Marshall here. Welcome back to the realignment.

Today's episode is with the journalist Wesley Lowry. We're talking about racial backlash in America.

We're going to cover a bunch of different topics, everything from the reparations debate,

the defund the police debate to everything between, especially the Obama presidency to today.

So lots of great stuff here, lots of interesting perspective. We'd definitely love to know what you

think. This is the perfect follow up to the previous episode. I just did a Peter Turchin that

episode focused on America. The lens of power, class, and education, and today's is all focused

on the lens of race. Hope you all enjoyed the conversation and have a great rest of your weekend.

Wesley Lowry, welcome to the realignment. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, I want to start by going through a bunch of definitions of terms and concepts that

are covered in the book, but also are reflected in your reporting and writing. I'd love to hear

your definition of backlash. Oh, backlash. A backlash is anything that is a negative response

registered to a development or a step. In this specific sense,

I'm thinking about the backlash to recent current events and the perception of advances towards

multiracial democracy. The books title of American white lash. So you go from backlash to white

lash. Let's talk about what is white and what is whiteness. We know that race is a biological

fiction that they're not races. Humans are all the same. The science tells us that. The

are person of faith. The picture faith. They all tell us that too. But science is proven.

What is whiteness? Witeness is a race as well as a biological fiction. Race is a societal

sociological reality. We have created a caste system based on how people are perceived

racially. That's a caste system that is not inflexible. The way they are coded racially can shift

and can change both in specific context as well as over time. Whole groups can move from one

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