I Am Not Your Negro: Racism in the US
Narrated by Samuel L Jackson, I Am Not Your Negro (2016) uses James Baldwin’s unfinished manuscript to tell the horrific history of racism in America. Following the lives of three slain civil rights leaders, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr, Baldwin’s words still resonate today.
Since the beginning, race has defined America and racism permeates its politics to this day. To discuss the issue, Dr Richard Johnson, lecturer in US politics and international relations at Lancaster University, joins the podcast.
Richard’s work examines the US's increasingly racially polarised politics. He draws parallels between contemporary America and the end of the post-Civil War Reconstruction. Richard believes we are living in the twilight of the ‘second reconstruction’ – an era that began with the civil rights movement. Are there signs that a ‘third reconstruction’ is dawning?
Despite the election of Barack Obama in 2008 – the US’s first black president – the 2010s were a decade of increasing racial polarisation. But with white, working class voters searching for an anti-establishment voice, could there be a glimmer of hope?
“There are racial dimensions to all issues.” - Dr. Richard Johnson
Time Stamps:
00:54 - Today's topic: racism in the US.
01:21 - Introducing our guest Dr. Richard Johnson.
03:17 - Today's film: I Am Not Your Negro (2016).
03:55 - Why Richard chose this film.
05:43 - A brief synopsis of the film.
09:55 - The context and history of American racism.
15:15 - The Reconstruction and democracy in the South post-Civil War.
19:16 - Our first clip: Dick Cavett's interview with James Baldwin.
21:36 - The 'second reconstruction' and the civil rights movement.
26:12 - The racial polarisation of political debates and policy decisions.
28:02 - Our second clip: James Baldwin looking at the real problem of racism in America.
31:40 - The future of race in American politics.
37:22 - Working class alienation and the potential for de-racialisation.
40:16 - Our last clip: James Baldwin’s advice that we need passion not numbers.
Resources:
I Am Not Your Negro (2016)
The End of the Second Reconstruction: Obama, Trump and the Crisis of Civil Rights
Alamo Pictures
Connect with Dr. Richard Johnson:
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Transcript for Factual America Episode 13 - I Am Not Your Negro: Racism in the US
Intro 0:00
You're listening to Factual America. This podcast is produced by Alamo pictures, a production company specializing in documentaries, television and shorts about the USA for international audiences. Subscribe to our mailing list or follow us on Instagram and Twitter @Alamo pictures to be the first to hear about new productions, festivals were attending and how to connect with our team. Our homepage is alamopictures.co.uk. And now, enjoy factual America with our host, Matthew Sherwood.
Matthew 0:38
Welcome to Factual America, a podcast that explores the themes that make America unique through the lens of documentary filmmaking. I'm your host Matthew Sherwood. In each episode, it is my pleasure to interview documentary filmmakers and experts on the American experience. Today we're going to talk about a topic or topics that is never far away, probably gets alluded to in all our podcasts, but this will be the first time we deal with it head on and that's race and politics in the US. And our guests will be actually something he's been talking about in a lot of his writings increasingly racially polarized politics in the US. So without further ado, I want to welcome Dr. Richard Johnson to the podcast. He is a lecturer in US Politics and International Relations at the University of Lancaster. So welcome.
Dr. Richard Johnson 1:28
Thank you very much. s
Matthew 1:30
He's written extensively on race and US politics. His latest book is "The End of the Second Reconstruction: Obama, Trump and the Crisis of Civil Rights" that is supposed to come out in 2020. Now, we don't know exactly when this is going to get published, but could say next year, and that would give you a year's grace, but we'll be talking more about a chapter from your book. You, I think we should make a reference the fact that I think it's pretty safe to say, you called the UK election which we had a little over a week ago. And he's just often appearance on CNN to talk about the Trump impeachment. So it's been quite a busy seven to eight days here in London. So, is there anything else I should add, Richard? What, uh, maybe you can tell quickly, some of the other, you know, your specialties and things you're working on?
Dr. Richard Johnson 2:20
Yeah, so most of my research is centered around race and American politics. And particularly, I sort of, say, race in American democracy because I think that racial inclusion in the United States is essential to the vibrancy of democracy in the United States, the two can't be seen as separate. So, in addition to the book, which is really about civil rights enforcement in American democracy, I've also been writing more specifically about voting rights and the enforcement or non enforcement of the Voting Rights Act, in different intervals, and it's more than 50 years of history.
Matthew 3:00
Okay, well without further ado, I think we, as, as our listeners know, the way we rock and roll here at Factual America is that we always have a documentary film as a backdrop. And this time around we have an incredible film, I highly recommend it to everyone. It's "I am not your Negro", directed by Raul Peck, who is a Haitian. He was actually a Minister of Culture in the 1990s in the Haitian government. He was a Best Documentary Academy Award, well nominated for that, and actually won the BAFTA. And I do have got an A.O. Scott quote from the New York Times, I think it's worth reading here. "Whatever you think about the past and future of what used to be called race relations, this movie will make you think again, and may even change your mind." So, why did you choose this film, or we kind of chose it together, but why do you think this is appropriate to what, the work you've been doing?
Dr. Richard Johnson 3:55
Well, what I like about Baldwin is that he is able to speak about the long political development of the United States, but in ways which are quite arresting, and, you know, particularly for the white audiences to whom he often spoke, word, you know, be were designed to shake people out of their comfort. And I think that, you know, in the, in the work that I do in my academic scholarship, I see a lot of what I try to do is trying to shake people out of their comfort to, to look at the United States in comparative perspectives to dismantle particular claims of American exceptionalism, which have run so deeply. So, I think, I think Baldwin, I, you know, I look at it from a kind of institutional perspective, I think Baldwin looks at even more sort of philosophical perspective which I find very valuable as well.
Matthew 5:03
Okay. And I think that's, it's all very interesting, very in line with, as someone know, Alamo pictures is a sponsor of this podcast and often makes, well, it makes documentaries about the US from a European perspective. And I think this combination of a Haitian director, Baldwin who himself spent a lot of time in France or most of his life in France, it's a, and then in his own he keen observations, in some ways more about the US itself, and rather than race specifically. So for those who haven't seen the film, and it came out in 2016, can you give us a brief synopsis of what this film is about?
Dr. Richard Johnson 5:43
Well, it uses the words of Baldwin. And really, it's sort of based on a book that Baldwin never finished, which was going to be a book about three friends of his, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King who all were murdered in the 1960s as civil rights leaders and or really quite young. I mean, it's amazing to think not a single one of those three men lived to be 40 years old. And I think Baldwin was going to try to use their lives and deaths as a way of speaking more generally about, about the United States and its relationship with race. And he never really got beyond sort of 30 pages of notes. And those notes then formed the basis of this, of this film. And so the entire film are Baldwins words both from his writings, these notes and also his speaking appearances and television appearances throughout his life. But what is also, I think, a wonderful thing that the director has done here has been able to intercept has added so many other layers to them. So he's added more contemporary imagery of Black Lives Matter struggle and so on. But also, I think there's this huge, unspoken kind of commentary underline it of the kind of popular culture of the United States, American film, American music, advertising, the media. And so the film is also interspersed with all, you know, with all these sort of images of, you know, the kind of heroics of the American West as it was portrayed in cowboy films and the, you know, the insulting way that African Americans were portrayed in early American films. And so it's, in one sense, it's a try, it's an attempt to complete and finish Baldwins book but also brings in so much more than I think even, you know, the Baldwin notes themselves contain.
Matthew 7:56
Yes, and I think a part of that as I had realized, and Peck draws it out and probably, you know, through those through, if it's all from those 30 pages of notes, whatever which 30 pages it is, in that Baldwin himself made references to films a lot.
Dr. Richard Johnson 8:12
Yes.
Matthew 8:13
So growing up, what were the images he was seeing when he was growing up? Well, who were the positive or lack of positive black role models that he had in even contemporary films of his time? And I think very interestingly, you know, there's even one where he's saying, well, white audiences saw it this way, but if you were sitting in a film theater, in a cinema in Harlem, you could have heard the black community saying something very different. So I think it's extremely well done. And as you say, also with the current news footage, and other imagery. I mean, one thing I picked up on was, and I think Baldwin even makes reference it's not just the US even sort of, there's some lines in there about Western society in general, and one of the images, because he shows a lot of advertising images from that era of how African Americans were depicted, and I noticed that one of them was a J Sainsbury's ad, actually. So it's not even a US based image. But I think, with that in mind, I think what would be good is to maybe, at this point, to just kind of dive right in, in terms of a little bit of history. That's certainly what Baldwin's about, he was like, you have to look at the whole arch of history. You can't just look at the last few decades. He makes a lot of references to 400 years, you know, on. And so I think for those listening across the globe, who may not know American history as detailed, certainly, as you and I certainly my cursory knowledge is. So maybe talk to us, maybe I don't where do we start? But maybe a good starting point is the end of the American Civil War and what is called Reconstruction and which you refer to as the first reconstruction.
Dr. Richard Johnson 10:03
Yeah. So, to put that into context and you know, I side with a group of scholars who who view the United States as, at best a middle aged democracy, not particularly especially long standing democracy, a country that could be, in comparative terms, understood as a democracy for about five, about five decades or so. And the reason for that is because the kind of elemental features of democracy, multiparty competition, free assembly and speech, access to a meaningful vote were denied to millions of Americans until the 1960s. And the one exception to that long period of race based exclusion to American democracy, was the decade after the American Civil War, which was known as reconstruction, a word that Abraham Lincoln used in the last speech that Lincoln gave before he was killed. Lincoln called in that speech for a reconstruction of American democracy on new terms, and it's in that speech that Lincoln for the first, as it turned out, the only time in his life, called for the vote to be extended to African Americans. And so, that decade ended up being a, you know, an incredible decade where 2000 African Americans were elected to public offices throughout the country. You had black mayors, black senators and congressmen, black lieutenant governor's, you had the Acting Governor of Louisiana who was the son of a slave. And what's so important about that period is not just the election of people who became part of the black elite, but also the grassroots engagement of ordinary African Americans in that period, which was profound. You had the Republican Party of the South was made up of thousands of ordinary African Americans who showed, you know, untold bravery in things like wearing Ulysses Grant badges and pins to work when they were working as cleaners and ...
Matthew 12:28
And he was the Republican nominee and then later president.
Dr. Richard Johnson 12:29
Yeah, exactly. And then he was a hated figure by the white South, but these African Americans in the South, you know, bravely supported him and they came under untold violence, right. And that's then the next important thing about reconstruction, is the important thing about reconstruction is not just that it happened, but that it ended and that it ended in a dramatic fashion. And in my book, I write about a black congressman from Florida who made some of the first speeches in Congress calling for federal funding for public education. But when he died in 1905, he died without even the right to vote. By that point, African Americans would be disenfranchised in Florida. And there was no even, there's no victory even published for him when he died. And so what's important from the understanding of that history is about the fragility of democracy. And that's true all around the world. But it's also very true in America. And I think that one of the things that Baldwin recognized was that this story of democracy is not some kind of waggish teleology of ever expanding. You know, you hear a lot people say that this is this journey of the more perfect union, and it's always a kind of step to forward, march to progress. But actually, America had one instance of multiracial democracy, at least male democracy in the 19th century that collapsed. And so therefore, when we think about democracy in America today, I think we should also not think that it is impenetrable.
Matthew 14:20
But that's interesting. I think the, what I find very intresting is also the grassroots comments because I can tell you as someone who was born and raised United States, certainly one side of my family's from the south, the other side is from Texas, but we don't consider ourselves part of the South because we like to forget our history. But there are a whole bunch of Germans that came afterwards. But anyway, it's always been sort of portrayed as reconstruction was almost this top down sort of the North came in, picked some black African Americans, put them in office. And then once they pulled back, because we haven't mentioned Rutherford B. Hayes, I never thought I'd mention him in a podcast or any kind of conversation, to be honest. But once that compromise is made, that was it, but you're saying that there was more to it, they had more legs to it then than that. It wasn't just something that was enforced upon the population.
Dr. Richard Johnson 15:15
That's right. And the reason why we can be pretty confident that reconstruction was a mass movement of democracy in the south was that after the compromise of 1876, when the republican elites in Washington agreed to remove federal troops from the south who would be providing physical protection for people to be able to vote. When Rutherford B. Hayes who was the beneficiary of that became president, that efforts of what we might still see as that grassroots efforts to democracy persisted for another two decades and African American newspapers, which were for political nature was still being published, they were still running for office. And really what brought reconstruction to an end was really profound violence which occurred in the south, and that the rise of lynchings in the 1890s is not unconnected with the end of reconstruction.
Matthew 16:21
I mean, I saw in your book you make mention, I think, because something I didn't know until I, many years ago, I lived in the state of North Carolina and there's a paper that had an article that I read one time about the sort of connection between black republicans and white populace in all these areas and coming up against, I know it's hard for people to believe now given how the parties are aligned, but coming up against a democratic machine, and those machines controlled the newspapers and so obviously, all the, the press and the PR if you will, or propaganda in another way, and just they just got stomped down.
Dr. Richard Johnson 16:57
And that's one of the things also that I want to, you know, try and do in my book is to, to show that actually, there were pockets of success of an alliance between working class whites and working class African Americans in the south, even after the elite politicians in Washington had kind of abandoned the project. So, you know, there was a general strike in New Orleans at the end of the 19th century, and that was, that was a general strike that was a coordinated between both black and white unions. And, in the 1890s, in states like North Carolina and in Alabama, that this fusion of the white working class populace and the black republicans actually saw a degree of political success and it was then when the kind of white supremacist democratic machine then actually that's when they pushed back with their most grip the greatest levels of violence.
Matthew 18:00
So now we'll get to, we also there's this second reconstruction that a lot of people talk about. But before we do that, I think there's so many, I mean, as mentioned before, I almost like to show the whole film. As one big giant clip. I highly recommend people watching it. Especially for Baldwin. I can't find it. I can't. It's basically his observations I wanted to say they're but more than bond marks. They're more than truisms. It's just, his very keen observations about not just race but American society. But at the very beginning of the film - it starts off with a very young Dick Cavett, for those of you who don't know he's a talk show host "Dick Cavett show" was sort of a, it was kind of the intellectuals talk show, if you will of the 60s and 70s. And okay, it was still talk show, chat show, but he would you know, in this, we see later in that same clip, he brings on a Professor of Philosophy from Yale to have a debate. People are actually having debates on TV. I don't think that can happen anymore. But he asks a yes, yes, James Baldwin a question. And this is the question and James's answer.
Dick Cavett 19:18
Mr. Baldwin, I'm sure you still meet the remark that what are the Negroes, why aren't they optimistic? They say but it's getting so much better - there are Negro mayors, there's Negroes in all of sports. There are Negroes in politics. They're, they're even courted the ultimate accolade of being in television commercials now and (laugh) I'm glad you're smiling. Is it at once getting much better and still hopeless?
James Baldwin 19:47
Well, I don't think there's much hope for it, you know, to tell you the truth, as long as people are using this peculiar language. It's not a question of what happens to the Negro here, to the black man here. That's, that's a very vivid question for me, you know, but the real question is what's gonna happen to this country, I have to repeat that.
Factual America midroll 20:14
You're listening to Factual America. Subscribe to our mailing list or follow us on Instagram and Twitter at Alamo pictures to keep up to date with new releases and upcoming shows. Check out the show notes to learn more about the program, our guests and the team behind the production. And now back to Factual America.
Matthew 20:37
So welcome back to Factual America. So we had that clip of Dick Cavett interviewing James Baldwin, and you've also had a little break. So welcome back to the show. I think what I would like to almost flip that around. And in that clip, Dick says, you know, look, you've there's black sports stars, you've got politicians, even kind of jokes and James Baldwin even smiles about you're even allowed to be in commercials, you know, TV commercials. So why are you optimistic? And we've seen there that James is not especially optimistic. So what is, maybe this is a good point for you to go kind of give us a little bit of the, because this does happen, this interview happens right in the middle of what I guess would be called the second reconstruction. And then we can then go from there in terms of what has what has changed since since that period. So when, when, when is the, when did it start? How long is it? Then how did it start being reconstructed, deconstructed.
Dr. Richard Johnson 21:36
So the first reconstruction kind of fell at two levels. First, it fell in the 1876 compromise, and then really at the start of the 20th century, that even the grassroots activism had really been snuffed out. And it's really then in the 18, sorry, the 1950s and 1960s that we then see the revival of federal commitment to enforcing the citizen rights of African Americans in a material way. And we see in the film actually, you know, examples of the federal government, much like after the Civil War had to occupy parts of its own country in order to ensure civil rights were enforced. You know, the day that James Meredith, an African American student, was admitted to the University of Mississippi. There were 31,000 US troops mobilized in Northern Mississippi in 1962 to, I think it was, to enable Meredith to go to his university, which was more than stationed at the time on the Korean peninsula. And so what we're seeing, at this time when Baldwin's being interviewed by Dick Cavett is, you know, there's potentially a great deal of optimism in that the federal government is showing that renewed strength that hasn't really been seen since the days of Ulysses Grant. And I guess, you know, Baldwin is aware, he doesn't spell it out as specific historical terms, but you think he's aware of the fragility of these moments. And the conditionality I think as well. I think he's very suspicious of the, the depth of the commitment. And he's very, he's very critical of Bobby Kennedy throughout the film as well, which is very interesting.
Matthew 23:28
Yes, I don't think they like each other, or didn't like each other. But I think, I think that's a very good point. There's, and, so you would say that then, some people, I mean, many, many listeners will be, you know, it's well before their time, but well aware of the 50s and 60s but that impact should last in the 70s and 80s. And know in the chapter I've read, and I was aware of this, that administrations of both political parties sort of seamless really, passing, renewing the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act of different times. So sort of seemed uncontroversial. So I think this gets to a point where maybe what has, when did this start, in your view, when did this start changing?
Dr. Richard Johnson 24:18
Yeah, so one of the things that, so this second reconstruction has, has apparently lasted much longer than the first. And the reason for that, or one of the reasons is that there did seem to be a bipartisan consensus for it, in a way that didn't exist in the first reconstruction, where the Democratic Party in the first reconstruction never accepted reconstruction. And something like the Voting Rights Act has been renewed under multiple administrations - Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, all signed extensions and strengthenings of the Voting Rights Act. And then it seems to have unraveled, perhaps with a kind of bitter irony, I think during the Obama administration. And I think that that's when we start to see a real intensification of, a kind of what I call, a racially polarized partisanship, which was always present to some extent, but I think the levels of it have gone off the charts. Since the, you know, since Obama was elected.
Matthew 25:32
Now, I mean, do you (.) So you make wherever you start off with chapter that I've read the 2010 midterms. Now, and in different places for each chapter. It's sort of a, it's not even, not a dotted line, you draw a pretty strong line that it's sort of a, some of these reactions, the Democrats did very poorly in 2010. And, you know, you look at sort of the racial elements of this, but, you know, 2010 was also reaction to Obamacare, wasn't it. I mean, is there, is it, is it that cut and, I mean, in your view - is it that cut and dry? Is it, is it a purely racial issue? Or do you think there are many other factors that are kind of feeding in?
Dr. Richard Johnson 26:13
I mean, I think that, I think race suffuses so many of these issues that it's hard to take out what is race and what isn't. And I guess that's also one of the things I admire about Baldwin is that, that he doesn't view you know, kind of race relations as some kind of, you know, external thing that it's endogenous to all of these other issues. I think including the reaction to the health care law, that it was ultimately, the Medicaid expansion, which would have assisted African Americans the most was the part of the legislation which was most strongly objected to and was blocked through the Supreme Court or was blocked through Republican governors with the aid of the Supreme Court and nearly all of these were in the south and half of African Americans lived in states where their governors blocked the Medicaid expansion which would have provided them with government provided health care. So, you know, even even something like that. I think it's hard. I don't like to sort of say, one issue is a racial issue. And one issue is a non racial issue. I think that there are racial dimensions to, to all issues in a way.
Matthew 27:33
I think this might be a good, again, as I said, there's about too well many clips I'd like to play from this film, but I think this might be a good one. Good point to just show the clip where, I've got it labeled here is not a racial problem. It's not really what Baldwin is saying, but he's saying that it's going to take much more than just a Voting Rights Act, or civil rights act to make changes and I think then that actually kind of plays into what what you're saying, so let's have a quick look at that clip.
James Baldwin 28:02
They get some Negro problem. Don't let any voting acts. We had that's called the 15th amendment during the civil rights to the 1964. What you have to look at is what is happening in this country. And what is really happening is a brother has murdered brother knowing it was his brother. White men have lynched Negros, knowing them to be their sons. White women have had Negros, barely knowing that to be their lovers. It is not a racial problem. It's a problem whether or not you're willing to look at your life and be responsible for it, and then begin to change it. That Great Western house I come from is one house. And I am one of the children of that house since I am the most despised child of that house. And it is because the American people are unable to face the fact that I'm, I'm flesh of their flesh, bone of their bone created by them, my blood, my father is buried in that soil.
Matthew 29:06
So, I think that's, that's a very good clip. If there were others we had time to watch or listen to I would, I mean throughout the film, so about middle the way through and this is the director doing it, I would say a lot of references, to, say, white America but certainly majority of Americans not being you know, having a public and private life. Not actually as a population, it's, kind of gets to issues of, we've discussed on the show before, American dream, these sorts of things. There is a stated view of what everyone wants yet and an inability to deal with the fact that most of us aren't able to achieve it, or at least what we were told we should be wanting. I think you mentioned the house and picket fence in the Plymouth not that anyone's driving to Plymouth anymore. But you know, the equivalent, and I think that's where, you know, I think it kind of brings us to a point where I mean, you've written about it, your racially polarized partisanship. If you look at the parties now versus we're in the 90s, they were much closer to, you know, the Republicans are always a little bit whiter than the Democrats were a little less white, as to put it crudely. Now, you know, Republicans are 19 percentage points wither than the demographic, what the demographic average would be for the US, the Democrats 15 points less. What does that thing, there's a question that was pulled - is racism the main issue holding black, you know, what was something to that effect? Racism is the main issue that's a stumbling block to blacks or black achievement or something to that if I'm not stating it very well. But republicans say only agreed only 14% agree. You've got democrats at 64%. So you've got two parties for a country where, we've dealt with it here in the UK, and a lot of other Western democracies, when sometimes the two main parties don't really differentiate themselves very much. They're, that's a quite a big, big difference. So I mean, what is your, you're analyzing this now. I think what's great about the work you're doing is it's a real focus on contemporary. I think a lot of scholars, if I may say, kind of get still stuck in the 60s on a lot of this stuff. Where do you see this heading? What is the, I mean, where we are today? And what does it look, you know, is this inevitable? Is it just going to carry on? What do you, what do you think? Is there going to be a backlash? What is the future?
Dr. Richard Johnson 31:40
Well, I do think that that now that the parties are polarized so much on on these kinds of questions, that it puts the civil rights infrastructure of the second reconstruction, in grave peril, and I think that it's already you know, the Voting Rights Act has already been substantially diminished. And we could be seeing more cases down the line that could really spell the death knell of that of that Act, which I think is the most important piece of civil rights legislation in American history. What, you know, the question of, you know, I don't think anything is is inevitable, but I think we end up on these kinds of kind of path dependent directions which become, which means that it becomes harder and harder to reverse track. And they become kind of reinforcing, you know. I think a lot of people looked at the Obama election and saw that is kind of great wave of white people finally voting for an African American, but Obama's reelection, he received the lowest share of whites of the white two-party vote of any successful elected president, as long as records have begun, so his success was attributable to his ability to mobilize non-white Americans at historically high levels of turnout and support. The question of whether that, you know, is sustainable for the Democrats, though is, is an open question. I don't know. Is there another candidate that can do that like Obama?
Matthew 33:16
Because they say, I mean, people like to say demographics is destiny. Because they say, I mean, people like to say demographics is destiny. And a lot of I'm aware of, you know, even 10, 20 years ago, democratic strategist saying, oh, just looking at the demographic trends and saying, oh, you know, in some ways, getting lazy, I would argue, saying - Well, you know, if we wait our time, bide our time, you know, even Texas is going to go for the democrats in the near future. I think as you point out in your research, that there's not just white flight from the cities, but there's white flight from parties, and that is happening faster in the Democratic Party than the less whitening or darkening however you want to put it of the American demographics. So if anything, the democrats are heading for further and further future losses, certainly in the short to medium term.
Dr. Richard Johnson 34:00
Yeah, and this, you know, this racially polarized partisanship or white flight from the Democratic parties have also called it, you know, it's already happened in some parts of the country in a dramatic fashion, you know, Obama got 10% of the white votes in some of the Deep South states. So, this, I think, you know, a lot of people look at the changing demographics of the United States, a lot of that's caused by Hispanic migration to the United States. And I think that's a more complicated story. The African American population is staying about the same. And the question of whether the Latino population in the United States will become, as, you know, a robust ally of African Americans, electrically speaking is, I still think, an open question, you know. Trump did no worse among Latino voters than Mitt Romney did, for example. And, you know, there's some evidence to suggest that he did marginally better because the Latinos who vote in America, Latino citizens, and they're going to have perhaps different views than non citizen Latinos in the United States. So there are all sorts of complications there. And I think, I think you're absolutely right, that's lazy, there is a laziness. And just assuming that as the country becomes less non Hispanic white, that then there is salvation there for the endurance of second reconstruction
Matthew 35:19
Well the laziness can be on both sides, and the republicans just get sort of, well, you know... The democrats aren't doing their jobs, and we can kind of keep getting away with this, in essence. I mean, I think you get just, one thing I know, I have some connections in the Latino community, certainly Mexican Americans - they tend to be more socially conservative than the average, certainly these days, average democratic voter, and this kind of gets to a point of something that is very, very topical now certainly here in the in the UK. After the election results of last week, where the Conservative Party won seats they had never won or hadn't won and over 100 years, in working class areas, especially up north, in reference to something you said earlier, I mean, I've got the democracy index here from the Economist Intelligence Unit in 2016, which is the B2B Publishing arm of the Economist. My former employer, I have to be upfront about that. And also I am a freelance contributor. So there's a little skin in the game here, but they were titled it "Revenge of the deplorables" and first the popular vote in 2016, against political elites who are perceived by many to be out of touch and failing to represent the interests of ordinary people. In that same year, they also downgraded the US from democracy, full democracy to flawed democracy. Now, I think, how does this, this is quite a, I could put to use this expression, but quite a cocktail that we're, we have what's happening here what you're discussing, which is 70 ratio at the same time, we've got a working in both, I would say both certainly in the UK, but and in the US have a working class that seemed feels left behind, and is just looking for a change of some sort. And whether it be in 2016 and Mit voted voting for Trump, for many of them. Do you have a view on how that's going to, how that is playing out? And how it could continue playing?
Dr. Richard Johnson 37:23
Yeah, well, one of the things that I look at in history that I think is perhaps instructive for this period is, is looking at that decade at the end of the 19th century, where there was this kind of multiracial populism, which existed. And I think that that period of American history is, is is not well known. It's been as poorly understood. But I think in many ways could be very instructive for a more positive future out of this dilemma that it was a way in which you could have, you know, this was a decade, you know, the 1890s, a decade when white farmers were experiencing huge economic dislocation. And in some American states, they realized that they had more in common with the African American tenant farmers than they did with the, you know, the business elite. And they teamed up together, and there were pockets of success. And I think that, what I would, you know, encourage for this, this current moment is not to necessarily look at people's reaction against or people sense of dislocation from elites and the economic system as inherently tied up with racial animus that I think that there is a way actually that, you know, non white communities have felt that dislocation for a very long time and in some ways white communities have kind of caught up. And there is a potential political alliance there that could be formed under the right leadership. I'm not entirely sure that leadership is visible.
Matthew 39:12
Well, since all the leadership seems to be over 73. Or, you know, I think it's hard to hard to see who this next generation is going to be. But yes, I agree with you. I think there's a there's a real, it's it's always been the potential. I think people who've looked at these things have always thought, well, these are two groups of certainly the US population, in some ways more in common than the elites that have been, I hate to put it this way, but leading them yeah, basically. I think what I'm going to suggest is that we actually let James Baldwin have the last word on this since he's so eloquent. And there's a clip where, at the very end, where he basically says, just Americans need to stop worrying about numbers. And I think Chase Manhattan Bank is, I guess I'm not supposed to say that. But he mentioned that I can say I can report that that's what he says. And that we need less numbers, and more passion.
James Baldwin 40:16
I know that no matter how it comes about, it will be bloody, it will be hard. I still believe that we can do with this country, something that has not been done before. We are misled here. Because we think of numbers. You don't need numbers. You need passion. And this is proven by the history of the world. The tragedy is that most of the people who say they care about it, do not care. What they care about is their safety and their profits.
Matthew 41:00
So, on that note, I'm not going to say anything else except to thank our guest for coming on to the show. It's been a pleasure. I think this is going to be a very eventful year coming up. If you're up for it, we'd love to have you on again as we get closer to the November election. For those of our listeners, how would they, what's the best way to follow you? What's your Twitter handle? Because I thought you have an excellent, I really enjoyed your Twitter feed.
Dr. Richard Johnson 41:28
I'm on Twitter: richardmarcj. That's Marc spelled m a r c
Matthew 41:32
Okay. And if they're, the book, it's coming out...
Dr. Richard Johnson 41:37
June 2020.
Matthew 41:38
June 2020. Is it politi...?
Dr. Richard Johnson 41:41
Policy press, yeah.
Matthew 41:42
Okay. So let me thank our listeners. Please remember to like us and share us with your friends and family wherever you happen to listen to podcast. This is Factual America, signing off.
Factual America Outro 41:54
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