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Jacobin Radio

The Dig: Whither White Ethnics with Matthew Frye Jacobson

Jacobin Radio

Jacobin

Socialism, History, News, Left, Jacobin, Alternative, Socialist, Politics

4.71.5K Ratings

🗓️ 27 June 2018

⏱️ 76 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Everyone wants to know what's wrong with Appalachia. But beginning in the 1960s, it was "white ethics"—Italians, Irish, Polish, Jews and other non-WASPs—who broke from the New Deal coalition, embracing their Ellis Island immigrant roots in reaction to the Black Freedom struggle and, ultimately, Latin American migration. Dan’s guest today is Matthew Frye Jacobson, an historian at Yale and the author of Roots Too: White Ethnic Revival in Post–Civil Rights America, from Harvard University Press.

Thanks to Verso. Check out Out of the Wreckage: A New Politics for an Age of Crisis by George Monbiot, now out in paperback versobooks.com/books/2732-out-of-the-wreckage George did a Dig interview too blubrry.com/thedig/34202825/telling-a-new-story-with-george-monbiot/

And register for the Socialism 2018 conference (July 5-8, Chicago!) at socialismconference.org

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Transcript

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0:00.0

This episode of The Dig is brought to you by our supporters on Patreon and by Verso Books,

0:06.0

which has loads of great left-wing titles, perfect for dig listeners like you.

0:11.0

One that you might like is out of the wreckage, a new politics for an age of crisis by George

0:17.0

Monbio, now out in paperback. I interviewed George just recently about this very book on this show.

0:25.0

A toxic ideology of extreme competition and individualism dominates our world.

0:30.1

It misrepresents human nature, destroying hope and common purpose.

0:34.0

Only a positive vision can replace it.

0:36.6

A new story that re-engages people in politics and lights a path to a better future. Guardian columnist George Monbio shows how new findings in psychology,

0:47.0

neuroscience, and evolutionary biology cast human nature in a radically different light.

0:52.0

As supremely altruistic and cooperative.

0:56.3

He shows how we can build on these findings to create a new politics of belonging.

1:01.2

Both democracy and economic life can be radically reorganized from the bottom up,

1:06.0

enabling us to take back control and overthrow the forces that have thwarted our ambitions for a better society.

1:13.6

Out of the wreckage, a new politics for an age of crisis by George Monbio, out now in

1:19.5

paperback from Verso Books. Welcome to the Digg, a podcast from Jack Upid magazine.

1:30.0

My name is Daniel Denver and I'm

1:35.9

broadcasting from Providence, Rhode Island. Who exactly are white ethnics? How why and when did Americans of Irish, Italian, Polish, Jewish ancestry decide

1:48.1

that their hyphenated Americanism was not only critical to their own

1:52.2

identity but to the identity of Americans, or more specifically

1:56.7

white Americans as a whole.

2:00.0

The answer to this question, it turns out, furnishes a key to unraveling the last half century

2:05.4

plus of American politics, including, critically, the white racist conservative anti-immigrant

...

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