20: Separate but Equal

00:05 Mo Facts with Adam Curry for January 6, 2020. This is episode number 20. First show of 2020. How you doing Mo? I'm doing well Adam, how you doing? Good man, happy new year. Same to you sir, same to you. It's the 20th episode of Mo Facts with Adam Curry and this is the year. We're gonna start asking people to participate actively. and support the work, I think we've proven our value. I hope so. The last 19, I hope they found some value in it and returned the favor. Yeah, the favor, return the value for sure. Yeah, the value. So the value for value system successfully deployed at the No Agenda Show is very simple. You listen to this show an hour, hour and a half, two hours, whatever length it is. Did you get anything out of it? Did you learn anything? If you did,

01:00 Translate that into your own value and send it to us mofax.com or mofundme.com moefundme.com Alright Mo, I'm excited to find out what you got lined up for us. What are we going to talk about? All right, so if people don't know, that's Kanye West School Spirit and I had a little school spirit. So I want to talk about the segregation of schools. Oh, OK. All right. We had alluded to this topic on a couple of other shows talking about segregation. And that's such a big topic. I wanted to break it down and maybe into segments. And we'll talk about the final stretch of the integration process. And that was the schools.

01:44 So just to lead off, I want to start with a little MLK I have a dream. I have a dream that one day, live in the streets, we hold these, that one day Red Hills, Georgia, former slave owners will be able to sit down, I have a dream, one day

02:47 It's a classic. Classic clip on MoFax. Nothing like it. Yeah, so that is the whole meme or encapsulation of the civil rights movement integration and the defeating of segregation. So I wanted to start off with that. I've said this on a show several times that I am against forced Integration, forced is the key word there. Yes, I think that's a universal issue. Forced is never good, especially not if the government's forcing you to do something.

03:29 Correct, and the reason why I started off with the I have a dream speech is that's because that is where everybody is mentally set on the subject of integration. That it would just set that it worked, King was successful, but even King himself has some doubts before his death. And I have a clip of Harry Belafonte speaking on that topic. The last thing Dr. King said to me before he was murdered was in my home when we were sitting planning strategy for the Poor People's Campaign, which was on the horizon of the politics of the day. Martin said, you know, I've been thinking long and hard about our struggle. We worked tenaciously for our rights.

04:33 And the culmination of all that effort will be reflected in what we've come to call the integration movement. And I sit here deeply concerned that I suspect we are leading our nation on an integration trip that has us integrating into a burning house. Okay. Have you heard that statement before? The burning house? Yes. No, no, the only burning house I can think of is talking heads burning down the house. That's not going to help us. So this is a very, how can I say it? In certain circles, this is a very popular statement of Dr. Martin Luther King's, but not to the masses. Okay. That at the end of his life, he looked back. Do you have to have a secret handshake to get into this circle? Well, no, it's not, it's not that.

05:36 In the mainstream, they would never propagate this side of Martin Luther King. They want to keep him the I have a dream king, not the second guessing of the house burning down. Right, or integration itself, was this the right move? Now it's very popular in our community, the quote unquote black community, to second guess integration because we look at the results of it. And that's what this show, in this episode, we're going to really dissect how we got to the point of integration and the results of integration. And not only now looking back, you know, because hindsight is 20-20, we're going to look at some notable figures at the time.

06:29 And even they weren't as pro-integration as the mass media will have you to believe. So I have some clips here. We're going to start at present day and see how integration has failed to the point that schools are probably just as segregated now as they were in the 50s and 60s. And we have the Atlantic, can school integration make a comeback? One. The vast majority of white children living in the city have access to a high-performing neighborhood school. The vast majority of black students have guaranteed access to nothing. Do you think we're betraying the legacy of Brown v. Board? Absolutely. We have defied it in every way that you can.

07:23 America's schools are the most segregated they've been in almost 50 years. And for decades, the federal government hasn't been doing anything about it. Today's typical white student attends a school that is nearly three-quarters white. The average black student goes to one that's almost entirely students of color. In 1954, Brown v. Board of Education declared that segregated schools should be dismantled with, quote, all deliberate speed. We're sliding back into the two unequal systems Brown promised to get rid of. One for low-income black and Latino students, and another for more affluent white and Asian students. Yeah, this is a topic that interests me a lot. I follow this in Austin, mainly because now I'm a homeowner, so I'm a taxpayer, and I'm an old fart, and now I get to bitch and moan about stuff. So I follow what's happening with the Austin school districts. We have closings.

08:20 And this is one of the most liberal cities in America. It's a very odd place here in Texas. But it's a big NIMBY. Not in my backyard. It's always big talk, big mouth. But I believe, from what I understand, the schools are incredibly segregated in Austin. And I don't know if you're gonna talk about this at all, but charter schools is now, you know, they're cropping up everywhere and this is on one hand can be great, but on the other hand it makes the problem even worse. So yeah, I can attest to this definitely being the case. It's amazing that

09:01 We're back to the future. The main thing that they try to get rid of is human nature. Hey Mo, when you get to be as old as I am, you start picking up on a trend. This happens a lot. You can't change people's, how people feel. And that was the, how naive the civil rights, quote-unquote civil rights movement was because it was like, oh, we'll just force our kids to, you know, force this love on you, you know, and pull it out of, you know, pull the equality out of you. I have an analogy for you. Here, another one in Austin. They decided we need bikes. They just, you know, painted bike lanes on the roads downtown and in, you know, lots of places. But downtown's a lot of bike paths.

09:51 You can't just paint that and say, oh, it's going to work now. And you know, cars won't be making right hand turns, cutting bikes off, driving over them. It takes a long time for these good intentions to really work, if ever. There's no evidence it's working. It's dangerous to ride your bike here. And that's an excellent analogy because the two have to learn how to coexist with each other. Exactly. But when you force these two things that normally don't coexist or maybe shouldn't share the same space. That has to be learned. That's why I'm totally against forced integration. Now, if you choose to want to be integrated like our podcast is, this is a choice. And we come here and we have a conversation. You're not a white guy? What? No.

10:40 What? Yeah. Stephen A. Smith, I'm a black man, damn it. Okay. So, um, I wonder, and how can I put it nicely? The people that were behind the civil rights movement, was this a kind of force anarchy? Who knows? Because when you start peeling back the layers of who was running the civil rights movement, the NAACP, we've talked about that extensively, who they really were. When you look about the communist ties to the civil rights movement, that's one form of protest is anarchy.

11:29 Was this a form of anarchy? But we'll talk about that a little later. Let's get into comeback two. No other education policy has ever come close to matching that success. So why'd we turn the other way? There was significant progress in terms of creating schools that were more racially and socioeconomically diverse. But we have to acknowledge there were other places where that didn't happen and where there was real resistance. Parents didn't want black and Latino kids coming to their schools. Some aggressively lobbied lawmakers and brought cases to the courts. Eventually, this resistance worked. Over the last three decades, school segregation has come back.

12:29 So interesting to hear, you know, one of those older clips was, you know, my grandkid, they're not going to come over here to my school. I wonder if that's if that that that still goes on that kind of talk, maybe in a hushed tone, but I'm sure it still happens. It's just I find it strange just me being who I am to force yourself into a situation I never understood. the civil rights movement of forcing yourself to lunch counters, forcing yourself into other people's schools. We had Plessy versus Ferguson, and that was in 1892. And that was kind of like where separate but equal was established. And if I'm from the viewpoint of if we're going to fight anything in the Supreme Court,

13:30 Let's have the black schools be equal to the white schools because that was the claim that all they had better books and better facilities, better schools. This goes on today. We still it's it's morphed a little bit but the the way it's presented today is the zip code you're born in you know determines your future. That's true. And we didn't solve the problem of the inequality of schools, not the racial balancing of schools. Just the inequality of the education, of the material, of the state of the buildings, the safety, etc.

14:11 Yeah, when we go to the black school, we should see the same safety, the same fire extinguishers, the same fire... The same jungle gym in the yard. Yeah, of course. Exactly. And I think that's why you had a bunch of people wanting to integrate because, oh yeah, that school is so much better facilities-wise. It's an interesting point. I've never really thought about this. What was the reasoning behind school? integration. It's kind of sinister now that I think about it. It's like, well, look, your school's always going to be shit, so we're going to send you over here where it's not shit. Yeah, that's kind of sinister. That was the same thing with No Child Left Behind. It's like, oh, you can read well, so you don't deserve to be in this crappy school. So let's move you over here to a good school. Let's not fix the school. Let's move you to a less crappy one. Yeah, exactly.

15:06 We see this all and it never helps. It never helps. And as you're going to hear and come back. Oh, wait, wait, wait, but it does help. It helps ease the mind of those who are better off. Well, we did our part. We let them come over to our kids school. Oh yeah. The guilt. Yes, exactly. King's plan isn't the forced blessing of the past. Instead, he wants to make it easier for parents to send their kids to a school outside their neighborhood. This is called school choice. In this system, students of color can avoid bad neighborhood schools and apply for better ones across town. And white parents can choose to send their kids to more diverse schools than the ones nearby. The idea is that parents can voluntarily integrate schools. But it's not as easy as it sounds.

15:59 Natalie Hopkinson, a journalist and parent of two, has tried to get her two kids into largely white schools for years. They switched schools five times in ten years. Eventually, she gave up and sent them both to private school. When it comes to DC, race rules everything, and it's really depressing to me. The choice system very clearly disadvantages black students because the schools that are high-performing are in white neighborhoods period Families that are able have the means to be able to buy into those neighborhoods have a guarantee they will have access to those schools right same same problem just Continues. Yeah, so it's not the schools. It's the communities that make up the schools and we spoke about

16:51 about how the communities have been under attack through social programs, no man's house, welfare system and these things. So then you see the schools reflect what the community, the status of the community is. And what person in their right mind would send their child to a lower level school? You don't want to, but if it's the one in your neighborhood, it's either that or the voucher program or whatever. I'm speaking of the school choice idea. It's like, oh yeah, the white person's in there. Let me choose the shit school. Yeah, they need a little diversity. Who would do that? It makes no sense. This is what we're dealing with. And this is what irks me, is the so-called leaders

17:49 Where are they at to call this out? Like these schools are not equal. Based off of what I said before, separate but equal, the facilities should be the same, the amount of chalk, the year of the textbooks, all these things. That's what we should have been fighting for. But nope. Yeah, and Mo, I must tell you, I've heard about the school choice, school vouchers, et cetera, for years and years and years. And I'm totally honest. only right now have I really thought about it in the way you're thinking about it. It's like, well, yeah, holy shit, that's, again, it's just insulting. It's like, no, and it goes both ways because if that's being offered, there should have been a, and maybe there was, a call saying, well, hold on a second, we don't want that, we want these schools to be better. And I'm sure those calls were there, but ultimately, it's such an accepted thing.

18:46 Yeah, and just for me, it just kind of hit me like, oh, that's, yeah, it's kind of cynical and insulting. And the teachers don't really say anything because what do they do? They all close these schools. The teachers work in these environments. You see them on the news all the time. The roof is falling down, racks are running around. And it's like the solution is to close the school down and bust the kids out of their neighborhood. Right. That's the solution. Not fix the school. No. It's just very, I don't know, I can't get my head around it. But one thing the last clip, the last set of clips brought up was the Brown versus the Board of Education. This was 1954 and this was the Brown family. They wanted to go to a white school. Well, let me let the next clip

19:39 Where are we at? Brown versus the Board of Education, not so equal one. It's early in the morning and young Linda Brown, a third grade elementary student in the town of Topeka, Kansas is getting ready for school. Linda and her sister will soon leave the house to begin their journey, but they won't be going to the elementary school located just seven blocks away from their house. No, instead they will walk six blocks to board a bus that will then take them to another school Located a mile away from their house. Why? Because of the color of their skin. The year is 1951 and this country needs a change Now part of that clip sounded really old and part of it sounded modern. Where was that from?

20:32 It's from the Georgia Bar Association. Oh my God, they need some help. Yeah, so it's for kids. It's for kids. It's for kids, so they have an actual gavel named, I think, Slammer. So maybe we can get him hooked up with Maxine's gavel. Hey kids, I'm going to teach you how segregation works. Okay. But there was something in that clip that I wanted to see if you caught about the proximity Yeah, a six, walking six blocks to the bus. So, so the white school is seven blocks away. Yeah. Oh yeah. They only have to walk six blocks. White, well they had to walk six blocks to the bus, catch a bus. So that means this family lived in a mixed race community, which goes back to our white flight

21:32 Moving out, this black family moved. Moving out, yeah. You see where I'm going? Yeah. Because you can't say, oh, we want all the black kids to go to all white schools. That doesn't make any sense, does it? No, that was... How does that work? You mean you had to have a... No. This was very targeted and this was about for a certain group of people and we're gonna get into that, not equal to. It was happening everywhere. African-American students were being denied admission to all white schools, especially in the states where segregation was mandated. The case, Oliver Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Shawnee County, Kansas, was named after Reverend Oliver Brown from Topeka, Kansas.

22:16 Oliver Brown was an assistant pastor, a welder in the shops of the Santa Fe Railroad, and father of nine-year-old Linda Brown. Brown was also one of 13 parents to be recruited by his childhood friend Charles S. Scott, a civil rights lawyer. Brown and others were asked to attempt to enroll their children in their closest all-white neighborhood school. Reverend Brown did this in the fall of 1951, taking his daughter by the hand and walking with her into Sumner Elementary School. Okay, you rang your bell on the lawyer's name. Mm-hmm. They will have you believe that Mr. Brown, you say, you know what, I'm fed up.

23:01 My black daughter's going to a white school. I'm calling my lawyer. That's not how it happened. The civil rights lawyers called up families, hey! Yeah, he's like an ambulance chaser. Yeah, and they use their kids as a weapon. Political, yeah, as like Greta. Oh, brother. This is the modern, she's, what is her name? I think Cynthia Brown, I believe. She's like the modern day Greta. They use these kids, put them in this very volatile and hateful environment because it's forced.

23:41 We saw, we've seen the pictures, we've seen the little black girl holding a notebook on all these, like, uh, civil rights clips. Yeah, your heart breaks. And it's like white people yelling on both sides, like, get out of here, cool, get out of here, you know? It's like, what? And you put your kid through that for what? A better education? Well, I mean, yeah. I wouldn't, yeah. It's hard to say. How desperate are you? I don't know. That's... I see the joke in it all, absolutely, but I'm also thinking, well, you know, if you really want to make a stand, sometimes you got to do something. But clearly this lawyer just jumped out of the woodwork and I would say the lawyer kind of set it all up that way to use the kid. So my question goes back again, why are we not trying to get better facilities for all the black children at the school that you're not trying to let your child go to?

24:38 I wish I had an answer. There is no answer because it doesn't make any sense. It's like, duh, but you want to enforce these certain privilege and these kids are privileged. They have a certain privilege because they were able to move out of the neighborhood obviously because they have to walk seven blocks and then catch a bus. To go to the school in the community where it's at, instead of walking six blocks to this school over here that's in their community. So I'm just saying, yeah. So we're gonna continue on with, where are we at?

25:18 I think we skipped the clip. We skipped Linda Brown explaining segregation to her kids. You want to play that? I think it worked out best this way. It's funny how things work out. So Linda Brown Thompson, that's the little girl. That's the little girl and she's going to explain her experience. The neighborhood that we lived in was an integrated neighborhood. And so when we went outside to play, I had playmates that were all nationalities. I had playmates that were Hispanic, that were white, that were Native American, and black. So we all played together, you know, every day. And when school would start, then we would have to go these separate directions.

26:04 My playmates wanted to know, well why can't you go to school with us? And I wanted to know why I couldn't go with them, you know. But being children we didn't understand what was going on. It was devastating. I didn't like it in the bed and I just wondered, why, why is this happening? Why couldn't she go to the neighborhood school? And when the kids asked her why she couldn't go, they came and asked me, Ms. Brown, what's all of this? Why can't Linda go to school with us? And I tried to explain to them, it was the color of her skin, Hm.

27:06 You know, and I don't want to equate my experience to this at all, of course. But when I was seven, we moved to the Netherlands and I was in an international school for a couple of years, only English spoken. I picked up a couple of words of Dutch, but this was 70, early 70s and Americans were not very well liked. There was a Vietnam War and, you know, so really what the Dutch kids would say to me is, you crazy American? That's about all I would hear all day. And my dad switched careers And the very expensive international school for all three kids ended and we literally were told one Sunday night when we had a week off from school, hey guess what you guys are doing tomorrow? And I'm like, wow, what are we doing? You're going to Dutch school. What? And so I entered Dutch school at fifth grade almost, you know, not speaking any Dutch at all. And I'll tell you, it sucked. Massive balls.

28:02 Because I was different, and for immutable differences, things I couldn't help, but I was completely different. And it's traumatic. You know, so, just throwing out another analogy, but I can feel some of this. And I understand, I'm not insensitive to the fact that she wanted to go to school with the kids that she played with in her neighborhood. And another small fact that I don't want to gloss over is, why is it that every other group, non-white group gets to go to school, but it's like, no, no black kids. We'll take the Mexicans and Indians, but you're pushing the bounds with the black kids. I mean, I want to point that out as well. So are we talking about segregation here?

28:46 that don't really fall under segregation under what how you think it would be right of whites only right that's that's a that's some funny business going on there as well that huh no no black people out very selective yeah selective segregation yeah i just wanted to point that out if for the for the people that's out there um listening but here we are uh so they the civil rights lawyers gotten them to got their 15 families and they take it to the Supreme Court and we have a Brown versus Board Supreme Court one. By the early 50s, segregation was frayed by the war and torn in spots where the court had acted. The white primary was outlawed, housing covenants outlawed, some graduate and law schools were forced to admit blacks.

29:42 But the court was aware that the big fight was still to come. The schools, K-12, white children and black in the same classroom. I love the music, it really sets me up. So, this is the last battleground, the K-12 schools. They've like they said the war had a big effect on it or World War II is what they're referring to as the war because that was one I think we spoke about on the last show. That was one of the things that black people were able to join the armed forces in mass fight side by side.

30:23 You had the Tuskegee Airmen, you had, I forget, the Tank Battalion that were famed for being very successful in World War II. So you had a lot of black men, soldiers coming back home and they were kind of breaking down some of these social barriers. So as you said, segregation was tattered, but they had to keep forcing, forcing, So we're gonna get into Supreme Court too. The court picked five and consolidated them into one set of arguments, forever known as Brown versus Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. As oral arguments approached, people camped outside the building to assure themselves a seat in the courtroom. NAACP lawyers Marshall and Carter were up against a formidable adversary.

31:24 John W. Davis, a former presidential candidate making the last of his 140 appearances at the Supreme Court. But his arguments had a familiar ring. Separate wasn't necessarily unequal. Blacks should be happy with the way things were. Didn't states have the right to educate their children as they saw fit? Throwing it right back to states' rights. Interesting. This is where I disagree, because they say, shouldn't blacks be happy with the way they had it? No, because the schools were inferior. The schools were inferior. Well, the second part of that, though, the way I heard it was, well, wait a minute, shouldn't the states make sure that that's, I mean, is this when we had a Department of Education or not? Because I think that's where most of the problems came from, is when we had a federal, I should look it up. Go ahead and continue, Mo, and I'll just look that up as when that started.

32:20 So just a little anecdote that schools were not equal at the time. And I'm not oblivious to that fact because my dad would tell me he was like, hey, we had to go in and take books together and they got like books that were five, six years old, pages were torn out of them. So I'm aware that the schools were not equal in facilities and materials. But there was something that the white schools couldn't give the black students. And we're going to get to that later on in the show. And also, in the time that we talk about now, PTSD, post-traumatic stress, forcing kids into an environment that they don't want to be in or they're not welcomed in has to be very traumatic. It has to be a very traumatic. But nobody considered this. It was like we were trying to win a political battle.

33:17 And if the kids are sacrificed, so be it. Well, of course, this is very modern to abuse your children for a political point. By the way, Department of Education under Jimmy Carter, 1979. Okay, so this it was a school. So was the state's responsibility to ensure that the schools were equal which they were not which if I had silver if I'm running the show I'm having my civil rights lawyers fight that case of no, it's not equal then then then we I think I think that would just been better off, but that's just me. Let's get into Supreme Court three. Warren starts off in a bland manner and you can't tell for a while as he's delivering the opinion what the outcome is going to be. And then he comes to the key line and he says, and we unanimously hold that separate but equal has no place in the constitution.

34:22 And it was just electric in the courtroom when he said unanimous. We conclude that in the field of public education, the doctrine of separate but equal has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we unanimously hold that the plaintiffs are deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the 14th Amendment. Plessy v. Ferguson in education is no more and in practice Plessy v. Ferguson itself is no more. The era of Jim Crow, constitutionally speaking, is over. Alright, I'm just trying to understand this. Explain, I need another explanation of separate but equal.

35:05 Okay, so it goes back to 1892 case Plessy versus Ferguson. So Homer Plessy, who is 7 eighths Caucasian. He's going back to the one drop rule here. Took a seat in a white only car of a Louisiana train. He was arrested after he refused to move to the car reserve for blacks. And this was also a plant, he was a plant. By lawyers, so this goes even back to the early, late 1800s of

35:43 Lawyers were using plants to bring about cases. But on appeal, the United States Supreme Court upheld the state imposed racial segregation, relying on the separate but equal doctrine. It says separate facilities for blacks and whites satisfy the 14th Amendment so long as they were equal. So that's Plessy versus Ferguson or the separate but equal trial. Okay, I got it now. Yes. So that's what I'm saying. If you want to have your lawyers go fight, but like, hey, we've tried this case, Plessy versus Ferguson. We're looking at this school. We're looking at that school. They're not equal. You're not upholding the law. Right. But no, what they want to do is say, we want the select few handful of black children to be forced into white schools.

36:36 while leaving the black schools dilapidated and deteriorating. So, essentially this case and its ruling came down to, well, it's okay to leave these schools in a state of disrepair. Yeah. It's not unconstitutional. As long as the black kids have equal access to the white schools. Yeah, you can let it all go to shit as long as they can walk over that way. Wow. If you can afford a living in the neighborhood. Yeah, as long as, we see this, it's economical though. That's institutional racism, bro. Light bulb, okay. But it's for poor people, it's for poor black people. If you're middle class and like we spoke about, about the Obama family that can move out of the neighborhood. Well, at a certain point, I think it does more from

37:32 purely a black-white issue, racial to poor and less poor. The lines do blur at a certain point. Yeah, they do. That's true. So fast-forwarding to now, we have Mr. Tony Harris, a former anchor on CNN, and he speaks on school desegregation failed. Learned people suggesting to me that that the Brown decision set education back for black kids. Why are we fighting these battles? When our kids are getting, fighting for resources,

38:18 for what is a substandard education. Graduating, not reading at grade level in a lot of cases, not all cases, but in many cases. Why are we fighting this when we know there was a period of time in our history when we were educating our kids? And the Brown comes into effect and you lose so many of the black teachers who were teaching these kids. And don't forget, part of the buy-in for a lot of these districts, these white districts, was that these black teachers aren't going to teach our white kids. Hmm. I haven't seen Tony Harris on CNN in a long time. Yeah, he hasn't been there for a while I think he had um, he hosts a show called America hate it looks into Racial issues. I think Al Jazeera Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Gotcha. Gotcha So he brings up some great points because what we had happened was this thing called social promotion Have you ever heard of the atom? Is that a like Twitter? Oh

39:19 Kind of like it, but nobody knows what they're doing. I mean, yeah. No, that's where you just kind of push the kid along. Like, oh yeah, we're gonna go ahead and move him to the third grade, even though he's reading on a second or first grade level. Yeah, this is, let's just keep him going. This is a very big problem, and I think that these days it happens a lot more, and it's done kind of with the grades, you you know, schools don't want to get a bad over everything's with metrics. Schools don't want a bad mark. So they either lower the difficulty of the test or, you know, fudge around with the numbers just to just push the kids through the system. One of those things that they did, and I can just highlight this right quick, was they went from the seven point scale to the 10 point scale. So just when I was in school, A was 100 to 93. That was A.

40:12 Now, an A is from 100 to 90, and then it goes to B is from 89 to 80, and so on and so forth. Yeah, and it's something I never really... I always... Okay, rewind. Growing up in the Netherlands, in the Dutch school system, it's a 0 to 10 scale. Always has been that way. And the more I came to appreciate the 0 to 10 scale, the more I looked at the American system with A, B, C, D, F, And would say, this is really fudging, you know, it's like a C. Well, you kind of, you pass with a C, but really in the 10 point system that would be a failing grade at more like a 5. And I always thought it was kind of pussy. You know, it's like, just give me the real number.

41:07 Well, that kind of system helps with quote-unquote privilege as well. Yes, of course. It's a C. It's like, it's kind of... It's kind of, yeah, you can go ahead. We like little Johnny, so we'll give him a B minus instead of a C plus. Exactly. Exactly. It's a fudge factor. It's stupid. The reason why I make that point is this is kind of how one example of how black kids were harmed because Where one teacher might give you a B+, the other one might give you a C-. It's very subjective. The other thing is about social promotion, this is another, and this is going to be a lot of conversation that me and my dad had about schools because he is an educator.

41:56 He would say, I don't care how big you were, if you were reading on the third grade level, you were in the third grade. You could be 12 years old at his quote unquote black school, the teacher wasn't passing you. If you ran on the third grade level, you were in the third grade, you were on the third grade math level, they would keep failing you and failing you and failing you until you actually performed. Well, we all know how that worked out. We all know what changed over the years. So what happened was, and I don't know if it's because teachers were scared to be called racist if they felt a bunch of black kids. Well, the black family was being destroyed at the same time. The black community was being destroyed at the same time through urban renewal, but that's another show for another day. And now you have these kids going into an environment that

42:49 Well, I'm going to let Mr. Minister J. Samuel Williams and his wife explain it. In the black community we were prepared by setting certain goals, objectives for ourselves. This was done primarily in the home, in the church, and in the school at that particular time because schools held a heavy reinforcement into our characters because they were black schools. Schools were not integrated at that time. you know do the best that you can with your life you are unique you have a contribution to make you have something to offer you have a talent you have skills many many other things that you do have go on out there into the world and get them done. And who was J Samuel Williams?

43:36 So Jason, I mean, he was just a minister, but I found this video on YouTube, him and his wife speaking on black schools before integration. And just to get perspective of somebody that age. Now we can, like I said, I'm 40 years old. I didn't go through the changing of a school, so I can have a perspective. But I wanted to get someone of that age, that experienced as it was happening. So we can get some perspective of what it was like from a person that attended black schools prior to integration. So that's what Mr. J Samuel provides to this story. Yeah, so like you said, it's something about, I've had white teachers and I've had black teachers. I've had good teachers, I've had bad teachers.

44:32 But it's something about a teacher that has a certain vested interest in you, and you get that from black educators. Now I can't speak as far as it doesn't happen between the phenomenon between white educators and white students, but they don't allow you to quit. They don't allow you to, listen, I'm just speaking from the 80s when I went to school. I had one teacher, Mrs. Tapp. and she would like just give it to you straight. Like, you know what life is going to be like, you know how the world is, and they will talk to you in a certain way that I think maybe a white teacher may not feel comfortable with saying to you. Well, I've certainly, and I think that's when the life of a teacher is most beautiful when they connect with a student.

45:31 And I've had that certainly with one history teacher and one geography teacher but he Never received in any kind of talk from them about hey now, you know, you know, you know We're how this is all gonna wind up the way. I think that you got that so Having that connection with the teacher is universal the downside I don't think anyone said, well, you're gonna wind up on the streets dead. And it's funny, my dad was an educator and he chose to go to the worst school. Whatever the school, he's like, what's the worst school? Send me there. He was kind of like Joe Clark. You know, Mo, knowing you, it doesn't surprise me your dad did that.

46:23 But he would bring kids home and like my mom would like fix big pots of spaghetti and we're feeding like three or four students and I mean all off a teacher's salary. So, yeah, so I just think but you don't get that now I don't think because Well these days it's legally dangerous, you know, you'd be Before you know you've been accused of some wrongdoing. It's a lot. Yeah, it's a lot of stuff You can't do anymore as a teacher. I totally agree with you, but not to go down on Off on a tangent. Let's get back to mr. J Williams or Samuel Williams to relative to white America we were taught that

47:11 A lot of the values that came into being were set by middle class, let's say white America. The way we were to emulate them, you know, because at this point we were at the very threshold of integration. emulate them, take on many of these as much as possible middle class values and virtues. That was a kind of inferior stigma placed on black people. But you had to look through it to see exactly where, you know,

47:49 the real truth behind it. That is a stigma of inferiority. You know, you're not exactly where you should be. But you need to do this, you need to do thus and so in order to be accepted in the white world. Into a white culture. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's what you're gonna get. Of course It's like it's so it's almost obvious that that that was bound to unpack that way. Well, you've got to do it this way Well, that's not where I'm coming from in life. Well tough shit kid. Yeah, I can see where that's a problem, too The whole thing is a mess But this goes back to the conversation that we had about your friend coming over and you just wanted to play. Right. This is what J. Samuels Williams is explaining. He's like, no, we have to...

48:37 you know when you watch something and you want to emulate it not for the simple fact that you think it's you put it on a pedestal but you're like oh well i'm sure you had this when you went to um dutch school uh to dutch school you're like what are the dutch kids doing what was nor what's considered normal let me tell you for dutch kids let me tell you they they did division completely differently they didn't even have one number over another number with a vertical line. It was a slash line. It was like, what the hell? It's like, okay, well, I guess I do it that way, which I had no background in it. Very, it's messed up. Hey, this is a jip. This whole school system's a big jip. And that's why you felt like the kid when you came over, he was carrying that on his back, like, oh, we have to emulate what we think middle class is. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

49:33 Because you're trying to convince people that you belong there. Yes, and it was never a point of time We could let your hair down and be you man. Were there any child psychologists involved in these in these rules and regulations and this whole thinking process or was it all just We know what's best for the kids. I just wonder about that. It's progress We need progress. Yes, we don't care about kids crying in the street talking about the world is coming to an eight years No, it's great material. It's great for the photographic material. It'll look great on my resume. Mmm Right now not only that but who can fight against crying kids. Yeah, I

50:17 So these kids were being used, just my opinion, and it wasn't even a successful or a fruitful goal. Well, thank you. I mean, it's one thing, and look, it's like if you're gonna abuse your kid for the greater good, I mean, that's a very big sacrifice to make. But if it's for a misguided cause that, well, here we are, look at where we are today, then it's kind of sad. Then it was just, I mean, maybe people really believe this was the way to do it. You know, I'm not in their shoes. These aren't these, you know, there's some smart people. Yeah. Who do dumb things. They were smart people, but it was, my question, was it a status thing to say, Oh, my kids go to the, to the white school. And that, I mean, this is a real phenomenon that I want to bring up and we don't discuss it long, but a lot of times,

51:15 Quote-unquote black people would like to be the only black in a situation. Mm-hmm. This is real I'm the only black to live in my neighborhood. I mean that means Is that a good thing? Is that how it's viewed? Yeah, I made it. Hmm In this is real. I mean, this is a real sentiment It's crooked and backwards in my book, but it's like what do you have any friends or acquaintances who were in that situation? Would say it that way Not in that way. Okay, not it's not they don't say it like that, but it's implied It's where you can say something. Yeah, and it's a it's really tell me you walk around saying I'm doing a podcast with that white dude

51:59 I'm here. That's just me. You don't see another white podcasters hanging around him. Do you any black ones? Yeah, exactly. Right. Well, I would never do that because it's like, and just to be honest. No, of course not. Of course. I get it. No, I'm not. I'm just saying is it's the opposite. Yeah. It's cause it's like, That's another show. But I mean, yeah, it's just that you have this gauge like, oh, am I keeping it real enough? Or, you know, it's a mental thing. And it's like some people, they don't care. They want to make it away from their own people. And that's the case of this whole episode here. That they didn't want equal schools. They didn't want better schools. It was- They wanted to be over there with them.

52:54 Yes, yes, and this is one of the things that we go back to the white flight with Michelle Obama It was like yeah all the white people left and then but who moved in right black people so you have a problem with Black people that you ran from yeah It's this weird thing that goes on. But um, taught values three. It brought about some self pride too because in school we were taught we had we had role models like I mentioned before we had role models and our teachers you know instill self pride and we just knew that someday you know we it wasn't going to be like this all all the time that someday we were going to be somebody so we just

53:37 You just kept that in your mind, that one day we're going to leave Prince Edward. We're not going to be in farm the rest of our lives, you know. And for the most part, most of us did. So she just goes on to speak about what was instilled in them by the teachers that they had at their all-black schools. So I just think if it's your choice, you want to integrate to a school, that's fine. If you feel like, you know, you want that balance, that's fine. The problem I have with the whole situation is twofold. One, the schools got no better. And two, the kids were forced into an environment that really caused them stress. And living with a person that never really got over it being my father. He never really got over that. I mean, because it's a culture shock.

54:30 as you spoke about in the Netherlands. Are there any success stories of very successful black Americans who went through this process, forced or not, but went to a white school and then became XYZ? Kamala Harris, she said she was bused. I said black America. I said black Americans. Well, technically, technically. Oh, please. Well I'm thinking... You didn't say 8 all, sir. Yeah, that's true, that's true. You got me. But I'm talking more about, you know, back in the 60s, 70s here, the time we're talking about. I think a lot of your politicians, this is a reality, Condoleezza Rice comes to mind. Right, Cory Booker actually is a good example. Yeah, I mean so, because of their economic status allowed them to live in the

55:30 good neighborhood. This is the missing piece here. And that's why I spoke about proximity. It's because your family was economically fortunate or successful. I don't want to say fortunate, it was a luck thing, but they worked hard to move into that neighborhood and your kid kind of deserves to go to that school. But did you think 10 steps ahead of like, what's the environment really going to take the toll it's going to take on my child? Sending them to all white school where they were as a show, good show called everybody hates Chris. And it has like highlights that where he was academically gifted and he got to go to all white school and he was the only black kid. And like, you don't want to be the only anything anywhere. Right.

56:17 That's not a good thing to be so I mean, I don't think the parents really thought it out It was like oh, yeah, we're gonna make history or you know, my kid's gonna you know, be you know, right on the front All right. Well, but I can see parents if it's not thought through saying, you know, this is the opportunity I want my kid to have this opportunity and really not thinking it through as a kid true, but it does have long-term effects On the child and then it has long term effects on your community because what is happening is maybe that student. Super intelligent super charismatic needs to be an example for his fellow black students.

57:02 Right. You know, you start pulling all the gifted kids out of the schools. That's why I was totally against no child left behind in every... Right, then you leave just the rest all... you literally leave the rest behind. Right. It's like, oh yeah, okay, you can read... all the kids can read on school level, we're gonna move them out to another school. So what are you leaving behind? Who, you know, where's the tutoring coming from? Where's the peer level inspiration coming from? Nowhere. You have a bunch of kids that... And then it has to deal with your self-esteem as well, like, oh, they just left me. You know, just left me behind. Well, again, all of this comes from a completely failed policy idea which everybody bought into instead of the obvious, which is, hey, let's make the schools in our neighborhood better.

57:55 All right, so let's continue on with Talk Values For. So we learned to work within the confines, to be creative as much as possible, to make, as black people say a lot of time, make do with what you have. And by this adaptability to this own inner culture, this is what brought forth many of the qualities and the strengths. And it meant that we had to live beyond where we were. You know, we were not taught just to watch where you're walking right now, you know, just to look down right where you were in the 50s. But look ahead, there's something out there, you know. Go get it. So that's just him continuing on with what they were... With the thinking, the thinking of the day.

58:45 Yeah, and what they were given from the I just want to highlight that because everybody wants to make it seem like it's a couple things I want to tear down here. One, everybody will make seem like all the black schools are just terrible. Yeah, I mean, no, there's some very prominent of black high schools even to today. One of them being, I think it's still open in Durham, North Carolina called Hillside High School. That was the town I grew up in. And I really wanted to go to that school, but my dad was like, nah, you're not going to Hillside. Why not? Why not? Because they had already, the year I was, let's see, so I was in high school from 94 to 99.

59:30 This, it already had been gutted out. All the affluential kids, it was like the school for the quote unquote ghetto. No, I'm serious. I mean, because it was no more middle class in the school district. You see what I'm saying? So it was like, My dad had sense, he was like, nah, that's not gonna happen. Even though he would go teach at that school, but he didn't teach at that school because he was at the worst school in that, that was like the behavioral school. So you wanted to be a hornet?

1:00:11 Yes. Hillside Hornet. Right. Because I just love, I mean, to be honest with you, and this may sound funky, but I just like always felt comfortable around being around all black people. Sure. I even went to a historically black college for that reason. It was just a little inside baseball. As a black child, you only have a certain amount of years where you can be incubated with your own people. Right. And until you have to become integrated into society. So, you know, high school is when you're a young adult, college is your even you become a real adult, quote unquote adult. But then, then you have to go out to the workforce and you really can't pick and choose then. So that was like, oh man, I want to be around, you know, my own people. But I think my dad had foresight to understand and see like, yeah, they're not going to accept you. Right. So what school did you wind up going to?

1:01:14 I went to Riverside High School, which was about 50-50, 40-60, somewhere around there. Which Durham is almost like 50-50 black-white in itself, which is a strange, I mean, it's a weird, unique, I'm gonna say unique, not weird, a unique place to grow up because every other person you see is black. I mean, at the time I was there, I mean, now it's a huge Hispanic population, but yeah, it was just, I don't know, it's just you just feel, and you know what, I used to think it was weird, you don't be like that Moe, because you know, that's not the way to think, you need to think integrated, you know, integration mindset. But now that I work at a corporation that has people from all over the world, at lunch, everybody sits with their own kind.

1:02:02 It's unforced segregation. I mean, it's weird, because you would look in the cafeteria and it's like, oh yeah, you have this group over there, this group over there, you know, so it's like... You would actually be made feel, black people would be made to feel bad because you wanted to do that. But then you see everybody else doing it. Right. Now I'll just wager though, you're a high tech executive. You've got a lot of H2B visa workers. You've got people who are recent immigrant background. Right. Which is a little different.

1:02:41 But in general, when it comes to food, you know, I went to an integrated college, not very long because I just couldn't stand what the hell I was doing there. And my roommate was a black kid from Trenton, New Jersey. And even around food, yeah, there's so much difference in, you know, culturally in what, you know, what we want to eat. Of course, we all agreed on Mickey D's, that was easy. And I drive. But lunchtime, food time is always going to be interesting and people will, of course, gravitate towards people who are maybe eating something they like.

1:03:24 I don't even think it's eating, it's when you want to speak in your native tongue. That too, yeah sure. You know, when you want to say a joke and not have to explain it. Right. Or... In other words... It's a bunch of different things. Let me take your side. So what you're saying is it's a natural human occurrence to want to sit with your own culture. Everybody wants to be around their own kind. Now, can you intermingle with other people? Yes. Of course. And you appreciate the things that other cultures bring? Of course. And that's why I don't really get so emotional about racism. Because I have a very unique, and this is just me, I have a very unique view on racism. Racism is a weird form of nepotism. Huh. Because

1:04:20 If you were able to hire somebody that looks like you, you're gonna do it because they're kind of like extended family. That's how I look at it. Now, do people charge it with hate? Of course they do. I'm not denying that. So what you're saying, Rachel, is that, okay, wait, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa. When you equate racism to nepotism, it's kind of the reverse. Instead of, I'm better than my, because a textbook definition, my race is superior to that person's race, therefore I'm going to hire the superior person. It's a little different. And it's not about superiority. It's like, well, I feel comfortable with this person. I think it's a merge of both of what you said, because there is some vanity. Oh, yeah, we're the best. I think everybody thinks that of their whatever group it is, age group, boomers versus millennials. Oh, yeah, of course. So your group, you're going to feel that you're the best.

1:05:23 And then you say, well, since my group's the best, I want to surround myself around with that group, whether it be to be comfortable, whether it be I understand or whether, oh, that's a distant cousin. You know what I mean? Well, no, you're absolutely right and in the corporate environment today the biggest problem I'd say is of course not racism. The biggest problem is ageism for the very reasons you outline there is certainly in Silicon Valley where there are 40 year olds, 40 plus, who are incredibly skilled at their technological prowess, whatever it is, you know, let's just call it coding, software engineer, but they're very

1:06:05 they don't get hired because people want to have younger people around. Yeah, because they think they know, younger people know. Older people don't know anything. Well, true. I mean, I'm just saying that's how they look at it. Like, oh, you know, I bet you didn't know how to download that app or whatever. I mean, so I mean, that's, and the reason why I say this, the reason why I say this about, and I'm going to be short on nepotism, When you go into a situation, you have a mindset of, and I've done a lot of growing in the last, I guess, 10 years, because just being exposed to different things. I'm not gonna say the gender or the nationality of my last boss, but the people that person hired first shared the same nationality as them, the next four people they hired. And then the next two shared

1:07:05 The same gender as them. So I'm looking at now, I'm like, hold on, what is this? It's nepotism. It's a standard form of nepotism. And just for a little comment relief, I like nepotism. And just to be completely clear, the textbook definition of nepotism, because a lot of people think it's only relatives, the textbook, the practice among those with power or influence of favoring relatives or friends, especially by giving them jobs. So it's not, nepotism is often confused with only family, but family, friends.

1:08:13 But is that a weird viewpoint? I mean, that's just how I look at it. I mean, I don't really take offense to it. No, it sounds really honest. But you know what it is? In today's social justice world, even saying that, and I should probably play this clip on no agenda just to make some people's heads explode. Just saying it, oh, that's so wrong. So wrong. Nepotism. I bet you nepotism will be just as bad, certainly coming from a guy like Trump, People, that's just as bad as racism. You're cutting other people short. It's an ism. You're cutting people short. You're jipping other people, not giving a fair shot, fair chance. But people do it all the time, whether it's religion, color, gender, age. Well, I don't know, Mom. I grew up, two things my mom always said to me, and both of them no longer apply.

1:09:14 So now you're 15 years younger than I am, but I grew up with sticks and stones will break my bones, names will never hurt me, and life is not fair. So that's what I grew up with and I think it was important that I heard that. Because like well you know some shit's unfair and oh yeah life's unfair okay. and a lot of people are unfair. They talk a good game. Sure. But if you got to choose between and just say religion, I'm somebody the Christian, not me personally, but somebody the Christian and the guy hiring is a Christian and the other guys not. Sure. It's like I got to look out for my Christian brother, which makes it family. You see where I'm going here? But I digress on that. But I'm just explaining to you this is a lot

1:10:06 to explain about American history and the history of race has a lot is baked in it is nepotism in my viewpoint. But to expound on that more, I have a clip from just ago. This is Muhammad Ali, I think in 1971, I want to say, on racial integration. People to move in the neighborhoods, we clean their own neighborhoods. And another thing, when you say integration, it comes on the end of marriage too, right? All been together. Right, sure. And I'm sure no intelligent white person watching this show, no intelligent, uh, white white man in his or her right white mind want black boys and black girls marrying their white sons and daughters and in return introducing their grandchildren as half-brown kinky-haired black people. I would, I wouldn't object to that. Well you wouldn't but a lot of them would. Well I'm sure a lot of people would. No, is this a point? What I'm trying to say is this, what I'm trying to say is this, you don't have it, you say you don't, you don't have it, you really ain't gonna have it, you're on the show and you gotta say that.

1:11:04 That's not true. Why would you want to do that? Because I don't think I'm any different from you, you see. Yeah, we're much different. I mean, I think society's made us different. You know we're different. We're all together different. Society's made us different. No, not society. God made us different. No, no, we're just human beings. He made all of us. We all... Listen. Bluebirds fly with bluebirds, red birds on the red birds. Listen, listen, tell me when I'm wrong. Pigeons want to be with pigeons. Tell me when I'm wrong. Well, we must, they don't have intelligence, but yet they stay together. We should have more intelligence than them, right? Nice one. But you won't hear this from the corporate

1:11:46 image of Muhammad Ali. And that's... I'm breaking down all these things now. There's a lot I've heard on this show that I never heard from the corporate, believe me. And that's the point of why I'm doing this. You didn't hear about the burning house of MLK. You didn't hear about this corporate, this stance that Ali had. And it's not, like I said, we all bring something to the table. We're all created equally, but just differently. And the analogy I use for that is a pound of feathers and a pound of stones. They're both a pound, but it's two different things. So it's not like one is superior, inferior, whatever. That's not the point. It's that red birds like to be with red birds, blue birds like to be with blue birds. Now, can we all sing together and make sing this beautiful harmony? Of course. But you won't hear this.

1:12:42 Because it's like it's a narrative. It's a very unpopular thing to say Moe and I'd just like to take a moment to recognize the conversation we're having here. I think it's incredibly valuable. It is to me. And I hope other people who are listening consider that because, you know, it takes trust, it takes work, it's a shitload of work. You're doing Mo on producing this. And I think it's valuable and I want everyone to consider thinking about us. MoFundMe.com. I appreciate that, Adam. And it is, it is brave.

1:13:20 It is brave for the, and I'm not saying it because we're the two having the conversation, but it's unscripted. You don't know what I'm going to come with. I don't know what your response is going to be, but we show up every week to have a conversation to kind of enlighten each other. Yes. I've learned just as much as I've shared because I only can see things through my eyes. Now this colorblind thing they want to do, oh we're colorblind, no we're not. No, no we're not. No. You know, and that's so disrespectful because it's like, oh yeah, you're not going to respect a person to see them for who they are? You know what I'm saying? You want them to fit inside of a box? I think eventually on the show we're going to pinpoint the moment where this all went haywire.

1:14:09 where it was, and maybe it's a long period of time, but the idea that it's not okay to say, hey, we're a little different. Now this show is set up to have different, you know, that's the whole concept, is two different, two American guys coming from different backgrounds shooting the shit, talking about stuff. But somewhere it became very unpopular to say, you know, it's like Mo and I, we talk two hours a week and then he's with his buddies, I'm with my buddies, you know, whatever, and we don't really have integrated lives that way. But it's the way maybe it should be. This is a very enlightening thought. And it's okay to be different. We don't have to be this culturalist society.

1:15:04 Everybody wants to tuck their culture away like, oh no, no, I don't, I'm not that kind of that or this kind of that. Even being American is like, oh, I'm not that kind of American. I'm this brand safe American. It's like, no. I'm me. And he would tell me stories because you fly, it was in the North Sea, so you get on a helicopter, very dangerous, with 25 people in one helicopter, you land on this little pinhead in the middle of the angry sea. And it's all different backgrounds, particularly from Europe. There's guys from

1:15:56 Croatia, there's the Polish, there's a lot of British, there's even differences with the Irish and the Scots, the Dutch, the Belgians. And they all come together and they all perform this miraculous dangerous work on a drilling platform. But he would say, you know, the Brits are over there, they're drinking their stuff and that. And, you know, sure we hang out, but we work really well together and we're professionals. But yeah, it was, you know, those guys do that and they have that and they got their special meal and do their thing. And those guys like to stay up at night. And somehow that's just the way it works. But it also just worked because they all wanted to be there for a common goal. But it was the differences that gave him the interesting stories. Like, oh, those guys were crazy. This is what they used to do.

1:16:39 And to speak on separation, Europe is mostly white people, quote unquote white people. I mean, just to use the corporate designation. But they all are separated into small little nations. So it's like, It's okay for them to say, oh no, I'm French, I'm British, I'm this, I'm that, I'm Italian, you know? Well, interestingly, no. The European Union, the project known as the European Union, is going exactly the opposite. Shut up, we're all the same, we all have the same passport, we all have the same money, we all kind of want to do the same things, and you're going to do it the way we tell you to because we're the European Union Starfleet Command.

1:17:24 The globalists are definitely moving in the opposite direction, which is, I think, what you're pointing out is where the friction comes from. And that's the point of was this a test run to say if we can make the total opposite merge, the rest of the world, it'll be a piece of cake. I like that conspiracy theory. Because a lot of things that came out of America in the 60s, it was just pushed around the world. And this, I mean, well, 60s, 70s, and even the 80s were pushed around the world. This is one world, one everything, one, one, one, one. One world, one government. Imagine all the people. Right. The Coca-Cola thing. Yeah, exactly.

1:18:09 So, well that was different. That was, that was, I'd like to teach the world to sing a perfect harmony. That was a very good example of a... How about Colors of Benetton? Yep. So I have a clip from Mr. Malcolm X, and he's going to explain the difference between segregation and separation. Is it fair to say as a generality and as a succinct way to put it that you believe in segregation of the races? No, segregation is that which is Mr. Muhammad says that segregation is that which is forced upon inferiors by superiors.

1:18:48 Separation is done voluntarily by two equals. You never refer to the Oriental community in which Orientals live exclusively as a segregated community because they live there voluntarily. Everything there is controlled by them. The economy, the politics, the civic organizations, but the Negro community is referred to as a segregated community. because Negroes are forced to live in that community contrary to their will and they don't control the businesses of their community, they don't control the politics of their community nor their social life. So that's the difference between segregation and separation. I think we all appreciate a little separation because when you go to worship houses all over America, most of them tend to people worship with people that look like them in one way, shape or form. But one thing he brought up was they controlling their community. So this is where this story hits home for me. All over America, there were small

1:19:53 but prosperous black cities. You had Rosewood, you had Tulsa, I'm sure you heard of Newark, Harlem, all these places that were booming. But the one in my city was called Haytie District. And Haytie District, well I'll let this clip explain it. Pettigrew Street, black businesses in commercial neighborhoods. We had five tobacco companies here, Universal, Liggett & Meyers, Double L. Roberson, American Tobacco Company, Imperial. And so a lot of folks went right to the tobacco facts. The good thing about the tobacco facts, they were all

1:20:51 unionized jobs. So that gave, you know, black people an opportunity and a tool to use against, you know, discrimination and whatever else happening. Okay, I'm looking this up now. The Haytide district. Yep. So as a kid, they would, uh, I was a young freedom rider. So, um, I think it's like seventh grade. They put us on the bus and they rode us around like we were in the civil rights movement. Wait a minute, wait, wait, wait, wait, what is this? Like a civil war reenactment only for civil rights movements? Yeah, pretty much. Oh, okay.

1:21:30 Yeah, so they put us on the bus. I mean it was for the kids that we all were pretty academically. Right, but is this once a year? Was there a certain date when this happened? Of course, you know, Black History Month. Come on now. Oh, that's right. What is that these days? Is that March? I forget. It's February. It's the coldest and the shortest. That's the easiest way to remember. I never realized that. It's the coldest and the shortest. 28 days. Let me find out what douchebag proclaimed that first. I wonder who came up with that. That is, that is, that's fucked up is what that is. That's very funny. Everybody else get better months than us after us. It's like, hold on, we need to swap this money out. If y'all don't give other people months, I would much rather have June.

1:22:20 You need a refund on that. Right! Yeah, I'm never worried. Come on! Who proclaimed this first? I want to know. It was first proposed by black educators and the black united students at Kent State University. Uh-huh, educators. Okay. The first celebration of black history. So cynical, Mo. The first Black History Month took place at Kent State one year later, January 2nd to February 28th. So it was two months. Mm-hmm. Okay, President Gerald Ford recognized Black History Month for the first time. Thanks, Jero. Yeah, well, he was a bumbling fool.

1:23:07 Yeah, we got this easier to remember it just easy to remember what I'll never I'll never forget that yes I'm sure you won't and by the way everybody in case you you you don't remember all of the things we discussed are in the show notes at Mo fund a Mo facts calm as we can find all these links So, yep, so, but yeah, just to go, they would take us to Haytie and they would tell us the story of how Haytie was his, he had dentists and doctor's offices and taxi cabs and everything, dry cleaners, it was his own self-sufficient part of town. And the crown jewel, one of the crown jewels was Hillside High School, the black high school. So it was just,

1:23:55 this rich history, but what they did was, and this is going to be another show for another day, they destroyed it with urban renewal. They took the Dern Freeway and ran it right slap dab in the middle of Hayti. Wow. So you got a West side, East side or North and South, whichever it was. Yes. I think it was East and West. Yeah. So that's what you saw this same. I promise I'm going to do this show later on, but this wasn't just a a one-off thing. This happened all over, urban renewal, highways, ran right in the middle. And it was similar to what they're doing, this goes way, this is a way throwback guys, but I think it's show two, three, what we talked about gentrification and how they were taking the railway in LA.

1:24:46 and destroying the black businesses. It's the same play. I mean, like I said, these plays work so well that they don't have to switch up. And guess who was on board? All the black politicians, quote unquote, the boule. They were all, oh yeah, bring them on. Bring the money in. They destroyed the community. And this is why you had a need to have integrated schools, because you destroyed the community. This is depressing. I know. Let's remember to do a show on urban renewal. That might be a whole show right there. That's pretty interesting. Make a mark of that and I'll get back to it. But the reason why I bring this up, bring it home to Durham is I was sitting on the couch one day and this movie trailer comes on for The Best of Enemies. And Atwater.

1:25:50 Last night, an electrical fire destroyed East End Elementary School. Mama, where are we gonna go to school now? Mama gonna find you somewhere real nice to go. Not gonna have back kids going to temp school. Oh, come on. They're gonna come somewhere. We gonna beat school segregation once and for all. You better get your ass down the city hall tonight. Who's next? They say you represent a great many people in this town. He may write a bad death. I'm holding a committee meeting. The council will vote to either adopt or reject school integration. I need two co-chairs. You and Ann Atwater. Ann Atwater. I'm the president of the Klan. He's about to hand you the keys to school integration. You're gonna lock the door. We did.

1:26:46 Would you look at that crazy white man? Holy crap, this is the story about, uh, Durham. Durham. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, my city's rich with history. Wow. It's super rich with history. Like I said, but I saw like, hold on, what? They're making a movie out of that? But course they made it a, uh, you know, one of those. A boulet box office bonanza. You know how it goes. It's like, oh, the click. We got the head of the clan and Mr. Water. It's like a buddy cop movie. What is this, another 48 hours? So we got a white dude with a black woman and it's a buddy movie now. Change. I love the subtitle. Change is worth fighting for. So are they gonna save it now in the movie?

1:27:42 They save it, but as I always do, I don't go with the narrative. I go get the true story behind Best of Enemies. And I couldn't stand white folks anyway. The children talked to us and got us together saying that they wanted to go to school with each other. And then we looked at each other like fools. We've been arguing about the wrong thing. She was bold and clearly never minced words. Activist and Atwater herself, recalling the moment when she and C.P. Ellis took a good look at themselves and turned things around for the greater good. And much to their and everyone else's surprise, formed a friendship.

1:28:28 This head does the talking for me. Starring Taraji P. Henson as Atwater. Have you read it? Of course I read it. And Sam Rockwell as Ellis. The film explores how their relationship evolved through being forced to work together. C.P. Ellis, he act like he was the meanest man in the world and I wanted to cut his head off. She can upset the world with her mouth if she wants to. So they took these two, They took these two people that hated each other and they're calling each other all kinds of whatever what not. And let's put them two, their kids together in a school and see how that works out. What could go wrong? Exactly. So best of enemies too.

1:29:16 When people say, white people say, I don't have a racist bone in my body, it's like, did they get de-boned or something? Because otherwise, you grew up in a white supremacist society. It's just a fact that you're going to have biases and prejudices like I do. And the thing is to work on that, to acknowledge it, and then like CP. to overcome that. In turn, it widened OSHA's scope. You know, we have this myth of a classless society and democracy for all, no racism. And then there's the uncomfortable truth of our problematic history.

1:29:53 So it was the intersection of race, class and gender that allowed this story to come together and to explore those issues. And sadly those issues are just as relevant today and still need to be worked on. Alright, so now how do we know how this movie ends? This 2019 version of history? Oh you know, her and him are buddies and they get along and everything's good. They live happily ever after. You know how it goes. So instead of showing that it's hard and that yes people have biases on all sides and they like being with their own kind but they can work together, instead of that they're gonna say that this is how it works or it all works fine shut up? Is that what this movie is doing?

1:30:43 Of course it all works fine because of the intersectionality of it. I heard it, I heard it, I heard it. Did you hear me? I heard it, he said it right there. The intersection, yes, of race, was it race, gender... Gender and something else, I don't know. Doesn't matter. Whatever. Sexuality or something. Class or something like that, yeah. Who funds these things? By the way, Sam Rockwell is a pretty big name for this movie. Yeah, I mean it was a nice size movie. Is it streaming? I gotta watch it now. I'm sure it's streaming by now. I'm sure it's probably on Netflix. Yeah, it's the 2018. So it's probably on Netflix, one of those platforms. No, this was 2019. April 5, 2019. Okay, I had 18 in mind. Okay. All right. Yeah, so yeah, here we are. I was like, what? I'm like, come on. I mean, the leader of the Klan, a leader.

1:31:40 The leader. It was in Durham. No, that's not what I'm saying. Like, bro, if you could be easily shaking that, I'm questioning your leadership abilities. I mean, that's all I'm saying. The leader he is. Yeah, it's easy. I doubt he was the leader. We'll just change him. Right. So there's a silver lining in all of this. Thank goodness. So we can take a deep breath and we have school is integrated. And not only schools, but now the KKK is integrated. The KKK is rebranding itself and in an effort to do so they're being more inclusive. They are allowing Hispanics, blacks, Jews and gays to join in on the fun. Now, they say that they have completely changed what their mission is. They've even renamed themselves the Rocky Mountain Knights.

1:32:39 Which is interesting. uh... and here is what they are arguing the k k k is for strong america white supremacy is the old clan this is the new clan but if you want to join this new version of the k k k all those wanting to join uh... the ultra right wing society will have to wear the white robes masks and at the hats that they wear this is a great clip where did you get this? I missed this memo i mean i i i was at the meeting I didn't get the memo! I hope you weren't at that meeting. Of course not. That's crazy. I didn't know about this. No one informed me. This is how far integration has gone. You could join the Klan. Which firm did this rebranding? Hill and Knowlton? I mean this is fantastic. But what, you want to disband the Klan?

1:33:34 I mean like, oh yes, we're gonna keep the hoods and the hats and the sheets, but you're more than welcome to wear them. Which is... This is great. This is a news flash. I don't understand. Why is this not top of the news? How did I miss this? When did this... Where did this come from? These clips? Young Turks. Young Turks. Oh man, that's fantastic. Well, problem solved. But there's more. Of course there is. But then this quote, did you have a quote from Jimmy Simmons? Yes, Jimmy Simmons, a president of the Montana NAACP chapter said that while he questioned the use of the letters KKK, if the peace summit took place, he would quote, take a strong look at joining the Rocky Mountain Knights. This is why the NAACP is in the risk in some places of becoming an irrelevant organization.

1:34:27 and not enough young people in the NAACP. Like, who, how did you get to be the president of the Montana chapter of the NAACP? And this guy's rebranding it and there's a big giant right-wing group and you'll have to carry, what kind of leader are you? No, no, that's nuts. That's nuts, Jimmy Simmons. Don't join. You heard that right. And my mouth is aghast. The NAACP. President is willing to join the KKK, the rebranded KKK. You let that soak in from the original clip of who put Brown versus Board of Education up to this. And I'll top that with Mr. Joel Spingarn, who is the leader of the NAACP.

1:35:23 You let all that sink in. I put that there for a reason. Yes, well, the NAACP has been mentioned throughout the past hour and a half in all of these clips, and now you're gonna go gut punch me at the end here and tell me that the NAACP is willing to join the KKK? And take us right into that burning house. Wow. All right, Mo. What a journey. It's like a roller coaster that ended in a brick wall. I'm sorry about that. Slam our faces into it. The NAACP joined the KKK. Wouldn't it make more sense for the KKK to join the NAACP? I mean, this is for optics. You think?

1:36:12 Oh man. I thought I was the crazy one. I thought I was the crazy one. I don't know. We need to follow up on this next week. I need to know what happened. And I need a picture of the guy with his hood on, with his sheets. That's really incredible. Very interesting. This is integration for you. It's like, oh yeah, we can, we'll change our ways, but come on, join the group. So the next time you hear something coming up in the news about school vouchers, school choice, et cetera, think of this episode and think about the historical background of this forced integration. And you got to look at the lawyers. What lawyers are involved and what children are they using for this or abusing for this?

1:37:01 Yes, because child abuse is quite common to push political motives. Is it ever? Well, it solidifies my thinking that we're on the right track with the show, Mo. This is one of the few places you can get this kind of honest dialogue, honest look at historical American history. And I appreciate you very much for doing all the work and putting it together. Once again, you've made my week. I'm glad I could do that, sir. And as I always say, pay attention to everything and the truth will reveal itself. And we'll return next week here on Mo Facts with Adam Curry. Make sure you tune in, subscribe and support us at MoFundMe.com.

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1:39:02 I'm in love, with a man, I never told it to you I'm in love, I'm in love, I'm in love I'm in love, I'm in love, I'm in love