Slavery’s Enduring Political Legacy with Maya Sen and Matthew Blackwell

Why Is This Happening? The Chris Hayes Podcast

NBCNews

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4.6 • 8.9K Ratings

🗓️ 13 November 2018

⏱️ 59 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What can soil tell us about election results? After every election, analysts pore over piles of data in order to better understand political trends. But what if a better place to search for answers is the ground beneath our feet? More specifically, whether that soil was conducive to crops worked by slaves over 200 years ago? Listen to Maya Sen and Matthew Blackwell trace southern racial conservatism all the way back to glacial deposits. Their new book, "Deep Roots", studies the swath of America where slave-based economies thrived as a result of nutrient-rich soil ideal for growing cotton. Hear them uncover the tangible legacy of slavery that continues to shape today's political life. Email us at [email protected] Tweet using #WITHpod Read more at nbcnews.com/whyisthishappening

Transcript

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0:00.0	I think things like racialized rhetoric from the top down can have really, really damaging
0:05.0	and long-term impacts.
0:06.3	So things like talking about people and dehumanizing language, institutionalizing policies that
0:12.4	treat people as less than human.
0:14.8	Those things can really create attitudes that then persist for a long time.
0:19.0	Just even kind of looking back at American history, how could we not think that an institution
0:22.6	that was that basically treated humans as less than human for 250 years?
0:26.4	How could we think that that would not have a lasting effect to generations down the
0:30.4	road?
0:31.4	It's almost crazy to think that it wouldn't have an effect.
0:33.5	So I think the caution for democratic theory or democratic governance is like, how to avoid
0:37.4	that moving forward?
0:38.4	How can we avoid the missteps that we made historically?
0:41.2	You know, you see some of the missteps happening right now with things like forced separation
0:45.2	of families and kind of this racialized rhetoric and dehumanizing rhetoric, and this is a dangerous
0:50.7	path.
0:52.7	Hello, and welcome to Wise Is Happening With Me, Your Host.
0:57.7	Chris Ayes.
1:00.3	Election night, it happened.
1:02.1	It happened, it happened, it happened.
1:03.9	It was, I was in Texas in El Paso, it was a fascinating night in Texas, which is I think
1:08.4	one of the most interesting election night results for a whole bunch of reasons.
	...

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