Hello again. Welcome to our To The Point podcast. Today, we're talking about two of America's longest-running controversies, racism, a major news topic this week, and farm labor. Our main segment is an astonishing story of how tomato pickers liberated themselves.

They pointed out the tomatoes that Taco Bell were using could have been picked by the hands of a slave.

And that's right. Slave labor still exists in America's agriculture industry, but not among Florida's immacaly tomato pickers.

They persuaded Taco Bell Whole Foods and other major food buyers to help free them and to provide sustainable

living conditions. One grower says he learned a lot from Dr. Martin Luther King. And speaking of

Dr. King, our added attraction revisits his belief that racism is one of America's existential

qualities, and yet most of us are in denial.

Here's President Trump.

No, I'm not a racist.

I am the least racist person you have ever interviewed.

That I can tell you.

Ibrahim Kendi is a professor of history and international relations at American University

and founding director of its anti-racist research and policy center.

He's also author of Stamped from the Beginning, the definitive history of racist ideas in America.

Professor, welcome to our program.

Oh, it's a pleasure to be on.

What do you say to the President of the United States or about the President of the United States

when he says, I am the least racist person you have ever interviewed?

Well, my first question would be to what would be to ask him, what is a racist?

And it seems to me he has either he has no conception of what a racist is, or his conception

of a racist tries to define himself out of racism, or he knows precisely that he is a racist,

and he knows the only way that he can cause people to not label him one is, of course, to deny being one.

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