Louisiana voters reject far-right constitutional amendments, sudden influx in foreign recruitment of American scientists, Black expats share why they’re happier living outside the U.S. DeRay interviews author and law professor Derek W. Black about his new book Dangerous Learning: The South’s Long War on Black Literacy.

 

News

Louisiana voters reject all four constitutional amendments, despite Gov. Jeff Landry’s support

Countries boost recruitment of American scientists amid cuts to scientific funding

Black expats share why they’re happier living outside the U.S.: I get to ‘exist in peace’

 

TRANSCRIPT

 

[AD BREAK]

 

DeRay Mckesson: Hey, this is DeRay, and welcome to Pod Save the People. In this episode, it’s me, Myles, and Kaya, talking about the news with regard to race, justice, and equity from the past week. And then I sit down and talk with law professor, Derek W. Black, to talk about his new book, Dangerous Learning: The South’s Long War on Black Literacy. I learned so much in this book. I knew that there had been a historic war on literacy post-slavery, but whew I did not know what I did know until I read this book, you’re gonna learn a lot too. Here we go. [music break] Hey, this is DeRay on another episode of Pod Save the People. Super pumped to be here and everybody, this is Kaya’s last episode being on the news with us as a regular contributor, but she will always be a part of the Pod Save the People family and you will hear her continued as she does interviews every now and then, but this is DeRay at @deray on Twitter. 

 

Kaya Henderson: I’m Kaya Henderson at @KayaShines on Instagram. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: My name is Myles E. Johnson, at @Myles.E.Johnson on Instagram now. I feel like a grown-up. 

 

Kaya Henderson: What? That’s new! 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Mm hmm. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: That’s new? How new is that? 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Like 48 hours ago. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Okay. 

 

Kaya Henderson: We’re fresh. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I’m sub stacking. I just like, we needed something yeah, refreshed and and simple. 

 

Kaya Henderson: Mm-hmm. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: I love it. Well, you know, before we jump into the news, I have been lightly following women’s basketball. JuJu got hurt and she is out for the foreseeable future. 

 

Kaya Henderson: Lightly following that happened like two weeks ago, but okay. That’s light.

 

DeRay Mckesson: Um. You know, I’ve been busy. Paige, Flau’Jae, really the stars, I have been following the stars. 

 

Kaya Henderson: Look, he was like, Kaya have you been watching basketball? I’ve been watching basketball. Juju, Flau’Jae, just no, you have not been watching basketball. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: My girls are doing great. 

 

Kaya Henderson: They are. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Dawn. 

 

Kaya Henderson: Shout out to South Carolina who beat Duke today. Woo, woo, woo, woo.

 

Myles E. Johnson: Okay. 

 

Kaya Henderson: LSU, and their girl, I’m sad for their girls. LSU women lost today, but, I and I’m sad for the girls, I’m not exactly sad for Kim Mulkey. I’m not, I don’t really love her. But I’m saying all of that to say, women’s basketball is hot right now. It’s March Madness, right? It’s basketball, basketball everywhere. But if you have not seen this, you should go back and look at the Lakers and, but um whoever the Laker’s played, Thursday night or Friday night. It was a down to the buzzer, like, you know, back and forth. And the dude at the end just pitched a ball from half court and it went in. Pshh. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Okay. 

 

Kaya Henderson: And they won the game. Woo woo.

 

Myles E. Johnson: Okay, okay. 

 

Kaya Henderson: It’s exciting basketball times. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Did you see, in terms of the WNBA, that when Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese play each other this year, they’ll be playing on June 7th and July 27th, they have moved the games to the United Center. 

 

Kaya Henderson: Ooh bigger stadiums. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Because of the popularity. So where they currently play seats 10,000 people, but the United center seats 21,000. It’ll be one of the biggest venues. 

 

Kaya Henderson: Mm-hmm. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: For a WNBA game. So. 

 

Kaya Henderson: Good for them. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Wow. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Pumped to see them keeping it going. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Wow. 

 

Kaya Henderson: Next week you all can talk about the Final Four. [laugh]

 

DeRay Mckesson: I’ll be watching The Final Four a little more closely. Less lightly, a little bit more. 

 

Kaya Henderson: Represent for me, because I won’t be here next week. So at least mention that next week, okay? This is now is the time to dip in. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah, I want to dip in. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: As we’re narrowing it down, um I don’t want to spend much time on Kanye West because we’ve talked about him enough, but I was shocked to see him in a black Klan outfit. And this is when I do wish social media was a little more regulated. Like I wish that we would just get him off the internet so there would be an end to this public, I don’t even know, like implosion of Kanye West, um but I just wanted to bring it here because the black klan, every time you think it can’t get worse, you’re like, oh, well this is sort of, this is a new twist on something really wild. 

 

Kaya Henderson: Have you explained to the people in case they have not seen what exactly you are talking about? I mean, you have to help people. I know my friends have not see this. They may have seen this because I’m about to put it in the group chat, the auntie group chat, but for people who have not seen it, why don’t you explain. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Myles, do you want to explain it? Myles is our resident culture expert. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I explained the Kanye West and the R-word in the Beyonce scandal and that was just, I prayed 3000 times. I did everything Beyonce said in that Lemonade video, everything the read Bible scripture. So what it looks like is Kanye West is talking to academics and he’s in a full-fledged Ku Klux Klan outfit, but it is black. And he’s talking about various different things, including admitting jealousy of Kendrick Lamar and Kendrick Lamar’s musical and cultural position. That’s what I witnessed. So the cartoonish thing about Kanye West and him doing this in this moment is [sigh] just just like where is his people? 

 

Kaya Henderson: That is my question. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: You know, like, where is his people? Like, to me, I’m not affectionate for Kanye West like that if he was just wrong. And he is wrong and gross, but also it’s just our fascination with seeing public deterioration and mental deterioration, like that is just really disturbing to me. And it seems like there’s no bottom to our taste for it until it just becomes like sad and like, nah, like I’m not gonna watch that anymore. It just feels like he can go lower, get more attention and there’s still eyes for it. And I think that disturbed me because there was even a time when Britney Spears got to a moment where it wasn’t funny anymore, or um just various different people in the public arena got to point where it’s not funny anymore. And it just seems like for this situation, there’s just no bottom to it. And for us to say, you know what, let’s stop doing an autopsy on like why he’s the way that he is or publicizing it and really call it what it is, which is this psychotic public break, you know? 

 

Kaya Henderson: So I was thinking something similar, Myles. He’s gotta have some people. And even if, you know, I can imagine that you can’t convince him to do anything that you would like him to do, but there’s somebody who he cares about and who cares about him, who he has some kind of a relationship with, who’s gotta say, dude, like we gotta, let’s just chill for a while or something. Y’all don’t have me out here going crazy and doing crazy stuff. Y’all grab me, lock me up somewhere, put me in a room until– 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I will knock you out, I will put the blunt in the room.

 

Kaya Henderson: Exactly. That’s the thing. I feel like my people would just carry me out, right? 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah. 

 

Kaya Henderson: Like they would put me somewhere and they’d be like, no more, girl. You not doing this. If we got to keep you locked up or whatever it is, we’re going to do that. And so the part of me that feels sad is sad that the people around him are allowing this to happen. But that that is that not how you felt um Myles during the Wendy, like, and we’re still talking about Wendy Williams. Is that like, does do those have similarities to you? Cause I feel the same way about Wendy Williams. I don’t want to see this train wreck. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: That’s why it was kind of difficult because what Kanye has been saying is so disgusting when you think about the anti-Semitism, when you think about, uh, the things he’s been participating in. But that is really my sentiment for everything right now. Like the Wendy Williams stuff, Zeus Network, even our taste for, you know, I brought Doechii to the podcast and just seeing her, like, kind of skyrocket, but then also there being this kind of celebration in watching her getting taked down and hyper critiqued and and we just seem like we have such a taste for blood in the lowest of low culture and it just knows no bottom so I– 

 

Kaya Henderson: Wait, can I just pause parenthetically to say something really silly? Did you see her Instagram about farting? 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Who, did I see? [laughing] 

 

DeRay Mckesson: This, that really, you really, that was, Myles’ speechless was just epic. Myles was like, um. I’m going to go with no. 

 

Kaya Henderson: She did a little video on Instagram and she was like you know. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah. 

 

Kaya Henderson: I’m gonna fart. Like you know we’re all human, we all do it, and I’m not going to hide. I’m not going to act like I don’t. I don’t know why we do all of this. You know I’ve come a long way and if I have to fart, I’m going to fart and I thought it was hilarious. She might have said it a few more times in a very strong way. She did say that she would warn you before [laugh] before it comes, which I thought is appropriate etiquette. Um. If you gonna fart, don’t act like it wasn’t you. She said she would warn you and give you enough time, but she said she was gonna fart. And the reason why I thought this was funny and why I brought it up in the context of this is everything is so serious. And what I appreciated about her was just a moment of levity. Like it was just silly, you know, whatever. And so. Yeah, I’m sure I’m about to get roasted now, right? But go ahead. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: That auntie group chat should fire you up. [laughter] You know what’s, and I guess it just depends on your media diet and like, I know you’re consuming news and stuff. So it’s like, oh, Doechii is my levity. I think my thing with my generation and above and below is that there’s actually too much silliness going on. 

 

Kaya Henderson: Ah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: It’s feels like sometimes I’m like, everybody seems like they want like a ticket to like, oh, I’m just here to dance. I’m just here to make you feel good. Oh, just forget your problems. Like everybody can’t be an alien superstar on the dance floor. Somebody needs to say, you know what, this is the era and time that you know, God so saw it fit for me to be a public person. And I’m going to use this in order to create some type of change or agitate. And it just seems like everybody’s like, no, I just want to be a little minstral trickster clown. That’s the archetype that I want to be during this. 

 

Kaya Henderson: That’s fair. I read and take in a series of non-silly things too, so a little silly once in a while is good for me. Thank you, I appreciate it. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I can giggle with Auntie Kaya all day, sorry. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: I also want to talk about Amber Ruffin was supposed to be the comedian, the lead of the White House Correspondence dinner. I’ve been to a White House Correspondents dinner when Hasan Minhaj  was the person. I think I went twice. I went when Hasan was and then I went some other time. I went as a guest of like Yahoo or something once. And then I went as Hasan’s friend. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Okay. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: But Amber Raffin just got canceled as the–

 

Kaya Henderson: Fired. She got fired. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: She got fined as the host of the White House Correspondence dinner. Remember that Trump did not go to the last one that he was supposed to go to. I don’t think he’s been before as president. You can probably famously remember that he was in the audience and Seth Meyers and Obama made fun of him, and that was a whole moment that Trump seemingly never forgot. But I wanted to bring Amber Ruffin to the podcast to see what your take on it was. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Amber Ruffin’s really interesting. So I think the only thing that’s better than performing at that dinner is getting fired publicly from that dinner, if I’m being honest with you. Again, Trump is going to do whatever they can do to do the symbolic theatrical things. So firing a Black woman publicly is something that they were looking for in the fact that she said critical things to Trump, gave them the perfect excuse to kind of enact that type of theater. But when I really think about her in her career, I’m like, that’s probably the best thing that could ever happen because you don’t really want to be associated with this presidency and this administration, but you still kind of want the publicity because if you are in that field, you know, attention is king and you got both and you don’t have to be scarred by that presidency so she’ll be fine is my thought. And I think that she’s just so smart and good as a comedian. I really do like her that I just know that she is going to understand how to spin it. And I think that even when I look at what she’s saying because she is so smart, I see somebody who’s maybe even baiting somebody to do it because we know how sensitive Trump is. We know who he is. And she says all these um kind of critical things about him. So I think she was kind of baiting him into a moment that kind of gave her more publicity and also got her fired from a job That is kind of demeaning to do when you’re a Black woman looking at, you know, a neo-Nazi movement taking over the White House. It’s probably not the best place to make jokes. 

 

Kaya Henderson: I was actually very interested in what her sort of hosting jokes were going to be because she is so smart and because I think it would have been like intellectual jousting, right? And you know, I’m here for that. But I do like you, Myles, I feel like she was put in a little controversy into the atmosphere so that it was a bit of a charged environment and so that, you know whatever. And I’m so over, I mean, one like I still, every single day, I’m like, what planet do I live on because this is bananas. But like, it’s so petty. White House Correspondents Dinner, I don’t know if I’m gonna come because you got that lady who I don’ like. She said bad things about me. See you soon. And the world caving. I feel like, come on, y’all. Like, this is petty petty. Like this is insane. Like you got a whole government to destroy, which should be taking up your time, but you’re worried about Amber Ruffin saying, now, I will say this, I will say this. I do feel like, I mean, I’m a little sad that the White House correspondents dinner, if they didn’t want her because of the things that she said about Mr. Trump, that’d be one thing. But the fact that the White House called and said that they didn’ want her, I don’t like that. She said some things that, if she said them about me, she couldn’t come to my party either. But I feel like the White House was petty-betty and we’re not coming if Amber is in and the White House correspondents people are like, yeah, Amber, sorry, we know what we said, but no, not no more. Whatever, child. We need some people with spines around here. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: I’m interested to see who does do it now, cause you look real crazy coming behind Amber Ruffin. 

 

Kaya Henderson: That is right. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: And choosing it. So that will be interesting. 

 

Kaya Henderson: Well, although there are comedians who support him who would be happy to do it, I think. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Oh, that’s–

 

Kaya Henderson: Right? 

 

DeRay Mckesson: That’s right. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah, Roseanne. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Roseanne! 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah. Yeah. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Roseanne’s funny.

 

Myles E. Johnson: I was going to say something really quick because when Auntie Kaya was talking, that did get me thinking now I do think it’s important to say that there’s like a safety that’s felt when so I remember when Bush was president and we will watch the White House correspondent dinner and or clips will come out on E or The View and stuff. And there’s something softening about being able to see somebody who has that much power, being able be made fun of. I think that moment of free speech and being able to descend and oppose power, even when that person is the most powerful and they’re in and they’re in that chair being able to say things that are satirical or dissenting against them is such a part of American culture and the thing that does make us democratic and does make us a culture of freedom. So there is something to somebody dissenting and then being removed from participation. And I also think the same thing happened with um Kathy Griffin. I’ve been seeing a lot of her interviews. She’s doing stuff. So you see somebody opposing power, political power, then being um just chased down and just totally economically and politically destroyed based off of their dissent. Um. That is scary as much as we can giggle. That is a scary thing to put out there. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: What I was going to say is, and I’m going to say this with my news too, but it is a reminder of just how fragile, and Myles, you hinted to it, but just how fragile the whole Trump ecosystem is around the messaging. That one of the ways that Trump wins is that he just owns the airwave. It’s like you don’t even hear a competing message, you don’t because they have screwed Twitter. Facebook and Instagram are different now. TikTok is different now and the the mainstream news, like CNN, they just cover him so much. Unlike in the past, you can’t even hear a coherent argument that’s against him. People spend so much of their time explaining what he’s doing that you can even process it. So I do think he is painfully aware that what happens when you get this hour chunk of somebody uninterrupted, every single network talking about him in a really clear way, like he understands that that is a problem. And I’ll talk about this with my news, but I do think that the reality of the political moment in terms of who has power is a little more fragile than the performance looks, but they have nailed the performance. Like we, you know, none of us are, they got the performance down, they got us. 

 

Kaya Henderson: Well, I mean, I think also to the domination of the airwaves, you know, a lot of the shock and awe actions that the administration has taken have actually been beat back, right? So whether it is, you know they went after two of the largest law firms that um came after him during impeachment and the judge just ruled in the law firm’s favor. Or if it is the judge ordering him to turn the Venezuelan plane around or reinstating probationary employees. There are all of these things that they’ve done that have been clapped back, slapped back, pushed back. And because he dominates the airwaves and because there’s new stuff every day, you aren’t hearing. We hear a lot in Washington, but when I talk to friends around the country, they’re like, oh, he didn’t get to do that? Oh, wait, what? I didn’t know that. And so I also think that part of the consistent, you know, Steve Bannon said, look, the enemy is the media. And if we can keep them distracted and thirsty for stories, then they can’t tell the whole truth. And I think we’re seeing that in spades. [music break]

 

DeRay Mckesson: Don’t go anywhere, more Pod Save the People is coming. 

 

[AD BREAK]

 

DeRay Mckesson: I’ll go with my news first. It’s about Louisiana. So in Louisiana, Governor Landry, who is a far right Republican, he won. Remember that for two terms, they had a Democrat over in Louisiana who um even if people thought he was imperfect, he was holding the line and making sure that you know people weren’t getting screwed over. Then you get Landry. I first came across Landry because one of the very first things he did as governor is he pushed through a law change to get rid of parole in the state of Louisiana. So if you get convicted of a crime after January 1st of 2025, you are not eligible for parole. Nobody. It just–

 

Kaya Henderson: Ever? Ever?

 

DeRay Mckesson: It’s gone. Yeah, yeah, it’s gone. 

 

Kaya Henderson: You just go to jail for however the whole time is?

 

DeRay Mckesson: Your sentence can be commuted by the governor or something like that. Or like you could be re-sentenced by the court or something, but you cannot apply for parole in Louisiana if you get convicted after January 1st because they just got rid of parole straight up. There are 16 states that don’t have parole, but Louisiana is the latest. And all the other ones happened in like the ’80s and ’90s. So, you know, as somebody who in my work, we do work on parole. We saw this and we were like, this is crazy and people, because people can’t imagine a world without parole, like it just seems sort of normal, everybody was shocked that he got this through. So that’s when I knew something was up. But the good news is that he put, he and the Republicans, but he was, I talk about Landry because he did a road tour about these four constitutional amendments and he was working to get these four amendments passed and they just voted. And the good news is that uh the voters overwhelmingly voted against every single one of the Constitutional amendments. So I’ll very quickly go through them. Amendment one would have allowed the legislature to set up special courts. And they sold this as like a streamlining, like just like we have drug court, family court. But what it really would have done it would have allowed them to set up things like an abortion court. And that would have been sort of a hell case. It would have allowed them set up an immigration court. It would’ve allowed them to setup like a gas court or like a Gas and Power Court that all their friends can go through as opposed to going through like the–

 

Kaya Henderson: Regular courts. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: –normal court system. So people voted against that. Um. They also, amendment two would have changed and removed some things in the constitution. There are some constitutionally mandated funding streams. So in the Constitution of Louisiana, there is a protected K-12 education fund and a whole host of other things. This would have removed all of those things instead that the legislature just gets to determine them. So we can imagine why, you know, you wouldn’t trust the Louisiana State Legislature to do right by people. The third one was the biggest one for us in criminal justice. It would have expanded the list of crimes that you can convict young people for felonies with. So it would have, right now they are in the Constitution. So you can only convict young people of felony crimes for murder, manslaughter, rape, armed robbery, kidnapping, some drug offenses and repeat offenses of a certain kind. Um. This would have removed them from the Constitution and it would have given the legislature the power to just decide at will when a juvenile can be tried as an adult. You can imagine how that would be bad in with a legislature like Louisiana. And the last one was a little technical about the timing for judicial vacancies, but it would’ve allowed them to play games with um filling vacancies that arise. I talk about this as a big win because I do think that people, whether they didn’t get it when during the actual election. I think that if we had to vote on things today, people would be like, oh, this is not what we signed up for. Now, the Trumpers still support Trump. But remember, on our side, there were a lot of people who stayed home who just like didn’t either were like, it doesn’t matter. This doesn’t impact me. Da da da. I think a lot people now see what the impact of a crumbling federal government looks like or a government that just sort of does whatever it wants. And I was heartened that in a place and what was cool about Louisiana is that it wasn’t just the liberal places, it was deep red places in Louisiana voted against these amendments. That is a reminder that both organizing works and like the organizers mounted like a beautiful campaign against Landry much quicker than he thought. And you know, what is Landry saying? Landry is saying that George Soros is the reason why he lost. [laughter] And that it was the liberal elite who lied to people and George Soros specifically came into Louisiana and lied to people and you’re like, if you got to dig George Soros, who has not made a public statement that I can remember in so long. If you got to dig him out, then you really are flailing. But but again, I bring it up as a success story that like, I do think the base is still there. I think the voters are still there, um we just got to talk to them. 

 

Kaya Henderson: I agree with that. I saw a lot of Instagram traffic where very local city and parish level politicians and then state level politicians in Louisiana were all doing kind of TikTok type videos to explain what these four things were to encourage people to get out to vote. Like I just saw lots of like local level politicians participating and I hadn’t seen that before in my feed. And so I think that people really worked hard in Louisiana to get out the right messaging about what these amendments were and to really sort of exert their power. And I think it’s a success story too, because in a time when you feel like so many things are out of control, we actually still have a lot of control. And so we need to see more and more examples of communities determining what they want and not just responding to you know the radical administration agenda. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Really beautiful. I’m really happy that this success story happened. The more cynical part of my brain. 

 

Kaya Henderson: But. But. [laughter] I’m ready for it, I’m ready for it. C’mon.

 

Myles E. Johnson: It’s just both and, is that when I think about who’s affected. So to um DeRay’s point, there’s so many conservative folks who voted in their own interest. And I think about Louisiana, I think, about my own family, I think about so many people and think about how many people are affected by the prisons and affected by the jails and what were um and what was being voted on. And it makes sense to me that they will vote for their own good. My I think my concern is, and this is what we kind of saw during the election is when people voted for Trump and AOC or voted to keep you know abortion rights but still voted for Trump like those kind of moments or really wanting to see immigrants suffer or really want to see trans people suffer really want to see Black people suffer and here it is. When the democratic progressive thing doesn’t affect you, can we still get people to vote? I think that or get people to vote how in the more liberatory way when it’s not directly affecting you. That’s what kind of concerns me is just that part. I guess nothing to do with the actual passing of that um or not passing of those amendments. But just the idea of like I’m like, oh, is this proved that there’s going to be something different that’s going happen in the next election? Because it just shows that people, when it affects them and they see it, they’ll do the right progressive thing. But if they think it’s going to harm somebody else, they’ll still vote in a way that’s conservative. And, you know, sometimes even fascist. 

 

Kaya Henderson: I didn’t see the exit polls, but a lot of these people are just regular old citizens who probably don’t touch the criminal justice system. But I think what people are saying is those are not the rules that we want for our community. Like we don’t want to put more kids in jail for more whatever, right? Like and so I do think that there is, I take your point, but I think that this one cuts across everybody, right?

 

Myles E. Johnson: I’m not saying that you went to jail, but I’m thinking about you knowing somebody, you having a child. Like it’s something that would affect you, so I’m not saying that literally you, but like just in your neighborhood. And I think those are things that usually seem easier to get people to understand in progressive ways than things that don’t necessarily touch them. 

 

Kaya Henderson: I get it I think there were lots of people who, in order for it to be this overwhelming of a of a repudiation, there had to be a whole lot of people who were unaffected who said, nah, not this. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Um it was like 60-30 against, so to Kaya’s point, a lot of people voted against this that weren’t impacted. But Myles, I think the crux of your point I agree with, this idea that like you we cannot ride this wave to the next election, like there has to be a lot work in between this win and like when we actually have to vote for people again. And that is a reminder to the organizers that like remind people that they have power, they can stand up. Like I saw somebody um say, and I support this, that whoever is going to run against Landry, They should be talking about this endlessly. They should be reminded like we they should use this momentum and not just let it die and then wait for them for nine months later and be like, remember when we voted on that stuff? Like, I think this is the time I that’s how I feel about the town hall forums that AOC and Bernie are doing. It reminds me in some ways of Obama. Obama led the Hope Coalition. Everybody was jazzed up. But when his body wasn’t there, it was, you know, you were like, what’s the infrastructure in some places? So Bernie and AOC traveled the country and bring out record numbers of people. And the question becomes like, can they help build an infrastructure that those people are still organized when they’re gone? You know. That’ll be the test of us. [muisc break] Don’t go anywhere. More Pod Save the People is coming. 

 

[AD BREAK]

 

Kaya Henderson: My news this week is about education. It doesn’t look like it’s about education, but I promise you it’s about education because how could I have my last news segment and not have it to be about education? So follow me for a minute. This comes out of NPR and it talks about how as a result of the scientific programs and funding for scientific research that this administration is eliminating that countries all around the world are boosting their recruitment of American scientists. In fact, last Thursday in the journal Nature, they released a survey where they talked to 1,650 scientists and 1,200 of them said that they are considering leaving the US and relocating to Europe or Canada because of President Trump’s actions. Now, as you can imagine, like we have been the hottest scientific research country historically, right? We started the Manhattan Project in 1941. We have actively recruited scientists from around the world and everybody wants to come here. But now, the most prestigious universities in France and Canada and other places are recruiting our scientists. They’re establishing funds to support scientific research. One has a new program called Safe Place for Science, where they say it’s a safe and stimulating environment for scientists to pursue their research in complete freedom. And so I brought this to the podcast because I feel like when you know three out of four scientists say they are thinking about leaving, that is a significant consequence. But I also think that it is part of a larger dumbing down process of America, right? So if schools are underfunded and you can’t read true history and all of these things, and we don’t have scientists who are figuring out how to cure cancer and to make innovations happen and whatnot. We have a population that is less able to critically think through the things that are happening during the things of the day that are happening. And the thing that I find so crazy about all of this is you know one of the rallying cries for Trump supporters is you know the need to make America great again. It is all about beating China and beating Russia and beating all of these other people. But you think at the end of the day that we can do that without education, without science, without great schools. And I just think that um this is the illogical like rationale that these people, like there is no straight line. There is no, you know, whatever it is, we’ll say or do whatever makes sense for what it is that we’re trying to accomplish. But I this is worrisome to me because If we lose you know three out of four research scientists, this sets us back generations, generations. Um. And I think you know these are some of the things that people don’t pay attention to because all of this other stuff is happening. But three out of four scientists saying that they’re considering moving abroad and these other countries setting themselves up to provide funding for research and the money that they need and whatnot is. If that’s not an opportunity to ring the alarm bell, I don’t know what is. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: You know, what’s interesting, Kaya? I had seen this and the same thing with like the gutting of the CDC and all these doctors, scientists leaving. And I didn’t quite make a text to life connection until I had my yearly checkup with my um doctor. We had a telehealth meeting the other day and we’re going over my vaccine. She’s like, let me go through your chart. And like, I’ve had the same PCP since I was 24, something like that. So we’re going over it and she’s like looking and like you, you get the tetnus thing every 10 years. So I’m like, she’s going through the thing and she’s like, well, the guidance is changing on some of these things. So let me check. So we’re going through it and I’m sitting here like, oh man, what’s going to happen when there’s no guidance. I’m like hearing you process. She’s like well, this has changed. 

 

Kaya Henderson: Mm-hmm. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: You know, this thing, I don’t think you need this because you’re not old enough, or, you know, when you turn 45, you need to start getting screened for these things. But she is referencing guidance that comes from the CDC. And she’s talking to me about how it changes over time, it’s changed before, they used to say 40, but you know you turn 40 this year. And I’m saying, you’re like, well, what is gonna happen when that just disappears? Like, what happens to healthcare for people? What happens to a whole set of people who rely on this? Not, you know, I worry that when people think about scientists disappearing, they think that this is like academic journals somewhere, people just writing about, you know, the stars and how big a bee’s eyes are. And you’re like, oh no, this is like gonna impact you or does impact you in ways that you don’t even think about. And I didn’t think about it till I had my my doctor’s appointment, I’m like, oh man, this is deep. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: And science is such a checks and balance. Like the first thing when I was reading this article, I thought about the, so that attorney general note about alcohol stuck to my liver and I see so many videos around it too. I do, I see so many videos going viral, Black folks talking about the um harmful effects of alcohol and the attorney general and what he said. And what I think about to DeRay’s point is you need people who are unbiased when it comes to companies reviewing these things, because if you don’t have scientists, you just have a whole bunch of companies selling you whatever they got and saying, no, trust me, you know?

 

Kaya Henderson: That’s the point. That’s the point. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Four out of four [?] that we just paid and paid for their college say you should do it and that’s not good enough, you know, and to your point, I don’t know, like, what does America, America’s gonna look sicker? And it’s also gonna look like a whole bunch of people trying to scrap together information to know what to do with their lives. Again, I bring that alcohol moment up because I seen people my age, younger, and Black people. That’s what I was kind of surprised about, no shade. Like I was like surprised at so I so many viral, regular Black folks saying, I’m done with alcohol because of this. And that was scientific information that transformed culture and we need that exchange. So that’s scary. 

 

Kaya Henderson: Did you see that in Utah they um have banned fluoride in the water and so you’re going to have a generation of little kids in Utah who have rotten teeth like that’s what America is going to look like. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Did you see that um what was the film festival in Utah? [laughter] Was it Sundance? What was in Utah? 

 

Kaya Henderson: Oh yeah, Sundance, uh-huh. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Sundance is leaving? 

 

Kaya Henderson: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah, they’re going to Boulder, Colorado. I did see that. I didn’t realize that. Are they leaving because of the political shenanigans? 

 

DeRay Mckesson: It’s like the totality of everything. 

 

Kaya Henderson: Uh huh. Oh, good for them. I’m all about people taking their money and going wherever they need to go, which is why my Costco was so packed on Saturday. Ay, yay, yay. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Myles, I thought about, you know, you have reminded us about the cultish behavior of this moment. Um. And I don’t know, did you did either of you see the interview of the parents whose daughter died from measles? Did you like see it or did you read? 

 

Kaya Henderson: I read it. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I read about it because she was a anti-vaxxer, right? 

 

Kaya Henderson: And still is, and still is. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: And still is they are very much like vaccines are bad. And you’re like, she died. 

 

Kaya Henderson: Yes, they said, if you, knowing what you knew now, if you know that your kid was gonna die, would you, and the vaccine could save her, would you give her the vaccine? And that lady said, no. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: That’s why any time people say they’re trying to convince people on the right, I say they are full of shit, or they’re either full of shit or they don’t really understand what’s going on. They don’t understand the Q, Qanon of it all. The, like, in order to really buy in, you’ve already bought into such a deep fantasy, you know? Like showing up with your gun to the pizzeria down the street because you thought Hillary Clinton was drinking baby blood in the pizzaria down the street, and you want to make sure. Like, once you get there and you get a whole bunch of uncles and aunts to get there. Death won’t keep you from it. [?] There ain’t nothing that’s gonna keep you from that cultish fantasy. 

 

Kaya Henderson: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: No, I was trying not to say cult the whole, that was my own private goal. To not say cult, the whole podcast. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: And you’re right, yiles, is that politically, or like as a matter of strategy, we also waste a lot of time trying to convince people like that, that like vaccines are good. You’re like if if your daughter dying can’t convince you, literally nothing I say, and I’m wasting my breath. What I can do though, is convince the person who thought that their vote didn’t matter. Like I can go to their house and try, that is more beneficial of my time, but if your daugther dying is not the proof point, then–

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: This is just a waste of organizing. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Cause what is it disillusionment? Disillusionment is somebody not going to vote, but like they’re not disillusioned they’re full fledged in the perfect illusion. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Delusional. 

 

Kaya Henderson: Mm-mm. Mm mm. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: My news actually ties really well. I was thinking about that when I was reading your news, Auntie Kaya, that I thought my news tied really well into yours because um nobody told me that when you are Black and you are in America that you have several puberties, it feels like. It feels like you have the the initial one in your teens, but it feels maybe every 10 years. you have to reorient yourself and and figure out who you are. And you kind of, I don’t know, I think you just review like who am I gonna be when I grow up and what position can I occupy that actually allows me to grow up. And I think that we see the product of that in this new trend of Black expats. So I found this article on NBC that talks to Black expats who have been in, one was in Iceland, somebody else is in Dubai, and they were talking about the relief they feel not being in America. And of course, this is a extremely economically privileged conversation. But also it’s the conversation that I’ve been having with myself and I wanted to bring to the podcast because I think what I’m noticing at the not so tender age of 34 is that my energy is finite. Like, you know, my life is gonna end and where do I wanna position myself in order to have the best peace possible and although I desire and my goal is to continue my oppositional stance to dominant culture and be able to create things and write and say what I want to say and and do whatever I can do. I’m like, but also I don’t want to have to walk out my house and be nervous in the ways that I do. I’m really tired of being hit on my shoulder. So I’m ready to give another country my leg and start hitting that. That’s new. Give my shoulder a break. I wanted to read some of the quotes that came from these um expats because I thought they were, A,  really warm, but also illuminating. So Kara West, one Black woman abroad, says, I just get to exist in peace and I’m not worried about someone following me around at the store or treating me differently because of my skin color. She also says my experiences has been very different than what I’m used to in America. Jamal Robinson then says my experience has been very different then what I’m used to America. He said in the U.S., you’re typically identified as a Black person first, and then after that, you’re an engineer or a janitor or whatever they want to label you as. Robinson goes on to say, it’s almost like you’re celebrated. People will come up to you, and they want to talk and engage with you. He said, for the first time in my life, it’s been a privilege to be a Black person, and it’s been a really beneficial, the reception that I’ve received as I’ve traveled around. Um. The last quote I wanted to read from Jules Chamber is, living in Iceland has 1,000% had an amazing impact on my mental health. The nature aspect has helped me in so many ways, shedding this idea that it always has to be about my skin color has helped. So two parts, because I always have two twins in my head. The light part of, you know, the optimist part of my brain is, A, do I wanna do that? Where would I go? How does my queerness inform where I wanna go now and how does that intertwine? [sigh] The second thing that is in my head is how I already feel like that really since those trips to Ghana happened and as these Trump presidencies have happened, I’ve seen a bigger sentiment about Black people leaving. I’ve seen a bigger sentiment in the ether around Black people leaving. And I think about the economic stratification that I’m always thinking about between Black people and what happens when actual Black people with the resources to leave actually leave. That scares me. I don’t know how much it should scare me because the data is already saying that those two Black folks, one with and one without, are already not touching. So what does it mean for them to not be in the country? Will it really influence things? But I do, I do think it might influence things. You know, I still have a dream of just being in somewhere like Georgia or South Carolina or somewhere, Mississippi or somewhere Southern and being able to use the economic privilege that me and my partner have in any way to make something more politically, just to add in on the political power of a place. Um. But if people keep wiling like this. and you feel like you’re always two seconds away from martial law, you’re like, okay, well, I’m sorry, I gotta go. And I’m gonna take the cousins who I can afford to take with me and everybody else, I’m going to pray for you. And you can, you know, we’ll do a Zoom video chat on Juneteenth and we’ll all be together. I don’t know. Um. So anywho, I wanted to talk to you all about the idea of the Black expat. And then also that other idea around what do you think that might mean if this really does take off, if more people are trending in this way. I’ve seen so many people go to Mexico and so many people, um, I think COVID was a big deal for a lot of people. A lot of people found their new ways during COVID and stuck to it after COVID. So if this is a trend, what do you think this might happen? Well, excuse me, how do you think this might um affect the the Black political union, and economic union, if if if people begin to um begin to separate and leave the country?

 

Kaya Henderson: I mean, I’ll say a couple of different things, but I’ll start with your last question. And that is, this is not new for wealthy Black people. Black people of means have always been able to leave or they have vacation homes somewhere else or what have you. And so I’m not exactly sure. I know why it feels like this moment is different, but you know when you look at some of the expat communities abroad, there are people who’ve been living, Black Americans who’ve been living places and and leaving for particular places for decades. The latest, I feel like the Black bourgeoisie over the last maybe five or 10 years have been really hot on Portugal. And I know a ton of people who are buying property in Portugal because it is you know it’s inexpensive, it has good healthcare, it’s a great place to retire. And so lots of people are investing there. But I think this is one, I think. I want to take this all with a decent grain of salt, because nobody’s going to be like, I moved out of the United States and it’s worse than here, right? Like there’s a sales pitch to this as well. Everybody’s a travel consultant and a nature, blah, blah. You can’t do that here. You need a real job. You could be on Spiros being a traveling [?] I want do that too, but most people can’t do  that. So um and I think every country has some problem that you’re gonna encounter. For me, I think one of the biggest problems with like, at least these like Iceland, like never not even on my radar screen. For me if I was to leave the United States, it would have to be a place where there were lots of Black people. Like I like Black people, I want to live amongst my people. I don’t care how free Iceland is. It’s also cold as who knows what, but I don’t care how much freedom there is in Iceland. I think that there is a mental, challenge around never seeing yourself, around not being with people who look like you. So if I was going to leave, it would have to be to at least, if not a predominantly Black country, it would have to be a place where there are a whole lot of Black people. But I also think that you know people are as many Black expats as there are. I know stories of you know Black people who are buying land in Montana and in Oklahoma and whatnot and in Georgia and establishing farms and and ranches. And I was just watching 60 Minutes, I think, last week. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: The aunties. 

 

Kaya Henderson: Um. And they had, oh yes, the aunties were on, but um they had this Black family that are cattle they have a cattle ranch and the father, it’s been generational um and most recently, the daughter instead of the son took over and is killing the game at raising cattle. And so I think that there is, you know, one of my books for the Blackest Book Club, I think last year, maybe it was this year, was Charles Blow’s book, The Devil You Know, which encourages Black people to repatriate to the South because we gave up so many resources and we can reclaim them. So I think that there’s something about people leaving. I think also there’s also something about reinvesting. And for me, that’s the thing, that every time we have this conversation and the aunties have this conversion all the time, some people wanna go to Panama, some people want to go to you know wherever. But the question that I wrestle with is, you know easy to leave, but like we give up a lot by leaving. We built this country, we have not just ancestral ties, but economic ties, political ties, like this belongs to us. I’m not saying this belongs to us too, I’m saying this belongs to us, just like other people know that it belongs to them. And I’m not really willing to cede that and I know some people got to go and so good for them. But one of the, I think, the most transformative book of my life, and I think it was, I know for sure it was one of my Blackest Book Club selections maybe two years ago, is a book called Faces at the Bottom of the Well by Derrick Bell. And the subtitle is The Permanence of Racism. And it’s basically a set of short stories and allegories that make you consider, would you stay or would you go? So I’ll give you one quickly. Island pops up in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. It’s called Atlantis and it is perfect. No climate change issues. There’s fruit and meat and food in abundance. There’s interminable, you know, natural resources. You can do it all, Garden of Eden type thing. And of course, when this thing pops up, every country rushes to try to go claim it and people keep dying when they get into the atmosphere because they can’t breathe. And the United States ends up sending one Navy SEAL who happens to be Black and he can breathe on the island and he is chilling, he’s good. And what we realize is that Black people are the only people who can live on this island. And so the big question is, we’re in America with depleted resources and climate change and racism and poverty and whatnot, would you go to Atlantis or would you stay in the United States? And I feel like these are all very complicated issues, but as much as there are people who are like, absolutely we’re going, we’re out, that’s for us, God sent it, whatever, then there are other people who’re like, no, no. That’s the trick of the devil. They’re trying to just get us all out. As soon as we get there, we won’t be able to breathe like there are all of these, they examine different people’s reactions and there are a number of scenarios, the most famous of which is a thing called Space Traders, which was turned into a movie. But I just think, like I’m always torn. There are times when I’m like, got to get out of here later for this. Some there might be something better for me somewhere else. And then other times where I wanna honor the fact that like my ancestors built this place and we belong here. That was a long answer. Sorry. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Kaya, you know, for all of you who have ever heard of Critical Race Theory, Kaya actually referenced the book that was Critical Race Theory. Um. So shout out to you Kaya for- 

 

Kaya Henderson: Ruh-roh. Oh lord, I’m about to get canceled. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Full circle. That was the critical race theory book. I have to imagine that being an expat before the internet was very different, but I’ll tell you, the people that I know who are expats are here just as much as they were I’m like–

 

Kaya Henderson: That is true. That is true. Mm.

 

DeRay Mckesson: I thought you moved. You done flown back and forth. You back here at the house more than you were when you lived a couple of states over, you know? So I do question, and I think to you, Kaya, and you said it perfectly. There’s a salesman pitch to it that I don’t know if is the full story. For people who I know have families and stuff like that, like they are doing the back and forth or people are gonna go visit them. I’m like, I thought you moved to be disconnected. You still feel very, very connected. Um. 

 

Kaya Henderson: I see you at the Kennedy Center at the club quarantine, girl. I see you. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Yeah, I’m like, well, this is interesting. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I think there’s something to just coming to America for the party, though. But I kind of get where, yeah, that it does make sense to me. 

 

Kaya Henderson: But I think even more than that, right? Like even if you make the decision for your immediate family, you have parents who probably are not moving with you. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Absolutely. 

 

Kaya Henderson: Or you have extended family and friends. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Siblings. 

 

Kaya Henderson: And so you give up a lot, right. You give up, a lot. You might be good, y’all, just you and your tribe, but a lot of the people that I see are coming back because they have to take care of people. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Absolutely. 

 

Kaya Henderson: Or they wanna check on their family. Or, you know, I was just talking to a friend who was like. I miss babies, I miss funerals, I miss like I miss the things, the rituals of life that keep us in community. And yes, I like my Italian neighbors, but they not my people, right? And so life is happening for my people and I’m missing the whole thing. And so I think there are a lot of trade-offs. Um. Now, you know if you can get your whole posse to you know get a whatever, [?] compound and y’all all goad and but that’s not how these things work. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: But I do think sometimes travel doesn’t have to be permanent, you know? And I do think about–

 

Kaya Henderson: Oh yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Maybe a decade of your life or five years of your life somewhere else can be refreshing. You know, James Baldwin, Josephine Baker, Eartha Kitt, all people who, you know, notoriously had that journey. And the last thing that was um that you made me think of, um, Auntie Kaya, as you were talking and doesn’t just to have a more well rounded reason why I brought this to the podcast is because I was seeing on YouTube, on Instagram, a lot of people leaving for under $100,000. So like plans like how can you leave this country while you’re making 80, 50, $60,000? So one of the things that kind of piqued my curiosity around it is that it wasn’t exclusively just like bourgeois six figure, seven figure, eight figure income person doing it, it was somebody who was a regular person making underneath $100,000, still exploring that as an option that did feel a little bit new to me. But to your point, yeah, when I was reading that particular article, I was like, oh yeah, I was, like, did the United Airlines pay for this? There’s a little bit of that too.

 

DeRay Mckesson: Well, Kaya, um we will always consider you a member of the pod. And I just wanted to say we love you. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I– 

 

Kaya Henderson: Thank you very much. [laughter] Yes, sing, Myles. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I don’t think, I don’ think we could afford no more but that little line, child, you know, licensing. [laughter] 

 

Kaya Henderson: I was just gonna say, I have been on this podcast for almost five years, sometime in July, would make five years. Um. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: No way. 

 

Kaya Henderson: Yeah. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Wow. 

 

Kaya Henderson: I joined in July of 2020. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Time just goes away. 

 

Kaya Henderson: It really does. But I’m not going all the way away. I just am a little busy right now. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: What was it like, Kaya, now that I can interview you? Um. I remember calling you, asked you to be on the pod. This is your first pod. I was like, you know, I want her voice in the public. 

 

Kaya Henderson: I told you I don’t even listen to podcasts. That’s still mostly true. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: I know. What has it been like five years later? 

 

Kaya Henderson: Um. It’s been fun. I I what I say about the podcast all the time is, for me, it is just like an engaging weekly conversation with like very smart people that I know and care about. And I forget that like a million people are listening. And so somebody will email me, or text me, or one of my girlfriends will be like, on the pod, you said and I’m like, ah! Because you all make me feel so comfortable I can be my whole self on the podcast and maybe I don’t need to be my whole self with a million people listening. Except, I mean, look, this, you get what you pay for. That’s what it is. That’s why you asked me to be on it. Um. I already have, I was at a family dinner tonight and my nephew was like, so you’re not gonna be on the pod? Um. Is there a vacancy? So I have people who are–

 

DeRay Mckesson: I love it. 

 

Kaya Henderson: Who are looking to replace me. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Not Destiny’s Child, not Loopty Loop. 

 

Kaya Henderson: Listen. He was like, um you know, there’s a vacancy, right? I would be a great podcaster. You should talk to him, he’s he’s a good dude. Um. But yeah, it’s been really fun. And and you know all goodbyes ain’t forever as Myles just reminded us. And I will be doing interviews when I can. And you know every once in a while I’ll pop back on here, see what y’all are talking about and add my little auntie respectability two cents.

 

Myles E. Johnson: Uh, uh. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: I love it I love it. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Can I say something really quick about Auntie Kaya? 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Yeah, yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah. So I just, A, I want us to be connected forever. 

 

Kaya Henderson: We will be. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: But I do want to just say what an amazing person you are, and amazing woman you are to be able to listen to speak, to be able to listen to and also I just know that we’ve been on here and we talk about so many different things, so many diverse things and I feel like just seeing you push me, push yourself. We you always come in love and so much joy and so much wisdom and to be able to do that just consistently has really been a really good possibility model. There’s jobs that I’ve always had while I’m here and I’ve quite often found myself saying what would Auntie Kaya do in this moment? You’ve been such a real no in all seriousness, you’ve been such a really good, positive, mature possibility model of how do you um maintain authenticity, still speak your mind, and and and maneuver. And and and I think God puts people in your life so they can be those examples, and you’ve been that example for me, and um I’m better for knowing you and talking to you every Sunday, or Monday. So I just want to say thank you. 

 

Kaya Henderson: Thank you. And thank you for helping me. I mean, I love one of the best parts of my new job. Part of the reason why I’m leaving is I have a new job and I am running around like a chicken with my head cut off. But the best thing about my new job is I get to work with young people all the time. And I feel like I constantly hear Myles in my head who’s like, uh uh, and I’m like, uh oh, let me let the youngs talk and hear and  listen and learn. And so I am going to say thank you to you, not just for me. But for all of the, for the way I do my work, I show up differently in my work um and my willingness to listen to young people and to really be a full partner with young people, to co-create with young people because of our time together. And DeRay, you know, what we have begun to say, I have a little, a young, shout out Winter, who is one of my, we have six young associates, not young, early career professionals. Because I can’t go to HR jail, but um that are working with us. And Winter shared, we were just talking about how the combination of the olds and the youngs is really what we need. And she said, it’s where wisdom meets imagination. And I thought that was super beautiful. Don’t worry, we gonna get a t-shirt or something. But um I feel like this has been that’s what this podcast has been for me. It’s where wisdom, cause we all have it. It’s not exclusive to older people, but as we are all, we all have wisdom and we all have creative imaginations. And so this has been that environment for me and DeRay, you know, DeRay McKesson is like the little brother that I never had. And he calls me and says crazy things. And I say, yes, cause whatever. But I call him and say crazy things and he says yes too and so, so let’s keep doing that, how about that? Thank you all so much. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Don’t go anywhere, more Pod Save the People is coming.

 

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DeRay Mckesson: This week, I sat down with author and law professor Derek W. Black to talk about his new book, Dangerous Learning: The South’s Long War on Black Literacy. You just listen to the interview, go get the book, blew my mind, didn’t realize how little I knew about so many things about the fight to make sure that black people couldn’t read and the history of it, all of it. Must read, must read. Here we go. [music break] Dr. Black, thanks so much for joining us today on Pod Save the People. 

 

Dr. Derek W. Black: Yeah, thanks for having me on. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: It was a wild read to read your new book, Dangerous Learning: The South’s Long War on Black Literacy, because it was a topic that I thought I knew a little bit about, I’d read a little bit on, and then with every page, I’m like, I never learned this, I didn’t learn it in school. I think about Denmark Vesey, a character who, or a figure who I thought I knew well until I read the book, and I was like, oh, I missed huge swaths of why he mattered in a way that I literally didn’t understand. But before we jump into the content, can you tell us how you got to this topic? What made you want to write about anti-literacy laws, the importance of literacy in the South, this debate in a larger scale? How’d you get to this? 

 

Dr. Derek W. Black: Yeah, I mean, I kind of backed my way into it. To a certain extent, I had written Schoolhouse or was writing Schoolhouse Burning, which is about the history of the right to education in America. And certainly Black people’s struggle was a key part of that. But we most of the time think of that in terms of reconstruction. We think of that in terms of the civil rights movement and everything that precedes that is kind of lost to us in a certain respect. But there was just little snippets that I had picked up on in writing School House Burning that were about the secret schools that were operating during slavery. And so I started out hoping that I could write a book that was just about secret schools all by themselves. But people who keep their secrets well often die with their secrets. And so you know we don’t get a full glimpse of of what Black people were doing to run secret schools. We just get snippets. Um. But then I discovered there’s a much larger story. So I entered this through just curiosity about the secret schools and it became a much larger project. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Now, one of the things, um and everybody please go buy his book, but one of things that’s so cool about the way you write is that the through line is just there. So I just didn’t know how intentional the restriction on literacy was until I read this. I was like, oh, this is actually like way deeper than I imagined. Can you talk to us about why you center Denmark Vesey so much in the beginning of the book? Like why his story becomes in some ways, like a catalyst that pushes the narrative forward in the text. 

 

Dr. Derek W. Black: Yeah, I mean, look, I’m a lawyer. I read lots of constitutional law cases. You read the constitutional law account and it says the South criminalized literacy, you know, full stop, you know, and the assumption is, is that Black people had always been prohibited from reading and writing in the South. And you know there’s a lot of history and education books out there that say the exact same thing. But what I discovered in writing this book is that, you know, there was a lot Black education going on in the 1700s and early 1800s right out in the open in places like Savannah, Georgia, you know, Charleston, South Carolina, Wilmington, North Carolina. There were you know missionaries from the UK. There were domestic missionaries that were running schools for Black children. And so I’m like, well, wait a minute. Like, so like what happened to that? And the answer is Denmark Vesey, David Walker, and Nat Turner happened to them. And that’s when the South realized that, or I should say part of the South realized that um you know they needed to repress literacy, that it was a tool for freedom. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: One of the things too, David Walker was somebody I literally hadn’t heard of either, but he, um, Russwurm went to Bowdoin. I went to Bowdoin, so when I read that I was like, I knew about Russwurm really well and I knew the other guy he worked with. Walker was not somebody I’d ever heard about, like even on like Russwurm’s Wikipedia, he’s not a part of it. Can you talk about Walker’s appeal? Right. 

 

Dr. Derek W. Black: Yeah, I mean, so if you read Black nationalism text, David Walker comes up a lot. I mean David Walker is sort of identified as maybe the sort of the first Black nationalist. Now he didn’t talk about himself that way, didn’t think about himself that way but um he definitely had this sort of sense of of uplift, the Black community could elevate itself and he writes this pamphlet, you know, 50, 75 pages called an appeal to the colored citizens of the world. And just to call them citizens was radical at that moment in time, right? That surely some Black folk thought of themselves that way, but that was not the way they were talked about in open society. They were less than, right, they weren’t part of the political body. And so just the title itself is radical, um but he says, look, the pathway to freedom will be for Black people to emancipate themselves mentally, right. So that he’s really talking about education, education, education to free yourself from you know the mental chains of white supremacy in the United States. Now that part would have been radical all by its own, but he also says that if necessary, you know Black people need to rise up and seize their freedom. He doesn’t use the words by any means necessary. He doesn’ use Malcolm X’s terms, but he sounds like Malcolm X, right, in this document. and he’s taking on Thomas Jefferson’s ideology about race and debunking it. And so again, you know, had he just shared this amongst you know Northern Black newspaper quote, you know the men that you were talking about, maybe he would have been consigned to history, but he puts that pamphlet in the hands of some other men and sends it South and it starts showing up in the Black community. And when white people find out about this, they are completely unnerved, completely unnerved. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Did you know going into this that it would be so timely? When I think about Walker, I was shocked that like legislative bodies across multiple places are trying to ban this one text that this is like, you know, obviously much pre internet, pre electricity, but I was I was sort of floored that like this singular text took so much space in the white imagination as a threat to white people or as a rallying cry. And I think about this moment with like book banning and stuff like that. Did you know going into this that the legislators were talking about it in this way, and that like his texts was such a singularly important piece? 

 

Dr. Derek W. Black: No, I mean, this was a passion project for me. And so a lot of the story unfolds to me as I’m researching it. I mean I had Denmark Vesey and Nat Turner in my mind and then Walker becomes sort of a piece connecting the two of them. So no, you know, it’s kind of shocking. Like, you didn’t learn it in school. I didn’t learn it in school. I mean had heard David Walker’s name. But you know, it was a really sort of profound influence on the time period. And maybe one of the reasons why some of us are at least less knowledgeable about David Walker is he’s really on the public scene for only about a year. And he seems to have died of natural causes, but there was a lot of suspicion that it that it was unnatural. But I think his time got cut short. I mean, just to project a little bit, I mean it could be amazing to think about how he might’ve shaped the world, right? Because Denmark Vesey and Nat Turner, like they’re living in the South, uh their lives get cut short by violence. They’re in a dangerous situation, but there certainly were risks to David Walker’s life, but he was a free man in Boston. And so his ability to keep pumping out information, his ability, to inspire people to think differently really may have known no bounds, but for the fact that I think he dies of, I forget the particular common you know disease at the time, but it’s just sort of a sickness that sort of ravaged the community. 

DeRay Mckesson: One of the things I wrote down to ask you when I was reading this section about Nat Turner is that it seems like is a there remains a lengthy record of the trial. Is that did I read that right? 

Dr. Derek W. Black: So we don’t really have much.

DeRay Mckesson: Or his lawyers [?]?

Dr. Derek W. Black: Yeah, I think Nat Turner wanted to tell his story. You know, Nat Turner had um evaded the authorities for weeks in the woods. They couldn’t find him, right? They they called his other co-conspirators, but he was on the run. And he steps out into the open. So it’s not that someone discovered him. He steps out in the open, and I think that’s because one, he was probably tired of living off the land, but he wanted to tell his story. And so at long march back to the courthouse and he sits for two days with his attorney and tells his story. And there certainly was some editorializing to that, I would suppose, but you know there’s a lot of truth that comes out of that. And that is what’s unique about him. And we don’t have Denmark Vesey’s story. We only have his story told completely through the eyes of whites who were trying to put him to death, um not his attorney and he was careful not to say too much, like he told everybody to keep their mouth shut, take their secrets to the grave because he didn’t want other people to die. But Nat Turner was the last man standing in his revolt and he tells a story that I think is quite remarkable in terms of literacy, religion, and you know the desire for for freedom. 

DeRay Mckesson: This is an aside, but I did not know that Denmark Vesey won the lottery to buy his freedom. 

Dr. Derek W. Black: Well, look, I mean, that’s the other thing that was fun about this book. I mean you know you could say, oh, you know, he’s got this huge agenda, Derek’s got this agenda, he’s trying to drive this narrative. But there’s so much of this story, I think is just me also trying to understand people as people. And I mean Denmark Vesey’s story is just, it’s unbelievable. Like take the revolt part out, it is just unbelievable. You know, a man born into slavery in the Caribbean, then sold by Captain Vesey into Haiti. But then even before he gets sold, they notice something special about him. They bring him up from the belly of the slave ship. So in between, maybe he was picked up in St. Domingue and taken to another part there in Haiti. But in that period, like he’s above board and interacting with the sailors, there’s something different about him, so that’s important. But then he gets sold in as an enslaved person and apparently fakes epilepsy. And by the laws of Haiti, you can, that’s defective goods. So they could force him to be repurchased back by Captain Vesey. So he goes back with Captain Vesey and Vesey must’ve realized there was something special about him because he did not try to sell him. He didn’t try to treat him like other people that were enslaved. I mean, it seems that he was in many respects. the captain’s right-hand man, and he acquires a lot of skills. And it’s my best guess, and I emphasize guess, that Captain Vesey taught Denmark to read and write, that he then allowed him, this part is clear, allowed him to work on his own in Charleston and share part of the proceeds. And as you said, he uses that money to buy a lottery ticket. I mean, it’s in the newspaper. Someone went back and found this, it wasn’t me. You can see the lottery ticket that he bought. And–

DeRay Mckesson: That’s so crazy.

Dr. Derek W. Black: It is crazy. It is crazy. And then he spends the next 20 years leveraging this literacy, becoming a leader in the community and inspiring what would have been you know the largest revolt in American history. 

DeRay Mckesson: You know, when you bring up Haiti, that was another part of the book that I just didn’t know that like the sending pamphlets to Haiti or just like exchanging stories of freedom and being inspired what was happening in Haiti as a free place. You know I’ve been to Haiti and I know about the Haitian revolution enough, probably not as much as any real scholar of the Haitian revolution. But I, it was new to me that that was inspirational for slaves. 

Dr. Derek W. Black: Yeah, we look at everything through our own eyes, our own timeline, our own geographic boundaries. I don’t think these geographic boundaries were so solid back then, right? I mean, you had regular trade lanes going up and down the East coast and down into the Caribbean. And a lot of these sailors were Black men, right. I mean Denmark himself was a Black man on a slave trading ship and had traveled these ports, right. And there’s a lot of Black men who were free that were filling that role. And so just like any other place, right? They gather after work at night and talk about stuff, right, um sharing stories and inspiration. And Charleston was infatuated with Haiti, right. Because a lot during the Haitian Revolution, um Charleston, was the second largest landing spot for the white people fleeing. I think New Orleans was the largest. 

DeRay Mckesson: Whoa, I didn’t know that. 

Dr. Derek W. Black: Yeah, and so, you know, it was a natural fallback place for trading and economic purposes. But it also created this level of fear that like, we need to be careful about these Haitians and Haitian stories coming through Charleston. So we don’t want Black people hearing them, but the white people, they really wanna hear them. So the newspaper reported on Haiti quite a bit, right? It’s kinda, I don’t know what to compare it to today. It’s like reporting on you know foreign wars, but ones that really touch touch at home. And so yeah, they’re eating it up. And of course, you know Black people are sort of operating underground and having their own conversations well they are really eating the story up, right? This is this is maybe the promise of their own freedom. And so it’s very inspirational for the Black community in Charleston and other places you know in America as well. And I think that’s one reason why, and I didn’t understand this and I’m not a scholar of it, but I think it’s the prime explanation for why the United States refused to have diplomatic relations with Haiti for, I think it was either Grant, maybe Lincoln. One of those two were actually the first United States president to establish diplomatic relations, and it was that sort of fear over the implications of Haiti for the United States. 

DeRay Mckesson: Let’s zoom all the way out and for people that are unaware of the general argument about the relationship between anti-literacy laws and the fear of white people that liberation would be a foot. Can you help people understand that argument? And I ask you because I was really struck at how about the depth of the legislative both conversation and the laws that passed, going from sort of just reading to assembling to you know, South Carolina’s trying to keep all the Black people from coming in the state. I’m like, well, that that feels like a crazy thing to manage. But could you help people understand just the gravity at stake here? 

Dr. Derek W. Black: Yeah, I mean, so there’s a couple of things going on. I mean one is just this fear of the outsider. And you mentioned this, or you sort of note with your comment about Black sailors coming in and out of Charleston, right? I mean they quarantine the harbor so that Black men can’t come into South Carolina through a ship. And they have to be put in the jail for the whole time the ship is there and then taken elsewhere. So there’s this idea that outsiders, right, outside Black men are the ones that are stirring up trouble and this is a normal sort of Southern phenomenon or maybe human phenomenon, it’s always the outsiders, not the locals. But then, you know, then there’s also the books. It’s like, well, you can stop the sailors, but what about the books? So they wanna control access to information. I think that that’s the key. But then I think there’s this other part, which I’m really only thinking of the first time in response to your question, which is that if we put ourselves or try to put ourselves in, you the shoes of you know, the 19th century, you know white slaveocracy, we might say, well, why are they so worried about reading? And I or why did they become worried about what’s the big deal? Cause I think for the, for a period of time, the stereotypes and the infantilization of Black people was so much that they just thought it doesn’t matter. What are they going to do? Or they read whatever they want. Like they’re not going to understand it. They’re going to be confused. You know, so it really was their own sort of racial biases and racism that prevented them from seeing the danger, right? I mean, had they been smarter, you know smarter from a white slavocracy, they would have they would have clamped down a lot earlier. And so it really takes a man like Denmark Vesey, like David Walker to go, wait a minute, actually there’s a lot of Black intellectualism going on here. Black people have the capacity to interpret the Bible for themselves. Black people have the ability to draw on ideas of freedom that are embedded in the Declaration of Independence. They have the ability to follow you know congressional debates about slavery and use that to their advantage. And I just think that it just didn’t occur to most of them that that was even possible until those three Black men showed that it was possible.

DeRay Mckesson: And then they reacted in a really intense way. 

Dr. Derek W. Black: Yeah. I mean, look in South Carolina and Charleston, the Black community was destroyed. There was a Black church, the AME Zion Church, which is the forerunner. It wasn’t actually called AME at that time, but it was the forerunner of the church where Dylan Roof went in and massacred parishioners during the Obama administration. That church goes all the way back to Denmark’s day and they were developing this power base then and you know, a lot of the people that were following him were members of that church. So they destroyed the church, right? They’re we’re not just gonna stop Black sailors. We’re not just gonna you know crack down on literacy. We’re gonna destroy the Church itself. And a lot of Black free people of color moved elsewhere after that. So they actually physically changed that community there. But yeah, and if we go to Savannah, when they find David Walker’s appeal show up there, three days later, you know the legislature criminalizes Black literacy. North Carolina just a couple of weeks after that. After Nat Turner’s revolt in Virginia, there was a slower response in Virginia. And part of that goes to the historical dynamics of West Virginia. West Virginia was still part of Virginia at that point. So the mountainous areas of Virginia and the lower lying you know plateaus and plantations where you had these religious communities that were not on board with the criminalization of Black literacy. Some of that was probably for bad reason. Maybe they thought it would make you know people better slaves. But there were a lot of people who just felt it was their Christian duty to share share the word. And so, you know, Virginia tussles a little bit longer than the rest of the South because of that that religious duty part of the story. 

DeRay Mckesson: Before we go to the, in some ways, the birth of more formal education, there were so many cool stories in the chapter called, let me see, I think it’s called Secret Learning. I think is called Secret learning, right? Isn’t that what it’s called?

Dr. Derek W. Black: Yeah.

DeRay Mckesson: Secret learning. It is called secret learning, yes. Where you talk about and sort of note in such beautiful fashion, how despite these laws, despite the colonization and the brutality that was inflicted on people who chose to read or or learned how to read, they could not kill the spirit of reading, that it remained amongst Black communities. Can you talk about one of those stories that really stuck out to you from that chapter? 

Dr. Derek W. Black: Yeah, I mean, the story that sticks out most to me, and it’s just because it’s the one we have the most information about, was in Savannah. So there was a mother and daughter, the DeVos, who um had run a school prior to the criminalization of Black literacy in Savannah before David Walker’s appeal showed up. But once it showed up and it was criminalized, they went underground. So they continued to teach Black children. And I’m sure, I would think, for the first. I don’t know, several months, that maybe it was completely shut down for safety reasons. But what we find through a few diaries is that there’s this network of Black women in downtown, you know, for the what you go to now, the historic area of Savannah, who were running schools right under white people’s noses and they didn’t have a clue about it. I mean, this one woman, and Susie King tells a story of this woman that she went to for a year or so, was running a kitchen. And so she had Black kids coming and going at various different times in the morning and the afternoon. And as far as the white community was concerned, you know, these kids are delivering bread, they’re delivering soup, you know et cetera, et cetera. But no, that’s not what they were doing. They’re inside, you know inside her house learning to read and write. And she had told them, look, I don’t want any of you showing up at the same time. You just stagger when you come. And when you leave, you can’t leave together. And you have to leave in different directions. Don’t all go in the same direction. So she really had planned this out. And your books, you need to wrap them up in bags and sacks so that people think you know that it’s something other than books. And these schools, particularly the Jane DeVos School operated from the 1830s until you know 1860 whatever when the Union troops showed up. I mean, the idea that you could operate a secret school and educate who knows how many, you know, dozens or hundreds of Black kids she taught to read and write, and no one knew about it. And the power of that literacy was also crucial I mean, Susie King said that, um you know, a lot of Black folks pretty much moved about with some level of free will in the evenings in Savannah because she is writing passes for them. It says, well, I’m going here or there for you know my master. And because you know that sort of the ignorance of what they were doing made it possible for her to you know leverage that power in a way that created some level of freedom within the contours of slavery. 

DeRay Mckesson: It was so beautiful to read those stories because, you know, in school, I only heard about the sort of Jim Crow laws, which come later, and the earlier anti-literacy laws. But you don’t hear too many histories of these subversive attempts and successful forays into education, like before schooling becomes schooling. But you do take us to, you, know, I had also not read sort of the birth of compulsory education until this book and seemed like the Black delegation want this, but be like, no, not, you know, I want our kids to sort of be in somewhat the same communities. Can you talk about what you learned in that? Did you already know that part about how this all sort of led up to compulsory education? 

Dr. Derek W. Black: Yeah. I mean, I had written about that piece in Schoolhouse Burning. I mean, and W.B. Du Bois said that, you know, public education in the South is a Black idea. And, you know, I’d read that sentence. I didn’t know what it meant, you know, a decade ago, but, you know, when I wrote Schoolhouse Burning, I learned that. I saw that. But then this book goes deeper than just the birth of the schools themselves. You know, my prior work and sort of proceeded with constitutional debates, the South Carolina Constitutional Convention of 1868, which was majority Black and they create public schools, constitutional right to education, et cetera, et cetera. But I really, because I couldn’t get the secret schools, right? I couldn’t tell that story. I wanted so much to try to get as close as I could to understanding what a day in the life of a school for Black children was like. You know, during the war or prior to the war. And so the South Carolina Sea Islands, I think is the closest documentary evidence we have to that. And, you know let me give one caveat on the front end, which is, I mean, I think I tell a story that’s just the most inspirational, all positive, glorious you could imagine. You know, I gave the facts as I accepted, as I got them. You know, it’s possible that because they wanted more support for these schools from Northern missionaries and funding, maybe they overstated some of the things. But I mean, you can’t make up a story of a Black woman showing up, you know, in 1863, you know, the war is still going on, showing up at a school on St. Helena’s Island with her daughter and her daughter’s daughter, her own mother and her own grandmother, five generations of Black women showing up to go to school, right? And the quote from one of the diaries is that she says, we’ve been in the dark far too long, but now we’re in the light and us wanna learn. And I mean, that still sends chills up my spine, just like that is raw human experience. It’s just it’s just overwhelming. And I’ve read enough diaries. No, she wasn’t the only Black woman who showed up with five generations. I mean, you hear that story and I don’t tell it over and over again in this book because what I try to do was create coherent narrative that you can follow. But that story of three, four, five generations, men and women or just whatever, like that plays out in school after school after school. And that tells you a lot about where Black people had been and where they saw themselves going in those first days after freedom. 

DeRay Mckesson: What do you hope people take away from the text? I have to imagine that for most people like me, many of these stories will be new and they sadly felt more familiar to this time than I would have liked. I’m like, they banning the man’s pamphlets. It’s like, we’re already, we’re banning books right now in a really wild way or um trying to restrict people’s travel and criminalizing based on race. What do you want people to take away from the book?

Dr. Derek W. Black: What I initially wrote and wanted people to take away and then sort of what I came to learn and take away. So let me start with the first one, which is, and I write this early in the book, that Black people’s experience with trying to learn to read and write during slavery is the closest thing we have to a holy testament to the power of literacy. I mean, I just like full pause, like. And that’s not just a slavery story. That’s not just a Black story. It is a slavery story, it is a Black story, but that’s a human story. That’s a story about what the ability to read did to the self-realization of individuals in the very worst context imaginable. And it elevated people, even if it didn’t free them from the day-to-day of slavery, it freed their minds in a lot of ways. It gave them a fractional moment of peace in a world that would give them no other peace. Right? And so, I think that’s something, particularly in a word that’s awash in you know headlines and clickbait and Twitter, to think about what real literature and real ideas and real stories do to a person’s soul. Right? And Frederick Douglas himself tells this story well about how literacy changed him as a person. Frederick Douglas does not become who he was without literacy. He knew that his body rebelled against the conditions of slavery, but it was reading that helped him fully understand why slavery was wrong, right? Because he’s getting all these other messages. So anyway, you know I think I think like letting people become who they are going to become through literacy as a story, curling up beside a good book and loving it for what it is and figuring out who you are. That’s something I want people to take away. The flip side of this is how evil it is to try to constrict who a human is going to be through their access to ideas. Right. You are manipulating. It’s not just politics when you ban a book. You are manipulating the humanity, the possibility of a humanity for certain people. Right. If your ideas are better let them succeed in the marketplace of ideas, but don’t tilt the playing space. And unfortunately, you know what I found in the latter stages of writing this book is that we had an absolute war on Black freedom through literacy that started in 1820 and ran until the 1860s. We had a temporary relief from that during reconstruction when Black people re-imagined institutions that would be their gateways to freedom. And to be clear, the gateway to freedom for a lot of poor white kids in the South too, right? The literacy amongst whites was four times higher in the south than the north, right. So this Black idea freed white children and Black children. But because of the ideology that had repressed Black education to begin with, when reconstruction falls, those same ideas, those same fears come back, not to end public education but to segregate it and to underfund it. Those same ideas come back to create a counter narrative of this lost cause that, oh, this really wasn’t slavery at all. The Civil war wasn’t about slavery and Black people aren’t fit for citizenship anyway, right, that they began sending out propaganda just like they had during the lead up to the Civil War. And, you know, we take another big step foward in Brown versus Board of Education and lots of anti-discrimination laws after that, but it only lasts for 10 years in most places. And then we began to re-segregate. We began to worry less about equality. And we set on a flat line, I would say, a flatline of educational advancement from the ’80s through 2020, all right? It’s just like, maybe maybe we’re moving a little bit backwards but we’re certainly not moving forward. And then, after George Floyd’s um murder and efforts by folks like yourself. We saw a lot of educators open to the idea of maybe maybe there’s damage to be repaired. Maybe we need to double down on our ideas of Brown versus Board. Maybe, we need, to make our schools more inclusive. Maybe we need to tell a fuller history and it’s at that very moment that many of these same fears, these same types of propaganda, these same kinds of biases seem to be coming at us right, constantly and hard, legislative fury. And you know I’m not gonna sit here and say, we’ve made no progress since 1820. I think we’ve made a lot. Maybe I mistakenly think we made more than we have. Um. And I am not gonna sit here and say that you know today’s anti-CRT laws and other laws of that ilk are the same as the bans on Black literacy, but they are an echo. They are a ghost of that time. They are the continual inability of us to fully reconcile the tension between Black freedom and the forces that want to stand in its way. 

DeRay Mckesson: Boom. There we have it. Where can people go to stay up to date on what you write or where you’re speaking or if you tweet or on Facebook? Where do people go?

Dr. Derek W. Black: Yeah, I mean, I have a website, derekwblack.com, and that’s got some of my books and essays and that sort of thing and events on there. Um. You know, I’m at Derek W. Black on Twitter, but, you know, increasingly, it seems like fewer and fewer of us are spending time on there, and that’s probably a good thing.

DeRay Mckesson: That’s where I found your book.

Dr. Derek W. Black: Okay, well well, you know, I mean I’m still on there I’m on Blue Sky as well and things like that, but um but you know I appreciate conversations like this more than I appreciate you know one-way conversations on the internet. 

DeRay Mckesson: I love it. Last question will be, um what do you say to people whose hope is challenged in moments like this, who, you know, I think about all the people that stood in the street and are like, the world hasn’t changed the way they wanted it to. They read books like this. And while they both are fascinated by the history, they are like wow, history just repeats itself one more time. What do you say to people whose hope is challenged?

Dr. Derek W. Black: Yeah, I mean, you know, history has never been nor will it be ever be a one direction, like just constant steps forward. And I think when you add it all up, right, I think we’ve made more steps forward than we’ve make backwards. All right. I think to me it’s hard to deny that. So I think, you, know, but it’s for us to accept in our own lifetimes, right? Nor should we accept in our own lifetimes that we don’t have full justice. And I think that, unfortunately, that seems to be a condition of humanity, right? That things come slowly and there is retrenchment. And I say in the book, you know, I don’t know for sure whether what we’re experiencing right now is the rise of racist elements that are seizing power and are going to dominate freedom for the next however many years, or if what we are experiencing are the death throes, the death throes of the forces who know they’re losing in the long moral arc of justice. And they are lashing out like crazy to hold on. I don’t know which of those two is true. But one thing I do think I know is true is that if we rewind back to the birth of public education and the aftermath of the Civil War, that ironically, ironically, had the South not criminalized Black literacy, I do not think that public education would have taken off in the South the way it did, because it was the repression of Black people that turned public education into the forbidden fruit. Alright.

DeRay Mckesson: Oh wow.

Dr. Derek W. Black: It was the repression of Black peoples’ humanity that made them realize something was missing. And so, as dark as the day sometimes feel today. I think they are also giving us a roadmap to what we missed in the past and what we need to get to in the future.

DeRay Mckesson: Boom. Well, Professor Black, it was an honor to have you on the pod and can’t wait to have you back, everybody get the book, Dangerous Learning, and we did it. [music break] Well, that’s it. Thanks so much for tuning in to Pod Save the People this week. Don’t forget to follow us at Crooked Media on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. And if you enjoyed this episode of Pod Save the People, consider dropping us a review on your favorite podcast app. And we’ll see you next week. Pod Save the Peoples is a production of Crooked Media. It’s produced by A.J. Moultrié and mixed by Vasilis Fotopoulos. Executive produced by me and special thanks to our weekly contributors, Kaya Henderson, De’Ara Balenger, and Myles E. Johnson.

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