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I'm Karen Grigsby Bates. And this is code switch from MPR y'all remember 2020, right?

0:20

Sometimes it feels like yesterday.

0:22

Sometimes it feels like it was a million years ago.

0:25

2020 was the last year of Trump's presidency.

0:28

The year that COVID was declared a global pandemic and the you that you couldn't go five minutes or revive sentences without stumbling upon the phrase racial reckoning, the country, some said confidently was having the biggest racial reckonings since the civil rights movement, but in the months.

0:48

And now more than a year since the summer of 2020, the coats, which team has been wondering what was actually being reckoned with and by whom and what would the backlash be after all?

1:00

It was almost exactly a year ago, January 6th, 2021, that insurrectionists stormed the U S capital.

1:08

Many of them express fear of an animus toward the black lives matter movement.

1:13

So today on the pod, we're revisiting this episode hosted by Jeanne Denby and Shereen Marisol Meraji about how public support for racial justice issues, waxed and waned here, Shireen In

1:29

June of 2020, the early days of the pandemic, it seemed like most of the nation's attention was focused on the police killings of George Floyd and Minneapolis and Brianna Taylor and Louisville people took to the streets across the country and outrage, even in cities and small towns that were almost entirely And

1:51

around that same time, last June a poll came out from the pew research center that found that salad majorities of Americans, about two thirds of all respondents across racial and ethnic groups and political parties, express support for the black lives matter movement.

2:06

And corporate America wanted in on the action to companies from big box retailers to the day manufacturers To

2:15

of all people. Oh yes, the NFL, they all released statements about the moment, or they pledged to give money to quote unquote racial justice news story.

2:27

After news story essay, after essay sermon, after sermon called it a time of racial reckoning for the entire country, 2020

2:36

was the year that forced Americans from all walks of life to pay attention to a movement and have some tough conversations about race Streets

2:44

last summer, and some of the largest protests in us history, history That

2:48

needs to be reckoned with as we search for a way forward.

2:53

So Shereen just like on our side of things, when all this is going down, I know this is probably true for you.

2:58

I saw this wall of new white faces on my Instagram feed, like thousands of new followers within pointed to code switch, you know, on one of those anti-racist reading lists, Very

3:09

surreal. I was like, Ooh, should I make my IgE private?

3:11

I'm still wondering if I should make it private or do something different with it.

3:16

Anyway. Yes, that's very often Very

3:18

strange. So I said, okay, all right, white people y'all are here now since you're here, I have some questions.

3:23

Like, what is it about this moment that has you suddenly activated?

3:28

And hundreds of people responded like earnestly and awkwardly, and that we keep in the rail, like not all that convinced A

3:36

lot of people mentioned. It was because the video was so shocking, but of course we know that George Floyd wasn't the first black person who's killing at the hands of the police in Minneapolis even was caught on video because we covered Philando Castile's death on the podcast, which was in 2016.

3:58

And of course, Eric Garner was killed by the police in New York city in eerily, similar circumstances to George Floyd.

4:05

That was also captured on video. Some of Eric Garner's last words were very similar to George Floyd's.

4:09

I can't breathe. And that became a rallying cry among protestors.

4:12

That was back in 2014.

4:13

And both those stories, Fernando Castille, Eric Garner's Wharton national news, George floor's death was horrible, but as a news story, it wasn't new.

4:21

It wasn't different, But getting back to your IgE query and all those white people who chimed in almost every person who responded mentioned, president Trump's rhetoric or the pandemic.

4:34

And we wondered, so what happens if Trump is no longer president?

4:38

And when folks can go outside again, will these newly activated white people still be in the trenches fighting for racial justice?

4:47

Will they even be paying attention?

4:52

The instrument we saw not long after all that was going down.

4:54

Some signs that that shock and anger was waning by the end of last summer, PW found that while support for the black lives matter movement remained, you know, real high among people of color, especially among black folks and Asian Americans, white people were jumping ship in June of 20, 20, 60% of white Americans said they supported black lives matter by September though, a majority of white people said they did not in a big part of the context here was that there was a presidential election going on last year.

5:22

And this became a major part of the partisan rancor, Even

5:27

more than usual and fast forward.

5:30

A little bit to may of 2021 a year later, a year after Brianna Taylor and George Floyd were killed a consulting firm called creative investment research found that of the $50 billion pledged by corporations for quote unquote racial justice.

5:48

Almost none of it had actually materialized into anything.

5:54

Hm. So was any of this racial reckoning, even real.

5:57

We asked our white listeners again to tell us how they were feeling and what they were doing a year out from last summer was protests.

6:05

And we got a lot, a lot of feedback.

6:07

Here's some of what people told us.

6:10

I'd say my views on racial justice have gotten a lot more radical.

6:14

I would say like, if there's anything in the last year, that's new about my views.

6:17

It's the conversation around the defunding of, I

6:21

have gotten more deeply involved in community organizing as part of a multi-racial movement to end white supremacy, patriarchy and capitalism Really

6:32

seen it as my responsibility to talk to other white women And

6:36

then increased regular monthly contributions to like the NAACP legal defense fund, the ACLU American Negro college fund.

6:46

Yeah. I started a book club at work and we meet once a month during our lunch hour.

6:50

And we talk about, you know, I mean, it really is a bunch of well-meaning white ladies talking about race, but that's how this kind of stuff starts.

6:57

I was definitely the white lady at the bookstore buying a lot of books by black authors.

7:02

So I hope I've filled in their royalty.

7:06

I centered myself in a lot of activism.

7:08

So I basically wanted a cookie and I've now realized that it's not about me.

7:14

And I actually need to do all of the behind the scenes work so that other people can use their own voices to tell their own story.

7:23

So obviously Shereen, you know, the white folks who listen Nikos, which are very particular, you know, subset of white folks, I think we can say.

7:30

And the responses we got from them are not really representative of white people in the aggregate.

7:35

As we were about to hear, I spoke to two political scientists who think about this cohort of white people a lot.

7:42

My name is Hakim Jefferson.

7:44

I'm an assistant professor at Stanford And

7:47

my name is Jennifer and I'm an assistant professor of political science at Wellesley.

7:52

I came and Jennifer are good friends. They're bi-coastal friends like you want me to shrink.

7:55

They go back a long ways back to when they were both campus tour guides as grad students at the university of Michigan.

8:02

And then we ended up actually being roommates and living together for two, three, many, many years in a rundown, a yellow house that hosted Ann Arbor's best graduate student parties, which I don't even know what that means when we're all as nerdy as we are.

8:21

Huh? I'm imagining nerd Rangers with fancy whiskey, very PED, very smokey.

8:26

Perhaps we know grad students can't really afford it, but because they're nerds, they're going for it and regression models.

8:33

Of course, Of course, of course.

8:35

And they are still very, nerdily chopping it up in may they together scours and public opinion data in order to write this essay for the New York times, it's called support for the black lives matter movement surged last year.

8:46

Did it last?

8:48

That is a great question.

8:49

And I have a feeling, I know the answer because I'm a cynic.

8:53

I Have a feeling, I know what your feeling is.

8:55

So in the immediate aftermath of George fluid's killing, they thought that people were perhaps not paying Enough

9:02

attention to some pretty well-established patterns about white public opinion and issues of race.

9:08

Here's how can you know?

9:10

I think I remarked at the time. Yeah, it's good.

9:12

These white folks are there, but they're all going to go back to their fairly Lily white neighborhoods.

9:17

They're Lily white schools, and they're not going to have the sustained engagement with the political agenda of the movement.

9:25

And Jen, I don't know. I recall that being somewhat of your sentiment too, but maybe my memory is different.

9:31

Yeah. I similarly said, you know, they have built a society in which it's very easy to segregate themselves from these issues.

9:42

But additionally, I, you know, I don't know if this is eye-rolling or what, but I had said to one reporter, you know, it's not going out on a limb.

9:52

If you say murder is bad. So we have this very graphic, indisputable, you know, viscerally, upsetting murder.

10:03

And so how much progress is it if white people are like, oh, that was bad.

10:10

Yes. I hope they would say that is bad.

10:12

That it's such a low bar to admit to something like that is upsetting.

10:16

But you know, kind of, this is where my research comes in.

10:21

These more ambiguous episodes where there aren't eye witness accounts or when it's not some resulting in murder is where you see white sympathy kind of trickle off.

10:31

And that is important to note as well.

10:35

Yes. We could conjure up sympathy for this moment with this egregious act of violence.

10:39

But what about other instances?

10:41

And also what about when the country isn't in this totally bizarre state of lockdown with few other distractions Listening

10:50

to that makes me think about all the people who get their bones broken or who are bitten by police dogs and horribly injured that we never hear about.

10:59

But I digress. Yeah.

11:01

All those sub fatal encounters with the cops.

11:04

Right. And that's where some of Jen's previous research comes in, right?

11:07

So she spent years studying white people, particularly white people.

11:10

She says who feel racial sympathy and racial guilt, but at the height of the racial reckoning, I

11:16

flipped it because within my discipline, I've done a lot of work trying to convince people, oh, these white people exist.

11:22

And they're interesting to study these White

11:25

people being racially, sympathetic, white, racially, sympathetic, White

11:28

people, and then George Ford happened. And I said, these aren't the P these aren't, this isn't real.

11:32

And so, so it was, it felt a little bit like a contradiction because in my own academic work, I've tried to stress the importance of these types of unique white racial attitudes.

11:44

But then with what was unfolding last summer, I was much more skeptical that this is actually what we were seeing.

11:52

Ooh, That is fascinating.

11:54

And before we go any further though, we need to define some terms.

11:58

So I'm hearing sympathetic and I'm hearing guilty.

12:02

We know what those things mean in the real world.

12:05

I feel both of those things all the time, especially guilt, because I was raised Catholic, The

12:14

Catholic church and international tremble for four sympathy and Gill Two

12:20

great tastes that go great together.

12:23

Anyway. So yes, related to these points, right?

12:25

Jennifer studies, you know, white public opinion about race and she's using sympathy and guilt in a particular way when it comes to polls and surveys.

12:33

So when she talks about racially sympathetic white people who she's talking about is White

12:37

people who feel distress when they learn about black suffering.

12:41

Now black suffering can be very violent and ambiguous, you know, as was the case with George Floyd, but it can also be, you know, microaggressions.

12:51

And so there's some white people who feel distress when they learn about that whole spectrum of suffering and what makes a white person like that is, you know, the environment they were raised in the kinds of values they've picked up along their lives.

13:08

Those are all things that could contribute to a white person feeling sympathetic.

13:11

Alright, That's sympathy.

13:13

Let's talk about guilt.

13:16

Right? So guilt as Jennifer defines it is racial sympathy, but also that comes with a sense of personal responsibility.

13:23

White people who feel racial guilt, she says are the people who feel implicated in racism.

13:28

So white people can feel sad about black distress, but guilt has the extra level of that is, you know, something upsetting.

13:38

And I, as a white person, feel like I'm somehow, you know, culpable or responsible for this scenario.

13:48

So Jean maybe guilt isn't as bad as we thought it was because in this case, guilt might motivate white people to take action for something good for the good of mankind humankind, sorry, Potentially

14:01

right. Spoilers there. Some big caveats to this that we're going to get to a little bit later, but okay.

14:08

Yeah. When it comes to white people who care about anti-black racism at all, Well,

14:11

there's a spectrum. It's not like white people are either have sympathy for black people or they don't, it's kind of like some white people have no sympathy for black people.

14:19

And some white people have tons of sympathy for black people.

14:22

So it's not as clean as you know, yes or no.

14:26

And the percentage of white people who, if you tell them about black suffering, many different, like little iterations or stories of black suffering, less than 20% feel sympathy towards kind of every flavor of black suffering from microaggression to physical altercations, akin to what George Floyd faced.

14:50

So that said the percentage of white people who admit that they carry guilt is I would say lower than 10%.

14:59

Wow. Those are not substantial Numbers.

15:02

And so when I was watching this unfold and seeing this being kind of explained as a broadly felt sentiment among white Americans, my thought was just like disbelief for, you know, this was a mis-characterization because having studied this, these kinds of attitudes among white people for years, I knew that it was much more rare.

15:32

And the immediate aftermath of George Floyd's murder, you might get a bunch of white people who have all sorts of emotions that are, that are exercised and, and the life.

15:41

But then we have to wonder about how long lasting any of these feelings attached to a particular episode, detached from somebody imagined pattern of how these things work in the world.

15:52

Like how long lasting is any of that going to be?

15:57

How long lasting is it going to be?

16:00

We are going to get into all of that.

16:01

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17:50

Before the break, we were talking to Jennifer Chudy and Hakim Jefferson about how George Floyd's murder made a percentage of white people feel momentary sympathy for the plight of black people, At

18:03

least, you know, as expressed in support for the so-called black lives matter movement.

18:08

Right? So I wanted them to help us crunch these numbers, like, okay, what did the high water marker the support for the black lives matter movement look like last year, you know, in the days and weeks immediately after George Lloyd's death.

18:20

And I came, reminds us that spike was a real thing.

18:22

And, and I mean, this is what everybody was talking about, and this is why Jen and I were being approached by reporters asking us, what do you think of this?

18:30

When I saw that peak, I was inspired by it, but I saw this is going to go away.

18:37

As soon as the sort of news moves away from George Floyd or to a point that Jim was making white folks have easy cases of amnesia when it comes to race.

18:52

And so you go back to the everyday movements of life, you're distracted, the movement becomes less attached to this visceral murderous event.

19:06

And now the movement is about all that other stuff that you don't like, Like

19:09

maybe abolishing the police or reparations or equal access to healthcare and education, the kind of issues that we've been talking about a lot on code switch, Right?

19:22

I came, walked us through the data, showing this big drop off in support among white Americans Among

19:27

white Americans. There's not just this return to normal.

19:31

This would be for, for listeners trying to follow along with the plots in the essay.

19:36

This would be that third PO send the piece where white folks are depicted with a purple line.

19:44

A return to baseline would have just been at that zero line right at that zero line.

19:53

That would say that white opinion toward black lives matter has just returned to where it was on January, the first 2020, But

20:03

they found that white support didn't just return to pre George Floyd levels.

20:07

Instead, what we see is that purple line, right?

20:11

And the current period is below the zero line, which suggests that in the aggregate overall on average white support for black lives matter is now lower than it was on January 1st, 2020.

20:30

So for the people in the back who did not hear that white support today is lower than it was before Brianna Taylor and George Floyd were killed by the police.

20:41

Now in the aggregate. Yeah, white people have a more negative views toward the movement than they did.

20:48

And, and January, 2020 before Drake foot was murdered, The

20:57

public opinion research available is telling us that support for BLM from white people has mostly evaporated Jen Judy's research that she was telling us about before the break show that most white people don't really care about anti-black racism period, but you're on codes, which we are always hearing from white people who write in and talk to us about all the reasons why they want to be anti-racist and how hard they're working on that.

21:27

So many of our listeners rep that tiny, tiny percentage that Jen was telling us about.

21:33

So I want to know who are those white people who make up that tiny percentage who are sympathetic and, you know, do we have more demographic data on them?

21:43

Yeah. This was something that I was very curious about too.

21:46

Like, are there through lines?

21:48

What do we know about who those people are?

21:51

And Jen said, okay, again, caveats, we're talking about a very small percentage of white people, right?

21:56

But that those racially sympathetic white people tend to be Democrats.

22:00

That's the identity that comes through most consistently in the public opinion research.

22:04

That's probably not too surprising given how partisan these issues are, how partisan they tend to be framed.

22:10

But after that, Jen says, we can't really say anything too definitive.

22:16

It's not the case that they are more often young or more often.

22:22

I thought maybe it's more often to be a women because women are often socialized to feel bad for people.

22:29

And that's not the case either.

22:32

You know, they do tend to live in cities, but here we get into kind of a selection and, you know, to talk social science, did the city make them have those attitudes or did they have those attitudes?

22:43

So they moved to the city.

22:45

And so it's a little bit dicey to suss out.

22:49

They also, I should say the other kind of reliable predictor is that they tend to have higher levels of education.

22:56

And again, it's, you know, here's social sciences, again, it's also selection effect to do those folks who want more education, have these values and educationals wrapped up in that, or does having more education lead a white person to become more sympathetic or more, have higher levels of guilt.

23:15

So it's hard to know which way the arrow flows, but there is some diversity within that too.

23:20

You know, as I said, I thought they would be young, not necessarily.

23:24

And then I thought maybe having additional marginalized identities, whether gender or sexuality or religion, and those don't seem to be as reliable as I had kind of thought they might be.

23:45

I think it's funny. Cause when I have talked with journalists about this, you know, many of whom live in places like New York and in DC and, and some of whom are white, there's just shock that the numbers are as bad as they are for white people.

24:02

And it just Speaks

24:05

to, you know, the high degree of political polarization that other folks have written about.

24:12

And if that's crazy to a white person, then they are not hanging out with a representative group of white Americans, which show whom, who among us is hanging out with a representative group of Americans to begin with.

24:32

I said earlier in the show that I was the cynic, but it's really impossible to work on the race beat for as long as we have been doing this and not be skeptics, you know, we're also journalists.

24:45

So th so that's in our DNA. It actually showed up in my genetic testing results, Iranian,

24:51

Puerto Rican and skeptical.

24:54

Yes, that was it.

24:56

Seriously though, we were, we were side eyeing, the rise in white American support and momentum for racial justice that came after George Floyd's murder.

25:06

And it sounds to me like Hakim and Jennifer share in our healthy skepticism, They

25:14

do. They do. So I hate to ask the question, Jean, but I'm going to ask the question.

25:18

Do they think that this racial reckoning that was such a huge deal actually meant anything?

25:28

Yeah. So, okay. So streaming, this is what they told me.

25:30

And you might find this unsatisfying.

25:32

It is not definitely.

25:37

Yes. Right. But it's also not a complete, no, I S you know, Let

25:42

me interrupt. Is it complicated?

25:45

Oh my God. We almost got through the whole episode and you may say, well, yeah, let's get into it.

25:51

I'm just gonna play you. Some of the conversation that I have with them, Maybe

25:54

it is meaningful that we've got new language to talk about the state of policing and the U S that the discourse has shifted, right.

26:03

More people are aware perhaps that these are serious issues.

26:08

And so I don't want to throw cold water on all of that, but I think if we think of what we've reported here or documented here as being a reflection of, okay, when white people say they're committed to the cause of racial justice, how long lasting, how meaningful, how significant is that?

26:29

How much should we run to the bank and say, like, we've got some, we've got some folks on our side.

26:34

I think these data that we share and, and, and right about here presents, at least for me, a sort of depressing look at what we can expect from a lot of white Americans, not all of them, but a lot of white Americans, when these sorts of moments come into view, Having

26:52

looked at all this data and sat with it.

26:55

What do the two of you think it tells people who are trying to make specific tangible advances in racial justice in the world?

27:04

Is the issue about like getting enough white people to help, or is it about getting enough white people to just like, not get in the way?

27:12

Oh, I get to, I get to defer first to gin, and I'm just going to say, Jen, you've talked to all these white folks.

27:18

I mean, you've been interviewing them and studying them and writing about them at great lanes.

27:24

Well, I think, you know, one way to interpret the responses you've got is a lot of this is bound up in partisanship.

27:30

The fact that they name Donald Trump, who is not only the president, but you know, the leader of the Republican party.

27:39

And we do see that white, those white Americans who identify as Republicans are kind of driving the support for black lives matters.

27:47

South

27:47

does

27:47

suggest

27:47

that

27:47

there

27:47

is

27:47

a

27:47

role

27:47

here

27:47

for

27:52

parties. There is a role for the democratic party to not sweep this under the rug, but to really, you know, talking about sitting with it.

28:00

So I think in terms of like action items, there should be some acknowledgement that this is tethered to, to a political identity, you know, but what is perplexing to me to take it back to Kim's point?

28:14

I have been talking with white racial justice activists, and I did so before George Floyd was murdered.

28:18

So these were people who were showing up about race and caring about race when it wasn't a front page news story.

28:27

And many of them expressed real cynicism and skepticism about participating in mainstream politics.

28:36

Even if we moved away from sort of electoral politics, though, if you were an organizer who focuses on issues of, you know, I guess we're calling them issues of racial justice on the ground, right.

28:47

And you're not necessarily talking about, you know, voting, but, you know, organizing on ground.

28:54

How should those people be metabolizing this very sobering data?

29:02

Yeah. I mean, I think we do talk about in the essay that there is evidence that legislators are responsive to things like protests.

29:09

I mean, if you are showing up and you have a critical mass of people that a legislator can start to feel nervous that they may not get reelected.

29:17

And so, you know, I, I don't know if we're being very narrow, kind of taking it back to the reason we take it back to voting is because that is kind of the easiest thing people can do.

29:29

We are so critical of momentary exercises of, of say upset or what have you in light of these moments.

29:38

And so we just know from decades of social scientific research, that when we disconnect some structural problem or some systemic problem, when we disconnect it from a pattern and we make it about episodes, that people respond differently, it matters how we talk and think about the case of George Floyd.

30:03

When we just focus on George Floyd as an episode, what we forget is that police violence against black folks is patterned, right?

30:13

It's the Matic to use more formal academic language.

30:17

And so one of the things that happened, I think rather unfortunately, was so many people took George Floyd as an episode, as a moment to get exercised about, and didn't spend enough time reckoning to use that word reckoning with the fact that this has a long history in the U S it's part of a pattern.

30:40

And to up in systems, you got to do more than read about white fragility, or even about anti racism.

30:49

You've got to be engaged in the practice of politics.

30:52

That is sometimes not as sexy, not as sort of meaningful perhaps in the moment, but you've got to do the hard, dirty work of politics.

31:03

Agreed. I think, you know, there, my take on this is it's cynical.

31:07

I cookies, but it's more for me, it's a numeracy issue.

31:12

Like we are exaggerating this percentage of small, dedicated white people.

31:20

They are there, but they are small.

31:22

So, you know, activists keep doing their thing.

31:26

This small group will, will be into it.

31:32

They don't have to bend to try to meet white, straight white stream America, mainstream white America.

31:38

Because as the, as the essay demonstrates, that is a more fickle and volatile kind of mark to hit.

31:49

So, so I don't think there has to be an adjustment on the, You

31:53

also cited in the New York times retrospective that said that according to your research, that even among white folks who remained sympathetic to the black lives matter movement, the initiatives that they tend to support the things they tend to support tend to be like small bore personal initiatives.

32:10

Could you say more about that? I think Hakim and I have both talked about, you know, in the end as political scientists, we care about the politics, our politics, changing our laws changing are the folks getting elected to office changing because if you have this ground swell of support and you know, all this enthusiasm, and then it just goes into, you know, buying books with no disrespect to the authors of those books, you know, I don't, You know, that is, it seems to kind of be missing the mark.

32:45

And again, it's just, it's particularly perplexing because these folks often have the recognition of the system that upholds this.

32:54

It's not like, oh, this is all individual, you know, racist.

32:57

They're like, no, this is built into our policy.

32:59

It's baked into our laws. And yet the solution seems to be missing the Mark A.

33:06

Little. I think, I think about the fact that white folks in this country have had a racial reckoning, I think, and recent years, but it's been much more localized and much less meaningful for the kinds of things I know Jen and I care about then media depictions of that racial reckoning would suggest, let me put a finer point on it.

33:28

I think white folks are keenly aware on both sides of the political aisle, of their racial identity.

33:36

They have a sense of what people think about white people.

33:39

They are reckoning with that, right?

33:41

I think white people are indeed.

33:43

And certainly the white people in my social circle, perhaps in gen social circle, perhaps in the social circles of those listening to code switch, like the white folks we know are having quite a racial reckoning.

33:56

Alright, they reckoned.

33:58

But I think a lot of that, and I love the way that Jim puts this.

34:01

A lot of that has been feeling bad about being white, engaging in some anti racist quote unquote behaviors and the like, but Jim's evidence is suggesting a lot of this reckoning is starting at the bookshelf and ending on the couch.

34:21

And I just don't think that if that's what you know about the state of the reckoning, you don't expect the reckoning to persist Our

34:40

listeners. And a lot of our white listeners are going to have some deep, deep thinking to do after listening to that conversation.

34:49

Maybe some doing too Well,

34:53

let's end this with the cliche that I vow never to use, but does I feel work perfectly in this case?

35:00

Time will tell gene time will tell Well,

35:07

listeners, that's our show. It originally aired in June of 2021, but it's one we're still thinking about.

35:13

And we bet many of you are too.

35:16

The guests you heard featured where Jennifer Chudy and Hakim Jefferson, they're both poly psy professors gens at Wellesley.

35:24

Yay. Shout out to my Alma mater and Hakim's to Stanford and their essay titled support for the black lives matter movement search last year, did it last was published in the New York times in June of 2021.

35:37

You can follow coats, which on Twitter and IgG, we're at NPR code switch on both those places.

35:43

I'm at Karen Bates on Twitter and subscribe to our [email protected] slash coats, which newsletter this episode was produced by Alyssa young Perry, Brianna Scott, and Leah Danella.

35:57

It was edited by Leah and Steve drumming.

35:59

And it was fact checked by summer tomato and a big, big shout out to the rest of the coats, which fam Kumari Devarajan Jess Kung, Christine of Kala and Sam yellow horse Kessler.

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Our intern is Asia drain.

36:14

Our art director is LA Johnson.

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Also a huge thanks to the listeners who were brave and sent in their audio messages.

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Once again, I'm Karen Grigsby Bates.

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This message comes from NPR sponsor, Yogi tea, uplift your spirit with Yogi sweet Tangerine, positive energy tea blended with energizing, Yerba, Mati, and bright and delightful Tangerine support your wellbeing with Yogi message comes from NPR sponsor, Yogi Tea. Uplift your spirit with Yogi Sweet Tangerine Positive Energy Tea. Plunded with energizing your bemate and bright and delightful tangerine. Support your well-being with tea. I'm Karen Greigsby Bates, and this is Cote Witch from NPR. You all remember twenty twenty. Right? Sometimes it feels like yesterday, sometimes it feels like was a million years ago. Twenty twenty was the last year of Trump's presidency, the year that COVID was declared a global pandemic, and the year that you couldn't go five minutes or read five sentences without stumbling upon the phrase racial reckoning. The country, some said confidently, was having the biggest racial reckoning since the civil rights movement. But in the months and now more than a year since the summer of twenty twenty, the Codeswitch team has been wondering what was actually being reckoned with and by whom? And what would the backlash be? After all, it was almost exactly a year ago, January sixth twenty twenty one, that insurrectionist stormed the US capital. Many of them expressed fear of an animus toward the Black Lives Matter movement. So today on the pod, we're revisiting this episode. Hosted by Gene Demi and Sherry Marisol Maraje about how public support for racial justice issues waxed and then winged. Here, Sherin. In June of twenty twenty, the early days of the pandemic, it seemed like most of the nation's attention was focused on the police killings of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in Louisville. People took to the streets across the country and outrage. Even in cities and small towns that were almost entirely white Mhmm. And around that same time last June, a poll came out from the Pew Research Center that found that solid majorities of Americans, about two thirds of all reckoned across racial and ethnic groups and political parties expressed support for the Black Lives Matter movement. Oh, and corporate America co wanted in on the action too. Companies from big box retailers to the day manufacturers NFL, too, of all people, NFL. Oh, yes. The NFL, they all release statements about the moments or they pledge to give money to quote unquote racial justice, news story after news story essay after essay sermon after sermon, called it a time of racial reckoning for the entire country. Twenty twenty was the year that forced Americans from all walks of life to pay attention to a movement and have some tough conversations about rail unions took to the streets last summer and some of the largest protests in US history history that needs to be reckoned with as we search for a way forward. So Shereen just like on our side of things, when all this is going down, I know this is probably true for Serena, just like on our side of things, when all this is going down, know this is probably true for you. I saw this wall of new white faces on my Instagram feed, like thousands of new followers who have been pointed to code switch you know, on one of those anti racist reading lists. It was Very surreal. I was like, oh, should I make my IG private? I'm still wondering if I should make it private or do something different with it. Anyway, yes. It's very odd. Very strange. So I said, okay. Alright. White people y'all are here now. Since you're here, I have some questions. Like, what is it about this moment that has you suddenly activated? And hundreds of people responded like earnestly and awkwardly and that we keep in a row, like, not all that convincingly. A lot of people A lot of people mentioned it was because the video was so shocking. But of course, we know that George Floyd wasn't the first black person who's killing the hands of the police in Minneapolis even was caught on video because we covered Philando Castile's death on the podcast which was in twenty sixteen. Mhmm. Mhmm. And, of course, Eric Garner was killed by the police in York City in eerily similar circumstances to George Floyd. That was also captured on video. Some of Eric Garner's last words were very similar to George Floyd's. I can't breathe. And that became a rallying cry among courtbusters that was back in twenty fourteen. And both those stories from Newcastle, Eric Garner's, were national news. George Floyd's death was horrible, but as a new story, it wasn't new, it wasn't different. But getting back to your IG query and all those white people who chimed in, almost every person who responded -- Mhmm. -- reckoned, president Trump's rhetoric or the pandemic. And we wondered, so what happens if Trump is no longer president and when folks can go outside again? Will these newly activated white people still be in the trenches, fighting, for racial justice? Will they even be paying attention. Benjamin, we saw not long after all that was going down, some signs that that shock and anger was waning. By the end of last summer, Pew found that while support for the Black Lives Matter movement reckoned, you know, real high among people of color, especially among black folks and Asian Americans. White people were jumping ship. In June of twenty twenty, sixty percent of white Americans said they supported Black Lives Matter By September though, a majority of white people said they did not. And a big part of the context here was that there was a presidential election going on last year and this became a major part of the partisan ranker. Even more than usual. Mhmm. And fast forward a little bit to May of twenty twenty one. A year later, a year after Breonna Taylor and George Floyd were killed. A consulting firm called Creative Investment Research found that of the fifty billion dollars pledged by corporations for quote unquote racial justice almost none of it had actually materialized into anything. Hm. So was any of this racial reckoning, even was any of this racial reckoning even real? We asked our white listeners again to tell us how they were feeling and what they were doing a year out from last summer's protests, and we got a lot a lot of feedback. Here's some of what people taught us. I'd say my views on racial justice have gotten a lot more radical. I would say, like, if there's anything in last year that's new, about my views. It's the conversation around the defunding of the police effort. I have gotten more deeply involved in community organizing as part of a multivacial movement to end white supremacy speech hierarchy and capital. I have also seen it as my responsibility to talk to other white And then increased regular monthly contributions to like the NAACP legal defense fund, the ACLU American Negro college Increased regular monthly contributions to ICN double a c legal defense fund, the ACLU, American Nico College Fund. Yeah. I started a book club at reckoned we meet once a month during our lunch hour and we talk about, you know, I mean, it really is a bunch of well meaning white ladies talking about race, but that's how this kind of stuff starts. I was definitely the white lady at the bookstore buying a lot of books, Bible ACCO authors. So I hope Socalled in their royalties a little. I centered myself in a lot of activism, so I basically wanted a cookie. And I've now realized that it's not about reckoned I actually need to do all of the behind the scenes works that other people can use their own voices to tell their own stories. So obviously, Irene, you know, the white folks who cynical, which are very particular, you know, subset of white folks, I think we can say. Yeah. And the responses we got from them are not really representative of white people in the aggregate as we're about to hear. I spoke to two political scientists who think about this cohort of white people a lot. My name is Hakim Jefferson. I'm an assistant professor at Stanford University. And my name is Jennifer Judy, and I'm an assistant professor of political science at Wellesley College. I came and Jennifer are good and Jennifer are good friends. They're by coastal friends like you and sharing. Yes. They go back a long ways back to when they were both campus tour guides, as grad students at the University of Michigan. Oh, I love that. And then we ended up actually being roommates and living together for two, three -- Many years. -- many many years in a rundown, a yellow house that hosted Ann Arbor's Best graduate student parties, which I don't even know what that means when we're all as nerdy as we are. Uh-huh. Huh? I'm imagining nerd Rangers with fancy whiskey, very PED, very I'm imagining nerd ragers with fancy, whiskey, very peed, very smoky, perhaps. We know grad students can't really afford it, but because they're nerds, they're going for it. And and regression models, of course. Of course. Of course. And they are still very nurtently chopping it up. In May, they together scours some public opinion data In order to write this essay for The New York Times, it's called support for the black lives matter movement surged last year. Did it last? That is a great is a great question. And I have a feeling I know the answer because I'm a cynic. I have a feeling I know what your feeling is. So in the immediate aftermath of George Floyd's killing, they thought that people were perhaps not paying enough attention to some pretty well established patterns about white public opinion and issues of race. Here's Aqim. You know, I think I remarked at the time, yeah, these it's good. These white folks are there, but they're all going to go back to their fairly lily white neighborhoods, their lily white schools, and they're not going to have the sustained engagement with the political agenda of the movement. And Jen, I don't know. I I call that being somewhat of your sentiment too, but maybe my memory is different. Yeah. III similarly said, you know, they have built a society in which it's very easy to segregate themselves from these issues. And additionally, I You know, I don't know if this is eye rolling or what, but I had said to one reporter, you know, it's not going out on a limb if you say murder is bad. So we have this very graphic indisputable, you know, viscerally up setting murder. And so how much progress is it? If white people are like, oh, that was bad. Yes. I hope they would say that is bad, that is such a low bar to admit to something like that is upsetting, but reckoned of this is where my research comes in these more ambiguous episodes where there aren't eyewitness accounts or when it's not resulting in murder is where you see white sympathy kind of trickle off, and that is important to note as well. Yes, we could conjure up sympathy for this moment with this egregious act of violence. But what about other instances? And also, what about when the country isn't in this totally bizarre state of lockdown with few other distractions. Listening to that makes me think about all the people who get their bones broken or who are bitten by police dogs and horribly injured that we never hear about, but I digress. yeah. All those subfatal encounters with the cops. Right? Yeah. And that's where some of Jen's previous research comes in. Right? So she spent years studying white people, particularly white people, she says, who feel racial sympathy and racial guilt. But at the height of the racial reckoning I was kind of conflicted because within my discipline, I've done a lot of work trying to convince people, oh, these white people exist, and they're interesting to study. These white people being racially sympathetic white people being racially sympathetic white people. And then George Floyd cap and I said, these aren't the pea these aren't this isn't real. And so so it was it felt a little bit like a contradiction because in my own academic work, I've tried to stress the importance of these types of unique white racial attitudes, but then with what was unfolding last summer, I was much more skeptical that this is actually what we were seeing. Oh, that is fascinating And before we go any further though, we need to define some terms. Mhmm. So I'm hearing sympathetic and I'm hearing guilty. Mhmm. We know what those things mean in the real world. I I feel both of those things all the time, especially guilt. Because I was raised Catholic. Me too. We both raised Catholic. Shabbies like Catholic church, a financial trauma for for sympathy and guilt, and two great tastes that go great together. Anyway, so -- Yes. -- related to these points. Right? Jennifer studies, you know, why public opinion about reckoned she's using sympathy and guilt in a particular way when it comes to polls and surveys. So when she talks about racially sympathetic white people, who she's talking about is. White people who feel distress when they learn about black suffering. Now, black suffering can be very a violent and and ambiguous, you know, as was the case with George Floyd, but it can also be, you know, microaggressions. And so there's some white people who feel distress when they learn about that whole spectrum of suffering. And what makes a white person like that is, you know, the environment they were raised in, the kinds of values they've picked up along their lives, those are all things that contribute a white person feeling sympathetic. Alright. That's sympathy. Mhmm. Let's talk about guilt. Right. So guilt as Jennifer defines it is racial sympathy, but Also, it comes with a sense of personal responsibility. White people who feel racial guilt, she says are the people who feel implicated in people who feel racial guilt she says are the people who feel implicated in racism. So white people can feel sad about black distress, but guilt has the extra level of that is, you know, something upsetting. And I, as a white person, feel like I'm somehow, you know, culpable or responsible for this scenario. So, Jean, maybe Gil isn't as bad as we thought it was because in this case, Gil might motivate white people to take action for something good -- Right. -- good of mankind. Humankind. Sorry. Potentially, right, spoilers, there's some big caveats to this that we're gonna get to. A little bit later. But okay. Yeah. Yeah. When it comes to white people who care about anti black racism at all, Well, there's a spectrum. It's not like white people are either have sympathy for black people or they don't. It's kind of like some white people have no sympathy for black people and some white people have tons of sympathy for black people. So it's not as clean as, you know, yes or no. And percentage of white people who if you tell them about black suffering, many different, like, little iterations or stories of black suffering. Less than twenty percent feel sympathy towards kind of every flavor of black suffering from microaggression to physical altercations akin to what George Floyd faced. So that said, the percentage of white people who admit that they carry guilt is, I would say, lower than ten percent. Wow. Those are not substantial numbers. And so when I was watching this unfold and seeing this being kind of explained as a broadly felt sentiment among white Reckoned. My thought was just, like, disbelief for, you know, this was mischaracterization because having studied this these kind of attitudes among white people for years, I knew that it was much more rare. And the immediate aftermath of George Floyd's murder you might get a bunch of white people who have all sorts of emotions that are that are exercised and and the like, but then we have to wonder about how long last any of these feelings attached to a particular episode, detached from somebody's imagined pattern of how these things work in the world? Like, how long lasting is any of that going to be? How long lasting is it gonna 2020. We are going to get into all of that after the break. Stay with us. 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His mental health was on the decline until his friends like Pete Davidson said, maybe you should talk to someone I'm going to therapy since he was a mental health was on the reckoned. Until his friends, like Pete Davidson said, Maybe you should talk to someone. He was going therapy since he was a kid. And I kid. It was just like, you know just like, you know what? I'm gonna what? I'm gonna start going to talk to one of therapy. How there. How the guy with one of black culture's biggest microphones found his voice, listen on the limits from NPR guy with one of black culture's biggest microphones about his voice. Listen on the limits from NPR. Support for Support for NPR in NPR. And the following message come from the following message come from FSA FSA. 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Before the break, we were talking to Jennifer Chudy and Hakim Jefferson about how George Floyd's murder made a percentage of white people feel momentary sympathy for the plight of black people, the break, we were talking to Jennifer Chudi and Hakim Jefferson about how George Floyd's murder made a percentage of white people feel momentary sympathy for the plight of black people. Mhmm. At least, you know, as expressed in support for the so called black cosmetics movie. So I wanted them to help us crunch these numbers like, okay, what did the high watermark of the support for the Black Lives Matter look like last year, you know, in the days in weeks immediately after George Floyd's death. And I came us that spike was a real thing. And and I mean, this is what everybody was talking about. And this is why Jin and I were being approached by reporters asking us, what do you think of this? When I saw that peak, I was inspired by it, but I thought this is going to go away. As soon as the sort of news moves away from George Floyd or to point that Jim was making, White folks have easy cases of amnesia when it comes to race. And so you go back to the everyday movements of life. You're distracted. The movement becomes less attached to this visceral, murderous event. And now the movement is about all that other stuff that you don't like. Like, maybe abolishing the police or reparations or equal access to healthcare and education. The kind of issues that we've been talking about lot on code switch. Right. Right. Hakim walked us through the data showing this big drop off from support among white Americans among Among white there's not just this return to normal. This would be for listeners trying to follow along with the plots and the essay. This would be that third plot that's in the piece where white folks are depicted with a purple line line. A return to baseline would have just been at that zero line right at that zero return to baseline would have just been at that zero line. Right? At that zero. Like, that would say that white opinion toward Black Lives Matter has just returned to where it was on January the first twenty twenty. But they found that white support didn't just return to pre George Floyd levels. Instead, what we see is that purple line Right? And the current period is below the zero line, which suggests that in the aggregate, overall, on average, white support for Black Lives Matter is now lower than it was on January first twenty twenty. So So for the people in the back who did not hear that white support today is lower than it was before Brianna Taylor and George Floyd were killed by the the people in the back who did not hear that, white support today is lower. Than it was before Breonna Taylor and George Floyd were killed by the police. Now in the aggregate, yeah, white people have more negative views toward the movement than they did in January twenty twenty before George Floyd was murdered. The public opinion research available is telling us that support for BLM from white people has mostly evaporated. Jen Qudy's research that she was telling us about before the break show that most white people don't really care about anti black racism period. But here on code switch, we are always hearing from white people who ride in and talk to us about all the reasons why they want to be anti racist and how hard they're working on that. that. So many of our listeners rep that tiny, tiny percentage that Jen was telling us many of our listeners rep that tiny tiny percentage that Jen was telling us about. So I wanna know who are those white people who make up that tiny percentage, who are sympathetic, and, you know, do we have more demographic data on them? Yeah. This was something that I was very curious about. Two, like, are there through lines? What do we know about who those people are? And Jen said, okay, again, caveats, we're talking about a very small percentage of white people, Jen said, okay. Again, caveats, we're talking about a very small percentage of white people. Right? But that those racially sympathetic white people tend to be Democrats. That's the identity that comes through most consistently in the public opinion research. That's probably not too surprising given how partisan these issues are how partisan they tend to be framed. But after that, Jen says, we can't really say anything too definitive. It's not the case that they are more often young or more often. often. I thought maybe it's more often to be a women because women are often socialized to feel bad for I thought maybe it's more often to be women because women are often socialized to feel bad for people, and that's not the case either. either. You know, they do tend to live in cities, but here we get into kind of a selection and, you know, to talk social science, did the city make them have those attitudes or did they have those they do tend to live in cities, but here we get into kind of a selection, you know, to talk social science. Did the city make them have those attitudes or did they have those attitudes so they moved to the city? And so it's a little bit daisy to suss out. They also, I should say, the other kind of reliable predictor is that they tend to have higher levels of edge vacation. And again, it's, you know, here's social sciences. Again, it's also a selection effect. Do those folks who want more education, have these values and education wrapped up in that, or does having more education lead a white person to become more sympathetic or more have higher levels of guilt. So it's hard to know which way the arrow flows, but there is some diversity within that to, you know, as I said, I thought they would be young, not necessarily. necessarily. And then I thought maybe having additional marginalized identities, whether gender or sexuality or religion, and those don't seem to be as reliable as I had kind of thought they might then I thought maybe having additional marginalized identities, whether gender or sexuality or religion. And those don't seemed to be as reliable as I had kind of thought they might be. I think it's funny because when I have talked with journalists about this, you know, many of whom live in, places like New York and in D. C. And and some of whom are white. There's just shock that the numbers are as bad as they are for white people and it just speaks to, you know, the high degree of political polarization that other folks have written about. And if that's crazy to a white person, then they are not hanging out with representative group of white Americans, which whom who among us is hanging out with a representative group of Americans to begin in with. I said earlier in the show that I was a cynic. Mhmm. But it's really impossible to work on the race beat for as long as we have been doing this and not be skeptics. Mhmm. You know, we are also journalists journalists. So th so that's in our so that's in our DNA. It actually showed up in my genetic testing results. Ronnie and Puerto Rican and skeptical. Yes. That was it. it. Seriously though, we were, we were side eyeing, the rise in white American support and momentum for racial justice that came after George Floyd's though, we were we were side eyeing the rise in white American support and momentum for racial justice that came after George Floyd's murder. Mhmm. And it sounds to me like Hakim and Jennifer share in our healthy skepticism. Mhmm. They do. They do. So I hate to ask the question, Gene, but I'm gonna ask the question. Can I hear me? question. Do they think that this racial reckoning that was such a huge deal actually meant Do they think that this racial reckoning that was such a huge deal actually meant anything. Yeah. So okay. So it's showing us what they told me. And you might find this unsatisfying. It I probably won't. Not definitely yes. Right? But it's also not a complete no I asked, you know, like, let me interrupt. Is it complicated? Oh my god. We almost got through the whole episode. Anyway, said, But, yeah, let's get into it. I'm just gonna play you some of the conversation that I have with them. Maybe it is meaningful that we've got new language. To talk about the state of policing and the US. The discourse has shifted. Right? More people are aware perhaps that these are serious issues. And so I don't wanna throw cold water on all of that. But I think if we think of what we've reported here or documented here as being a reflection of, okay, when white people say they're committed to the cause of racial justice. How long lasting? How meaningful? How significant is that? How much do we run to the bank and say, like, we've got some We've got some folks on our side. I think these data that we share and write about here reckoned at least for me a sort of depressing look at what we can expect from a lot of white Americans, not all of them, but a lot of white Americans when these sorts of moments come into view. Having looked at all this data and sat with it, What do the two of you think it tells people who are trying to make specific tangible advances in racial justice in the world? Is the issue about, like, getting enough white people to help or is it about getting enough white people to just, like, not get in the way? Oh, Oh, I get to, I get to defer first to gin, and I'm just going to say, Jen, you've talked to all these white get to I get to defer first to I'm just gonna say Jen, you've talked to all these white folks. I mean, you've been interviewing them and studying them and writing about them at great length? Well, I think, you know, one way to interpret the responses you've got is a lot of this is bound up in partisanship. partisanship. The fact that they name Donald Trump, who is not only the president, but you know, the leader of the Republican The fact that they name Donald Trump, who is not only the president, but, you know, the leader of the Republican Party, and we do see that white those white Americans who identifies patents are kind of driving the support for Black Lives Matter South. It does suggest that there is a role here for parties. There is a role for the Democratic Party to not sweep this under the rug, but to really, you know, talking about sitting with it. it. So I think in terms of like action items, there should be some acknowledgement that this is tethered to, to a political identity, you know, but what is perplexing to me to take it back to Kim's think in terms of, like, action items, there should be some acknowledgement that this is tethered to. To a political identity. You know, but what is perplexing to me to to take it back to Kim's point, I have been talking with white racial justice activists, and I did so before George Floyd was murdered. So these were people who were showing up about race and caring about race when it wasn't a front page news reckoned many of them expressed real cynicism and skepticism about participating in mainstream politics. Mhmm. Even if we moved away from sort of electoral politics though. If you were an organizer who, you know, focuses on issues of, you know, I guess we're calling them issues of racial justice, on the ground. Right? And you're not necessarily talking about, you know, voting, but, you know -- Yep. organizing on the ground. How should those people be metabolizing this very sobering data? Yeah, I mean, I think we do talk about in the essay that there is evidence that legislators are responsive to things like protests. protests. I mean, if you are showing up and you have a critical mass of people that a legislator can start to feel nervous that they may not get mean, if you are showing up and you have a critical mass of people that a legislator can start to feel nervous that they may not get reelected. And so, you know, III don't know for being very narrow of taking it back to the reason we take it back to voting is because that is kind of the easiest thing people can do. We are so critical of momentary exercises of of, say, upset or what have you in light of these moments. And so we just know from decades of social scientific research that when we disconnect some structural problem or some systemic problem when we disconnect it from a pattern and we make it about episodes. That that people respond differently. It matters how we talk and think about the case of George Floyd. Floyd. When we just focus on George Floyd as an episode, what we forget is that police violence against black folks is patterned, we just focus on George Floyd, as an episode, what we forget is that police violence against black folks is patterned. Right? It's thematic to use more formal academic language. And so one of the things that happened, I think, rather, unfortunately, was so many people took George Floyd as an episode, as a moment to get exercised about. And didn't spend enough time reckoned to use that word, reckoning with the fact that this has a long history in the US as part of a pattern and to up in systems. You gotta do more than read about white fragility. Or even about anti racism. You've got to be engaged in the practice of politics that is sometimes not as sexy not as sort of meaningful perhaps in the moment, but you've gotta do the hard dirty work of politics. Agreed. I think, you know, there my take on this is is cynical like Hakim's, but it's more For me, it's a numeracy issue. Like, we are exaggerating this percentage of small dedicated white people. They are there, but they are small. So, you know, activists keep doing their thing this small group will will be into it. it. They don't have to bend to try to meet white, straight white stream America, mainstream white They don't have to bend to try to meet white White Stream America mainstream white America because as the as the essay demonstrates, that is more a fickle and volatile kind of mark to hit. So So I don't think there has to be an adjustment on their part. You also in a New York Times retrospective that said that according to your research that even among white folks who remain sympathetic to the black lives matter movement, the initiatives that they tend to support, the things they tend to support. Tend to be like small bore, personal initiatives. Can you say more about that? Howard Bauchner: I think Hakim and I have both talked about, you know, in the end, as political scientists, We care about the politics. Are are politics changing? Are the laws changing? Are the folks getting elected to office changing? Because if you have this groundswell of support, and, you know, all this enthusiasm and then it just goes into, you know, buying books with no disrespect to the authors of those books. You know, I don't know. Okay. You know, that seems to of be missing the mark. And again, it's just it's particularly perplexing because these folks often have the recognition of the system that upholds this. It's not like, oh, this is all individual, you know, racist. They're like, no. This is Built into our policy, it's baked into our laws, and yet the solution seems to be missing the mark a little. I think I think about the fact that white folks in this country have had a racial reckoning, I think, in recent years, but it's been much more localized. List and much less meaningful for the kinds of things I know Reckoned I care about, then media depictions of that racial would suggest. Let me put a final point on it. I think white folks are keenly aware on both sides of the political aisle of their racial identity. identity. They have a sense of what people think about white have a sense of what people think about white people. They are reckoning with that. Right? right? I think white people are I think white people are indeed and certainly the white people in my social circle, perhaps in gin's social circle, perhaps in the social circles of those listening to code switch. Like, the white folks we know are having quite a racial reckoning. Alright. They reckoned, but I think a lot of that and I love the way that Jim puts this. A lot of that has been feeling bad about being white, engaging in in some anti racist, quote unquote, behaviors and the like, but Jen's evidence is suggesting a lot of this reckoning is starting at the bookshelf and ending on the couch. And I just don't think that if that's what you know know about the state of the reckoned, you don't expect the reckoning to persist. Our listeners and a lot of our white listeners are gonna have some deep deep thinking to do after listening to that conversation. And hopefully, not just some thinking to me, but maybe some doing too. You know what I mean? Well, Let's send this with a cliche that I've out never to use, but does I feel work perfectly in this case. Time will tell gene. Time will tell. Well, Well, listeners, that's our that's our show. It originally aired in June of twenty twenty one, but it's one we're still thinking about and we bet many of you are too. The guess you heard featured were Jennifer Tuti and Hakim Jefferson. They're both Poly sci professors, Jen's at Wellesley, Yay, shout out to my alma mater, and Hopkins is Stanford. And their essay titled support for the Black Lives Matter Movement surge last year. Did it last was published in The New York Times in June of twenty twenty one. You can follow CodeSwitch on Twitter and IG. We're at NPR CodeSwitch on both those places. I'm at Karen Bates on Twitter and subscribe to our newsletter at npr dot orgcoatswitch newsletter. This episode was produced by Alyssa Jean Perry, Brianna Scott, and Leah Dinella. Danella. It was edited by Leah and Steve It was edited by Leah and Steve Drummond. And it was back checked by Sommer Tomat. And a big big shout out to the rest of the code switch fan, Kumari Devarajan, Jess Kung, Christina Kala and Sam yellow horse Kessler. Our intern is Asia Dryden. drain. Our art director is LA Our art director is Eli Johnson. Also, a huge thanks to the listeners who were brave and sent in their audio messages. Once again, I'm Karen Grigsby Bates. Bates. See ya See you. Support Support for NPR and the following message come from the Sundance Institute presenting the 2022 Sundance film festival, January 20th through 30th, be among the first to experience bold new works and independent for NPR and the following message come from the Sundance Institute, presenting the twenty twenty two Sundance Film Festival January twentieth through 30th, be among the first to experience bold new work and independent storytelling. storytelling. Tickets are on sale are on sale now at festival dot Sundance dot org. [email protected]. message is brought to you by the NPR Coffee Club. A club. 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