free time because you finished your work faster. Complete your setup with savings on select monitors and more must have electronics and accessories, limited time deals and free shipping on PC's and more await you at deell d. com slash deals. That's deell d. com slash deals This is on the media. I'm Mikeel Loinger. And I'm Brooke Gladstone In the first month of Donald Trump's second administration, the government created Task Force two hundred fifty. dedicated to planning a year's worth of events surrounding the nation's semi quinentennial A brief mission statement said that it aimed to quote inspire a renewed love of American history, encourage citizens to experience the beauty of our country, ignite a spirit of adventure and innovation to help our nation succeed, and invite Americans to pray for our country, our people, and rededicate ourselves as one nation under God It kind of sounds like a pet talk in the mirror for a country that doesn't much like what it sees Eddie Glaude is a professor of African American Sties at Princeton University and author of the new book, America USA, How Race Sadows the Nation's Anniversaries He set out to explore not just the present but all our past big birthday bashes and the question why a quarter of a millennium into the American project, we still can't reconcile. own reflection Every present demands a past to account for itself. And I kept thinking, here we are in the two hundred and fiftieth year of the country and we're grappling with so many contradictions, so many ghosts And I'm not Jillapur couldn't write that big poem over two hundred and fifty years. Yeah, but you have. But I thought though that these anniversaries are these telescoped moments where the country has to tell a story about itself. And it just so happens that with each one of these partarticularly the milestone anniversaries. the hundredth, the hundred and fiftieth, and the two hundredth The issue of race is at the forefront W. E.B. Du Boise wrote about what he dubbed the double consciousness in his classic, The Souls of Black Folk It was, you say the way he depicted the veil that separated the worlds of black and white folk and the impact that duality had on the way black people saw themselves. But you also note that condition is truly the inheritance of all Americans, the idea that America is it once a nation of laws that reflect ideally the equal standing of every individual, and that it is a white republic You wrote that these two values are irreconcilable and when the tension between them becomes unbearable White America risks everything, including the well being of the country to resolve it. We see it with the Civil War and we see it now There were those who were willing to throw away the entire experiment before they gave up not only the economic institution of slavery, but the idea that the racial hierarchy which justified the Pculia institution that that was kind of baked into the order of things So let's start with America's birthday, so called, the fourth of July. In the first fifty years of the country, you wrote that the fourth didn't look anything like the present, mostly because it didn't have a cohesive purpose People from Virginia were loyal to Virginia foke from Massachusetts or loyal to Massachusetts There was this kind of broad Confederacy, but there wasn't a kind of strong national sense of identity That would emerge later Right, the identity that causes the schizophrenic reaction because there wasn't actually much ambiguity about white supremacy. Slave auctions were often held on the fourth, you noted. It was made a holiday in eighteen seventy, that was five years after the Civil War And free black people weren't allowed to participate. In fact, you noted that it was the most menacing day of the year for free blacks in the North Yeah, you get the horrors of the July days in eighteen thirty four, for example. You know, a church was accused of administering a marriage ceremony to an interracial couple. The church was attacked, pews, destroyed B folk were slaughtered in the streets I think it's important for us to understand that our very bodies kind of signaled the contradiction of what was being celebrated. It is said that John Adams said to King George, We will not be your negroes. So in the very moment in which he's giving voice to a notion of freedom, It's based on this very intimate understanding of unfreedom. and you can see this distilled on these early july fourth days. Tell me about the significance of july fifth. Yeah There's this alternative commemorative calendar In African American traditions, there is this celebration of these freedom days. We initially celebrated january first. Why? Because january first, eighteen oh eight was the end of the Transatlantic slave trade We used to celebrate august first, eighteen thirty four. Why becausecause it was the end of slavery in the West Indies. And july fifth was important, pererhaps the most celebrated of all the freedom celebrations until juneteenth It was New York Aolition Day end of slavery in the state of New York. And so during these days, you would have picnics Prayers, sermons, families would come out and celebrate an idea of freedom over and against a country that claimed itself to be a defender of freedom. And wouldn't let them participate on july fourth. Exactly. So the most famous of july fifth celebrations, of course, is Douglas's july fifth, eighteen fifty two orration, was initially supposed to be delivered on july fourth, but july fourth landed on a Sunday I was going to ask you to quote from What to the slave is the fourourth of July The blessings in which you this day rejoice are not enjoyed in common The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence bequeathed by your fathers is shared by you, not by me The sunlight that brought life and healing to you has brought stripes and death to me This fourth of July is yours, not mine You may rejoice I must mourn Douglas went on to say that America is false to the past falls to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future So let's jump ahead to the centennial, eighteen seventy six, a decade after the Civil War ended and already the twilight of reconstruction. Tell me what happened on july fourth in Vicksburg, Mississippi You have African Americans celebrating not just simply the fourth of July, it's the fall of Picksburggh. and you have those persersons who suffered the defeat. at this celebration of freedom by these former slaves And so this gathering of women, children and men They are attacked You say by the end of the summer, nearly three hundred and fifty were murdered Why did President Grant, who was asked to send support decline He was worried about the response to his efforts in Colfax, Louisiana Colfax, Louisiana, there was some questions around the elections. Questions about the elections, how Well, they didn't trust the Republicans who were elected. Were they black? Some of them were black. Black people voted Republicans in, you see. This is the key. The idea that these former slaves could exercise to franchise, actually play a role in governance was an affront. And then the idea that these people would dare to defend themselves in the face of violence, just simply intensified the bloodlust And so Grant sent in troops in Colfax, Louisiana, and he took a serious political hit because across the country There was this kind of fatigue. around the issue of race. People thought with the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment, everything was settled. These black men now had the right to vote. And as Du Bois wrote several years later in nineteen oh three in the Ss of Black folk, that didn't resolve anything. In fact, it just simply nationalized the race question. So with the hesitancy around Colfaxs and his intervention, he refused to send troops to Vicksburg, Mississippi and the slaughter continued. You say reconstruction didn't just end. It was murder Robert Smalls, who was a Civil War hero from South Carolina, was elected to Congress during the Reconstruction era Robert Smalls said Between the collapse of Reconstruction and the turn of the century, over fifty three thousand black people were murdered And these weren't just random folks, theseese were people who were participating in the electoral system They were poll watchers. They were actually in the Republican Party coming up When you think about what happened in Mississippi, what happened in South Carolina, what happened in Wilmington, North Carolina There's actually a physical coup You have the Mississippi plan, this blueprint in the state of Mississippi for seizing the power of the state The idea was through coercion and violence to scare black people away from the polls and through law, disenfranchisement, strip them of their ability to exercise the vote and seize power. plan was then duplicated across the South. Tell me about the participation of the Supreme Court in all of this? You know, we tend to read the court through the Warren Court. I know. It's just an accident of our birth. But you know, the court is rendering decisions that fundamentally narrow the aims and ends of reconstruction During radical Reconstruction, there's legislation passed to curtail the violence of the Kan. The Supreme Court overrules it. During radical Reconstruction, you get the thirteenth Amendment, which enslavery, the fourteenth Amendment, which gives us due process, the fifteenth Amendment, which gives black folk the right to vote. You see the court systematically narrowing and constraining what the fourteenth Amendment covers so much so that you get the violence of the Kan Th those laws implemented in order to hold them to account, particularly in Cofax, those very people who committed the horrors in Cofax were then absolved of any guilt by virtue of the court. How did they do that? How does the court justify murder B saying this falls within the purview of the states. So if the state isn't going to prosecute, then there's no It's not a federal issue What was the red wave of eighteen seventy four? This kind of takes us to the cycle that I'm talking about in the book This red wave reflects the exhaustion of the nation They've had to bury their dead lost in this extraordinary, violent conflict that was the Civil War that almost destroyed the nation. And so you have not only those in the south, but even those in the north and of course those folks who didn't believe that black folk had the capacity for citizenship, but they didn't believe in this union. These are the copper heads. They are tired And then you get the economic downturn folks are losing property, losing wages, losing their way of life. So between the economic downturn And the fatigue around race Republicans who had been governing the country lost enormous number of seats in the House of Representatives and the Senate. Not even a full decade after the Civil War Democrats now control all of the major committees in the House of Representatives. and you see the effects of this as we're barreling towards the centennial of the country. The Red wave represents the Democrats? Yes. They were red back then So we get to eighteen seventy five, as you write, the Gilded age that Mark Twain skewered. The bounty of the frontier and the genius of our technological advance Native people were savages to be tamed or eradicated past mattered little here And Frederick Douglas, spitting against the wind, again, the negro was not the problem. I mean, this is, you know, that eighteen seventy five speech is so powerful july fifth again. Will you pull a little bit of that up Yeah When this mighty quarrel had ceased, he told the crowd The war. when all disparities and resentments have gone as they are sure to go When all the clouds that a few years ago lowered about our national house shall be in the deep bosom of the ocean buried, when this great white race has renewed its patriotism and flowed back into its accustomed channels The questestion for us is In what position will this doupendous reconciliation leave the colored people tendencies will spring out of it, and how will they affect us If war among whites brought peace and liberty to the blacks Peace among the white spring So here Douglas is understanding very clearly Right The danger' on the horizon He's already described these people as the apostles of forgetfulness. They think they've resolved the question because slavery is no more, but he knows about Colfax. He has heard about Vicksburg in Hamburg, South Carolina, the violence that is taking place across the south. and his friends The people who were once anti slavery turn their backs And that's when he declares, I don't want alms. I want justice And that part of the book truly shocked me the failure of those allies, the statements they made. I mean, Whitman Yeah, when we read Whitman's leaves of grass and you read the first Eedition, it's an antis slavery poem But by the time you get to the last edition, he's redacted it all becausecause he didn't believe that these people actually could bear the burdens of citizenship. He likened us to baboons. And u the disaster that was the collapse of Reconstruction led most prominently to the rebirth of the Ku Kux Klan in nineteen fifteen I mean, there was a decision by government. address the extra legal violence of the clan Those laws in eighteen seventy were designed to prohibit The violence that congressional hearings around the clan aimed to snuff them out and the courts madeade it possible for them to return. In nineteen fifteen, they were reborn in Stone Mountain, Georgia. Now mind you, it's happening against the backdrop of the anniversaries of the Battle of Gettysburg and the like. The Kan emerges and they're emerging as a defender of America first. It's interesting though, Brooke. They're not just simply identifying black folk because by the end of the nineteenth century and the turn of the twentieth century, the pressures of European immigration Jews and Irish Catholics whose loyalty was to the papacy, D' Sois, the Italians, those Europeans coming from those S ho countries threatened cohesion of the nation, and the Kan took it as its role and responsibility to defend America first. And they use the phrase. That is their phrase, America first So jump to nineteen twenty six. What was top of mind for America at the hundred fiftieth year mark What did the Cesquintennial celebration look like? Well, it was a disaster. Unlike the eighteen seventy six centennial celebration which was by every measure, a stunning success The Susqueentennial was mired in corruption. This is how South Philly, for example, got built. You know, you have the corrupt politicians making sure that the exposition would be held in South Philly, which was basically a swamp. There was this attempt at a fair. But by this time, technology had outpaced the exhibits It was sort of like a failed world's fair. Eactly. all the technology in the one fifty years earlier had everybody gasping. Oh my God, look at America's technological prowess. In nineteen twenty six, this is the roaring twenties Only the United States can have the roaring twenties after the Spanish flew After all of that death, we're going to describe the twenties as the age of the Charleston and the jazz age. But it's also the decade of the Klan is at the height of its power in the nineteen twenties. And its similal achievement is the Johnson Reid Immigration and Nationality Act of nineteen twenty four. That put in place national quotas. It in effect codified the idea that whiteness defefine the substance of American citizenship And so this is really important in the way in which I'm telling the story in the book Because the nineteen twenties represent this vexed and complicated expansion of who was considered to be the white America You hear it in Teddy Roosevelt. You hear it in Woodrow Wilson. You're going to hear it in Calvin Coolge. They're trying to beat back. The nativism of the clan in an interesting sort of way. Congressman Johnson, who co author that piece of legislation in nineteen twenty four, was actually a member of the clan And Senator Reid from Pennsylvania. represented a state that had over two hundred fifty thousand members of the clan. At some point, the clan claimed about six percent of the American population as its membership. It's notot that everybody had to wear a sheet or a hood, but the clan in so many ways represented the common sense of white America in this moment. And how was that reflected in the celebration Initially the clan was approved to hold its annual convention on the grounds of the celebration of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the nation They were going to celebrate the flag and burn a cross at the same time And if it wasn't for a coalition, listen at this coalition, a coalition of Irish Catholics, Jews and black folk in Philadelphia, it would have happened A.J. Sutton, who was one of the key organizers of the nineteen twenty six Cescu Centennial was purportedly a member of the clan and he punished people for blocking this, they called it a clvocation. One notable exclusion was that Among the thousands of veterans celebrated for their service in World War I who led the opening day for the nineteen twenty six celebration There wasn't a single African American among them, despite three hundred fifty thousand of them having served during that war. If you think about eighteen seventy six in the centennial, right? there's a disappearance of the reason for the war Fredrick Douglas was invited sit on the dis in eighteen seventy six. A Philadelphia police officer as he was trying to enter the exposition says very clearly, this is possible that an N word could ever be invited to sit on the dis with the presresident of the United States. It seems so hard to believe because at one point Fredrick Ducklas was the most photographed man in the world. It didn't matter, he was still an Nward. And then here we are All of these black soldiers who risked everything in World War I disappeared Of all the anniversaries, you wrote that nineteen twenty six seemed to be the most unmoored. It was caught between the old dying world of monarchs and empire and a new modern one struggling to come into existence What I'm interested in is the way in which the idea of the white American is taking shape during this period. It is the basis of reunion to see themselves beyond being in the south and in the north overcome these regional differences An idea of the white American is articulated And in the nineteen twenties, that idea is expanded to include European immigrants, those people who would become white ethnics. becausecause the very people in the nineteen twenties who are seen as infestations a threat to Nordic America. are now quintessentially American. And so the Kans view of the world became much more binary and white and white include it now ethnic diversity We have to always remember The United States, at least in our popular rhetoric, we tend to locate the monster outside of us. We talk about Hitler's Germany And we ignore the fact that Hitler found in us The example, He looked to us resources including the science of eugenics. Exactly. Listen at this quotation from Lwroump Stodter, The Rising tide of cololor againainst white supremacy was published in nineteen twenty. and he says, finally perish White civilization is today called terminous with the white race If white civilization goes down, the white race is irretrievably ruined. It will be swamped by the triumphant colored races who will obliterate the white man by elimination or absorption. That's great replacement theory That's what's animating a lot of our politics today. That was nineteen twenty though Let's talk just for a moment about The Madness referred to it when we began the interview. The reason why churches could buy and sell slaves to support its charitable operations, the lunacy. trying to reconcile those things The way the country has historically finesed divided soul is that it argues that white people are the possessors of freedom to give and to take away So if the country is divided between the idea of the country as a beacon of freedom and as a white republic, the way you finesse that division is just simply make freedom the possession of white people What can we do for the negro? What can we do for the slave? as if racial justice is a philanthropic enterprise, a charitable gesture And then the moment in which, you know you admit of the horrors, you admit of the racism. that admission is supposed to bring forth absolution. And instead of bringing forth absolution, it brings forth another demand for a more just world then that sentimentality Morphs into white rage. Because as Baldwin said, sentimentality is always a mask for cruelty. toine sentimentality this pain that you feel for someone else that has a limit Those feelings are really about you and your moral character. It has very little to do with the actual object of the sentimentality, right? You know It doesn't come with responsibility This is what Oscar Wilde is saying Can you recall that quote Oscar Wilde and de Profundes thought of the sentimentalist as quote, one who desires to have the luxury of an emotion without paying for it Coming up the second half of Brooks cononversation with Eddie Glude. This is on the media On the media is supported by Viking, committed to exploring the world in comfort offering destination focused small ship experiences on all seven continents, with a shore excursion included in every port and programs designed for cultural enrichment And every Viking voyage is all inclusive, with no children and no casinos. Learn more at Viking. com. On the media is supported by Dell To school starts now. Get long lasting battery life on the Dell XPS laptop powered by Series three Intel core so you can work from anywhere. Now starting at six do ninety nine cents with exclusive student pricing starting at five dollars ninety nine cents And it's lightweight, portable, and packed with enough processing power to make multitasking a breeze. So say goodbye to distractions and hello to more free time because you finished your work faster. Complete your setup with savings on select monitors and more must have electronics and accessories, limited time deals and free shipping on PC's and more await you at deell. com slash deals. That's deell. com slash deals On the media is supported by Eagles Crest Advisors. Eagles Crest Advisors works to take a holistic approach to financial planning, helping you create a comprehensive strategy that aligns with your life goals Whether you're saving for retirement, purchasing a home, or funding your children's education, they help to guide you in making informed decisions with personalized advice and ongoing support, ensuring that your plan evolves as your needs change Learn more at eaglescrestadvisors. com This is on the media. I'm Michael Loinger. And I'm Brooke Gladstone, joined again by author and educator Eddie Glaude to conclude his guided tour of the, let's say, mixed history of our nation's biggest birthday bashes Picking up in nineteen seventy six Real progress had been made. We saw the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, a slew of critical decisions at the Supreme Court. We had things to celebrate, right? One would think, but the country was splitting apart at the seams You had Watergate the fall of Saigon. you had black power. You had a radicalization of the student movement. You had the women's movement The bicentennial had to give voice to some sense of unity in the midst of rampant and profound skepticism about the country I interviewed Lonnie Bunch, the seecretary of the Smithsonian, the first African American secretary. And he said, in many ways The bicentennial celebration was also a celebration of white ethnic America The children and grandchildren of the people in the nineteen twenties who were considered infestations are now claiming the revolution as their own How did they do that? Give you an example, the antib busing movement. This is happening in Boston So judge issues a ruling trying to desegregate Boston schools. Many of the communities in South Boston and alike feel that judge's decision is an affront to their liberty, shipping these black kids into their schools and shipping their kids away from their neighborhood into these other schools. there's this really serious protest and this nineteen seventy five wonderful piece in the New York Times You know, who owns seventeen seventy six Read these men and women who are antib bussing, claiming the revolution. They are suffering the tyranny of King George. The judge, of course, is King George These are the children of the children who were considered a pollution of the Nordic stock. The irony of history, my God. Sociologist Robert Bella believed that America reflected commonly shared religious beliefs, which informed and shaped political debate. He referred to this as America's civil religion Yeah, John Winthrop as they were making their way from the old world to the new declared the North American continent as the city on the hill, saying that this was the bounty that God had given Reagan would add an adjective and call us the shhining city on the hill. This is also about the sacrality of the Declaration of Independence of the Constitution, the founding fathers kind of being mapped ono the apostles with our own version of Judas, Benedict Arnold. The American project gets read as divinely sanctioned because animating our sacred documents are enduring metaphysical principles Bella says that these enduring principles provide an underlying cohesion to the country. And what I'm suggesting in the book is that wherever you hear talk of cohesion Wherever you see this burning desire for consensus, usually it's hiding the roiling chaos underneath. those conflicts roiling beneath Television was now firmly established in people's homes in nineteen seventy six They couldn't hide quite as well as they had before No, absolutely. I mean, I was seven years old My mother had me in red, white and blue pants . You know, it was such a kitchy kind of celebration because corporate America was everywhere. You know, you even had red, white and blue pooppy cushions I remember trying to figure out what kind of music was the Mormon Tabernacle choir singing. You know I' fromom the coast of Mississippi, right? So this was piping in I grew up on the coast of Mississippi, right Television meant that you didn't have to have the celebration in one place. So this is the first time in the milestone anniversaries that the celebration isn't in Philadelphia. But it also generates a kind of decentered story You still had the flotilla coming into New York City, the Freedom wagons and all of this other stuff You know, the conflicts, the tension was there. So even as people are talking about union, unity and cohesion You get the image in Boston outside of City haall of a young teenager attacking Ted Landsmark A Yale trained black lawyer with the American flly. I remember Martin Luther King observing and this is by no means an exact quote that white people could be moved by the cruelty of fire hoses and vicious dogs wielded by southern sheriffs to make changes. But They were never really eager to change the system to allow genuine equality What I'm reflecting on is the white tears, the sentimentality There you goerred to in the earlier segment. You got it. That's the argument with no willingness to sacrifice behind it because you have to change a system rigged to deprive a chunk of Americans Equal rights, equal access to generational wealth Yeah, that's it you know, because The book is not just simply directed to loud racist T easy It's really addressed to those people who think that they are heart Deent You know, five years, six years ago We were all in the midst of a racial reckoning. after George Floyd. We were in our homes. We all we watched it over and over again. People risked their lives I was on television crying. It was a moment, a horrible moment of unity And then in a blink of an eye. We find ourselves here And the only thing I can conclude is that folk will lie They weren't telling the truth. Or maybe they didn't have any place to land and they just went back to their regular lives and let the status quo return But here we are in a moment of the great capitulation. Universities have bent the knee The voter rights act is gone. They're redistricting right now They have gutted the infrastructure of the mid twentieth century and what that moment produced They have ripped it out whichich brings us to the present day. Yeah. So in eighteen twenty six We were still a baby nation by eighteen seventy six We were tapping into a deep wellspring of violence to kill off Reonstruction after the Civil War. In twenty six, we'd won a war but lost the narrative as the Kan surged, progressive politics embraced immigrants and the white working class while ignoring the systemic practices arrayed against America's black citizens By nineteen seventy six, we had shed some innocence, but not enough to kill off the powerful idea of white supremacy And I'm reminded of that opening line from Samuel Beckett's novel Murphy. The sun shone having no alternative I'm a nothing newew So where are we now It's just pitch perfect Here we are. Doubling down. on the ugliness that has haunted us since the beginning Jadie Vance on july fifth, twenty twenty five. Clermmont Institute deellivered a speech where he said, America, you know, it can't just simply be an idea. That's not enough He put forward an argument that the country was based on blood and soil blood and soil, another phrase taken up by the Kan, along with America first. They're not that ahistorical. The people who come up with these terms must know where they came from. The echo in some instances is purposeful. I think it's really important for us to understand that in this moment White nationalists have seized control over the government and they're going to tell a story of the country's beginnings that will reflect those commitments What's so fascinating about the end of the nineteenth century and the turn of the twentieth century was you had the gilded age The rich oligarchs who seize control of government You had the consolidation of Jim Crow And you had American emmpire All of that was happening at once And here we are in a moment where hatred Greed and selfishness. Eer lining of our bellies And we will see what we will do on this two hundred and fifteth in response So how's our celebration looking to you