S11E4 – White Rage Revisited with Carol Anderson

S11E4 - White Rage Revisited with Carol Anderson

Andrew: Welcome to the Integrated Schools Podcast. I'm Andrew, a White dad from Denver.

Dr. Val: And I'm Val, a Black mom from North Carolina.

Andrew: And this is White Rage Revisited. And listeners, you were probably not expecting to hear from us today, we are dropping into your feed with a special bonus episode, just, uh, six days away from the election coming up. And we thought we'd revisit this conversation with Dr. Carol Anderson.

Dr. Val: That's right. One of our most important guests, especially when we talk about multiracial democracies, I feel like she is our resident expert in those things. And I'm just grateful that we can still learn from it because it is still so relevant to the conversation.

Andrew: Yes. So, this episode originally came out in March of 2022.

But we thought we would go back and revisit it because yes, you said it really feels very prescient.

Dr. Val: So, this is a look back. Warning: I was early in my podcasting days and I'm pretty sure I had a can and a little string attached to it [Andrew laughs], and I was trying to podcast,

Andrew: Your audio was not, was not up to the caliber it is now, that's for sure.

Dr. Val: It was not, it was not the award-winning audio that it is today.

Andrew: That's right.

Dr. Val: That's right.

Andrew: So, we're gonna play a lightly edited version of that original episode and then come back with some new reflections. If you remember this one well, you wanna just jump straight ahead to that, it’s around 55 minutes in.

Dr. Val: So please press play, listen, and keep listening until the end.

Andrew: All right. We'll see you on the other side.

[THEME MUSIC]

Andrew: Val, I am not excited for this one. I'm just kidding-

Val: Wow…

Andrew: -I'm totally excited!

Val: Right? It's hard not to be excited, to be in the same virtual space with THE Dr. Carol Anderson. It was great to have one of my favorite teachers on to talk to us, and I continue to learn so much from her and her work with every conversation.

Andrew: Yeah. So, for anybody who doesn't know Dr. Carol Anderson, she is the author of White Rage. White Rage, um, is a book that actually, if I'm being totally honest, I initially dismissed a little bit because I thought that it was going to be another book about White people's feelings about anti-racism work.

And finally, my sister actually was like, “You really have to read this book,” and it blew my mind.

Val: Yeah, you were definitely wrong on that one.

Andrew: I was, I could not have been more wrong! [Val and Andrew laugh] I was totally wrong about the book. And what she writes is that

“White rage is not about visible violence, but rather it works its way through the courts, the legislatures and a range of government bureaucracy. It wreaks havoc, subtly, almost imperceptibly. Too imperceptibly, certainly, for a nation consistently drawn to the spectacular. It is not the Klan. White rage doesn't have to wear sheets, burn crosses, or take to the streets. Working the halls of power. It can achieve its ends far more effectively, far more destructively.”

Val: White rage happens in response to Black excellence. To Black folks working outside of the stereotypical lane that they are supposed to be in. And White rage is brutal.

Andrew: Yeah.

Val: It's a must read. It's a must share. And so, I'm really glad that we're talking about it and sharing it with the Integrated Schools community and broader audience.

Andrew: Yeah. She has a gift for making really complicated things really easy to understand. Such that all of a sudden you find yourself enraged and you don't really know how it happened.

And I think her definition of White rage, I mean it, it's, it's hard. And it feels a little easier to wrap my mind around today. But this book came out in May of 2016. Like, this book came out before Donald Trump was elected. And, you know, in the afterward at the end of the book, she anticipates Donald Trump and says, like, “This is White rage.” This is what's coming. This is what happens in response to a Black president. In response to the civil rights movement. In response to the Brown v Board decision. In response to Reconstruction. This is what happens.

Val: I'm pretty sure I read it in 2016, if not early 2017. And, it felt like she was definitely being clairvoyant. Right? It's like, wow!

And if we think right now about book bans and the anti-CRT, you know, being a response to what I believe, the wide-spread support and anti-racism protests that happened in the summer of 2020. Right? So we have all of these people, not just Black people, but a multiracial coalition of people out here talking about racism and what they're against.

And so, now the rage, it looks like, “Well, we can't keep teaching them this stuff. Cause then they'll be–-

Andrew: Right.

Val: –out in the streets protesting again.” Right?

Andrew: Right.

Val: So that is how I am seeing White rage today.

Andrew: Yeah. It is, it is still going on today. It is still so relevant and she was so prescient in naming it. And she's just also just such a joy to talk to, because she's brilliant and packs so much density into it. And also easily moves right into things, like, Herrenvolk democracy, which came and went in the episode. And I was like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally.” And then I was like, oh, I have no idea what she's talking about! Let me go, let me go, let me go hit the internet.

And sure, as it turns out, Herrenvolk democracy. Herrenvolk is the German nation is considered by the Nazis to be innately superior to others. And a Herrenvolk democracy is a system of government in which only a specific ethnic group participates in government while other groups are disenfranchised.

Val: Mmm. So sweet and sassy, all in the same package.

Andrew: Yes, indeed.

Val: I love it.

Andrew: So, we should probably take a listen.

Val: We should probably take a listen. Take notes, y'all. You’ll need them.

[THEME MUSIC]

Dr. Carol Anderson: Hi, I'm Carol Anderson. I’m the Charles Howard Candler professor of African American studies at Emory University. I'm a historian and I've written several books. The most prominent, I believe, is White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide. I've also had One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression is Destroying Our Democracy.

And my latest book is The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America.

Andrew: Yeah. Just the titles alone.

Val: I know!

[Laughter]

Andrew: Do you ever sleep? Cause those have all come out in the past, like four or five years.

Dr. Carol Anderson: While I was chairing the department.

Val: Wow.

Andrew: So that's a “No,” you don't sleep. [Laugher]

Dr. Carol Anderson: I do not recommend it! I do not recommend it, uh, but I felt the fierce urgency of now.

Val: Right.

Dr. Carol Anderson: Um, the kind of crisis that this nation is in and how illegible the, the forces were that it brought us to this point. And one of my gifts is making the illegible legible. And so, I stepped into that, that realm, to make these things. It's like, “Well, how did that happen?”

How did Philando Castile die? Why did he die? How did Donald Trump win the election? How is it that we had the election of Barack Obama, where we had like, “Ooh, we have crossed the racial Rubicon. We have overcome. Whew!” [Val laughs] Right? How did two elections then lead to the election of Donald Trump?

And I smelled Donald Trump coming in White Rage. The 2016 election hadn't occurred yet. But in that epilogue, I start off with him. I knew what White rage looked like. The absolute anger (anger!) that African Americans had advanced so far.

So there was this rage that there was a Black man and a Black family in the White House. Rage that he was competent. Rage that they could not find a scandal. Lord, they looked! I mean they,

Andrew: He did wear that tan suit. I mean, that was-

Dr. Carol Anderson: Ooh! and he had Grey Poupon mustard, right?

Val: Right. [Dr. Anderson laughs]

Dr. Carol Anderson: You know? And you know, they were hunting. And they couldn't find anything that was scandalous that fit into that stereotype of Black corruption. Black criminality. Of Black incompetence. They couldn't find anything of that substance. And so that rage manifested itself.

And when you think about that 2016 election, there were like, what, 15, 16 Republican candidates in the primary?

Val: Yeah, there were. Mm-hmm.

Dr. Carol Anderson: Many of whom had legislative experience, policy-making experience, governing experience.

And then there was Trump. And what he had was a kilo of pure, uncut, White supremacy, that he put on the table and said, “Snort.”

Val: Ooh! [Val laughs and claps]

Andrew: Mercy!

Dr. Carol Anderson: So when you think about a nation that is so angry that there is a competent, effective Black man in the White House. That just drove that rage toward getting in there a full-blown White nationalist. Yeah.

Andrew: Yeah.

Val: Well, that's an intro!

[Laughter]

Andrew: Let's yeah, let's not, let's not ease our way, let's just, let's jump in with both feet. For sure.

Dr. Carol Anderson: [singing] “Ease on down, ease on down the road!”

Val: That's it! That's it. That's it. That's it.

Andrew: Can you take us back a little bit to, why do you care about this? How did you come to find yourself, as a historian, focused on policy and the history of policy? Why do you care?

Dr. Carol Anderson: Uh. I care because of how I grew up and where I grew up. I grew up in Columbus, Ohio, and it was watching my neighborhood devolve into “the ‘hood.” And knowing that the people who live there were checking all of the Americana boxes. God-fearing. Hardworking. Loved their families. Did everything that they were supposed to do. And, and that was not enough.

To see the destruction of that community. To see the, the disinvestment in that community. To see the fleeing of grocery stores. Seeing the schools not function. And seeing the lack of responsiveness of the governing bodies to the desolation that was happening in that community.

So, watching the city basically abandon that community and then hearing the news go, “On the near east side today...”, you know? And, and making the, the ills that were emanating out of that community being described as solely based on individual choices and not on the kind of systemic racism that that community faced.

That's where my vision, my, my anger, my drive to understand this thing really comes from. When you're seeing folks who are doing everything that they're supposed to do, and they are getting mowed down.

Andrew: Mmm.

Val: I can't imagine that you want to spend your time immersed in the things that you're teaching us about. And I also feel like you don't have a choice. This feeling, like a mission, right? Can you talk a little bit about, like, how that feels?

Dr. Carol Anderson: “To those to whom much is given, much is required.” And I really believe that I have the responsibility to make this chaos visible so that we can understand what it is and why it is. Um, I really have the belief that, if we can bring the solid evidence to the vast majority of Americans, they will want the kind of America that this nation says it is instead of what it currently is. And so that's why I keep doing this work.

Val: Yeah. Well, I, I just want to thank you for following your mission. Cause again, I can't imagine the burden, the load.

Dr. Carol Anderson: I used to have black hair!

[Laughter]

Andrew: Pushed you gray. That’s fair!

Val: And I just, I love you. I love you. And thank you. Thank you for doing this. Thank you for doing this work.

Andrew: Yeah. Can we kind of situate the Brown decision, dive into the history a little bit there? Cause I think, about the things that I was taught about the Brown decision, you know, “It came out of nowhere.” It was the, you know, sort of White benevolence that said, “Ok, finally, we will let the moral arc of the universe bend a little more out of the goodness of our hearts as White people.” But really, it was a very concerted effort starting all the way back with Charles Hamilton Houston and the NAACP starting way back in the thirties. Can you kind of take us back through the lead up to Brown?

Dr. Carol Anderson: Yes. Whew! So, Remember we had the Plessy v Ferguson decision of 1896: “separate but equal.” So these Southern states were just like “Lord, separate. Yes!” And they hopped on that ‘with a quickness’, as my brother would say. It was that smaller word, “equal.” They were like, equ-, equ-, equa-!? [Laughter] Um, that they really. That, that just, I mean, it just was not resonating at all.

So you had these dual school systems, where you had funding for White children's education that was, like, exponentially higher than the funding for Black children. You had where there were no Black high schools sometimes. And so, that the schooling for Black children would end, like, at the eighth grade. Um, by the time we were in the 1940s, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and South Carolina all had more than 50% of their adult Black population having fewer than six years of Jim Crow education. This was the landscape that Charles Hamilton Houston was looking at in the 1930s. He was like, “If they want separate but equal, then Lord they getting ready to get it.”

Val: Right.

Dr. Carol Anderson: It was equal, that was the Achilles heel in that, that constitutional framing. And so, he went after, “If you want separate, you're going to have to pay for equal.”

Val: Mmm.

Dr. Carol Anderson: And so, you saw this really deliberate strategy to compel the states to deal with equal.

After they had really laid the platform for how unable these states were to meet that benchmark, then, they went after “Well, so what you can see is that ‘separate but equal’ doesn't work.” And that the ruling itself is unconstitutional.

And so, they glommed together several cases out of Delaware, out of South Carolina, out of Kansas. That was the Topeka Board of Education. And they went for it.

And what you, what you saw was that as these states, like South Carolina saw this thing coming down the pike? You had them going, “Okay, okay. We're going to do ‘equal.’ We're going to do ‘equal.’” And so they started pouring money into trying to build high schools for Black children in the 1950s.

Now I'm like, How long you been doing this? And you couldn’t figure out that you needed to have high schools for Black children? Until the NAACP is coming down the pike going, “We got you, we got you.”

And that the thing was, “NAACP back off of this case, get rid of this case. And you too can have high schools for Black children.” And the NAACP called them “gilded cages of segregation” and said, “No, we're not doing that. We're not doing that.”

Andrew: So you had this, the White power structure saying, basically “‘Separate but equal,’ yeah, yeah, that’s great! Assuming we don’t actually have to do equal. We can focus on the ‘separate’ but not the ‘equal.’”

Dr. Carol Anderson: Yes.

Andrew: And so, the NAACP says “No, you know what? Actually, ‘separate’ is the problem.” And they say “Oh, whoa! Fine, fine. Okay, we’ll do ‘equal.’” And the NAACP said, basically “No, we’re not going to take this. We’re not going to accept your ‘equal,’ we’re actually going to fight to get rid of ‘separate’ entirely.” And that was what led to the Brown case and this really monumental decision. Is that right?

Dr. Carol Anderson: Yes. When the case came down, Black folks were joyous. Because it felt like this nation, I mean, it was a 9-0 decision. A unanimous decision coming out of the U.S. Supreme Court. It felt like validation for African American citizenship.

Val: Mmm.

Dr. Carol Anderson: For their full citizenship. That they had beaten Jim Crow by having decades of mobilization. Decades of organizing. Decades of finding folks who were willing to challenge the segregation in their schools. And knowing the kind of pressure that the White community was putting on these Black plaintiffs.

The reverend who led the case in South Carolina. They called in his mortgage. They fired him. They fired his wife. They fired his family. You know? It was to create just such kind of economic devastation, economic tolls on their lives. If you really want this thing, it's going to cost you.

So you had these leaders who were taking on enormous pressure to get through, to get to the Brown decision. Brown was like, “Whew! We have overcome! Oh! Callooh! Callay! What a glorious day!”

Val: I just want you to read to me! Just read to me. [Everyone laughs] That’s it. Please.

Dr. Carol Anderson: But the South was prepared for massive resistance. “We are prepared to shut the school systems down.” Now, you might think to yourself, “Self, they’re going to shut down the entire school system? And nobody's going to get an education?”

Nooooo, because they knew White parents weren't having that. And so, what they set up is that, coming out of state dollars, they would pay for the tuition for White children to go to all White, private segregated academies. And so, if you look at the South, one of the things that you will see, in this timeframe, is the creation of a slew of these White private academies.

This was the need that was coming out of Brown. You know? The, “I will not have my child sitting next,” as Eisenhower said, “to some big Negro.” Mmm. I'm like, look, if they're both six years old, I'm here to tell you this isn't a big burly Negro!

Val: Right! Right, right.

Dr. Carol Anderson: Oh! But then, I think about the work that Philip Atiba Goff has done in psychology, which shows that Black children are viewed as older and less innocent than White children of the same age. And so, it is that narrative that we're still dealing with today.

What we see in Brown, though, is this “woo!” this joyous moment, of where Black folks think that they have gained full American citizenship. And then, you have what I call that White rage backlash. And we often think of rage as being violent. But when I'm talking about White rage, I'm talking about the slew of policies. That bureaucratic violence that is put place to undermine African American's attainment of their citizenship rights. And that bureaucratic violence is the shutting down of the public school system and then providing funding for White children and nothing for Black children.

Val: Do you think that the courts were willing to agree to “equal” because there was never a threat to power? Or what exactly led the White power structure to actually change?

Dr. Carol Anderson: I think that one of the things that we saw in Brown was that you had a shift in the zeitgeist. A shift in the kinds of international norms. Remember, we're coming out of the Holocaust. We're coming out of the Nuremberg trials. And we've got a sense of how deadly and lethal White supremacy is as a governing, operating principle. How illegitimate and dangerous it is.

You also have the Cold War. And the Cold War is where the U.S. is doing its strut on the international stages. “We are the leader of the Free World. We are against those really bad communists over there though. That Soviet Union that denies their people their freedom.”

Then when you're reading through Pravda and Izvestia, which are the government communication organs for, for the Soviet Union. They harp on every lynching. They harp on every Black diplomat who comes to the U.S. and is hit with Jim Crow, where they can't get a hotel room. Where they're thrown out of a restaurant. They're thrown out of a theater, because they weren't sitting in the colored section. Right? And then the Soviets are like, “So this is the democracy that they're trying to give to you? This is what they're bringing?”

And remember, we're also in the age of decolonization at this moment too, where nations in Asia and Africa are gaining their independence and the U.S. is trying to woo them into the West. So when you see Little Rock? And you see that picture of those angry housewives hollering at Elizabeth Eckford? The Soviets had a field day with that! They’re like, “This is the democracy that the Americans want to bring to you. Look how they treat their own Black folk. What do you think they're going to do to you?”

Val: Mmm.

Dr. Carol Anderson: This was part of what was driving that Brown decision. This is why Chief Justice Earl Warren was lobbying so hard to make it a 9-0 decision. Because it was so important for U.S. foreign policy that this be a unanimous decision.

Andrew: Not for the rights of Black kids!

Val: Right!

Andrew: Not for the education of Black kids.

Val: So I’m like, Dr. Anderson, are you telling me this had nothing to do with Black kids at all? Oh my gosh….

Dr. Carol Anderson: And I mean, well they knew that it was a stain on American democracy. They knew it was really hard for the U.S. to do its strut across the world stage. You cannot be the Jim Crow leader of the Free World. One of these things is not like the other.

Val: Right.

Dr. Carol Anderson: This was the imperative that was pushing this.

Val: Hmm.

Andrew: So, this, this was the imperative. This, kind of, this push for full citizenship rights. Finally the court says, “Okay, ‘separate’ is in fact inherently unequal.” But, this was at least in part due to foreign policy concerns, not so much for the rights of Black kids. So, you know, maybe the result works out but the reasoning wasn’t quite what we would hope!

But the case was in fact decided 9-0 in 1954. Like, what happened? How was that not the beginning of change? How did Brown get, you know, quote, “Burnt to the Ground” as your chapter in White Rage is called, because it feels like it started pretty much right away.

Dr. Carol Anderson: You get the implementation decision in 1955, which just says “with all deliberate speed.” Now, work with me here. 1865. We have the end of the Civil War. We've got Reconstruction. Then we get the collapse of Reconstruction, the Redemption era, and then the Jim Crow era. There have been DECADES to get this thing right. “All deliberate speed” to the folks who gave you the violence of reconstruction? Who gave you the redemption era? Who gave you Jim Crow? Where you had, on average, a lynching every other day for three decades?

Val: Mm.

Dr. Carol Anderson: “All deliberate speed” to these folks? To these folks who have vowed that they will shut this thing down?

Andrew: And, and that, that's how you end up in 1963. I think you write, “not one Black kid went to school with a White kid in South Carolina, Alabama, or Mississippi” nine years after Brown v Board passed. Nine years after the Supreme court supposedly said, it is constitutionally not allowed to have separate education.

Val: “All deliberate speed” for my grandmother who desegregated her school as an educator was 1973. She was the first Black educator at her school in Southwest Florida.

Dr. Carol Anderson: Wow. That's what I mean. You know. So, remember after the 1896 Plessy decision, the states moved with a quickness to implement Jim Crow through everything. So you had separate Bibles to swear on in court. You had separate Coke machines. You had separate cemeteries. I mean,

Val: I have family members in still segregated cemeteries! And, like, the idea that we have to do that, it's just, it's beyond anything I can comprehend.

Dr. Carol Anderson: Right. And it gives you some sense of how steeped in racism, steeped in the values of segregation, these states are. So just to say “with all deliberate speed.” Thurgood Marshall and “God love a duck.” You know, just! [Laughter] Okay, that's not a direct Thurgood Marshall quote, but you could basically hear him saying that. Right? And he was just like, you let them off the hook.

Val: Yeah.

Dr. Carol Anderson: You didn’t give them a timetable! You didn't put any kind of mechanism in there to compel them to do this.

But what you did have, you had the State Department sending out to all of the embassies and to all of the consulates, the “Ooh, hooray! Look at us. We have overcome! This is the ability of democracy to perfect itself.” I mean, so it was this wonderful PR campaign. But then the reality of it is that you did not have Black children getting a quality education.

But the way that we tell this story is that between Brown and the civil rights movement, “We have overcome and all of the barriers have been removed, and this is the land of equal opportunity.”

Andrew: Right. We were racist. We had Brown. Now we're not racist. Story’s over. Move on.

Dr. Carol Anderson: Right? Right, it's like Ernest Angley laying on hands. “You are HEALED!” [Laughter]

Val: So, we, we've talked a little bit about this before. But just the, the continued struggle for Black parents and caregivers to put their students in integrating schools when they would be one of few. And how, while we can celebrate Brown for what it did accomplish. It also really ripped apart the supportive Black education that students were receiving.

Dr. Carol Anderson: Absolutely. Um, one of my colleagues is Professor Vanessa Siddle Walker.

Val: Love her!

Dr. Carol Anderson: Uh, isn't she fabulous?

Andrew: She’s amazing. Yeah.

Dr. Carol Anderson: I mean, it's, I just like to sit at her feet. Wow!

Val: Yeah.

Dr. Carol Anderson: And, the work she has done on these Black school networks. And what she's unpacking there is that the support, despite the lack of resources, the love that these teachers poured into these students. The belief system that these teachers poured into these students, that “You can fly!” Wow. And that Brown ripped that apart. The vast majority of Black teachers were fired.

Andrew: Right.

Dr. Carol Anderson: And so we got the worst of both worlds. So that these Black children who had been in these under-resourced schools, but were surrounded by networks of support, were then placed into these White schools where there were resources, but they were denied access to those resources. And those places were absolutely hostile to their very being.

So, you lost the supportive network and you lost the access to those who believed in you.

Val: Right.

Dr. Carol Anderson: Think about how few Black students are in AP courses. How few Black students are in IB curriculum.

Val: Yep.

Dr. Carol Anderson: How few. How few. I mean, you just keep looking at this. I, I think about me. I'll do a little quick bio here.

Val: Yeah.

Dr. Carol Anderson: My junior high was, like 99.9999999% Black. [Val and Andrew laugh] Right? There were three White students in my entire junior high. Then I went to Brookhaven, which was an, basically an all White school. There were those of us who were bussed in.

It was so clear we were not wanted there. It was so clear.

That's why there's so much work that needs to be done within these schools. I think about these battles that are happening, and how so much of it is really wrapped in that White rage policy that these Black children don't deserve education. That they don't have the merit to be educated. It is pouring good resources after bad to educate these children.

Val: So we know White supremacy is really crafty. And we–

Dr. Carol Anderson: Yes, Lord. Oh, you’re going to testify up in here, aren't you!

[Laughter]

Val: Well, you know, and, and so can we ever successfully use legislation to have justice or is it going to always be a fight like this? Because White rage and White supremacy is so crafty.

Dr. Carol Anderson: We can use legislation and it will always be a fight. The answer to your question is yes.

So, I look at the Voting Rights Act of 1965, One of the landmark pieces of legislation emerging out of the civil rights movement. And this legislation worked.

In the early 1960s, only 6.7% of age-eligible Black folks were registered to vote in Mississippi. And you know, Mississippi got some Black folk. So you only have, right? So 6.7%. Two years after the passage of the Voting Rights Act, it was almost 60%. You started seeing this legislation work. Doing what it was supposed to do. You also saw the White rage backlash to it. Continuing to figure out how to undermine the Voting Rights Act. How to curtail the access to the ballot box for Black American citizens. “How do we stop them from voting and do it legally?”

And this is what leads us into Shelby County v. Holder that looks at the success of Barack Obama's election, that leads Chief Justice John Roberts to say, “Oh, that racism is a racism of the past! I mean, look, we've got more Black elected officials. We have more Hispanic elected officials. We have overcome!” This is some old antiquated stuff.

Val: Mmm.

Andrew: Right.

Dr. Carol Anderson: And dismantled the preclearance provision of the voting rights act. And so, legislation can work. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.

Val: Mm. Did you hear that, Andrew?

Andrew: Yup. Yup. No rest.

Dr. Carol Anderson: No rest! It means that we're always paying attention.

It means that we're paying attention right now to this horrific assault. A White rage assault, particularly coming out of the 2020 election, and coming out of the massive protests for the killing of George Floyd.

And so what it looks like, I call it “by land, sea and air.” “Land” is the assault on voting rights based on the big lie of massive rampant voter fraud. And this big lie has been disproven eight ways to Sunday. But it becomes foundational for the measures that these states are putting in place to stop access to the ballot box. Land.

“Sea” is the legislation that is coming through to wipe away and to penalize the teaching of accurate American history. What that does is it sets the framework. Who made this nation? Who built this nation? Who are the makers and who are the takers? And when you're able to define so many Americans as takers, as leeches, as parasites, you're allowed to frame policy on that framework. And if you have a history that is a mis-history, then it provides the kind of cognitive framework that makes that policy seem reasonable. That's what this is designed to do.

Then we've got “by air,” and that is the wave of legislation that is loosening up gun laws. So, getting rid of background checks, getting rid of licensing. At the same time, while you have the language that political violence is acceptable. That it is a legitimate political discourse.

So all of these things are fused together on a platform of anti-Blackness on a platform that Black people are the threat to this society. How do we block them out at the ballot box? From our, our national memory and through violence. Yeah.

Val: Mmm.

Dr. Carol Anderson: Yeah.

Andrew: That’s scary.

Val: We're not solving racism this episode, Andrew.

[Laughter]

Andrew: We were supposed to.

Dr. Carol Anderson: But this is why we fight! This is why we fight.

Val: Yes. Yeah.

Dr. Carol Anderson: And it's knowing that these things look disparate, right? So you hear the talk about voting rights, and it's over here on this shelf. And you hear the talk about the anti-1619 Project and the anti-critical race theory, and “we don't want to teach divisive topics that will make White children feel uncomfortable.” And then you hear the piece over here about gun laws and “We've got to defend ourselves.” So they sound like they're three separate things, but they're all interconnected.

Andrew: Yeah. Typically, I don't think you mentioned, like, White rage is not usually interpersonal violence but it's just working within the system to create more violent structures. That, that, there was a way in which that sort of stopped working. That, you know, the election of Barack Obama was one piece of it. And then, certainly like Trump not getting reelected it was another way that all of this agitating within the system, White people just sort of lost their minds.

And I think that's how we then end up with January 6th. Whereas previous versions of White rage may not have shown themselves. There was no need for White people to go and storm the Capitol when the Capitol was willing to sort of acquiesce to their will. And as soon as the system said, “No, we're not going to do this anymore,” people lost their minds, were like, “Well, no, we have to force it. We're going to show up with the Confederate flag into the Senate.”

Dr. Carol Anderson: Right. And think about it as well. In the rise of Jim Crow, the laws were written race neutrally, but they were racially targeted. But what you also had with the violence that was happening is that they knew that Black folks had tasted citizenship. And so, what it was going to take to push Black people back in their place was this basically state-sanctioned violence.

And so, it's when the state approves of this violence or wink, wink, nod, nod, “Bob's your uncle” at the violence. So it is, “Oh, these were just tourists. This was just a tourist visit on January 6th.” This was legitimate political discourse.

So, it is that policy approval of the violence that gives it the air to breathe. When you don't have accountability in the system, it runs rampant. Yeah.

Andrew: And that's sort of what we saw in, in the wake of Brown as well. Right? I mean, you, you talk about the shift from–

Dr. Carol Anderson: Yes,

Andrew: –massive resistance to passive resistance. That we, sort of, change the language. I think about Elizabeth McRae's Mothers of Massive Resistance and this, kind of, the idea that we change the language to be more race neutral. We change the language to have this, kind of, vibe of respectability that these are, you know, “Oh, that he's a Senator, like, he's saying these things, it must be legitimate,” and part of the national discourse in a legitimate way.

And then that, kind of, creates a permission structure for, particularly for White folks who may not feel particularly tied to that. I mean, one of the challenges of not knowing our real history is, like, we don't feel connected to those threads.

We say “that was then, and this is now.” And then it allows it to continue in kind of a race neutral context, but with the same outcome.

Dr. Carol Anderson: Wunderbar. I mean, nailed it in one! I mean, so it is where we talk about “freedom of choice.” We talk about “neighborhood schools.” Who could be against neighborhood schools? Who could be against freedom of choice? I mean, these are bedrock American values. It's Americana. It is, “amber waves of grain.” It's the language that is used to cover White rage. To make it acceptable. It's with Lee Atwater, who was a political strategist for Ronald Reagan said, “In 1954, you could use the N word and it didn't hurt you. By 1968, you couldn't. It backfired. And so we started talking about more abstract things, like ‘taxes’ or ‘forced busing’ or ‘states' rights.’” And he said, and the whole point of that was that Blacks get hurt worse than Whites.

Val: Mmm.

Dr. Carol Anderson: So, think of that framing, is that Blacks get hurt worse than Whites. It means that Whites are collateral damage in these policies, because then Whites who get hurt with these policies become the fig leaf to cover that “No, how could this be a racist policy? White folks got hurt too!”

Andrew: “There are White people in jail. Our criminal justice isn't discriminatory against Black people, there are White people in jail! There are White people in under-resourced schools. So…”

Dr. Carol Anderson: Right. The whole point is that Blacks get hurt worse than Whites. And so, when you see that as a public policy framework, what you see is White rage operationalizing itself.

Val: Mmm. Have you figured out why we need to hurt Blacks worse than anybody else?

Dr. Carol Anderson: Okay. That's, that means you've got to read the second amendment book.

Val: Okay. Alright. Okay, I will find the strength to do that.

Dr. Carol Anderson: But it really deals with this inherent fear, almost visceral of Black people as a threat to White society, to the White community. We see this coming out of slavery. You see it in the slave codes, you see it in the laws that they created in the 17th century and the 18th century that were about “How do we protect ourselves from these folks? Because they're violent, they're inherently criminal, they're uncivilized, they're savage.”

You had a, right after Gabriel's Revolt in 1800 in Virginia, you had one Virginian talking about “If we are going to keep a ferocious monster among us, we have to keep it in chains.”

Val: Mmm.

Dr. Carol Anderson: And so, this is the through-line that then has Michael Brown being described as a “monster.” That has Eric Garner being described as a “beast.” That has the defense attorney in the Ahmaud Arbery killing, describing him with his “long, dirty toenails,” which is to say a beast, right? This is the through-line.

Andrew: Right.

Dr. Carol Anderson: Yeah.

Andrew: I mean, I think it's easy to see those as, kind of, extreme examples. And, in some ways, I guess they are. I, like, I feel easy to distance myself from those. But it also shows up in what you're talking about earlier in the, like, adultification of Black kids. In the ways that we view a White kid acting out as needing a little more structure, or maybe needing to exercise a little more. And a Black kid acting out as being a sign of criminality. These sort of subtler, less extreme versions of it, that then end up replicating the same thing.

Dr. Carol Anderson: Exactly, exactly. There was a scholar out of the University of Washington and he found that, in a computer simulation when Blacks and Whites were dressed the same, doing the same thing, officers shot Black folks more than they shot White folks. It was the Blackness that created the threat. That created the danger.

And so, when you believe “threat,” “danger,” “uncivilized,” “savage,” “beast,” “criminal.” Why they can't be among us. Why they can't be in our schools?

Val: I need you to get your people, Andrew. I don't….

Andrew: I know! I know.

Val: This is on you! This is all you. This has nothing to do with me! This has nothing to do with Dr. Anderson! This is all you. This is all you.

Andrew: There, there is something. And to your point, Val, this is probably not the right panel to try to figure this out. But I think, like, and you point out Dr. Anderson, you're write: White rage has undermined democracy, warped the Constitution, weakened the nation's ability to compete economically, squandered billions of dollars on baseless incarceration, rendered an entire region sick, poor and woefully, undereducated, and left cities nothing less than decimated. All this havoc has been wreaked simply because African-Americans wanted to work, get an education, live in decent communities, raise their families and vote, because they were unwilling to take no for an answer.

And I, you know, think about Heather McGee and The Sum of Us, like, we actually could all be better off if we did away with this. And, and yet, there is this constant fear and this constant threat. And I think, to believe all those things, you have to believe in the full humanity of Black people.

Val: Right

Andrew: And if you believe in the full humanity of Black people, and you look at the history of Black people in this country, there is a tension that is hard to reconcile for White people. And, I mean, you, I can't ask either of you two to opine on what that is!

Val: I definitely don't know! I definitely don't know.

[Laughter]

Andrew: But, it seems like there is, there is something there. I think about Resmaa Menakem in My Grandmother's Hands and kind of the, like, generational trauma that also White people are carrying and in this kind of challenge of reconciling the history with what could actually be a much more powerful and hopeful future.

Dr. Carol Anderson: We talked about the January 6th Insurrection, and I talked about this in One Person, No Vote in the epilogue, after the 2016 election. What you're seeing are two different visions of America. One vision is for a multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-religious, multicultural, vibrant democracy and we're like, woo! That thing's got swag!

Val: That sounds so beautiful!

Dr. Carol Anderson: Right? That thing is like, dang, what's my name!?

Val: That's it! U S A! You know!

Dr. Carol Anderson: And then is the Trumpian Herrenvolk democracy, which wants to replicate basically apartheid South Africa. Because they're seeing the demographic shift. And so, it's to have a large, right-less labor pool that's generating enormous resources. But those resources flow up into a small strata of Whites. Who govern, who rule, but who have the veneer of a democracy because there are so-called elections.

Andrew: Mmm.

Dr. Carol Anderson: That's the vision. That's what this battle is about. So when you this erasure of the history, so that you can't talk about Jim Crow. You can't talk about slavery. You can't talk about the dispossession. You can't talk about the Bracero Program. You can't talk about the National Origins Act of 1924. When you have the assault on the ballot box that works to just make it much more difficult for this burgeoning, age-eligible population, to be able to vote. It is designed to create this Herrenvolk democracy.

And part of this work that we're doing as educators is to help folks imagine. In, in White Rage, that was that last chapter, imagine! And it was to imagine what this nation could be, if we educated all of our children. Wow! Imagine what this nation could be, if the billions that we funnel into a carceral state, were actually deployed to support families and communities so that they could fly!

Imagine what we could be if we had elected representatives who were actually representative of the population. Right? And so what they were responding to was climate change. What they were responding to was a vastly unequal criminal justice system. What they were responding to was the need for, for real safety and real security in this nation, so our babies wouldn't have to have shooter drills in their schools. Imagine. Because if you can't imagine it, you can't even fight for it.

You know, I get questions, like, how do you keep fighting? Where's your hope in? Cause I mean, it really looks like I'm looking into the abyss!

[Laughter]

Andrew: That was literally my next question! My next question was exactly that. Yup.

Dr. Carol Anderson: And I think about how the enslaved had to imagine freedom when there was nothing around them that told them they could be free.

Val: Yeah.

Dr. Carol Anderson: How they imagined what being able to hold onto their babies looked like. Having their families together and not being sold on the auction block.

They had to imagine that. When around them, there was so much that told them, “Oh, that's not what you do. That's not who you are.” The power of that imagining led to incredible resistance. And not just when we think about the revolts, like Nat Turner or Denmark Vesey or Gabriel. But it's also the way that they defied. They broke their tools. They put rocks in the bags instead of putting cotton. Sell that! [Dr. Anderson laughs]

Andrew: Yeah.

Val: Yeah.

Dr. Carol Anderson: They went to the courts. They ran away. Imagining freedom.

Andrew: Also think about, and I was fortunate enough to just see the Fisk Jubilee Singers. I mean, it was just this unbelievable program this weekend. Took my kids, it was amazing. And they really tapped into this view of resistance as Black joy. This view of resistance as art, as music, as culture. That holding on to all that, through that, because I mean, you talk about that's not what you do, but that's, that's not what you do. That's not what your parents did, that's not what your grandparents did, that's not what your great grandparents did. The generations and generations and generations to be able to hold on to that.

Dr. Carol Anderson: Yeah. I mean, Black joy is just such a powerful tool of resistance. And so, when you read through the stuff in the era of Jim Crow, they're talking about “These are people without a history, they don't have any culture!” So it is a way to erase that. And that’s what we're seeing today, an attempt to erase that. “They don't have a history. They don't have a culture. They made no contributions.”

And so seeing the laughter, seeing the artistic production, seeing the cultural productions. That's how I hold on. Is that I think about my great, great grandfather who was enslaved. And, he fell in love with an enslaved woman who lived on the plantation next door.

And he told his “master” that he was not going to work unless he could be with her.

Val: Hm.

Dr. Carol Anderson: Now, I want you to think about how, what is the word I can use? Chutzpah!

Andrew: Yeah!

[Laughter]

Val: For real!

Dr. Carol Anderson: Woo! Because he could be killed. And he was like, “I love her, and I'm not going to work until I can be with her. She loves me.” And so his master bought her, and brought her over onto the plantation. And then my great grandfather, after he did his work as an enslaved man, he hired himself out to make enough money to buy her freedom and his.

Val: Hmm.

Dr. Carol Anderson: Then they got the hell out of Tennessee! But again, the, the power to imagine freedom.

Val: Yeah.

Dr. Carol Anderson: And so when we're talking about imagining what a vibrant, multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multicultural, multi-religious democracy, America can be. Wow!

Val: Yeah.

Dr. Carol Anderson: And you know, and nobody's done this before!

Andrew: Right.

Val: You're right!

Dr. Carol Anderson: Right?

Val: We're writing the book!

Dr. Carol Anderson: We’re writing the book!

Val: I was thinking about both that imagination that's necessary and the power of that sacrificial love of your great grandparents that was part of that. Like, that type of energy source is sustaining. Um. So, that's dope.

Dr. Carol Anderson: Yes. Yes, so when you talk about pulling on the power of the ancestors.

Val: Yeah.

Dr. Carol Anderson: And it's like, when I teach the civil rights movement. Seeing folks like Maceo Snipes, right? Who came back from the Second World War and -

Val: He was in Georgia, correct?

Dr. Carol Anderson: Georgia, 1946. With a heavily racist campaign being waged. And there a sign over the, the polling place that says “The first Negro that votes, that will be the last thing he ever does.” And he's like, “Tch! I fought fascists.” And he went in and he cast his vote. He was the only Black person to vote in Taylor County, Georgia in the 1946 election. Several days later, a firing squad showed up and mowed him down. But I think about that courage, knowing that the killing spree was on. They made it really clear. You vote, you die. And this democracy that he had fought so hard for, was worth it. That's the history they don't want us teaching.

Val: Right. And I'm thinking about, how, if we have those historical gaps in our knowledge, then we don't see the need to imagine a better way. Because it's already been painted as beautiful and necessary and right. And so, to lose even the desire to imagine is, I think, one of the greatest losses that we're fighting.

Dr. Carol Anderson: Exactly. And so one of the things, as I say, is that America is an aspirational nation. Part of the problem we have is that you have a large swath of folk who want to treat that aspiration as an achievement. As “we've already got here.” And so, “if we've already done this and we've done this from the founding fathers, what are y'all talking about?”

Val: Right.

Dr. Carol Anderson: “What are you talking about? There's no need for this legislation. There's no need to change anything that we've already done.

We've already attained greatness.”

Andrew: We just have to be great again.

Val: Mmm. See? We was having a good conversation!

[Laughter]

Dr. Carol Anderson: Ahh, You’re wrong!

Andrew: I'm so grateful to you, Dr. Anderson. For keeping that vision alive, for pushing through, for finding that well of hope to draw from. To keep doing the work that you're doing, because I think it's so important.

It's certainly enriched my life in innumerable ways. White Rage, in particular, just totally changed the way I view the world and I'm really grateful for it. And for all the work that you do.

Val: And I love you.

Dr. Carol Anderson: Thank you so much for having me.

Andrew: Really grateful for your time. Thanks so much!

Dr. Carol Anderson: Thank you.

Val: Thank you!

[THEME MUSIC]

Andrew: So, back in “2024 Val,” what'd you think?

Dr. Val: You know, I, for, for whatever reason, I don't go back a lot to listen to our old episodes, right? We're always working on the next thing and actually revisiting that episode me back to a time, you know?

Andrew: Yep.

Dr. Val: I feel like I have certainly grown in my understanding of our nation, of our practiced values of what it looks like to be on the receiving end from a policy standpoint of White rage policies. To be able to try to, like, work through and try to keep progress going. Even, for example, in our podcast, we're like, how do we keep people not only to just learn, but to do and to take action around these really important things? And it, I apparently have some unresolved trauma around elections. [Val laughs]

Andrew: Yeah.

Dr. Val: You know, you'll listen to this a couple of days before the election, but you and I have had the opportunity to vote already.

Andrew: Yes.

Dr. Val: We’re very proud of being voters. However we do that, whether it's, going to the polls for early voting, or casting our mail-in ballots. It's something that I honestly couldn't wait to do and I couldn't wait to do that because I feel like it is, it is as much our responsibility as eligible voters in the country to make our voices heard around what our values are.

Andrew: Yeah.

Dr. Val: And I think we have more than enough evidence and also more than enough feelings of alarm to know that this is another serious election.

Andrew: Yes. That feeling of election trauma is real. It certainly feels like the stakes always feel high. They feel particularly high right now. I was very grateful to, you know, in Colorado it's so easy to vote. We get our ballots in the mail, do our research, fill out the ballot, take it to a Dropbox. There was one three blocks from my house.

I channeled some of that anxiety into filling out my ballot and turning it in as soon as I could. Feel good about that. I encourage everybody to make a plan for how you're gonna vote. When you're gonna vote, where you're gonna vote. Make sure that it actually happens.

And then, you know, what do you do with the rest of that anxiety? You find whatever places you can to encourage people to go out and vote. So part of why we wanted to rerun this episode was to encourage all of you, listeners, to make sure you go out and vote. Make sure you have your voice heard, because certainly voting alone is not going to fix the things that ail this country. But it is an important first step in making sure that your voice is heard and making sure that the choices that we are making as a country reflect our values as a country.

Dr. Val: That's right. I think another parallel step (and, and this goes back to, to Dr. Anderson) is a knowledge of the history that brought us to this place.

Andrew: Yeah.

Dr. Val: And you always hear that “the past is prologue.” The past is prologue. And I never really, like, connected with that saying until,

Andrew: Hmm.

Dr. Val: Actually, just this weekend. And was thinking about what would be the future of this prologue that we're living in right now.

Andrew: Once. This is the past, what does it prologue to?

Dr. Val: Yes, and I think that is a decision that we get to make.

Andrew: Yes.

Dr. Val: I think one reason I didn't connect with the saying before is because I didn't associate it with action that I could take now.

Andrew: There's like an inevitability. If the past is prologue, then it is, like, telling us what's going to happen. What, what, say do I have in it?

Dr. Val: Right, but we actually get to write the story.

Andrew: Yep.

Dr. Val: So the prologue of this story can be, “There was a time in our country where we were super hopeful, thought we had reached ‘racial nirvana,’ only to find ourselves in the midst of legislative White rage wherever we looked, whether it was banning histories or banning books. And we had another opportunity to make a choice about who we wanted to be as a country, who we wanted to be together.” And regardless of how this election turns out, we get to make that choice.

Andrew: Yeah.

Dr. Val: And we get to decide who we are, who we're raising our kids to be. Who we decide to be in community with. How we decide to show love for one another.

Andrew: Yes. There is a choice in the next week here about, about what kind of country we want to have, and the story that gets written will be written in a way that is far less nuanced than how the actual voting plays out.

Dr. Val: Mmm! Mm-Hmm.

Andrew: One, regardless of what happens, the story will be told as we made a really clear choice, but we know that, that this election is gonna come down to a small number of people in a small number of places. It's gonna come down to, you know, the work that goes into knocking on doors, to making phone calls, to getting people to the polls, and, and it's gonna be decided at the margins and,

Dr. Val: Mm-Hmm.

Andrew: We are a largely divided country. And so, I certainly hope that things go the way that I would like for them to go and know that even if they do that does not mean that we get to then kick back and relax.

That does not mean that we have solved the problems that are facing us in terms of division. In terms of, you know, building a true multiracial democracy, we do not fix that problem or make that problem entirely unfixable with the outcome of this election. We do that in the work that we do every single day, in building community, in figuring out who, who is the “we” that we think we are part of? In figuring out who are we gonna be in community with?

Who are we gonna, gonna lock arms with and try to make the world a better place with? And this is an important moment to do that in the best way that we can. And it doesn't solve all the problems alone, and it doesn't mean that all the problems are unsolvable regardless of how, how the election goes.

Dr. Val: That's right. I know that there are folks that are disenfranchised out there. I know there, there are folks that are disengaged out there. And so, I wanna encourage those of us who are engaged, who are not disenfranchised, to not waste the opportunity to be that voice.

Andrew: Absolutely. That quote from Dr. Anderson: “The price of liberty is eternal vigilance,” right? Like,

Dr. Val: Mmm.

Andrew: We have to be vigilant, especially vigilant coming up to an election. But we have to be vigilant immediately after the election as well. And I think there's an aspirational quality to our country, to the words that we have in our founding documents, to the, kind of, ideals that we like to hold up, particularly to other countries around the world that we have never really actually lived up to. We, we haven't achieved it. Right? Like, that aspirational version of our country is something that we have not yet achieved.

And, this election is a chance to say, you know, “There, there is a version that we would like to continue to work towards achieving. We're not going to achieve it with this election, but we would like to continue to work towards achieving that.”

That's the vision of the country that I hope folks will, you know, take with them when they go to the polls and, and actually go to the polls in order to say, like, “Yeah, we're not there yet, but we'd like to be.

Dr. Val: Yeah. And just know listeners that Andrew and I will be on the other side of this. Still having these conversations with you, still trying to navigate what it means to do this work, in every context together. That's what we're committed to.

Andrew: Yep. We'll be here. We'll not be here the day after the election, but we will be here two weeks from today if you're listening to this on the release date, with some more great conversations. So grateful that we got to have Dr. Anderson on. It was two and a half years ago, but still feels so totally relevant.

Dr. Val: Wow.

Andrew: If you have not yet checked out her books, she has so many books. They're all incredible.

She also has, has recently released a number of young reader versions of White Rage, of The Second (which is her book about guns). The young reader versions are great. So, if you have not yet read her work, or your kids have not, be sure to grab those and pass them along. There'll be links in the show notes to those.

Dr. Val: Also, we wanna encourage you, obviously, this episode might not be age appropriate for our younger kids, but you can certainly still talk about these big ideas with your children. I know my kids were very young at the first election of President Barack Obama. but we were still able to find ways to talk about it as engaged citizens. You know, we were always active, voting.

Andrew: Yeah.

Dr. Val: Donating to issues that matter to us. And so, it, it gave us an opportunity to talk about things that were important. And so, we encourage you to answer any questions your children may have.

Andrew: Yeah.

Dr. Val: About what is happening, why people might be feeling a certain way. What they're seeing on TV. We encourage you to, to explore those conversations with them.

Andrew: Yeah, there will be lots, lots of big emotions going on. And our kids will certainly be aware of that. And so, giving them some context to understand.

Dr. Val: Yep. Whew!

Andrew: Well, here it goes. We'll see we'll see, we'll see what happens. Our only call to action for you today, listeners, is to go vote.

Dr. Val: Mm-Hmm.

Andrew: Find your polling place if you've not already. Make a plan, bring a friend. Go and make sure your voice is heard.

Dr. Val: That's right!

Andrew: Val, it is a pleasure as always, an honor as always, to be in this with you as I try to know better and do better.

Dr. Val: Until next time.