Randall Kennedy: The N-Word – History of Race, Law, Politics, and Power
Guests: Randall Kennedy
Full transcript · Read the full conversation in order, with its original context.
Contents17 chapters
§01Transcript · 00:00–11:12§02Transcript · 11:16–22:21§03Transcript · 22:23–33:30§04Transcript · 33:36–45:01§05Transcript · 45:07–57:10§06Transcript · 57:14–1:07:54§07Transcript · 1:08:00–1:20:06§08Transcript · 1:20:09–1:33:17§09Transcript · 1:33:20–1:44:44§10Transcript · 1:44:49–1:56:15§11Transcript · 1:56:18–2:08:19§12Transcript · 2:08:21–2:19:32§13Transcript · 2:19:33–2:31:25§14Transcript · 2:31:27–2:41:53§15Transcript · 2:41:57–2:53:06§16Transcript · 2:53:11–3:07:04§17Transcript · 3:07:07–3:09:58§01Transcript · 00:00–11:12
Let's imagine you have a black rapper
who invites people on stage,
and let's suppose they invite a black person on stage,
and they're perfectly happy when the black person
is full out with their lyrics.
They invite a white person on stage.
The white person is sort of mystified,
but it comes on stage and full out with what the rapper says,
including the infamous N-word,
and then the black rapper gets mad.
Imagine the white comedian who satirizes that,
pokes fun at that,
and in poking fun at that, says the infamous N-word.
Am I angry?
No, I'm not angry.
Not angry at all.
The following is a conversation with Randall Kennedy,
professor at Harvard Law School
and author of many seminal books on race,
law, history, culture, and politics,
including specifically on affirmative action,
criminal justice, policing,
and the topic explored extensively in this conversation,
the single most powerful word and slur
in the English language, the N-word,
with a hard R at the end.
Randall has written a book with this word as the title,
N-word, the strange career of a troublesome word.
Please be warned that Randall uses this word
throughout this conversation deliberately and skillfully
to discuss its power and its role
in the history of the United States.
I don't intend to shy away
from controversial topics like these,
and I'll work hard to handle them thoughtfully and thoroughly
with respect and with empathy,
often with several guests
who have very different perspectives on the topic.
In the end, I believe in the power
of long-form conversations to heal divides
by furthering understanding of human nature,
of human history,
and the full diversity of the human experience.
This is "Alex Friedman Podcast."
To support it, please check out our sponsors
in the description.
And now, dear friends, here's Randall Kennedy.
You wrote a book whose title is "The N-Word,"
spelled out with a hard R at the end.
So let's start with the history of this word.
What is the history of the N-word?
- The word you're referring to is "nigger."
The book that you're referring to is
"Nigger, the Strange Career of a Troublesome Word."
The word dates back to the 16th, 17th century.
It's got a long lineage, in other words.
Basically Latin, basically Spanish,
basically N-I-G, you know, black in various formulations.
We don't know actually how the term nigger became a slur.
So there were words that were close to N-I-G-G-E-R
that were used in various ways.
For instance, N-I-G-G-U-H was used.
N-I-G-G-U-R was used.
And sometimes it was used in a way that seemed to be
just purely descriptive.
We do know that by the early 19th century,
it had become a slur.
It had become a derogatory word
about which people complained.
But exactly how that came about, not altogether clear.
- So it's been 20 years since you've written the book.
What wisdom have you gained about this word
since writing the book?
And maybe having to interact with people,
having to read, having to see,
having to feel the response to the book.
- This book has generated a lot of controversy.
I thought it would.
It's probably generated more controversy
than I had anticipated.
It has certainly generated more,
more different sorts of experiences than I had anticipated.
So for instance, I did not think that writing this book
would prompt people to ask me
to be an expert witness in cases.
And over the past 20 years,
I've been an expert witness in a number of different cases.
I've been an expert witness in a murder case,
in various cases of assault.
I've been an expert witness in cases involving tort cases,
intentional infliction of emotional distress.
I've been an expert witness
in a number of employment cases.
I had not anticipated that,
nor had I anticipated the extent to which
people would get in trouble for using my book.
Every year, there are teachers who are suspended
or who are fired because they will excerpt
a chapter of my book.
Let's imagine, and this is not,
I'm not imagining things as this happened.
A teacher is teaching, for instance,
the Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn.
The word nigger appears in that book over 200 times.
The teacher, trying to be earnest,
trying to be sensible, trying to be serious,
will excerpt a part of my book
to acquaint students with the history of the word
and maybe the history of controversy
involving the use of the word in this particular novel.
The teacher will give it out,
hand it out to the teachers, hand it out to students,
and there have been a number of teachers
who've been suspended or worse because of that.
Students will get upset, go home, tell their parents.
Their parents will storm to the school
and say that this is terrible.
The teacher is, quote, "using the word nigger"
in an offensive way, and oftentimes,
administrators will basically abandon the teacher.
Whenever this comes to my attention,
I write, I'll write the superintendent of schools
or I'll write the principal,
or sometimes I'll write an opinion editorial piece
for the local newspaper, but every year,
there are teachers who are disciplined for using my book.
I had not anticipated that.
- And what is the nature of the letter or the op-ed
that you write on why they shouldn't be disciplined
or to the degree they should be or shouldn't be?
- There's not been one case,
there's not been one case that has come to my attention
in which it was even remotely sensible
for the teacher to be disciplined.
And what I say is that, number one,
frankly, I go through, what I write
is almost a synopsis of my book.
Number one, this is an important word in American history.
It is a word that is explosive,
that's why people get so upset.
It's a word that's volatile,
it's a word that has typically been used in a terrible way.
It's a word that is part of the soundtrack
of racial terrorism in the United States.
So people ought to know about this word.
I mean, if you're interested in knowing the real history
of the United States,
if you're interested in knowing about lynching,
if you're interested in knowing about the way
in which black people have been terrorized
in the United States, you need to know this word.
You need to know that history.
So you need to know why it is
that people are upset about the word,
but it doesn't end there.
You have to know that, and if you know that,
then that knowledge should equip you to be careful.
It should equip you to know that,
to know the range of context in which this word appears.
But again, it doesn't just end there,
because especially young people,
you tell that to young people,
they nod, they read, they understand that.
But then, but then what?
But then they turn on their radios and they turn on,
they listen to Spotify,
they listen to some of their favorite entertainers.
They listen to Dr. Dre, they listen to the Ghetto Boys,
they listen to Snoop,
and they listen to NWA.
What do they hear?
They listen to standup comedians.
They listen to Dave Chappelle.
They listen to Cat Williams.
They, you know, what do they hear?
They hear the word nigger, or nigga,
being used in a lot of different ways.
And so they need to know about that as well.
What are people doing?
How does one explain the fact that Dick Gregory,
Dick Gregory was a comedian, activist,
friend of Martin Luther King Jr., a true activist.
I mean, he had a very,
he had a flourishing career as an entertainer
that he abandons in order to struggle for racial justice
throughout the United States and including the deep South.
How does one explain the fact that the,
he wrote several memoirs,
but his first memoir is called "Nigger, a Memoir."
How does one explain that?
How does one explain the way in which,
how does one explain Richard Pryor?
I mean, Richard Pryor's best album is "That Nigger's Crazy."
Well, was Richard Pryor trying to put down black people?
How does one explain that?
One can only explain that by getting deeper into the word,
by understanding that yes,
this is a word that has been used in a derogatory way.
This is a word that has been used to put people down.
This is a word that has been used to terrorize people.
§02Transcript · 11:16–22:21
You gotta know that.
But you also have to know that this is a word
that has also been put to other uses.
There are artists, there are entertainers
who have used this word, like Dick Gregory used it,
to put up a mirror to American society
and say, "Look at this word
"and look at the terrible way in which it's been used.
"We don't want you to look away.
"No, don't look away.
"We're not, no euphemism, no asterisk,
"no N-word, no, nigger.
"Now we want you to look at that
"and we wanna talk about that."
James Baldwin.
James Baldwin, there was a documentary
about James Baldwin a couple of years ago,
highly lauded documentary.
The title that was given to this documentary was
"I Am Not Your Negro."
That's not what James Baldwin said.
Anybody can go to YouTube right now, take a look.
James Baldwin said, "I am not your nigger."
And then he went on to talk about that.
Well, James Baldwin wasn't, again,
he wasn't trying to cover up anything.
He wanted people to face the facts of American life.
And it seems to me that if you're a teacher
and you want to have your students face the facts
about American life, well,
you've got to grapple with the word nigger.
Now let me just quickly say,
teachers have a tough job.
And if we're talking about students,
of course, there's a wide range of students.
Am I saying that one ought to give my book
to kindergartners?
No, kindergartners are probably not ready for such a book.
Third graders, probably no, not third grade.
If we're talking, however, about people in the 10th grade,
do I think the 10th graders can read my book?
Yeah, sure, absolutely.
11th graders, 12th graders, people in college,
there are people in college.
There are people in college.
There are people in law schools.
Teachers in law schools have been disciplined
because the word nigger has come out of a teacher's mouth.
Why?
In a couple of cases recently,
teacher would be reading a court opinion.
The word appears in the court opinion.
The teacher pronounces the word, ah.
Students get up, leave in a huff, report the teacher.
There's some instances in which teachers have been,
under those circumstances, have been disciplined.
In my view, that's bad.
And people ought to say it's bad.
It's bad pedagogically.
And frankly, in many of these instances,
it's not only bad, it's stupid.
And I don't mind saying that.
I think that some of these instances
in which teachers have been disciplined, absolutely stupid.
People say, well, the teacher used the word.
Excuse me, used the word?
It'd be one thing, it'd be one thing
if a teacher looked at a student
and called the student nigger.
Get out of here, nigger.
That'd be fine.
Discipline, that's teacher, that's bad.
But that's not what's going on.
You don't have, none of these are cases
in which you have an individual
who is a stranger to another individual
and this word just sort of comes out.
No, what we have here is a class
involving a person who is a teacher
interacting with students,
talking about subjects in which
it would be perfectly understandable
why this word would emerge as a subject of conversation.
Now, under those circumstances,
it's somehow wrong for a teacher
to utter this word.
In my view, the answer is no.
And I said that 20 years ago.
I say it even more emphatically now.
- Still, it is one of the most powerful words
in the English language.
And there's a kind of responsibility
that we as humans should have with words,
with statements.
That word, if not used skillfully,
if not used competently,
even when just read from a legal transcript,
can do more harm than good.
- I agree with what you say.
Yes, words are powerful.
Words do matter.
And so I am certainly not suggesting
that people be lax.
I'm not suggesting that people be irresponsible.
It's precisely because words matter, however,
that we need to be willing to face words
and grapple with words and talk about words
and talk about the history of words,
precisely because words matter.
And among other things, it seems to me,
it's important to understand
that words can mean different things in different contexts.
It's not the case that a word
means the same thing in every context.
The word discriminating.
Sometimes it's a very bad thing.
That person discriminates.
And when you, again, intonation of voice means something.
If I say, "That person discriminates,"
and I'm obviously being disapproving,
implicitly what I'm saying is that person
distinguishes between things on an unjustifiable basis,
and that's a bad thing.
On the other hand, that person has discriminating taste.
Oh, that means something very different.
That means that the person differentiates
in a way that shows that they understand
the difference between excellent, good,
and not so good, and we think that that's a good thing.
So words can have different,
words can mean different things in different contexts,
and it seems to me that that's something
that actually we ought to recognize.
We ought to recognize and talk about.
- Well, some words enter this territory of being a slur,
and it seems like when they cross the line
into being a slur, there's the number of contexts
in which it's okay to mention it
exponentially decreases, right?
- No, no, I'm gonna resist that a little bit,
because the whole idea of slurs, slurs change.
Yankee was a slur.
Yankee was a slur in 18th century United States.
Slur today, New York Yankees, I'm a Yankee fan,
I'm a Yankee.
Queer, queer.
This is in my lifetime, there was a time,
you queer, and people would really run away from it,
and that was a bad thing.
And then, thank goodness, gay liberation movement,
gay liberation movement, basically,
we're not gonna run away from this.
We're gonna grab this, quote, slur,
and we're going to affix it to ourselves,
and we are going to repurpose it.
Now, the word queer is, again, can it be a slur?
Yeah, it can be a slur, doesn't have to be,
and it seems to me that it's important for people
to know about how a word, a symbol,
in some contexts can be a slur,
in some contexts doesn't have to be.
So the whole idea of what's a slur,
that's a complicated idea in and of itself.
It's very complicated.
It's, if I may say, almost fascinating how language evolves.
But if we were to kind of have a minute-by-minute
evaluation of the most powerful,
intensely slur-like words in the world,
I think the N-word with a hard R at the end,
which is the title of your book,
is number one on that list.
- Well, probably so, and of course,
that's one of the reasons why I wrote a little book about it.
- Yeah, but it hasn't, even since you wrote
a little book about it, it seems like it's maintained
its number one status.
You mentioned queer.
Maybe queer was in the top 20, I don't know, for a while,
and now it's sliding into the top 1,000,
and the N-word is at the top.
- You're absolutely right.
The origins of this book, I clearly remember.
I was at my office, and I was thinking about lecture topics,
and I get invited to give lectures from time to time.
And I was thinking, well, what might make
for an interesting lecture?
And all of a sudden, the word nigger popped into my mind.
Now, this is a word, I've grown up with this word.
I mean, there's never been a time in my life when,
at least in my conscious life,
in which this word's been absent.
I mean, in my household, for instance.
In my household, my parents are black people.
My parents were refugees from the Jim Crow South.
I was born in the Deep South, South Carolina.
In my household, I heard the word nigger used
in every possible way.
I heard it used as a slur.
I also heard it used with respect to people
who were praised.
§03Transcript · 22:23–33:30
My father, I clearly remember my father, whom I revere.
That's the smartest nigger in the world.
That's the bravest nigger in the world.
That's the baddest nigger I know.
He wasn't putting people down.
This is the way he talked.
And I grew up hearing this word in various ways.
And so I was thinking to myself,
God, where did this word come from?
And one of the first things I did,
I clearly remember just jumping up out of my seat,
running up to the library, Oxford English Dictionary.
When did this word first appear in English?
What was the history of the word?
And then what really sort of grabbed my attention
is I get my computer going,
and I asked the computer system,
give me every case,
every federal court case in which this word appears,
thousands of cases.
And then I said, oh my goodness, this is really interesting.
And then I started just cataloging all the different cases.
There came a point, I'd say probably about a month into this,
I compared the number of times nigger came up
with other sorts of slurs.
So for instance, kike, K-I-K-E,
long time derogatory word for Jews.
How many times has this word come up?
There was a time in which the word appeared,
but nothing like the infamous n-word, nothing.
And then what about wetback?
What about, and then I just,
let me just take a look at all the other slurs.
Nothing came close, not even remotely close to nigger.
And I think it has something to do with,
I think it has something to do with the uniqueness
of the color line,
particularly as it pertains to African-Americans.
I think that the fact that nigger
sort of occupies such a unique status among slurs,
I think that's a reflection of the unique stigma
that has been imposed on African-Americans.
- It's hard to know the chicken or the egg
why one word is able to so distinctly and clearly
encapsulate this struggle between races
that is throughout American history.
I mean, they didn't have to probably be so,
but it came to be that way.
- It became that, and not only that,
not only that, but of course,
the nigger spurred other slurs.
So Arabs, sand niggers.
The Irish, the niggers of Europe.
Women, the niggers of the world.
- John Lennon even has a song.
- That's right.
Well, I think Yoko Ono, I think,
had something to do with that song.
So, I mean, it is a slur that has spawned other slurs.
And again, this is, that's why,
as you indicated a moment ago,
this is a quite unique term.
- But are you conscious,
are you deliberate in you saying this word?
So let me just say from a personal experience,
maybe my upbringing, where I came from,
in my daily life, I don't think I've ever heard
that word with a hard R said as often,
used clearly in my life, said,
I've heard it today more than I have ever heard
in my entire life.
And I think there's a few people who listen to this,
that will be listening to this
and will be very uncomfortable.
I would say not in a bad way, probably in a good way.
I'm uncomfortable now and I am almost introspecting
and trying to figure out why am I uncomfortable.
And I think even the title of your book
is making me think that.
Just looking into my own mind and trying to understand,
wow, words have power.
And why does it have so much power?
But are you deliberate in that action?
And by the way, not only are the people listening
to this sweating, this will be on YouTube in part.
And YouTube, the people on the other side will be sweating.
What do we do with this?
- Yeah, well, am I deliberate?
The answer is yes.
And let me unpack that a little bit.
First, that's right.
I mean, am I deliberate?
Yeah.
I deliberately wrote a book called
"Nigger, The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word."
And was that deliberate?
Yeah, that was quite deliberate.
- But the title could have been N-word versus--
- The title could have been N-word, sure.
The title could have been N-word.
The title could have been a book about a word
that causes pain to many people.
I could have named it that.
There are many titles I could have used.
Did I want a title that would be provocative?
Did I want a title that would grab people?
The answer to that is yes.
I'm a writer.
I want people to read what I write.
Was I being sensationalistic?
Well, I mean, if you wanna put it like that, yes.
I'm not embarrassed to say that.
I mean, I'm sure that when people write books,
they think really hard about their titles
and they try to get a title
that will grab people's attention.
I know people, respect people very deeply,
who never, it's a matter of principle,
never utter this word.
And I've talked with people, I've had people say,
I read your book, let's talk about it,
but let's be very clear, I'm not gonna use the word.
I've had many conversations with people
who've asked me not to use the word.
I was on a, the first time this came up was a book tour.
It was 20 years ago when the book first came out
and I was on one of these call-in shows
early in the morning.
Time came to call in, seven o'clock.
I call in at five or seven.
Right before I go on, the host of the show says,
oh, by the way, we have a strict policy here at the station.
We never use this word.
And I said, well, gosh, I wish you had told me this earlier.
Does this mean then that you're never going to pronounce
fully the title of my book?
And she said, that's right.
And I had to make a choice right then and there.
Am I gonna go on or am I not?
What'd you do?
I went on and I abided by the station's rules.
And fine, we had a perfectly fine conversation.
And there is a place for euphemism.
The American language is a very supple language.
There are lots of words that one can use.
I do not get angry with people who don't,
they say as a matter of principle,
they're not gonna use the word, fine.
I'm willing to, I understand where they're coming from.
And often I will defer to their wishes.
All I say is, I want people to understand
where I'm coming from.
I'm not just using this word willy nilly.
There's a pedagogical reason.
There is a reason for why I'm saying what I'm saying.
There is a reason why I use the word.
- Can you make the case why using the word is a good idea
and can you make, can you steel man the case
why it's a bad idea?
Maybe you've heard from some critics.
- Yes.
- Who said that you saying this word out loud
is actually causing a lot of harm.
Not like harm because people's feelings are hurt,
but increasing the amount of racism and hate in the world.
- Yeah, critics.
Let's start with the critics.
One, again, going back to when the book was first published,
I remember going to, it was the first bookstore I went to.
And I talked about the book, had a very, you know,
talked, asked questions.
And the last comment, wasn't a question,
but the last comment was made by an elderly black man.
I called on him and he said,
"I've listened to what you've had to say
"and I appreciate what you've had to say."
But he said, "But I remain unconvinced.
"And I remain unconvinced because when I was coming up,
"this word was used to put me in the back of the bus.
"And this word was used to prevent me from voting.
"And this was the word that was used to justify me
"never being called as a juror.
"So to me, this word has only one meaning.
"It's a terrible meaning.
"I'm never going to use the word.
"It hurts me when I hear people use the word,
"especially those who don't know anything about the,
"you know, really about the history of it."
And he went on to say, "I think that your book,
"though well-intended, is probably going to be seen
"by some people as giving them permission to use the word."
And then he stopped.
And I thought that there was a lot of power
behind that gentleman's comment.
I think that what he said is probably correct
insofar as there are probably some people
who read the book, there are probably some people
who are listening to our conversation right now
who will think that I'm giving people permission
to use the word.
§04Transcript · 33:36–45:01
You know, I have said that I'm not.
I want people to understand the word.
I think that there is a burden that comes from,
whenever you utter a word like this.
But that's a critique, and I think there's strength
to that critique.
I'm not gonna say that that's a ridiculous critique.
I think that there is something to that.
And by the way, I should say, and that's why
I would say to anyone, that's right,
if this word comes out of your mouth,
you are taking on real responsibility.
So for years, it doesn't happen so much now,
but they were, I'd say for about the first five years
after this book was published,
I would get an email at least once a week.
And it would begin like this.
You know, dear Professor Kennedy, I read your book
and I'm calling to ask you a question.
And as soon as I saw that,
I knew what the question was gonna be.
And what the person would say is the following.
I like rap.
And then I knew what was coming.
I like rap, I'm white, and I have black friends
and we listen to rap and we're driving in the car
and we're listening to the song.
We start humming along and singing along.
And my black friends sing along.
And when nigger or nigga comes up, they sing,
and I don't know what to do.
Is it wrong for me to sing along?
This happened so often that I'd say about after the,
about the 10th time I got in such an email,
I wrote a form letter.
'Cause I didn't wanna just, you know, take up time
writing, you know, sort of crafting letter
after letter after letter.
So I wrote a form letter.
And basically what I said was, listen, number one,
you know, I'm flattered that you're asking me,
but number one, you should have a conversation
with your friend.
Number two, no matter what your friend says,
let me put something else for you to consider.
Let's suppose for the sake of discussion
that your friend says, oh, doesn't bother me.
I know where you're coming from.
We're just enjoying the music.
I don't think that this is a racist utterance,
you know, coming out of your mouth.
Let's suppose that your friend says that.
That doesn't end matters because let's imagine
the following, let's imagine that you're in a theater
and you're waiting for the, you know, film to start.
And you're just, you know, talking with your friends
or singing with your friends or just, you know,
kicking back with your friends.
And they're talking about nigger this or nigga this.
And you say it, you the white boy say it.
And the next thing you feel is a fist,
a big fist in your mouth that has been launched
by a person that you did not see who was right behind you.
All this person saw was a white person saying nigga.
And the next thing, pow.
That's not, you know, some sort of overheated scenario
coming from some law professor's mind.
That is a very plausible scenario.
So you have to be worried about lots of things,
including mistake.
So my advice to you is be prudent.
I would stay clear of the word unless,
unless you're very certain and unless
if you're called on it, you feel you're in a position
to defend yourself, defend what you're doing.
But the prudent thing would be to stay clear.
- There's so many questions I wanna ask there.
One is about the violence and the legal aspect of that.
It's very interesting.
You raise that in the book.
But, you know, I do wanna bring up
something I probably disagree with you on,
which is you say that there's not a significant difference
between the different variations of the N word.
The one, or maybe you don't.
I just listened to a bunch of your interviews.
So there's the version with the ER at the end,
version with a GA at the end, and then GRO at the end.
These are all different versions.
And I feel like in that list of powerful words,
you know, I feel like there's a distinction.
I feel that the number one spot is the one with the hard R.
And I don't know, maybe you can try to shed light,
but I feel like the one that ends in GA
is really far down the list in terms of modern culture.
So this is, we talked about the evolution of the words
and the word queer, for example.
It feels like, maybe because of rap, because of comedians,
because it's become much more,
it lost so much of its power.
- Well.
- Or you don't think so?
- No, I think there's a difference
between nigger and nigga.
I mean, people make a distinction between them.
And I think that to the extent that lots of people
make a distinction between them,
I think, you know, just as a sociological fact,
they are different.
I think that people who get upset,
if somebody, especially white people.
So, you know, if a white person says nigga,
and they're, you know, and they're, you know,
sort of criticized about it and they say,
"Well, I didn't say nigger.
I said nigga."
Believe me, I think most people who are mad at them
are gonna stay mad at them.
Now you raised the word, you know,
so nigger and nigga, I would put
in a very different category than negro.
- Educate me here.
- Well, yeah, sure.
I'm happy to.
Negro is a,
also controversial.
It's also controversial.
But,
negro has never been viewed
by a substantial number of people
as a derogatory term, at least in the,
with the same amount of animus, the same amount of,
it's a very different kind of word than nigger or nigga.
I mean, after all, I mean, you know,
negro, Martin Luther King Jr.,
all of his great oratory, negro.
You read the work of,
the great W.E.B. Du Bois, negro.
You read the work of my boss.
For instance, I use the word negro.
I use African American, black, Afro-American,
but I also use the word negro.
Now there are some people who get really mad at me
because of, you know, when I use the word negro.
And so for instance, there's students
who've gotten really quite exercised.
And they'll say, you know, I'll be giving a lecture
and a hand will go up, I'll call on somebody
and they'll say, listen, are you using the word negro
in its purely because of the historical time period
that you're using?
So you, you know, is that why you're using it?
Or are you using it in your own voice?
And often I'll say, well, I'm using it in my own voice.
And they'll say, well, I'm offended.
We think that this is, you know, that's old timey.
It's derogatory.
When this first came up, I said, let's pause for a moment.
And I'll take that under advisement.
And let me look into this.
And I ended up writing an essay about it,
an essay about the history of the terms
that black people have used to describe themselves.
And it's a long list, you know, black, colored,
Afro-American, African-American, negro, et cetera.
So I go through all that and I said,
now, let me just tell you,
I know for certain when I started using the word negro
often in writing.
I can date it.
1983, the summer of 1983 is when I started using
the word negro in my professional life as a lawyer.
And I did it for a very specific reason.
I did it because my boss demanded that I negro capital N.
Now, who was my boss?
My boss in the summer of 1983 was Associate Justice
of the United States Supreme Court, Thurgood Marshall,
known as Mr. Civil Rights.
Now, it seems to me you're telling me
that this word is so out of bounds,
that this word is derogatory,
nobody should ever use this word.
Does the fact that Thurgood Marshall demanded
that I use this word,
does that complicate things a little bit?
And so I think that people, again, ought to know more.
I mean, I've encountered students who don't know very much,
but who want to lecture me on word usage
because they know three sentences about current fashion
and hold it, hold it.
By the way, I push it further.
I sometimes use the word colored.
And then some people really don't like that.
Colored, well, there's an organization
still very much alive in American life and law,
the National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People, the NAACP.
They haven't changed their name.
And as far as I'm concerned, it's a wonderful organization.
There are people who have used the word colored.
§05Transcript · 45:07–57:10
That's what my grandmother used, colored.
Perfectly fine as far as I'm concerned.
So again, there are lots of different words
that one can use.
You can use different formulations.
I understand that people have different preferences.
Fine, I have my preferences.
At least know where I'm coming from.
- Still, words have power and they have power to hurt.
And there's a lot of reasons that I could see
to justify the use of the word in its full form,
as you're saying, in this conversation as you're using it.
One of them is perhaps fighting for the freedom
to be able to use those kinds of words.
So let me ask you about the freedom of speech
and the censorship of the word.
Should the use of the N word be censored,
for example, on social networks?
- So we can come up with different places.
We can say university campuses, maybe in op-eds,
or I don't know.
But I think social networks currently
is a very interesting place.
There's a lot of conversations that are happening on them.
There's the ability, the technical capability to sentence,
to remove the ability of people to use the word.
Do you think they should be allowed to use the word
on Twitter, for example?
- My response is it all depends on the way
in which the word is being used.
If the word is being used to intimidate,
if the word is being used to terrorize, then no.
Along with lots of other words, by the way.
I mean, you can have, I could use the word,
I suppose, gentleman.
I mean, I'm sure that I could conjure up a way
in which that word could be used in a intimidating way.
So, would I be happy if there was a technology
that always blanked this word, N-I-G-G-E-R?
I would be against that.
For one thing, it would erase the name of one of my books.
And I think that the book actually has a lot
of useful information, makes some useful points.
And by the way, let's imagine a world
in which there was a technology that blanked
every time N-I-G-G-E-R appeared.
You would have, what would that do to novels
by James Baldwin, by Toni Morrison,
by, what would that do to the speeches
of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr.?
What would that do to the comedy albums
of Richard Pryor, Cat Williams, Dave Chappelle?
What would that, if one sort of plays that out,
would one want to have all of those blanks
in important literary and political performances?
No, I don't want such blanks.
What I want, I would want the word to be there
and for people to understand how to deal with this word.
And by the way, you've used the word hurt an awful lot.
So let's talk about hurt.
I think we need to be more careful
with the way in which we deal with hurt
because people can be justifiably hurt.
You can have justifiably hurt feelings.
And if somebody has justifiably hurt feelings,
I then think that we should turn to the person
who has hurt those feelings and say,
you have acted wrongly because this person's feelings
are justifiably hurt in relationship to what you've done.
On the other hand, there are people who have hurt feelings
and frankly, it's unjustified.
So just imagine the following.
Let's imagine that I give a talk
about the greatness of Martin Luther King Jr.
And then let's imagine that a Ku Klux Klansman
comes up to me after my talk and says,
oh, you have now hurt my feelings.
What, am I supposed to apologize?
Am I supposed to be regretful that my talk
about the greatness of Martin Luther King Jr.
has hurt the feelings of the Klansman?
No, my response is gonna be,
you need to reevaluate your feelings
because actually your feeling of hurt is unjustified.
And no, there's no apology coming from me.
- But there's a kind of line, perhaps the gray area,
and maybe the word hurt has been overused
'cause if you try to avoid hurting
a small fraction of society that is mentally weak
in a way where everything hurts them,
that's the wrong way to build a society.
But if we flip that upside down and say,
trying to maximize the amount of love in the world,
and think about decisions we make
in terms of the language we use
to try to maximize the amount of love,
and not just short-term but long-term.
And that's where freedom of speech is very powerful
because it's a short-term painful thing often,
but long-term beneficial thing, just having freedom.
And so there's where the question of the N-word
starts to come in.
How much, how do we think about its use on the internet,
on college campuses, in a way that maximizes
the amount of love and compassion
and camaraderie in the world?
- I think that's good.
And I would associate myself with your vision,
how can we maximize love?
No, I love that, I think that's great.
So let's take that on.
I doubt that the way of doing that
is to
erase the infamous N-word.
I doubt that the way of doing that
is to say to people,
we understand that your feelings are really hurt
and we're gonna do all that we can
to avoid this symbolic action,
maybe this word or maybe this symbol.
We're gonna really, we're gonna do all that we can
to suppress it so that we can have a more loving universe.
I doubt that that's the way to do it.
I think a better way to do it,
I think a better way to do it
would be to fully educate people,
including educate people such that,
you see that over there?
That is the uniform of the Ku Klux Klan.
I want you to be educated about the uniform
of the Ku Klux Klan so that you can look at the uniform
of the Ku Klux Klan and know what it's about.
You're not terrorized by it.
You're not immediately, you don't see it
and sink to your knees and start wailing and crying.
You don't see it and say, oh, I'm traumatized.
No, you don't do any of that.
You see it, you understand it.
If somebody asks you about it,
you're fully prepared to talk about it.
It seems to me that that attitude, that poise,
that strength, that knowledge would be a better way
of equipping us to have a more loving world.
And by the way, just so you know,
I would say that about the swastika.
I would say it about the infamous N-word.
I would say it about all of the things
that we're talking about.
It would be better for people to be educated
so that they are not traumatized.
- So do you, you know, the N-word should not be removed
from "Huck Finn," "Adventures of Huck Finn"
or from the works of James Baldwin and Tori Morrison?
- Not at all.
In fact, it seems to me that the polarization
of these great artists' literary work,
as far as I'm concerned, highly objectionable.
Highly objectionable.
- When is it okay for a white man to say the N-word
with a hard R?
- Here we need to focus on the word say.
Is it ever okay for anyone, you know,
black, white, pink, yellow, I don't care, red, orange,
is it okay for anyone to use this word in a way
to put down people, to terrorize people,
to intimidate people?
Answer, no.
And I'd say that black person.
I've seen, I mean, by the way,
I've seen black people use this word
to try to intimidate, put down other black people.
Bad.
So I'm against it with a black person,
white person, doesn't matter.
On the other hand, on the other hand,
imagine,
imagine a white person
who is
giving a lecture
on the history of American racism.
A lecture on the history of American racism.
And in giving that lecture,
quotes
the, you know,
white racist politicians
who until fairly recently in American life
used the infamous N-word.
So imagine a white history professor
giving a lecture about the history of American racism
and says, "In 1948,
"this is what so-and-so
"running for the presidency of the United States said."
And then quotes a paragraph or two
in which the infamous N-word is featured.
Is that bad?
No, that's not bad.
No, that's not bad.
Sounds like a perfectly good lecture.
And I'm glad that you put the infamous N-word in there
so that we can see that as recently as 1948,
§06Transcript · 57:14–1:07:54
people who were running for the presidency
of the United States openly used the word.
That does not bother me.
I'll say this too.
Now, you know, somebody says,
"Well, you know, nice job, Kennedy,
"but you've limited it to over here.
"You've put it in an academic setting.
"What about other settings?"
It does not bother me.
Let's imagine somebody who's a comedian,
a white comedian,
who is satirizing
word usage.
Let's imagine a white comedian
who is satirizing our current practice
and wants to poke fun at the way in which,
you know, let's imagine you have a black rapper
who invites people on stage.
And let's suppose they invite a black person on stage
and they're perfectly happy when the black person
full out with, you know, their lyrics.
They invite a white person on stage.
The white person is, you know, doesn't really,
you know, sort of mystified,
but it comes on stage and full out with what the rapper says,
including the infamous N-word,
and then the black rapper gets mad.
Imagine the white comedian who satirizes that,
pokes fun at that.
And in poking fun at that, says the infamous N-word.
Am I angry?
No, I'm not angry.
Not angry at all.
- What if in the process of satirizing,
that comedian is not very funny?
- You say, "Bad joke, you were not funny."
- Okay.
- I don't object to the use of the infamous N-word.
I just say, you know, "You're not very funny."
- But because there's a line, when the joke is not funny,
it just seems like the comedy is used as a cover
to actually say something hateful.
It's an interesting thing about comedy.
I feel like the funnier you are,
the more you can get away with.
- Probably.
- And that's something to do with the thing we said earlier,
which is when you use words that have power,
you should do so with skill and competence,
and the responsibility those words carry.
- Again, the cases that I'm most familiar with
are the cases involving teachers, professors, academic.
And it is said sometimes, "Oh, why do I object?"
I object, sometimes people say,
because I suspect that this teacher
just wanted to say the word,
and that all of this is a cover, a pretext.
Do I, in my sense, my sense of it is, no.
I don't think it's a pretext.
If it's pretextual, that's bad.
But in my experience, I have not seen that.
I don't believe that that's what's going on.
- I agree with you on that,
but sometimes I do see people
that kind of have this flying towards the light,
desire to say something controversial and edgy,
and they don't realize that there's a responsibility there.
There's a skill.
You shouldn't just say,
I mean, actually, when comedians first start out,
they'll sometimes go into that territory.
They'll say edgy stuff that's totally not funny,
and then you realize this is not,
like, the edgier the thing,
the more skills required to really serve.
Like, if you're cooking, as a chef, a poisonous fish,
there's a responsibility on how to cook the damn thing
so you don't poison the people eating it.
- I would agree, but to get back to your question,
let's imagine that somebody produces a new set
of Lenny Bruce albums.
So Lenny Bruce was white.
Lenny Bruce used the term nigger in his sets.
- Sure did.
- Question, would I want Lenny Bruce's albums now
to be purged of the infamous N-word?
My response, absolutely not.
- As another follow-on sort of question,
what you think, I've seen interviews you've done
about this particular book.
The title of those interviews on YouTube and elsewhere
would use the full word.
What do you think about that?
Should I use this word in the title?
- In my view, the answer would be yes.
Again, there are people.
I've been on interviews.
I've been on stage with people
who had a different conclusion.
I respect a different way.
Again, there is a place for euphemism.
Again, it all depends.
I'm not offended.
Let's imagine that you posted this
and you had asterisks instead of spelling it out.
Would I be offended?
No, I wouldn't be offended.
I would prefer the full spelling,
but I would understand where you're coming from.
Would it offend me?
No, it wouldn't offend me.
- Well, here's the weird calculation
is which version of the word in the title,
as silly as that is, brings more love to the world.
It's hard, and basically your answer is
I don't know.
Your answer is you have to do it and find out.
- I'm not sure.
Again, there's certain questions in which,
there's certain questions you're not gonna,
we're not really going to know.
There's no sociologist who's gonna be able to tell us that.
So what do we do then?
Then we go to secondary positions.
And my secondary position is I don't know.
One thing that I hold onto, however, very strongly
is the virtue of openness,
the virtue of transparency, the virtue of freedom.
And I feel as though if I'm holding onto those things,
if I'm trying to engage in a serious conversation
in which I'm trying to make other people understand me
and I'm listening carefully to other people,
I feel at ease.
I feel at ease.
I feel this is going to eventuate in something positive.
And I feel okay.
- You are at Harvard.
You're one of the most respected people
in the history of Harvard.
That said, you did write a book with the N-word in it,
and you also have a lot of opinions
that challenge the mainstream perspectives
on race from all sides.
I'll hopefully get to talk about some of them.
But what's your view on Harvard
and universities in general and speech?
Did you feel pressure from any direction on,
first of all, the title of this book,
the content of the book,
and in general, your views on race?
- Yeah.
I am very laudatory of Harvard University.
I've been at Harvard since 1984.
I think it is a wonderful place to work.
I have, in the various positions I've taken,
particularly with respect to this book
or all my other books,
what has Harvard University done?
Harvard University has done nothing
but provide support, sustenance, encouragement.
I think that people get down on Harvard University.
I would say to anybody, imagine the following.
Imagine that the ethos of Harvard University
became the governing ethos of the United States overnight.
Tomorrow, we would wake up
in a much better United States of America.
I've been supported by Harvard University.
I think well of Harvard University.
That's not to say that I don't have criticisms of it,
but by and large, Harvard University,
more than by and large, overwhelmingly,
it has provided me,
and I think it overwhelmingly provides my colleagues
with a work setting in which they can do their work
without fear, and that's a good thing.
Are there certain aspects of Harvard University
about which I'm critical?
Yeah, sure.
- By the way, I think a few people,
rightfully, wrongfully, would disagree with you
that if the ethos of Harvard University
took over the country, it'd be a better place,
but there's a lot of interesting ways to break that down
'cause Harvard, there's not one ethos.
There's a lot of things going on that are very interesting.
But one of the things that's happening
is the disproportionate and kind of aggressive growth
of the administration versus faculty and students.
I think the power of university
should always be with the faculty and the students.
That's where the beauty is.
That's where the flourishing happens.
And the more you have kind of rules and bureaucracy
and all this kind of stuff,
the less powerful the university is.
- I think that at my university and at many universities,
that's right, there's too much bureaucracy,
too much regulation.
And are there dangers to freedom of expression
§07Transcript · 1:08:00–1:20:06
at my university and at other universities?
Answer, yeah, there are.
There are.
And this has really hit home for me.
There was a period of time in which I was getting off
of, I had gotten off of all boards.
I was just doing my work.
Forget it, I'm just gonna do my work.
I'm not gonna be associated with any organizations.
In the last five years, that has changed quite dramatically.
I have gotten on various, I've reassociated myself
with various organizations,
mainly organizations involving academic freedom
because of what's going on on university campuses.
Again, I have been, at least thus far, thus far,
this hasn't pinched me where I live, but--
- You mean in the space of ideas?
- In the space of ideas, in the space of speech,
in the face of teaching, I haven't been pinched.
But I am concerned about things.
So for instance, let's imagine that you're applying
for a job, you wanna be an assistant professor.
Or let's suppose that you're seeking a promotion.
On many university campuses, you are asked to give
a DEI statement in which you say,
I plan to, one of the reasons why you should hire me
or one of the reasons why you should promote me
is because I'm going to advance the DEI ambitions.
- Diversity, equity, and inclusion, for people who don't know,
this is the general set of programs
that most universities now have.
- Yes, that's right.
So you've got a sort of, basically,
what you're being asked to do,
whether they say it explicitly or not,
they don't say this explicitly,
but this is what is up.
What you're being asked to do is to say,
I'm down with the diversity, equity, and inclusion ethos,
program, policy, campaign.
And here's what I've done that shows
that I'm down with this program.
And therefore, I'm okay.
Well, a lot of what I do would fit
very comfortably within that.
But let's suppose that I didn't,
just suppose I didn't like this.
And by the way, there's certain aspects of the DEI industry
that I don't like.
You mean to tell me that I'm being judged
at an academic institution?
Let's suppose I wanna be a chemist.
Let's suppose I wanna be a physicist.
Let's suppose I wanna be, I don't care,
a critic of literature.
I oppose this program.
I don't think this is the way
in which higher education should be going.
Should I have to, on pain of relinquishing
my ability to be hired,
should I have to sign onto this?
Just suppose, and let's change it around.
Let's not make it a DEI campaign.
Let's make it a Make America Great Again campaign.
What would we think then?
Let's suppose it was something that said,
instead of it saying DEI,
let's make it say,
the advancement of American capitalism as we know it.
We want you to be down with that.
What have you done that shows us
that you believe in the advancement
of capitalism in America?
Would I be happy about, no, I would say this is, no.
Well, no with respect to these, as far as I'm concerned,
with the DEI statements.
Oh, here's another one.
I just learned, and in fact,
I mean, there's certain things that are happening,
and I must say, I mean, I'm in academia,
but it's news to me.
I didn't know until relatively recently
about positionality statements.
So these are statements in which somebody writes an article.
Let's suppose, I write an article,
and it's not enough for me just to submit my article
to some law review or to some other sort of journal.
No, in addition to me submitting my article,
I've got to give a positionality statement
in which I say whether I am gay or straight
or what have you, in which I say my race,
in which I say my nationality,
in which I say my stance
toward this ideological position
or that ideological position.
Interesting.
What?
Is this becoming a kind of a standard?
I don't know how widespread it is.
I know there was a very good article
in the New York Times a couple of days ago
about these positionality statements,
and in fact, that's what sort of tipped me off.
Somebody had told me there's a law review
at my home institution,
and I had a friend who sort of mentioned this offhandedly
and who said, "Well, I submitted an article to this journal,
"and I was a little bit taken aback
"in so far as they did have me fill out a questionnaire
"in which I was required to state my race,
"state this, state that, state the other."
And as far as I'm concerned,
well, what does that have to do
with a proper assessment of somebody's work?
This concerns me.
I'm concerned about the fact,
a little while ago, you mentioned,
a little while ago, you mentioned the word Negro.
I was talking with colleagues a couple months ago,
and somebody mentioned that this word
had come up in their class,
because what happened was one student
was reading from a Supreme Court decision,
and the word Negro was part of what they read out,
and another student held up his hand
and said to the student who was reading,
"Hey, you should be careful,
"because I find the word Negro offensive,
"and you need to be careful about even saying a word
"that would be offensive to someone."
And this person, and then the teacher was,
"What should I say in those circumstances?
"What should I have said?"
And I volunteered, and I said,
"Well, guys, that's really interesting,
"'cause see, if that had come up in my class,
"I would have said, well, frankly,
"I don't even see what the big deal is,
"'cause I use the word Negro."
And Harvard University is not on some level
that is apart from everything else
that's happening in the world.
If these things are happening in other places,
if they're happening at Stanford,
if they're happening at Yale,
if they're happening at Columbia,
they're gonna happen at Harvard.
But thus far, and I am most especially experienced
in life at Harvard Law School,
Harvard Law School is an open environment
in which ideas are tested, and they are tested fully.
And it's because of that that I say
I have been fully supported at Harvard Law School,
feel that it is an excellent place in which to do work.
I'm a fan, I am a fan, and I'm not embarrassed to say it.
I am a fan of my workplace, Harvard Law School.
I'm very happy to be associated with Harvard Law School.
- Zooming out, in general in education,
there's something called critical race theory.
Can you comment on what are your thoughts
about this kind of perspective on race and race in America
to the degree that it's becoming a part
of the education program?
- Okay, so the first thing I wanna say--
- What is it?
- Well, the first thing I wanna say
about critical race theory is that critical race theory
has become a term, so I'm gonna put quotation marks
around the term critical race theory.
In a minute, I'll talk about critical race theory
without quotation marks, but to begin with,
I wanna talk about critical race theory
because the reason why people are talking
about critical race theory so much now
is because politicians, mainly Republican
right-wing politicians, have created a boogeyman
critical race theory with quotation marks around it.
They have created a boogeyman, and they have tried
to make it seem as though this boogeyman
believes all sorts of ideas that Americans should loathe
and that Americans should fear.
And they've created this boogeyman,
and they've created it, and they've done a very good job
of creating the boogeyman, and they have mobilized
sufficient public support such that there are a number
of states that have passed laws prohibiting the teaching
of so-called critical race theory.
Now, the first thing I wanna say about this
is that this campaign, these laws, these various policies,
telling teachers don't teach this and don't teach that,
and you can't use this book, you can't use that book.
This is a frightening encroachment on freedom,
freedom of speech, freedom to learn, freedom to listen,
freedom to read.
That's terrible, and it's one of the most frightening things
that has happened in American life in recent memory.
So that's the first thing I wanna say
about so-called critical race theory.
Now, now I'll say something.
I'm gonna take the quotation marks off
§08Transcript · 1:20:09–1:33:17
of the term critical race theory.
Critical race theory is a sort of a,
you could have a nice conversation
about actually what it is.
One way of viewing it is to say that,
well, critical race theory is a community of ideas
that comes from a community of people.
The community of people would be people in legal academia
in the period, 1908 starting,
and probably the middle of the 1980s.
It would be associated with people like Derrick Bell.
It would be associated with people like Kimberly Crenshaw,
people like Charles Lawrence, people like Richard Delgado,
people like Mary Matsuda,
and these are folks who held,
embraced a couple of,
they articulated a couple of propositions.
One of their propositions was that
liberal race policy was insufficient.
They would say that the racial policies
of a person like my old boss, Thurgood Marshall,
the liberal racial policies were insufficient
to grapple fully with the pervasiveness
and the depth and intensity of American racism.
Their basic claim,
and I think by the way, it was a good claim.
Their basic claim was that American racism is more central,
more deeply embedded in American life
than most people perceived, including liberals.
And I think there was a lot of strength to that proposition.
But then they also took on some other propositions
with which I was in very strong disagreement.
So I think it's perfectly fine to say
that racism is a force in American life
that is deeper, more pervasive, more stubborn,
more resilient than I think people often understand,
often perceive.
But then some of the folks in critical race theory
push further.
One of the propositions that some of the people
in critical race theory took was the proposition
that America was doomed to always be a country
that would be governed according to the dictates
of white supremacy.
Derrick Bell, who was a colleague of mine
and a friend of mine, took that position.
He talked about the permanence of racism in American life.
And he took the position that the various changes
that had been wrought in American life
were really mainly cosmetic.
They didn't amount to a whole lot.
I mean, Derrick Bell took the position,
the second Reconstruction, the Civil Rights Movement.
Well, yeah, it made changes, but at the end of the day,
black people were still, after the second Reconstruction,
were still in a position of almost, I don't know,
some of them would even say neo-slavery.
Well, I think that's ridiculous.
The second Reconstruction changed a lot.
And as for neo-slavery, neo-slavery,
what are you talking about?
A black American was president of the United States
between the years 2008 and 2016.
I mean, what are we talking about here?
There's been a tremendous change,
and I think people ought to understand that.
Now, am I saying that everything is peachy keen
and all right?
No, the United States is still,
to a very large extent, still a pigmentocracy,
but that doesn't mean that a lot hasn't changed.
A lot has.
So I disagree with certain tenets of critical race theory
and have been very outspoken in my disagreement.
There's another one, by the way, I need to mention,
because we've talked so much in our discussion
about freedom of speech, freedom to teach,
freedom of listening.
Another big problem that I've had
with some of the people who talk of themselves
as critical race theory people
has to do with their attitude towards freedom,
freedom of speech.
Some critical race theory people
think that the American legal system
is wrong in the latitude
that it gives to what they call hate speech
or the latitude that it gives
to what they would view as racist beliefs.
Some of the people who associate themselves
with critical race theory think that racist beliefs
ought to be expunged with the aid of state power,
if need be.
Well, I'm against that.
And I think we are at a moment,
an ironic moment, in which actually it's the right wing
that has embraced some of the ideas
that were championed by some of the people
who call themselves critical race theorists.
They say, "Oh, we ought to expunge hate speech."
Well, the right wing is saying,
"This critical race theory, that's hate speech,
"so let's expunge it."
And so I, again, I've been very outspoken
in my criticism of some of the illiberal dimensions
of critical race theory.
So I've been a critic of certain features
of critical race theory.
I have applauded certain features of critical race theory.
Critical race theory, there's some aspects of it
that I think have been useful.
There's some aspects of it that I think have been
profoundly wrong-headed.
So that's where I am.
And I certainly, and above all,
I certainly am against any efforts to remove it
from the intellectual universe.
It is a part of our intellectual universe.
People ought to know about it.
And people ought to debate it.
And people ought to be free to make up their minds
to conclude what they will about the strengths
and weaknesses of critical race theory.
- And we'll talk about the pessimistic
and the optimistic perspective on race
in the history of the 20th century in America.
I think you have very interesting perspectives there.
But before that, I'd love to look at the current moment
and you had a conversation with Glenn Lowry
and John McWhorter.
And from there, it became clear to me,
I think John made clear how important
the conversation about race is policing in today's society.
That that's where a lot of African-Americans feel
is sort of the pinnacle of racism sits,
the people that believe there's still racism in America.
There's still a lot of racism in America.
That's where it is.
So to what degree do you think
there's widespread institutional racism in policing?
- Yeah, well, my first book was a book
called Race, Crime, and the Law.
- 1997.
- 1997, wow.
- Time flies.
- Time flies.
Unfortunately, unfortunately,
the impetus behind that book stands.
That book was propelled by a sense that with respect
to the administration of criminal justice,
African-Americans feel deeply aggrieved
and they feel deeply aggrieved with good reason.
And they feel deeply aggrieved with good reason
in at least two dimensions.
On the one hand, African-Americans suffer
from under protection.
And in fact, in that book, the central theme of that book
was that black Americans suffer from under protection.
If you take a look at the broad,
sort of the broad trajectory of American history,
and ask yourself, in what way have black Americans
been most oppressed?
Well, take a look at the antebellum period,
period before the abolition of slavery.
Before the abolition of slavery,
in the locales where most black people resided,
namely the slave states.
In a lot of those areas, question,
was there a crime called the murder of a black person?
Answer, for a long period, the answer was no.
There might've been a tort, you know,
of a white person killed the slave, killed a slave.
That person could be sued because they had injured
the property of another and would have to pay money
for that, but had they committed a crime?
Answer, no.
In the antebellum period, were black women protected
against the crime of rape?
In most states, the answer was no.
There was no such crime.
Let's go to after, you know, slavery is abolished.
Thank God, slavery is abolished.
Then let's see, you know, what happens?
So we hear lynching, lynching.
From 1890 until, let's say, 1930.
Well, you know, in 1890, there was probably,
you know, I would say there was probably, on average,
a lynching every day in the United States,
you know, well over 300 lynchings.
It goes down, that was the case in the 1890s,
probably the first decade of the 20th century,
and then it starts going down.
What was lynching about?
Lynching was about black people being executed
outside the law.
Did the legal system do anything about that?
Answer, no.
You know, show me, show me cases
in which people were prosecuted criminally
for engaging in lynching.
§09Transcript · 1:33:20–1:44:44
You come up, in most places, with a null set.
Black people suffered the underprotection of the law.
Do black people still suffer the underprotection of the law?
The answer is yes.
And people talk about the Kerner Commission Report, 1968.
Black people were asked, you know,
with respect to the police, what's your main complaint?
In many places, the main complaint was,
we don't have police protection.
You know, when things happen to us,
when our houses are burgled,
when our businesses are encroached upon by robbers,
when our businesses are robbed,
when we're assaulted, you know, nothing happens.
The police protect white people, they don't protect us.
Underprotection.
Our society right now, if you take a look at the statistics,
who is most liable to be raped, robbed,
the victim of assault, what have you?
Black people.
I mean, and it's not even close.
Underprotection.
So that's one way in which the administration
of criminal justice harms black people
by not doing what government is supposed to do,
which is protect us.
14th Amendment, you know, equal protection,
I underline protection of the law.
So that was a big theme of race, crime, and the law.
Now, second thing, second,
and this is the thing that gets most attention,
and it's important.
I think that the underprotection story
does not get enough attention,
but then there's a second story.
The second story is that black people have historically,
and still today, black people are subjects
of invidious racial discrimination
when it comes to police action.
So, you know, walking down the street,
walking down the street,
you have a black person who's, let's say, 20 years old,
you have a white person who's 20 years old,
and let's make them men,
both just walking down the street.
And the question,
attitude of the police towards these two.
And attitude, you know, is a complicated thing.
It can show itself in various ways.
It can show itself in a look.
It can show itself in who gets the look.
You know, black persons, you know,
walking down the street or running down the street.
White persons walking down the street
or running down the street.
What happens with respect to the police?
Let's suppose that, you know, who gets the second look?
Who is followed?
Who is detained for a moment?
- Well, some of it, just on a small tangent,
I apologize to interrupt,
but attitude is an interesting one
because a lot of it, a lot of the interaction
doesn't show up in the data.
So detained, for example, starts showing up in the data.
But before then, the second look, the third look,
the first look, this is where the gray area
of conversation happens because--
- Very much so.
- Culture and society happens in the stuff
that doesn't often show up in the data.
- Yep, yep.
So I tell ya, this really came home to me
several years ago.
I was in New York City, and it was at a time
when there was a lot of discussion over the--
- Stop and frisk.
- Stop and frisk, basically, you know,
racial profiling on the street.
I was walking, I was in Harlem,
I'm walking down the street,
and frankly, the police weren't bothering me.
I'm just walking, no, no, no,
police weren't bothering me, but you know,
I'm of a certain age.
I did notice, though, I was looking at the police
and the way that the police attitude,
you know, had to do with body posture,
it had to do with, that's right, who got a second look.
It had to, I noticed, I'm walking in the street,
I'm walking in Harlem,
there are white people in the street,
you know, most of the people, though, were black,
some Hispanic.
The level of contempt, the level of animus,
the level of unfriendliness that was pouring off,
the cop, the police, they didn't say anything.
Nope, they didn't detain, they didn't say anything.
It was palpable.
I could feel the attitude that was being directed
at the young black men.
And the thing is, see, the thing is,
it's not as if this doesn't matter.
It matters because the way I saw it,
these young black men knew.
They felt the contempt that the police were shedding,
and this was gonna have a consequence.
The consequence it was gonna have is,
let's imagine that the police did say, excuse me,
you know, what are you up to?
Now, if you have been feeling this contempt,
if you feel like the officer who was asking this question
doesn't like you, doesn't know anything about you,
but just doesn't like you on sight,
you might answer in a certain sort of way.
You're not going to give the cop the benefit of the doubt
and basically think, well, you know,
policeman's just asking me this,
probably just trying to make the neighborhood safe.
Well, if that's your feeling,
policeman's just asking me this,
trying to make the neighborhood safe,
well, officer, the reason why I'm here is such and such.
And, you know, thanks for your service.
That's one response.
Another response is,
I'm not gonna tell you anything.
You know, I'm not gonna tell you anything.
I know that you don't mean me any,
I know that you don't mean me any good.
I'm not gonna tell you anything.
Am I free to leave?
And then the cop, having heard that,
then says something bad.
You know, after five minutes, what do you have?
You have an altercation on your hand.
And I felt that, and that is part,
and you're absolutely right, that's not written down.
It doesn't get to court.
It's there, but it's an important part of street life.
It's an informal part of street life.
And it has ripple effects because that young black man
will probably talk shit about that cop later that day,
so the narrative persists,
and then the cop will also talk shit,
and then there's these narratives.
And I think the contempt is such a powerful thing.
- It's so hard to disentangle,
because you're absolutely right.
The young man, let's suppose that the story ends,
quote, well.
He's gonna go, and he's gonna be talking with his friends,
and he's gonna say,
"Let me tell you what just happened to me."
And his friends are gonna say,
"Oh yeah, that doesn't surprise me.
"Let me tell you what happened to me."
And for two hours, this goes on.
The anger, the feeling of humiliation,
the feeling of aggrievement grows.
It's disseminated, and that's part of what we have.
But that's not all of, that's a important part
of what we have, but we have, it's even worse than that,
because then you ask the question,
what about things we do know?
I know this from my teaching.
This was brought up.
There was a lawsuit in New York City.
And notice I didn't say Birmingham, Alabama.
I didn't say Atlanta, Georgia.
I didn't say Tallahassee, Florida.
I didn't say the Deep South.
I didn't say Montana.
I didn't say Idaho.
New York City, cosmopolitan place, metropolis.
In New York City, the police were challenged
with respect to their policies.
A judge wrote a very lengthy opinion,
and the facts were rolled out,
and the facts were really quite horrifying.
People, there were black men who had been stopped
many, many times, it wasn't just once,
over and over and over again,
under circumstances in which
they ought not have been stopped.
And this has real consequences.
It doesn't just show up here, though, of course.
It also shows up in other places
with respect to the administration of justice.
And we still have a big problem.
Now, you mentioned the police.
If you ask yourself, who are the state agents
that are most consequential?
The police.
I mean, you walking down the street,
what other agents have guns on them?
What other agents are authorized by the law
to shoot you under certain circumstances?
It's the police.
The police are the most consequential agents of the state
§10Transcript · 1:44:49–1:56:15
that most people interact with.
- I mean, to push back a little bit,
of consequential in a physical sense,
but if we return to the power
of the psychological sense of contempt,
I would say store clerks and stuff like that
can also be a source of contempt.
- They're not agents of the state.
- Right, but if we look at the landscape of contempt,
which throughout the 20th century,
or the bus, right,
you can experience the same kind of contempt
in other aspects of society.
But yes, the cops have consequences.
- I would still put the police.
The policeman or the police person
is a person walking down the street with a gun.
- Gun, yeah.
- And if you think about the way in which the law,
the extent to which the police are authorized
to use their force,
the police have extraordinary authority.
You know, you're driving your car and you're speeding.
The police could arrest you right then and there
and take you to jail.
That's an extraordinary power.
- But they also have, because of that,
the leverage, just one human to another,
they have more leverage to be an asshole
and to show contempt to you.
- They certainly do.
- To be the lesser,
to lean into the lesser aspects of their nature
as all humans can,
just to be an asshole, to show contempt.
You had a bad day, they have more freedom to do that.
- Yes, and that's why,
that's why police officers
are very important.
I recognize, I mean, I know police officers.
They have a very difficult job,
a very important job, very important.
Again, remember what I talked about under protection.
I want the police to protect me.
I want the police to protect me from the rapist, the robber.
So I, you know, the police, I'm with the police.
We need good policing.
We, but we need good policing.
And for good policing, we need accountability.
And one of the scandals,
one of the just absolute scandals of American law
is the extent to which the police are not held accountable.
It's absolutely remarkable the degree to which
American law fails to properly hold police accountable.
They have an important job, a difficult job.
I want them to be very well paid.
As far as I'm concerned, you know, we should be,
police should make more money.
They should be, given the importance of what they do,
they should have more respect, more prestige, more money.
With all of that, they should be held accountable.
And the way things are now, they're not held accountable.
And every day we see the consequences in our newspapers
or just, you know, talking with people.
- So what do you make of the different perspective on this
from, to bring up a person that I'll probably speak with,
Heather McDonald, who wrote a book called "War on Cops,"
and will often bring up the stuff
that does show up in the data,
to show the disproportionate amount of homicides
committed by African Americans.
And will also justify racial profiling on that basis
in stop and frisk programs.
And will also bring up things like the Ferguson effect,
saying that because of this pushback
and all the stuff we've been saying about police,
in those areas, the police will step back
and crime will increase.
I was in one debate with her.
And one of the things that I said is,
it was a debate that was sponsored
by the Federalist Society, conservative legal group.
You know, these were conservative law students
at Harvard Law School.
She made a presentation and they asked me to respond.
And one of the things that I said was,
when we're talking about the police,
I'm disappointed with the reaction
of some of my conservative colleagues.
And I would consider her
to be one of my conservative colleagues.
Because what are the sort of the,
what are some of the important precepts
of conservatives?
One very important precept of conservatives,
limited government, limited government.
You know, conservatives talk about the tendency
of government to overreach itself
and governmental agents to overreach themselves.
And I say, you're right.
You're right, right on.
Why is it that you somehow forget that
when you're talking about the police?
When you're talking about the police,
you seem to be unaware of this tendency
that is so much in your consciousness and other places.
But now when you're talking about the police,
you make it seem as though I'm,
you know, other people are being paranoid.
When they talk about the danger of overreach,
we need to be very careful about the danger of overreach.
Another thing with respect to the police,
what do conservatives, transparency in government.
You're right.
You're absolutely right.
We need transparency in government.
So why is it that so often
when we're talking about policing,
why is it that conservatives actually embrace police unions
and are the enemies of transparency?
Why is it that you want to prevent the citizenry
from knowing that officer so-and-so has,
you know, there've been 10 incidents in the last year
in which citizens have complained about officer so-and-so.
Don't you think that the citizenry ought to know that?
Why is it that you want to keep that under wraps?
So overreach, transparency, the tendency,
or the problem of governmental agent corruption.
Why is it that those sorts of things
are forgotten about when some conservatives,
by the way, not all conservatives, not all conservatives.
There's some conservatives who have stuck
and appropriately so to their guns and have said,
A, we need to make sure that the police stay in their lane.
We need to make sure that the police
do not overstep constitutional bounds.
We need to be, we need to insist on transparency.
There are some conservatives who have taken that line
and I salute them, but there are a lot of conservatives,
and I would say Heather MacDonald was one of them,
who all of a sudden become just, you know,
totally uncritical status
when they're talking about the police.
- So the overstepping, overreach, the lack of transparency.
Of course, we see this kind of stuff
in foreign policy as well,
which is starting military conflicts
and a lot of the supporters, at least with Iraq
and Afghanistan wars, were conservatives
and hawks and so on.
So there's a lot of hypocrisy
in terms of principles and so on.
But maybe one question is,
in this discussion about racism and policing,
there was a lot of cops that might listen to this
and feel like they're not being,
their profession's not being respected,
they're not being heard,
not being respected to the difficulty
of the problem they're facing.
- Can I just interrupt, Jack?
Remember a few moments ago,
I mean, if I were in charge of things,
if I were in charge of things,
I'd pay police more, in fact, much more
than they receive.
I do, police have a very difficult job,
extraordinarily difficult job.
I mean, for one thing, sort of maintaining the law.
The law, that's a very complicated thing, the law.
That's not an easy thing.
I mean, I teach law.
I spend a lot of hours with very smart people
trying to understand the law, very difficult.
So here we expect people to understand the law
at the same time that they are grappling with people,
some of whom are violent.
It's very difficult.
I respect police officers,
and I said, we need police officers.
You did not hear me say, by the way,
so let's get down to brass tacks.
You did not hear me say, defund the police, did you?
In fact, to the contrary, I said, defund,
actually, I want more funds for the police.
I wanna hold them accountable.
I understand the difficulty of their job.
I respect the police.
I want people to respect the police.
I also want the police to respect civilians
and demand that they do.
I am not a police abolitionist, far from it, far from it.
Again, we need good policing.
For good policing, we need good people.
- To what degree, almost philosophically,
maybe practically, do you think police
should be doing racial profiling?
Profiling in general.
- Okay.
- It's a very difficult philosophical,
§11Transcript · 1:56:18–2:08:19
moral, human question.
- Yeah.
So, first thing we need to do,
and here we get back to the early part of our conversation
because we focused so much on, first part, a word.
Here we have another word, profiling.
Question, what is racial profiling?
Now, here we have, in the weeds,
we have people talking past one another.
I've been in conversations with police officers in debates
and we talk past one another
because we are defining racial profiling very differently.
If you ask, I've been in conversations
with police officers and they say,
"Oh, I'm totally against racial profiling."
And then I say, "Well, sir, what do you mean
by racial profiling?"
And here's what they say.
Racial profiling is when police officers act
against somebody wholly on the basis of race.
That gets rid of the issue
because most police officers don't act
against anyone wholly on the basis of race.
You could have the most racist police officer
and that police officer is not going to act adversely
against the 90-year-old black woman
walking down the street with a cane.
If you define racial profiling that way,
you're getting rid of the issue.
The issue is, the proper issue is this.
Should the police be able to act against someone
taking race into account as a factor?
So let's imagine that a black person who's 25 years old
is walking down the street right next to a white person
who's 25 years old.
Some people would say, "You know what?
Under those circumstances,
it's okay for the police officer
to give two looks at the black person
and only one look at the white person."
Why?
Because the statistics tell us that the black 25-year-old,
there's much more risk of that person acting
in an unlawful way.
If you take a look at crime statistics
and ask the question
with respect to homicide, with respect to robbery,
with respect to various crimes,
is there a difference between the white 25-year-old
and the black 25-year-old?
With respect to certain crimes,
in certain places, the answer is,
yeah, there is a difference.
And there is a greater risk
that the black 25-year-old has engaged
in various forms of criminality.
I'm not, you know, that, okay.
Under those circumstances, what do I say?
Should the police officer therefore
be allowed to take action vis-a-vis the black person
as opposed, you know, as against the white person?
My answer is no.
I'm fully willing to concede.
Let's concede for the point of, you know,
for the point of discussion that there is more risk.
There might be.
There might be.
But for reasons of constructing the sort of society I want,
we should not empower agents of the state
to act towards certain people
in a way that's, you know, adverse to them.
Let me try to break this down in a little different way.
Let's go back to,
let's talk about what happens
when you wanna get on an airplane.
You know, it wasn't so long,
you know, 9/11 wasn't all that long ago.
It was a while ago, but it wasn't all that long ago.
And this very issue came up
with respect to the profiling of Muslims.
And there were some people who said,
well, geez, you know, in the aftermath of 9/11,
profiling of Muslims makes sense.
You know, no hard feelings,
but, you know, the 11 people who, you know,
were on those planes were all Muslims.
Now, there is a rationale, you could just simply say.
It's not prejudice, it's not animus, it's not invidious.
It's just, you know, the facts take us this way.
Well, the facts never take us this way.
There are facts, and then there is our choice
of how we want to respond to those facts.
Now, you could respond by saying,
well, we perceive Muslims to be more likely
to, you know, do bad things on an airliner.
You could respond in that way.
On the other hand, you could say, no.
We want a society in which people do not have to grapple
with prejudice on the basis of their religion
or on the basis of their race.
And to deal with that, we are gonna demand,
we're gonna demand that agents of the state
act towards people in the same way.
And so if that means that everybody getting on the airplane
before they get on the airplane has to, you know,
open up their luggage and it slows things down,
but everybody has to open up their luggage,
I would prefer that over a system in which we are
a system in which we focus on people who are Muslim.
And one of the reasons, and I'm gonna bring this back
to the racial thing, one of the reasons why I wanna insist
upon that is because if, you know,
if we all have to open up our luggage,
what that means is we're all paying a tax for more security.
And we're all likely to ask ourselves,
hmm, do we wanna pay this tax?
Whereas if we focus simply on the Muslims
and allow the Muslims to be the only ones
who are sort of paying the tax, we'll force that on them.
Same in the, you know, black person, white person,
25 years old, walking down the street.
Do we want to impose a racial tax on people
who are black, 25 years old?
Do we want to impose a racial tax on the black 25 year old?
Some people would say yes.
I say that's a mistake.
Black people aren't stupid.
They know that they're paying this tax.
It is a violation of, it seems to me,
the rules that we ought to want to have
to govern our society.
Please deal with everybody the same
and don't allow a situation to develop
in which a group of people can accurately say,
we are paying more of a cost
than these other people over here.
- So it's a better avoiding profile is,
while it may have costs on security in the short term,
in the long term, it's the embodiment of the principles
that all men are created equal.
So it has a much bigger benefit
in representing the fairness that is at the core
of the ideals of this country.
Let me ask a big philosophical question.
Why do you think there is racism in the world?
- Oh, now you've, okay, fine.
Now you've asked me a question which I throw up my hands
and I don't know.
- Will there always be?
Why is there tribalism?
Are humans always finding this way to divide ourselves?
And how bad of a problem is that?
- It's a huge problem.
I'm not gonna pretend that I know enough
to grapple in a satisfactory way with such a question.
I mean, to really grapple with that question,
one really has to have a very broad knowledge base
in which they can make comparisons.
I mean, the world's a big place.
Now, from the little bit I know about the world,
I read, I read as much as I can.
I've been, I'm a very privileged character.
I mean, I live in a university,
so I'm reading constantly and listening constantly.
From what I gather, the problem of divided societies
is a problem that is worldwide.
There's, and it seems as though human ingenuity
is such that humans will find something to divide over.
It might be texture of hair.
It might be complexion of skin.
- Political ideology.
- Political ideology.
If the texture of skin is the same,
it'll then be, well, you wear these sorts of clothes.
You speak in this sort of way.
You believe this, whereas I believe that.
I mean, it seems like a human ingenuity is such
they will, humans will find some way
of distinguishing themselves,
and then they seem to want to embellish the distinction.
It's not just a distinction.
It's not just you believe this and I believe this.
Okay, that makes the world interesting.
Let's talk about what you believe and what I believe.
No, it's usually associated with you believe this,
I believe this.
Of course, my belief is superior to your belief,
and I want to put you down,
and now we're headed towards war.
- The interesting thing is,
if I were to step outside of this whole thing,
from an alien perspective visiting Earth,
I think America is one of the greatest,
if not the greatest countries
in the history of human civilization,
and I think that the line between white and black,
the racial struggle, is the thing that,
in part, made it a great nation.
There's something about the division
and the way you alleviate that division
§12Transcript · 2:08:21–2:19:32
through the struggle for human rights
that makes for a great nation,
and so it's interesting that the division
is almost the fuel for the greatness,
for our discovery of what it means to be human,
what it means to be, or what justice means,
and it's interesting that it seems like
there's this struggle that you're elucidating now,
but that struggle itself is our search,
a man's search for meaning and justice and freedom.
- I think there's something to that.
As you were speaking, I was immediately thinking of
the person who most jumped to mind
was the great Frederick Douglass.
So, I mean, here you have a person who, in my view,
is one of the great people in the history of the world,
and one of the things that ironically enabled him
to become one of the great people of the world,
he was born into slavery.
His overcoming was the very thing
that, in a sense, made him this larger-than-life figure,
and I think there's something to it.
I will say this, because a minute ago,
you mentioned optimism and pessimism,
and I'd say in the last few years,
my feeling about the United States has changed,
and it's changed in a somber way.
For most of my life, I've been in the optimistic camp
with respect to my view of American race relations.
I've been in the optimistic camp
with respect to my view of American race relations.
You know, the optimistic camp, that was the camp,
that's the camp that believes we shall overcome.
That's Martin Luther King's camp.
I mean, Martin Luther King, you know, Martin Luther King,
you know, hours before he's killed,
I've been to the mountaintop.
I might not get there with you,
but I've glimpsed the promised land.
Optimism.
Frederick Douglass would be in that tradition.
There would be other people, wonderful, good people,
who would be in that tradition.
- Would you, sorry to interrupt,
put in the pessimist camp, would you put Malcolm X in it?
- Oh, in the pessimistic camp,
the pessimistic camp is the more interesting camp.
(Luke laughs)
I mean, ideologically, I mean, it is,
it's the more interesting camp,
because in the pessimistic camp, you have,
I mean, if I was gonna list some of my pessimists,
pessimist number one, Thomas Jefferson.
Thomas Jefferson, the author, you know,
principal author, Declaration of Independence,
he was also the author of "Notes on the State of Virginia."
And he said in "Notes on the State of Virginia,"
basically, we shall not overcome.
He talked, he said, you know,
"The black people will always know
"that their forebears were enslaved,
"and they will always be resentful of that,
"always be aggrieved by that."
Jefferson did not think that we would ever have,
in the United States, a multiracial democracy.
He was very critical of slavery.
Now, he was a hypocrite.
He had slaves, he sold slaves.
He was terrible in that way,
but he did understand that slavery was horrible.
But he did not want,
but he did not wanna free the slaves
for a variety of reasons,
but in one reason was because he thought
that it would be impossible to have a society
in which blacks and whites were equal neighbors.
He was thoroughly pessimistic.
Another pessimist, Alexis de Tocqueville,
thoroughly pessimistic.
So who were some of the other pessimists?
Abraham Lincoln, pessimistic.
That's why he was so interested in colonization.
He basically said, you know, "I don't like slavery,
"but blacks and whites are not gonna be able
"to share the United States.
"Maybe the best we can do is just, you know,
"put blacks, ship blacks someplace else."
- Can you elaborate on that?
I think people would be surprised to hear
that you will put Abraham Lincoln in the pessimist camp.
- Oh, Abraham Lincoln's thoroughly pessimistic.
He believed, he was anti-slavery,
but he did not believe that blacks and whites
would be able to share the United States together,
and he was always very interested,
therefore, in colonization.
Even during the Civil War, he was interested in,
maybe all black people,
would all black people be interested
in maybe going to Panama?
Would they be interested in going someplace else?
Because, you know, Lincoln was aware
of how racist white people were, including himself,
and he did not think that black people and white people
would be able to share the United States.
Now, there's a black nationalist tradition.
You mentioned Malcolm X.
Well, before Malcolm X, you know, Marcus Garvey.
My father, my father was a thoroughgoing pessimist.
His view was, A, the United States
was born as a white man's country.
It's gonna remain a white man's country,
and that's the way it is.
He was thoroughly pessimistic.
- You mentioned, just a brief aside about your dad,
that when you moved from South Carolina to Washington, D.C.,
and you asked him why, his response to you was,
because either a white man was going to kill me,
or I was going to kill a white man.
- Yes.
- So he saw race as an important line
that divided people in the United States.
- He certainly did, and he thought that the line,
my father did not, my father had passed away
before Obama was elected.
I would have loved to have talked with my dad.
- What do you think he would have said?
And you've written, you wrote a book
about the Obama presidency.
- I did, I did, and I didn't, I never,
what would my father have said?
My father would have been delighted.
My father would have been happy about his election.
I do think, though, I do think that my father
would have said, I'm happy that Barack Obama
has been elected, hold on to your seats,
let's see how the white people respond.
- So he would have predicted Donald Trump.
- I think that my father, I think that in 2016,
I think that in 2016--
- He would have said, I told you.
- Yes, yes, I think that in 2016, my father would have said,
all of you people who are talking about,
I don't know what's happened to America,
and how could this have happened, and you know, no.
I think my father would have said,
this is America being America, and what has happened
is that America has been put off kilter
by a black family being in the White House.
It has deranged millions of white people,
and now this is coming home to roost.
So I think my father would have absolutely said in 2016,
I told you so.
- In 2016, as you're saying, is the reason
that you have at least dipped your toe
outside of the optimist camp into the pessimist camp.
- Yeah, I wanna be careful here, and I don't wanna--
- Don't give up on the optimist camp.
- I don't, you're right, I don't wanna give up
on the optimist camp, I don't.
I have been, my optimism has definitely been dampened,
has definitely been tested.
I am certainly, no, I am not as triumphalist as I once was.
I am not as indignant as I once was
in my criticism of pessimists,
but at this moment as we speak,
am I more in the optimist camp
than I'm in the pessimist camp?
I'm still probably more in the optimist camp,
but my optimism has been dampened.
But as I speak, I have to say the following things,
and I'd say the following things if my father,
but again, whom I revere, great man,
but if my father was sitting here with us,
I would say, "Listen, Pop, it's absolutely true
"that the country is more racist than I had thought.
"That is true.
"It's also true, Pop, that the Vice President
"of the United States as we speak is a black woman.
"As we speak, it's true that the Secretary of Defense
"is a black man.
"The Secretary of Defense is the head of the Pentagon.
"The Secretary of Defense knows where the button is, okay?
"This is not a small out of the way thing.
"This is the Secretary of Defense is a black man.
"There are a slew of black generals.
"There have been black secretaries of state.
"There are black people who are the heads of police forces.
"There are black mayors.
"There are black people who are the heads
"of some of our foremost foundations.
"The President-Elect of Harvard University
"is a black woman."
And we could go on and on and on and on.
When I was growing up, when I was growing up,
when I was, let's say, 10 years old,
we got a magazine, Ebony Magazine, every month.
And in Ebony Magazine, you could turn
to the middle of Ebony, and they would have Black Firsts.
The first black person to do this,
§13Transcript · 2:19:33–2:31:25
the first black person to do this.
You could read Ebony, and frankly,
I could tell you all of those.
I knew their names.
Now, I read stuff,
the leading cadet, the chief cadet
at the United States Naval Academy.
I'm reading, I'm reading, then I see a picture.
Black woman, I didn't know that.
Back in the day, I would have known that.
Now, has the United States changed?
Yes.
Is there racism?
Yes.
Is it a substantial force in American life?
Regrettably, tragically, yes.
Has the United States changed?
Yes, and again, if we wanna go international,
United States is not the only country
that is a country that has wrestled with deep division.
You think about, I don't know, think about India.
Think about the United Kingdom.
Think about practically any large nation state.
They've all grappled with divisions.
If one asks about the United States and the race question,
and one puts on the table that in 1865,
now, when I talk with students, I say 1865,
they think, oh my God, isn't that when dinosaurs roamed?
No, it wasn't when dinosaurs roamed.
1865, frankly, is not all that long ago.
In 1865, the great mass of black people
in the United States had recently been released
from chattel slavery.
The great mass of black people in the United States
in 1865 were illiterate.
Now, I mean, it's absolutely,
it's an absolutely extraordinary story.
And so one of the difficulties I have at this moment
is wrapping my head around two stories
that are in such tension with one another.
One is the continuing story of racism,
which is an awful story.
But the other story is a story that is encapsulated
in the title of a great book of history
by John Hope Franklin, "From Slavery to Freedom."
And those are two stories in American life,
and it takes an awful lot to put your mind
around both stories, and I'm trying to.
- Well, as an optimist, I think you put more value
to the overcoming side of the story,
the overcoming of hardship,
the overcoming of slavery, of discrimination.
Well, since you mentioned illiteracy from,
what is it, 150 years ago,
let me ask you about affirmative action.
You wrote a book on the topic,
titled "For Discrimination, Race, Affirmative Action,
and the Law."
First, what is affirmative action?
And maybe we could talk about what your view is on it today.
- Sure.
Well, affirmative action refers to,
racial affirmative action,
'cause there's various sorts of affirmative action.
You can have affirmative action for veterans.
You can have affirmative action for in-state residents.
Let's suppose you have a school,
the University of blah, blah, blah,
and we're gonna give a,
reach out a hand to boost, help,
people who live within the state.
We're gonna have a boost for veterans.
We're gonna have a boost for women.
We're gonna have a boost for men in certain circumstances.
Well, the most,
the type of affirmative action that gets most attention,
and that's worth noting as well,
there's lots of different sorts of affirmative action,
but when you say affirmative action,
the type of affirmative action
that immediately people are thinking about
is racial affirmative.
- Seems like race is at the core of this American experiment
that we're part of, in every part of its culture.
- Bingo, bingo.
Why is it that we, again, there's various ways
in which institutions reach out
to help various sectors of our population.
Why is it that this is the one
that generates all of the pulling out of hair
and gnashing of teeth?
We can put that to the side for a moment.
Racial affirmative action refers to efforts
in which institutions
reach out to provide assistance to racial minorities.
Now, the reaching out can happen in different ways.
A light form of affirmative action
might be reaching out in terms of recruiting,
making a special effort to make sure that young people,
let's say, in racial minority neighborhoods
know about your college.
That's recruitment.
On the other hand, racial affirmative action
might take a stronger form.
It might take the form of saying,
okay, we have a competition,
and we think that there will be too few
racial minority kids who do well enough in this competition
to be admitted to our school.
So what we're gonna do is we are going to,
in various ways, give a boost to the minority kids.
If it comes down to you have two kids,
they both, I don't know, have 99 on the test.
There's one place left.
We only have one spot left, two kids.
One's a black kid, one's a white kid.
They both got 99.
We're gonna give it to the black kid.
Why?
Well, black kid.
All there is to it.
Black kid, we wanna, maybe, and then our theory,
maybe our theory is that black people
have been done wrong in the United States,
and we want our institution to contribute to making amends.
That might be a theory.
Another theory might be,
we think that we'll have a more interesting student body.
We'll have a better student body,
a better discussion if there are more black kids on campus.
And unless we make a special effort
to bring more black kids on campus,
our student body will be overwhelmingly monoracial.
We'll just have white kids, a few Asian kids,
a few Latino kids, if there are no black kids here.
It'll be lacking an important aspect of American life.
So that's some sort of, the so-called diversity story.
So anyway, there are various theories.
Some are grounded, like I said, in reparative justice.
Some might be grounded in distributive justice.
So for instance, when people say nowadays,
we want a cabinet, we want a team,
we want a student body that looks like America.
That might be a distributive justice theory
for why you want affirmative action.
Unless we reach out and give a boost to certain groups,
they won't be here.
And we want a campus that looks like America.
And we won't have a campus that looks like America
unless we give a special boost to, I don't know,
the Latino kids, or unless we give a special boost
to black applicants.
So reparative justice, distributive justice,
or third, diversity, we just wanna have
an interesting student body.
And to have an interesting student body,
we want kids from a wide array of places.
We think that that'll make for a better campus,
more interesting campus.
Those are three justifications, all of which, however,
are justifications for, in a competition,
giving a special boost to some people based on their race.
- What's your sense?
Can you make the case for affirmative action,
and can you make the case against it?
- Yeah, I can make the case for,
and I can make the case against.
The case for, I won't spend much time on this.
Like I said, there are three main justifications.
Your audience should know that, one,
the justification that actually led to affirmative action
is a justification that you don't hear about in the courts,
because the courts have said that
that justification is insufficient.
So the real justification behind affirmative action
was in the late 1960s,
in the aftermath of the Civil Rights Revolution,
in the aftermath of the Civil Rights Movement,
there was a feeling that, well, okay, fine,
we're not discriminating against black people anymore,
but black people have been disadvantaged
by the discrimination that has been put upon them,
and this discrimination that was put upon them
has disabled them.
And so they go into competitions, and it's unfair.
Yeah, they score less well on the standardized test,
but surprise, surprise, what the heck?
They went to schools
in which they got the leavings of the white folks.
The white folks gave the black folks the old textbooks.
That's what the black kids read.
The white kids read the newest textbooks,
on and on and on.
So reparative justice,
we're gonna try to repair the scars
left by past racial injustice.
And so it's sort of an effort to overcome
the vestiges of past misdeeds.
That was one justification for affirmative action.
And frankly, I think that's the justification
§14Transcript · 2:31:27–2:41:53
that has always been the predominant justification,
whether people owned up to it or not.
But that's one justification.
The distributive justice justification is there.
Like I say, people, we want an integrated America.
We want an America that looks like America.
In that justification,
legitimacy is sometimes mentioned.
So for instance, people will say things like,
well, if we're gonna, in the armed forces,
you can't have an armed forces
in which the people on the ground
are, you have a lot of people on the ground
who are people of color,
but none of the people calling the shots,
none of the generals, none of the main colonels
are people of color.
No, and then, you know,
the people on the ground are not gonna stand for that.
So for purposes of legitimation,
we need to, for purposes of buy-in,
we need to have a situation in which people get the sense
that even if they're sort of low down,
they're still part of the story, they're part of the team.
So that's part of the sort of, you know,
I don't know, distributive justice notion.
- Do you think there's power to that?
I mean, do you think there's value,
there's correctness to that kind of idea?
- I think there's some.
- 'Cause for the application process
for different universities,
I think that's probably a driving narrative,
justification for, well, affirmative action,
I don't know where we put DEI efforts,
because they overlap, but they're not perfectly overlapping.
- The reason that the school, so yeah, as you know,
there is a case, we'll know about it,
it'll be announced sometime in the next month,
well, month, month and a half.
It's a case of the Supreme Court of the United States
in which the affirmative action program at Harvard
and the affirmative action program
at the University of North Carolina are being challenged.
Most people think, including me,
that the Supreme Court of the United States
is going to limit, if not totally seek,
to abolish affirmative action.
So this is a very burning issue.
As things currently stand,
my university and other universities
embrace affirmative action on the third ground,
the diversity ground.
And what they say is we need affirmative action
because affirmative action is good for pedagogical reasons.
Now, frankly, do I think there's something to that?
I think there's a little something to that
with respect to some subjects.
I don't think that's what's really going on
for the most part.
I mean, if that's what's really going on,
why don't we have more foreign students?
Why isn't there a greater effort
to bring in more foreign students?
Why isn't there a greater effort to bring in more,
I don't know, religious fundamentalists?
Why isn't there a greater effort to bring in,
and you could just name various groups
that are, you hardly ever see them on campus.
- So you don't think this kind of effort
of driving towards diversity is rigorous enough?
- I think it's often pretextual.
I think, frankly, the real reason has to do with the belief,
and I think it's a good belief.
I associate myself with the belief.
It's just that because of the legal rules,
the authorities can't say this belief out loud,
but it's still the case that a lot of institutions
want to help American society overcome its racial past.
That's the real animating force.
Now, this thing about, you know,
we'll have better classroom discussions,
you know, some discussions, I mean, you know,
with some subjects, yeah, listen,
I'm an ignoramus when it comes to physics.
My sense of it is, however,
that if you're talking about physics,
you're talking about physics,
and frankly, it doesn't much matter
in terms of mastering physics
what the demographics of that classroom are.
You either know physics or you don't.
- The interesting thing I've noticed
since doing this podcast is one way it does matter,
it's really lonely when you do a thing
and you don't see somebody that looks like you
doing that thing.
And it's such a seemingly stupid thing.
Why does it matter if there's another person
that looks like you in this very shallow sense?
But it seems to matter to people.
And when I talk to, for example, women on this podcast,
a lot of women reach out saying how inspiring that is.
That's interesting, right?
Like, I think we're still human
and we see people that look like us,
and this kind of narrow, shallow definition
of diversity still matters.
- Okay, well, you know, I think you've made a good point,
and maybe so.
So let's go back to the physics.
I mean, let's suppose that under one scenario,
there's a classroom and a kid sticks his head,
a black kid sticks his head in the classroom
and doesn't see anybody else black there
and has to make a quick decision and says,
"Yeah, you know, nah, this ain't for me."
Versus they stick their head in the classroom,
they see a smattering of other black people in the classroom,
they say, "Oh, let me try this."
And then they try it and it turns out,
damn it, they're Albert Einstein.
So to that extent, I can see under that scenario,
maybe it does matter.
So I'll have to recalibrate.
Still, those are the three leading justifications
for affirmative action.
You asked me where do I stand
with respect to affirmative action?
Oh, no, before we get to that, are there criticisms?
The answer is yes, there are criticisms
of affirmative action.
Affirmative action is a policy like, you know, any policy.
Any policy is gonna have some downsides to it.
And affirmative action is no different.
Does affirmative action have some downsides?
Yes, it does have some downsides.
What are they?
Well, let me mention a couple.
One, stigma, stigma.
So if you have an institution that says
that it reaches out to give a boost to certain people
on a racial basis,
there are gonna be people who observe that
and who are gonna be thinking to themselves,
hmm, if so-and-so is here
and they were given a special boost,
doesn't that mean that they were not as proficient
as the other people who are here
and who did not have that boost?
So if they are not as proficient,
that means that they might not be as good.
They might not be as up to snuff.
Is that part of our affirmative action world?
Yes, it's part of our affirmative action world, yes.
I'm a professor at Harvard Law School.
One of the subjects I teach is contracts.
Actually, that's probably the subject I most enjoy teaching.
I think I most enjoy writing about racial conflict
and the legal system, but as far as teaching,
I most enjoy teaching contracts.
Well, on that very first day, on the very first day,
when I, you know, 80 students come,
especially the first-year students, they're nervous,
I show up.
I'm quite sure that there's some students there
who are thinking, okay, well,
is this guy as good as my other teachers?
Because, you know, I know that, you know,
institutions like Harvard have made a special effort
to bring in people like this guy, Kennedy.
Is he as good?
Well, I mean, I'm sorry.
If you have an affirmative action regime,
people are gonna think that.
And are they crazy to think that?
No, they're not crazy to think that.
No, that's a perfectly logical thing
for somebody to think.
Does it have an effect on me as the teacher?
Yeah, actually, it does have an effect on me, sure.
I'm aware that some people are thinking that.
It doesn't, I'm not, you know,
it doesn't, you know, make me shake in my boots.
Am I aware of it?
Yeah, I'm aware of it.
Does it have an effect?
Yeah, it probably does have an effect.
It probably does.
It probably, it probably makes me,
it probably makes me redouble my efforts
because I don't want anybody to think justifiably
that I'm less able than my colleagues.
So, you know, it's funny.
When I was growing up, my father used to tell me
over and over again, "Randy, tie, tie, you lose, okay,
brother, let me just tell you that."
And he was telling me that because when he was, you know,
in an earlier time, tie, tie, you lose,
it was, you know, if it's even
§15Transcript · 2:41:57–2:53:06
and there's a choice to be made,
the white person is gonna get the benefit of the doubt.
Now, under affirmative action,
there's been a switcheroo.
Oftentimes it's the black person
who gets the benefit of the doubt,
but I'm still in a situation which-
Don't have to work hard.
Yes, to avoid the stigmatization
that is imposed by affirmative action.
But is that stigma there?
Yes, it's there.
It is there.
I'll tell you another way in which it comes up
from a student's point of view.
I'll never forget this.
It was in my second year of law school.
It was in tax class.
We had a very famous tax teacher, wonderful tax teacher.
On the very first day of class,
Professor Bittker, wonderful man, wonderful teacher,
Boris Bittker called on,
the very first person he called on was a black student.
I remember this as if it were yesterday,
called on a black student and it was a black woman student.
And I remember when he called on her,
I remember just, I felt,
I felt as if the room got quieter.
Really, I felt as if the room got quieter
and I know there was a real tenseness within me.
He didn't call on me 'cause he was calling on somebody else,
was a black woman student.
And I felt different.
I felt as if I was,
I felt as if I was somehow at issue.
I felt as if my place, I felt as if my status
was to some small degree at issue.
- In the positive direction or the negative?
- Just at issue. - At issue.
- And so, all of this is happening really quickly.
He calls on the student.
This is happening in seconds.
And she responded and she responded really strongly.
It was clear he asked her a question,
she answered the question, she answered the question,
beautiful, I mean, very strong,
comprehensive, wonderful response.
Now you might say, okay, well, smart student, okay, fine.
Next, after class, after class, I went up to her
and I clearly remember this.
I said, that was great, thank you.
Why?
Because I'm a black student,
predominantly white institution, Yale Law School.
And I felt some of the, again, affirmative action,
I felt some of the burden
of this affirmative action stigma.
- So it was almost like a thank you
for showing that we belong here.
- Yes, perfect, boom.
Yes, that's exactly what the situation,
and by the way, I wasn't the only one.
I wasn't being idiosyncratic.
I wasn't the only one.
There weren't many black people in that class,
but all of us.
And we laughed about it later.
We laughed about it, but that was there.
So there's the stigma issue,
and some people have made a lot of this.
Some people have really made a lot of the stigma issue.
My attitude towards the stigma issue, yeah, it's there.
It's, again, it's part of the situation,
but I think that the benefits outweigh the burdens.
But is that a burden?
Yeah, that's a burden.
What are some others?
Resentment, resentment in society.
And that's, so in the fancy schools,
and by the way, remember when we're talking
about affirmative action,
most colleges and universities in the United States,
there is no affirmative action issue
because they're not selective.
Hell, they'll take anybody who,
if you can pay, come on in.
It's only a fairly small set of schools that are selective,
but of course, those are the most elite schools.
Those are the schools that people most want to get into,
and that's one of the reasons why we have all this
fighting over those schools.
Now,
there's a whole, how many millions of people
are there in America who have applied to various places?
They didn't get in, and what do they say?
The white person who applied to Harvard,
applied to Yale, applied to Columbia,
applied to Georgetown, applied to NYU,
didn't get in.
What do they say?
I would have gotten in
if it hadn't been for that racial affirmative action.
They're resentful.
Well, should they be resentful?
No, they shouldn't be resentful, but they are resentful.
Does that have a consequence?
Yeah, it has a consequence.
It has a consequence on how they act towards other people.
It has a consequence on how they vote.
It has a consequence, and that's something.
Are there other things?
Yeah, and in my book, I go through various,
I think that there is a certain sort of denialism
that has accompanied the affirmative action debate.
So because black people like myself,
want to avoid the stigmatizing burden of affirmative action,
there's some people who to deal with that have said,
oh, actually, there is no difference between
the beneficiaries of affirmative action and the other kids.
There is no difference.
If the affirmative action kids got, let's say, a 500,
and the other kids got a 750,
that doesn't make any difference.
That's just BS.
The only reason the kid who,
the 550 kid didn't get 750 is because the test asks
all sorts of culturally biased things,
like what is a yacht?
Well, sorry.
Yes, there is a difference.
There's a 200 point difference.
Does the difference matter?
Yes, the difference matters.
And by the way, if you don't know what a yacht is,
you can know what a yacht is without owning a yacht, okay?
And there's this denialism that I think has really seeped
into various conversations.
- That can have a slippery slope effect
that's beyond just this.
- Yes, and we see it in various ways.
So this attack on testing,
it's not like I'm holding,
some tests are not good tests.
I think we should be skeptical of everything,
but there are a lot of tests that,
yeah, they tell us something, all right.
They tell us who knows what.
And there's some people who are really
dead set against testing because they're dead set
against anything that might show a gap.
Well, I think by the way, are there gaps?
Yeah, there are gaps.
And what we need to do is be cognizant of those gaps
and do things to make it so that if there's a gap,
if you're deficient, no shame in being deficient.
Heck, I'm deficient about a lot of things.
Let's learn so that I catch up.
But I think sometimes there have been people
who've been afraid of even acknowledging the gaps.
- Of course, there's, I guess a colleague of yours,
Michael Sandel, with Tyranny and Merit.
There's interesting, rigorous ways
to kind of challenge ways.
On the flip side of that,
where obsessing with merit can go wrong also.
- Yes, you mentioned Michael Sandel.
He's a wonderful colleague and he's a wonderful friend.
I've known him a long time.
I think he makes very important arguments
about meritocracy.
I disagree with some of the points
that he makes about meritocracy.
- You do, so you lean towards the importance of meritocracy.
- I think that, yes, I think that there are values
in meritocracy extremely important.
That in fact, the movement from feudalism,
the movement from status, the idea of,
I don't care who your father or mother was.
I don't care from what part of town you come from.
I don't care what your last name is.
I don't care what color of your skin is.
Show me what you can do.
And then somebody sits down,
okay, I'll show you what I can do.
And they show it, you're in.
I think there's a lot to that.
And the impulse, the sentiments behind that,
I resonate with that.
I think that there's a lot there.
What I wanna do is I wanna get rid
of those features in society that deprive people
of what you need to develop yourself.
Sometimes those are psychological.
Sometimes it's, you're not around people who've done things
that give you the idea that you can do things.
I wanna get rid of that.
But the idea of people,
the idea, by the way, of distinguishing.
This is excellent.
And the people who are excellent, they're here.
§16Transcript · 2:53:11–3:07:04
And then there are people who are good.
Are they excellent?
No, they're not excellent.
They're good.
I'm not gonna close my eyes to that distinction.
- And highlight that distinction,
and yet at the same time, maintain a sense
that their basic worth as a human being is equal.
- Yes, so, was it Run-DMC, one of the rap groups?
We're all written down on the same list.
We're all written down on the same list.
Yes, so I wanna recognize our fundamental humanity.
I don't think that that,
I think that one can recognize our fundamental humanity,
and one can also recognize, as far as I'm concerned,
that we all collectively should make sure
that we do all that we can to prevent people
from sinking below a certain level and being in misery.
I'm all for that.
But I wanna be careful about some of the attacks
that I hear on meritocracy.
So some of the people, including, again,
I have all the respect in the world for Michael Sandel.
He talks about the arrogance of the winners.
Okay, I wanna be, I don't want the winners to be arrogant.
That's right, luck has a lot to do with things.
You didn't have any control over the circumstances
in which you were born into.
You were lucky that you were born healthy
and that you were born with a well-working mind.
You didn't have anything to do with that.
That was pure luck.
There's some people who don't have that luck.
So don't be Mr. Big Stuff, okay?
So I'm against that sort of arrogance.
I'm entitled as if I taught myself how to read.
No, you didn't teach yourself how to read.
There was people who did all sorts of things for you
and you don't even know it.
Okay, so I wanna get rid of the arrogance,
have decent humility.
I'm all for that.
At the same time,
I wanna be careful about the problem of envy.
I wanna be careful about the problem of resentment.
I wanna be careful about,
so let's not have, let's not give a trophy
to the person who wins the race
because to give a trophy to the person who wins the race
will make the person who they defeated feel bad.
No, no, no, no, I don't want that.
I wanna give a trophy to the person who wins the race
because I think it's a good thing to valorize the best.
- Yeah, it's a kind of celebration
of this whole human project that we're on.
- Yes. - It's celebrating the best.
You mentioned your father several times.
So let me just linger on that.
What have you learned from,
what have you learned about life from your father?
- I've been just such a lucky person.
I mean, I feel like I've just lived
an absolutely charmed life.
And I live, I mean,
the work that I do is what I love doing.
I would pay to do what I am paid to do.
(Chuck laughs)
- Yeah. - I mean, it's great.
And I've been fortunate in so many ways.
And one way in which I've been fortunate is my parents.
My parents, Rachel Spann Kennedy, Henry Harold Kennedy,
my mother born in Columbia, South Carolina,
my father from New Orleans, Louisiana.
They were refugees from the Jim Crow South.
They were people who put their all into their children.
I have an older brother, I have a younger sister.
All three of us know beyond any controversy
that we were loved and dearly loved by our parents.
And they were great people.
My father, very interesting man, very independent-minded.
He was perfectly willing to go his own way.
And I learned much from him, including,
I learned things from him
even when I ultimately disagreed with him.
So for instance, again, to go back to his pessimism,
yeah, he was pessimistic, thoroughly pessimistic.
But he was also willing to change in certain ways.
In fact, both my parents.
I mean, one of the most important things
that happened to my parents was that I'd say
when I was, let's say 10 years old, I was born in 1954.
So in 1964, in 1964, I think my parents
would have taken the position that you definitely never,
under any circumstances, trust a white person.
If a black person trusts a white person,
that person is a fool.
Do not trust white people, all right?
They are not to be trusted.
And it's the highly, highly, highly unusual one
who is not prejudiced, okay?
So white people are not to be trusted.
And by and large, they're gonna be your enemy, all right?
So let's just face that.
That was their point of view.
I'd say that 10 years later,
that point of view had been leavened somewhat.
I think, and you say, well, what happened in those 10 years?
Well, certainly in my life,
one of the things that happened in those 10 years is
I was a student in various schools,
and I had a series of teachers.
I've had wonderful black teachers.
I've also had wonderful white teachers.
And my parents paid attention to who my teachers were
and how my teachers treated me.
And I think that they were affected by the way
in which there were white people who really helped me
and were on my side and were thoroughly on my side.
And I think that that experience
changed my parents in their general view.
They, you know, skeptical, yeah, but they were,
the possibility, the possibility of a white person
genuinely being the friend of a black person
that became alive to them.
And I give them a lot of credit
'cause they were adults.
And for an adult to change, that's a big deal.
But my parents did change.
- In that transformation that was inspiring to you,
was formative to you in terms of joining the Optimist camp?
- Hugely.
And the school, I mean, again, I said a moment ago
how lucky I've been.
Heck, I teach at Harvard Law School.
I attended Balliol College, Oxford.
I got my law degree from Yale Law School.
I got my undergraduate degree at Princeton University.
Those are some pretty good schools.
They all were, they all were.
The most important school, however, that I attended,
the school that made the most difference in my education
was my high school, St. Albans School,
St. Albans School for Boys.
And at St. Albans, I encountered a cadre of teachers.
And by the way, at St. Albans, when I went to St. Albans,
all these teachers were white, all of these teachers.
There was one, the head of athletics,
very important man, very impressive man, Brooks Johnson,
was black, otherwise, white teachers.
And these teachers made a huge difference in my life.
And I can call their names, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
The greatest of them all was a man
by the name of Jack McCune.
Yeah, we called him Gentleman Jack,
Gentleman Jack McCune.
And-- - What subject did he teach?
- He taught me history.
He was my advanced placement history teacher.
But John F. McCune, and we shared a birthday,
John F. McCune was a fabulously good teacher.
And we developed a deep lifetime friendship.
I was with Mr. McCune the day before he died.
And he was a white man.
And I've had other teachers,
some of whom have become colleagues of mine.
Sanford Levinson, Sanford Levinson was a teacher of mine
at Princeton, he's become a colleague of mine.
I mean, it would be, frankly,
it would be impossible for me to,
I can't make some sort of blanket condemnation
of white people with Sandy Levinson in my life.
I mean, seriously, with John F. McCune in my life,
with Eric Foner in my life,
with my colleague Martha Minow in my life,
my colleague Cass Sunstein in my life, impossible!
- You know, that speaks to the power
of teachers and mentors.
- Oh yeah.
- And you're that to a lot of people.
- Well, I've taken that to, I hope, I hope,
listen, I would be, listen, I would be absolutely overjoyed
if there was a student who thought of me
in the way that I think of gentleman Jack McCune.
If that's the case, just one, just one,
if that's the case, I'm overjoyed.
- That's a life well lived.
What do you think of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream"?
Do you still share that dream?
- I think that Martin Luther King Jr.'s
"I Have a Dream" speech is one of the great speeches
not only in American history,
but in the history of the world.
You know, there's a tendency now for people
to sort of poo-poo that speech.
I think, unfortunately, the speech, you know,
has been embraced by, you know, advertisers
in corporate America.
It's been so, you know, it's been heard so many times
that it sort of has been made to suffer
from what some people might view as overexposure.
§17Transcript · 3:07:07–3:09:58
- It's so unfortunate, I mean--
- It's too bad.
- Especially when Hollywood rolls in.
They did that with John Lennon's "Imagine" recently,
which I think is one of the greatest songs ever,
and the actors and actresses ruined it
by trying to like sing along
and do this kind of cliche Hollywood thing.
- It has, but people have tried to make it into a cliche.
The fact of the matter is it's the sentiment,
the sentiment behind "I Have a Dream,"
yeah, I'll associate myself with that.
And anybody wants to see some great oratory, go watch.
And, you know, Martin Luther King Jr.,
I mean, he gave, you know, several great speeches.
You know, his first speech, the first speech that he gave
as a civil rights leader,
the Holt Street Baptist Church, 1955,
at the beginning of the Montgomery bus boycott,
which was virtually an extemporaneous speech,
was one of his greatest.
And he was, I think, 26 years old, great.
His last speech, you know,
his mountaintop speech, great speech,
but "I Have a Dream," I love it.
I will associate myself with those sentiments
any day of the week, absolutely.
- So you still have hope for a deep kind of multiracial,
a deep unity in the 21st century?
- I have that hope, and I think that the sentiments
that Martin Luther King Jr. expressed in August 1963,
that represents the best of American life.
And I think it's a, you know,
do I want to see that come to pass?
Yeah, I want to see that come to pass,
and we'll work to, you know, push that project along
as far as it'll go.
- Well, thank you for carrying his spirit
of optimism forward, the spirit of your mother and father.
Thank you for all the amazing work you've done,
and thank you for just, this conversation's a huge honor.
This is awesome. - Thank you.
- Really appreciate it. - Thank you.
Thank you, Randall.
Thanks for listening to this conversation
with Randall Kennedy.
To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors
in the description.
And now, let me leave you with some words
from Martin Luther King Jr.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness.
Only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate.
Only love can do that.
Thank you for listening, and hope to see you next time.
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