"Bigotry Is a Lethal Weapon": Ibram X. Kendi's Guide to Fighting Racism
The Mother Jones Podcast
Mother Jones
4.5 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 10 June 2020
⏱️ 27 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
As national protests extend into a second week, associate producer Molly Swartz surveys the intersection of America’s twin crises, by profiling a group of out-of-work chefs hit by coronavirus closures who have banded together to provide protest-sustaining food in New York City. Also on the show, you’ll hear a repeat of our 2019 interview with Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, whose book, “How To Be An Antiracist”, has climbed to third place on the New York Times bestseller list in the wake of the renewed protest movement, as Americans everywhere engage with his ideas about how to combat racism and the systems that abet it. Kendi combines searing autobiography with pointed analysis to show just how deeply racism is woven into our national—and global—fabric. He argues that the opposite of a racist isn’t someone who’s not racist, but instead an antiracist—someone who acknowledges how race has been constructed, and works actively against it.
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| 0:00.0 | We have water, food, food, food and food. |
| 0:06.0 | Hi Molly. |
| 0:07.0 | Hey Jamila. |
| 0:08.0 | So what's going on here? |
| 0:10.0 | You have water, you. free set. |
| 0:13.0 | This is the sound of Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn last weekend. |
| 0:17.0 | It's this kind of European style plaza. |
| 0:19.0 | There's a huge arch and a fountain, |
| 0:21.0 | and last weekend thousands of protesters were passing through all day. |
| 0:26.0 | It was really hot and sunny and muggy. |
| 0:28.6 | Everyone was wearing masks because of the coronavirus and a lot of the cars that drove by all honked their horns in |
| 0:34.1 | support of the protesters and there were these drummers passing through. |
| 0:38.0 | Of course wouldn't be a protest without drummers. |
| 0:41.3 | Exactly. It was it was pretty impressive. And Grand Army Plaza has actually been one of the meeting |
| 0:46.8 | points of these rolling waves of protests that have been passing through Brooklyn over the past couple |
| 0:51.5 | weeks. |
| 0:52.6 | And it was really interesting because when I was there this weekend, I found there was |
| 0:57.0 | kind of a convergence of two giant news stories right now, this kind of unfolding of dual crises in the United States. |
| 1:04.3 | Okay, I'm listening, explain. |
| 1:06.3 | So first, of course, the coronavirus pandemic has put up to 40 million Americans out of |
| 1:10.9 | work, and then the killings of George Floyd and Brianna Taylor |
| 1:15.0 | and Amad Arbury and Tony McDade reignited a centuries-long fight for racial |
... |
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