ROB RICHARDSON
Welcome to Disruption Now. Joining you on a Saturday, got some special guests with me. To my left, depending on how you're seeing this, is James Keys, and a familiar face many of you know from the local radio station here and from his own digital show, Nathan Ivey. -- Nathan Ivey, how are you doing, man?

NATHAN IVEY
I’m doing great, Rob. Thanks for having me.

ROB
James, how are you doing, man?

JAMES KEYS
Hey, man. I'm doing all right. How about you?

ROB
Doing well. Doing well.

JAMES
Cool. All right.

ROB
So hey, it's the 92nd birthday of the honorable Dr. Martin Luther King today as many of you know and we want to celebrate his life, legacy and the lessons he brought to us. But really talking about the current moment. James Baldwin said it best: "History is not in the past. It's with us. It is the present right now" -- and you're seeing history unfold right now.

What's interesting is when I hear people talk about what's going on right now in our country, specifically, I'm talking about the terrorist attack on the Capitol... Notice I don't say "rioters." I don't say "protesters." They are terrorists. It was a terrorist attack on the U.S. Capitol. That was it was.

But I hear people saying, when they see and feel all of this energy going on, I hear them saying, "This is not America. This is not who we are. We are better than this. We don't do this type of thing," I'm thinking, "No, no. This is very much who America is." I mean it may not be who we want to be -- some of us -- it may not be what we want to admit about America but America and political violence is as American as apple pie.

Dr. King's death was a political death. Make no mistake about it. Make no mistake that the rhetoric, the environment at that time contributed to people wanting to kill Dr. Martin Luther King, contributed to his death. That's why people were spurred to kill him and eventually, it obviously led to his death. That's what happened. It was a political death. And it was an environment of hate set up towards Dr. Martin Luther King.

And all these people that talk about Dr. King now… And you're going to see my collective eye rolls, emojis, all over social media as I see all these people quoting Dr. King, saying all these things, acting like they believe in what he said.

And we know if Dr. King was alive right now, they would hate Dr. King. And they still hate things he stands for right now because they're standing for policies and standing for principles that are against everything he believed.

So as we talk where we're at in America, people say, "This is not America. This is not who we are," do you guys agree, disagree? What's your thoughts? Jump in. Let me know.

JAMES
I would say -- you said it correctly -- America's better angel, so to speak, this is not. We have to be honest. America has been making compromises with equality and with its better angels into some of these nasty elements since its founding.

You go to the Three-fifths clause and that is a deal, so to speak, with the people who believe that all men are created equal versus the people who believed in subjugating other people and denying them their God-given rights or in the words of the founders, the "rights endowed upon them by their Creator."

So the whole experience is about the struggle between these two elements of American society or of these two better angels and demons and the American mindset. This was the other side. They strike back when--

ROB
The Empire strikes back.

JAMES
As we push forth closer to equality, to make a more perfect union, these guys strike back from time-to-time, again, whether it be the Civil War, whether it be... This stuff pops up.

Right now, we're in the middle of it. As you said, history is happening and we have to keep the distance and time to pull back. This is the time to keep pushing because this is a reaction to the progress we've made for people who truly believe in equality and the founding principle of America, that all men are created equal.

ROB
Nathan?

NATHAN
Again, Rob, thanks for having me and a shout out to brother James. I think there's two things that we need to make sure that we correct and we keep on point.
One is, is that what we saw with the domestic terrorist... You are 100% right to put it that way, Rob. The white domestic terrorist is as American as apple pie. It is American as a destruction of black economic nerve centers -- you know, what we saw with the great-grandsons and great-granddaughters of the people that destroyed Black Wall Street and the economic black nerve centers all over this country. This is what happens when you get a lot of angry white mobs. This is what it is.

The second thing that needs to be corrected... because there are two things happening here, is this dynamic where they want to control the narrative and try to make it seem better than what it really is. The other thing that needs to be said is that many of the folks, those domestic terrorists, were not low-income.

ROB
Amen. That's a great quote.

NATHAN
They were not the low-income low class. These were elites. These were sons of Supreme Court justices, business owners, former members of law enforcement. So that's the other game they try to play with you to try to make it seem like, "Well this is from the economic bottom. This is what happens when people are desperate.”

And if you can create that narrative, it's kind of like, "Okay" -- you can understand it. But just like if you go back to the birth of the Klan, you go back to what happened to Wall Street, that wasn't the low class. That was middle class, upper class, white angry people that were acting out.

ROB
Yeah. A few points on that: When you talk about where we have been in pivotal points in history, the last time we've seen this type of energy... There were some in the '60s quite a bit, right, but I think the best comparison is really reconstruction -- right after you saw great advancement of black leadership, of black elite, of black economics.

And as you said, Nathan, it is not because of the economic conditions of white people. It's because the seemingly advanced condition are how they see… Black people advancing was the issue, not that they are advancing. They don't want to see advancement -- some people.

When we saw the rhetoric of Donald Trump, in general, it wasn't that... There are some black people that believe in some of the conservative principles of the Republican party in terms of economic investments, small business, whatever, but when they heard Donald Trump, they heard George Wallace, they heard the type of rhetoric that was dangerous--

So when you talk to black people, this was foreseeable for us. This is why when we said that this election was about our lives… It wasn't because people necessarily were jumping over Joe Biden. This is not a criticism of him. This is just an observation, that black people believe that their lives and their economic stakes were here drawn out because we know what that energy does because after reconstruction... I point people to the Wilmington massacre, and people should look this up.

JAMES
Coup. It was a coup.

ROB
What’s that?

JAMES
It was a coup.

ROB
Coup.

NATHAN
Yeah.

ROB
It was the most successful coup, I guess. But that happened all across the south in many different ways. They took out almost all the black legislators, their families, burned the black newspapers. Why did they burn the black media newspapers? And why it's so important what Nathan does, what I do -- because if they can take away the voice and take away the narrative, that takes away people's power. They did that. They did that all across the country. This is what's playing out now.

So when you hear them say things like, "This is our country. This is who we are," they're not talking about economics, as you said.

There is a study that was done, by the way, that showed that people who made under $50,000 voted more for Joe Biden. People that made over $100,000 that are white, guess who they voted for -- Donald Trump -- because this is not about economics. It's about identity and unfortunately, it's about white supremacy.

And I'll end on this point and make a pivot here in a second. When we talk about Dr. King, it's so important to remember that he was not assassinated because he was a great speaker. He wasn't assassinated because he had a dream. He wasn't assassinated because he was great at community service which somehow Martin Luther King Day has become the day of community service, right? That's what it is now.

He was assassinated because he challenged the system. He challenged the status quo. He challenged the system being rooted in white supremacy. That's why he was assassinated. No other reason.
We've had articulate speakers. There had been many articulate speakers and many articulate people from the pulpit. It was because he challenged the identity of who America was and that threatened people. That is the reason why he was assassinated.

And we find ourselves understanding from the... -- James, you want to say something?

JAMES
Yeah, there's one other thing. As we're honoring Dr. King, you had noted that this was something that people could see coming -- the rhetoric and so forth. I want to read you something from Dr. King's fourth book. "Where Do We Go from Here?" It's going to sound like he wrote it three-four years ago. This is after the advancements and during the Civil Rights era for black folks.

"A year later, the white backlash became an emotional electoral issue in California, Maryland and elsewhere. In several southern states, men, long regarded as political clowns, had become governors or only narrowly-missed election; their magic achieved by a witches’ brew, of bigotry, prejudice, half-truths and whole lies." That's what we see right now -- what's going on in our political discourse.

So yes, we saw this happening. A lot of people saw this happening like "Whoa, whoa, whoa. We're going down a path--"

We need all hands on deck to try to take us off of this path because we've seen... If you study history, we've seen where America goes, if it's allowed to go down this path, and not listen to its aspirations of equality and freedom for all but go into these elements where white supremacy is the only justification for anything.

ROB
Yeah. So Nathan, I'm curious, as I pivot to this next point, do you think... It's clear to me, and I believe you would agree, that republicans have certainly played with fire. They played footsie with white supremacists. They played with fire. They got in bed with Trump. You talk to them behind the scenes. I know some of them know. They would tell you, "Oh this is crazy. This is crazy.” And I would say, "Why aren't you talking? Speak up. You're elected. Use the mic" and they make some lame ass excuse. They played with fire to get themselves power.

And there's no question, Trump did give them power for a little while. They got three Supreme Court justices done. They got a lot of stuff done. But they made a deal with the devil. They clearly got burned now. Is there any way to contain this? Will this be contained? What do you think we need to do with what's been created right now in this current environment?

NATHAN
You say "contain this." Are you talking about--

ROB
I’m talking about the crazy white supremacists and the energy and the political power behind it right now. I’m talking about that, just to be clear.

NATHAN
"Yes" and "No." Yeah, there's a way to contain it and that would be our white allies, those who are empowered to stand up, speak out and do what they have to do. But history -- long-term, medium and short term -- tells us that they're not going to do it. Like you said you know republicans here locally and nationally. I know a few myself. Behind closed doors, they'll tell you like, "Nate, he's full of..." But they won't do it because of self-motivation, self-interest, right --God's little selfish creatures, only worried about their own self.

I don't have any confidence whatsoever that this is the end of the Trump goon, mafia squad, whatever you want to look at it. I think there's going to be more incidents in the near future.

I would hope that law enforcement is on high alert. It's been way too much time trying to vilify black lives matter, trying to vilify Antifa when most people don’t even know what Antifa stands for [crosstalk]--

ROB
I never heard of Antifa until now. Go ahead.

NATHAN
It means "Anti-fascism." Who isn't against fascism? There's a lot of nonsense out there.
What they need to do is to be watching these white domestic terrorists. That's what they need to do.

You know anything about COINTELPRO? Man, it was running around, not just surveilling civil rights leaders but they were following people like Jim Brown, Lew Alcindor, black entertainers. That's what they need to be doing to infiltrate these groups, stop them before they do something dangerous for all of us.

ROB
Yeah. James, what do you think?

JAMES
What we see right now is the descendants, the adherence to... More of a Timothy McVeigh type of mindset in America. That's there. I mean again, like as we talked about already, you can't deny that that's there. So yeah, it would be great if law enforcement took it upon themselves to really get into that and short-circuit their plans because there are plans to disrupt America, to remake America into something else.

ROB
By the way, at this very point -- I’ll let you get back -- the plans for this were all over social media. They said what they were going to do in advance. I mean they left breadcrumbs to say, "We are going to do this."

JAMES
Publicly.

ROB
Go ahead. Sorry.

JAMES
Right now, the deal with the devil piece, I think... Again, looking backwards, looking in history, that's something that happens in America from time-to-time. I mean FDR, we look at him and we applaud the new deal. He made a deal with the devil -- with the Dixiecrats at that time. He excluded blacks from certain things so that he could get the new deal legislation passed.

We look at that and say... You know, minds can disagree and say, okay, he was working for something positive so people give him a pass to some degree on that, and some other people don't.

But the deal with the devil we see right now is... I mean it was expressed. It was explicit. It was the southern strategy. It was after the democrats got on board with civil rights legislation in the '60s. The Republican Party said, "Okay, well there is a lot of people who don't want civil rights stuff and who resent black folks. So that was when they started down this path.

ROB
I agree.

JAMES
Donald Trump has kind of taken an additional step. He's gotten rid of the dog whistle and made this about a megaphone. And honestly, that may be necessary in order for us to actually see what's going on.

Human beings need to be reminded of things every few years. We forget. Generational don't pass on knowledge and wisdom, generally. People need to see it.

So it may be helpful. But ultimately... Yes, it's a deal with the devil. It's a deal with the devil. There's this energy--

The compromise of 1872 was a deal with the devil which led to the end of reconstruction and the removal of federal troops from the south which allowed the redeemers to go on a violent rampage and kill people all throughout the south who would not submit to, basically, their will and disregard democracy.

Again, this is part of America. I think that we see what's happening. So what we need to do is look and say, "Okay, well how do we fight this?" It's not going to just go away on its own. We need to organize more. We need to call out what we see and we need to continue to push for equality, push for rights because there are Americans of all shapes and sizes and colors and everything that do support that vision of America. We can't be led astray or become disenchanted by the fact that there is this strain that exists and has existed for so long. We have to beat them.

ROB
Yeah, I agree. Your point is well taken. We have to beat them. I think so. So my answer is we have to become not only fire preventers but we have to... We have to all become firefighters, I should say... become fire preventers. Go out there and be proactive.

People don't think that because Joe Biden has been elected president, like that's the end of it or because they won the Senate. It's only the beginning because people are going to fight back harder.

And again, I’m taking this out of political and democratic terms. I’m talking about making sure the racial equity, the humanity of black people are respected. We have to push and push hard. We already know they're going to try in Georgia.

They've already talked about now because so many black people voted. They're literally saying this out loud. They want to get rid of absentee ballot voting. They want to get rid of it. They are going to try everything in their power to keep power in terms of the hierarchy of racial supremacy in this country. And we have to know that the fight is persistent.

And you made a good point, James. When you talk about reconstruction, and I make a draw a line back to that, the way to really win that war in terms of making sure we really did it is to take the people who had power, particularly the elite class that were over slaves, they shouldn't have had power back. They shouldn't have been able to get power back. They shouldn’t have been taken out of power, period.

When we deal with these domestic terrorists and we deal with people that were associated and empowering and enabling what happened... I mean I believe in forgiveness but not when it comes politically. They need to go and find another job.

And those people need to be held accountable. They were enablers of hate. They were enablers of destroying our nation. That is what they are. That is what they did. I have no political forgiveness for them. That's my opinion. I don't know. Am I off?

NATHAN
Well let me add this. What I would also say is it's about controlling that narrative. Like you said, what we do in terms of creating independent media is about crafting our own narratives, setting our own priorities. So what we need to do to our audience is make sure that we don't bury the headline.

See, the real headline with the black electorate is that… Look at what happened in Georgia. Look at what happens when you organize. We do have power. We can change the system. We can put people in place even at the level as senator that represent us. Let's not let that headline get buried in all the Capitol Hill talk because that's the other thing they would love.

We have been woefully mis-educated about the history in this country. On one hand, the history of angry white violence has been suppressed. But also the efficacy of black and organized progressive movements, they are successful. There was resistance even back in the day. You go back to the Red Summer -- the autumn of 1919 with all this white mob violence against black neighborhoods. There was resistance. These stories have been suppressed for a reason -- because they don't want us to know how powerful we are.

ROB
Yeah. Amen. That's a good point.

JAMES
I would like to add one other thing.

ROB
Go ahead.

JAMES
I look at it a little more broadly. I think that... And I’m not saying you guys don't but just to say that I want to say it out expressly, that I think that it's not a republican-democrat issue or even a black and white issue. It is an issue of people who believe in equality and that America should be about equality or people who believe that there should be a strict racial hierarchy in America. It's who believe in the hierarchy versus the people who believe in equality.

That's the battle. That's the battle and that has taken different shapes and forms. Obviously, a large part of part, by definition, is going to be the travesties, the devastation that has visited on black folks as a part of that racial hierarchy.

But it's bigger than that. It really is. This is about establishing a racial and other types of hierarchy as well whether it'd be a male hierarchy and all that. This is about establishing a hierarchy versus living in with equality or living with equality and having equality in the guiding principle.

And yes, what we're seeing now, there's going to always be pushback against that anytime equality moves forward. We're seeing that. That's, literally, what we're seeing is pushback from the racial hierarchy, the advancements that had been made over the last 20 years or so.

ROB
Nathan, lay up a different perspective. Go.

NATHAN
Yeah, I hear you, James but I slightly disagree or maybe more than slightly. I think it is the black-white issue because for me, what we saw at the Capitol started when Barack Obama was elected.

JAMES
It started before that.

NATHAN
It started before that but it re-ignited it. In this country, in American history, whenever there's an example of black excellence, some white folks got a problem. The election and elevation of Barack Obama to the highest public office was a grand example of black excellence. What happened afterwards -- tea party. What did Trump do -- eartherism, racism, southern strategy.

I mean this all started and was reignited because we saw a grand example of black excellence.

JAMES
Yeah. Well no, I agree with you on that. But my point is that some white people do that and others may be uncomfortable initially but then they appeal to their high... "I believe in equality so I'm going to get over this." Not every white person gets into that mode and just stays in that mode and says, "Oh we have to undermine this." You said it yourself, some white are part of that and others aren't.

I think we can't lose sight of the fact that... If we frame this as a black and white issue solely then we're saying, "White people, come help black people because we need your help." I’m saying, "White people, help yourselves because you believe in equality."

People who believe in equality should be against this, period. It doesn’t matter that it's the black people being attacked or somebody else being attacked, if it's kids in cages at the border, then if you believe in equality, we should be riding on that, too. So that's all I'm saying is that it's not--

It's over-simplifying it to say that white people are on one side and black people on another side because that's not really how it plays out. It's the people who believe in equality on one side and people who believe in racial hierarchy on the other side. It just happens to be that the people who believe in racial hierarchy all happened to be of a certain race.

ROB
You're doing a political tenacity there, James. I hear you but I would just say... Not to overcomplicate this. Here's what it gets down to. Whiteness has always been compared to blackness. So it will change their... All that is made up, honestly. Down to it, racism is a social construct that's completely made up by human beings in order to have a hierarchy structure. I think that's the point you're getting at. And the people believing in equality, they believe in that.

People say they believe in equality. They will tell you that all day but their actions speak otherwise. The people the elect... You can't tell me you believe in equality and you believe it into your soul and you're okay with what's going on with Trump because you don't.

JAMES
Okay. I give you that. Donald Trump hasn't never gotten more votes in the--

ROB
But I say people will generally agree with everything you just say though.

JAMES
Donald Trump has always lost election… Donald Trump has always gotten less votes... Excuse me. His opponent has always gotten less votes than him in every election he's run.

So we can't just broad brush it is what I'm saying. We have to see who our opponents are and go after them and not just say that everyone--

ROB
Let me be clear. I’m not going to white people. I am going after the idea of white supremacy.

JAMES
Yeah, that's my point.

ROB
But white people, some will hear that and assume you're going after all white people. And therein lies part of the issue because it's an uncomfortable conversation to talk about white privilege, white supremacy. And I used to go along the language of, “Okay, let me figure out how to turn this in a way that people can understand” but I’ve come to understand that some people will not understand. So we got to get people to directly address the issue as it is.

There's no mistaking that what Donald Trump did was appeal to that. And I also believe, as Nathan said, that what it did, either consciously or unconsciously, the election of Barack Obama, ironically, didn't necessarily advanced things. If you look at the numbers for black people, it didn't.

I voted for Barack. I would do it again. I’m talking objectively with the numbers. But what it did do was infuriate enough... a portion... Of course, it wasn't all the majority of Americans because otherwise we wouldn't move forward but there was a loud contingent.

And to quote what Dr. King said… Dr. King talked about people that were in this mentality. Ironically, back then they were democrats because they were Dixiecrats. But he said, "It's unfortunate..." This is a quote I want to paraphrase but it's basically what he said. He said, "It's unfortunate that the south is led by reactionary racist leaders." He said in these words: "I believe that they actually represent a minority of those in the south and they are moderates."

He said, "But the people that have come to prominence in power have done so by the dissemination of false ideas." Ooh that sounds familiar. And he says, "And they do so by appealing to the deepest hate response in the human mind." So that's what Dr. King said about leaders then.

The issue was not that we don't have these moderates and good people, it's just that, right now, specifically, and I’m talking about within the conservative movement at this time, they don't speak loudly enough. They're not the leaders. We don't hear them standing up to people. They tend to either be silent or they tend to be the loudest and that's the issue.

JAMES
I would say it a different way, actually. They don't want it as much as the people who... Right now, the people who want to impose a racial hierarchy just want it more than a lot of the people who want everybody to live and let live type of thing and that's what we have to change.

ROB
That's the problem.

JAMES
Yeah, and that's what we have to change.

ROB
That's the issue. So getting back to where you were going, and I think bringing the point that you and Nathan have together, is that we have to fight enough to make sure that it becomes unpopular to have these extreme positions because we fight back so hard that people are like, "Okay, no, we need to move forward. This is better for America."

But if we accept… get complacent, the people that believe in this, believing it so hard… You know, never underestimate a small group of committed people. They can change the course of history and they have and they will.

We got to make sure that the people that really believe in this, both black and white, are willing to fight for black people. We have no choice but to... White people have to change and challenge their privilege to do so and it does take courage for them to do it. I say we do need them in order to do it together. I think we're saying that but I want to make sure we are… I want to go out to the next point to talk about the FBI. I think we spent a lot of points on this.

The FBI looked at this assessment. As I said, it was clear as day what they were going to do. They told you what they were going to do. They've been doing it. Somehow though they didn't assess the threat. I mean they're doing it now. They're responding after the fact. But beforehand, they didn't see the threat.

Black Lives Matter -- the whole National Guard, army was ready, arms out. Do you think they've learned anything from this? I mean I think it's a rhetorical question. I can ask you guys the question why they didn't assess the threat. I think we've answered that already. But do you think they've learned anything from this experience and will be able to actually address it going forward? I'm talking about law enforcement/FBI.

NATHAN
Law enforcement? I would say I think that some have learned that the insurgency of the Trump supporters was deeper than they thought. I think I can pick that up right because I’m surprised that they're surprised, quite honestly.

ROB
"They really meant it." [Laughter]

NATHAN
I’m like, "You're really surprised by this? We've been telling you." But I think some people were like--

ROB
They've been doing it. Nathan, they’ve been doing it.

NATHAN
Right. And they've been doing--

ROB
They've been taking over local governments with guns. -- Go ahead.

NATHAN
Or Michigan.
ROB
Exactly.

NATHAN
Gretchen Whitmer, threats to the governor of Ohio, threats to a lot of elected officials that wouldn't play ball with the Trump momentum.

So I think there are some -- I don't know who they are -- who may be surprised at just how deep Trump's tentacles were and the types of people--

Again, it goes back to this narrative. In this country, when you have this kind of like white domestic terrorists or these white mobs together, there's a perception that it must be low income. It must be Appalachia. It must be Bo and Jimbo with a pickup truck. Some people are surprised that some of these folks... Many of them were professionals, business owners, members of the elites, right?

ROB
Yeah.

NATHAN
Maybe they may have a "Come to Jesus..." maybe "Come to black Jesus moment" where they're like, "Hey, this is deeper than we thought it was.” But we already knew. We've been trying to tell them. They just wouldn't listen.

ROB
Yeah. And it's been there, by the way. -- James, I’ll get to you. -- It's been there. If you remember back to Charlottesville, there were people with polo shirts. They didn't look like they were low-income people.

This is not a purely income thing. Though I do believe there's some parts of this that play off in order to use black people as the pawn in the middle and to make people feel like they can project on to black people or Mexicans or people of color that the reason for your non-advancement is because of them. I think there is some of that so I don't want to take that away. But this is not solely an economic condition. This is deeper than that. -- James?

JAMES
I do think they will learn now to what degree they will amp it up in order to prevent and they being law enforcement. I think people need to be reminded of things, just in general, every 10-15 years.

By and large, I think history has shown people need to see things again in order to appreciate the problem. We learn the same lessons over and over again if you look at things on a 50-year arc or something like that or even sometimes less than that.

In the same way though, after 9/11, it became difficult to take over a plane because the passengers knew at that point, like, "Well hold on. If you're going to blow this thing up, I’m not about to let you take this thing over." The same mode of attack will no longer be able to be executed directly, and that's what I mean by that.

I hope that the people who are trying to exercise or exert to have a coup on the government don't have another trick up their sleeve or don't have another plan of attack going on because if they try the same thing again, it's not going to work in the same way because people have seen that and they're going to prepare for just that.

The reason they didn't assess the threat dealt with their own biases or biasses… and so my concern is that they're not going to be forward thinking enough to see what the next threat will be, what would be the next thing they do, not necessarily--

Hey, they're not going to try the exact same thing they did last time. They're going to try something else. If they're smart, they'll try something else.

So to be able to anticipate that or to be prepared for other contingencies as opposed to the exact same thing… Because, again, I don't know that they have demonstrated that they take it seriously enough to really all-out assault. When they did the stuff with Black Lives Matter, part of that is to do such a strong show of force as a deterrent.

ROB
Right. I think to sum up the point, they overestimated the threat of Black Lives Matter and severely underestimated the threat of these domestic terrorists.

JAMES
No, no, no. I’m saying that whether they overestimated or they properly estimated, some part of it is to just show such an overwhelming show of force that you actually use that to serve as a deterrent. Whether they thought Black Lives Matter was going to do anything really or whether they say, "Hey, we're just going to show up and we're going to show them how big and bad we are," that could have been it as well. In this case, they didn't do either.

ROB
Right. That's what I believe -- it goes to their bias. Let me just get to this point with... Go ahead. Finish up your point.

JAMES
No, that was it. I just hope that if either they're going to show up and say, "Hey, we think there may be something so we're going to throw so many people at it that anybody who shows up with nefarious intent is just going to think twice about it." If you see 20,000 troops then it's like, "Oh, well maybe we shouldn't do what we're planning to do."

ROB
Right.

JAMES
Or they are actually infiltrating it and figuring out what's going on and able to knock it out from a targeted standpoint. I just hope that they take it seriously.

NATHAN
But you know what--

ROB
Go ahead, Nathan.

NATHAN
Back to Rob's point, it's got to be a reflection of how they viewed who was coming to the Capitol because if you look at recent history... Look at Charlottesville, people got killed. People got injured, damaged. Look at what happened with Gretchen Whitmer.

All of this happened with this same element of these white domestic terrorists who said they were going to the Capitol. They get whipped up to a frenzy by the chief executive, Donald Trump, and yet the show of force was nowhere near the same way it was when Black Lives Matter was coming to peacefully protest. And there's no recent history of Black Lives Matter demonstrators doing anything like what we've seen in newspapers from some of the elements in this group.

ROB
No. And part of the problem is it goes to the culture of policing. So there's been... I can't remember if it was a Time’s article or not but it was... This article did a lot of research to talk about the radicalization of parts of the military, of parts of police force that are sympathetic to the hate against people of color -- black people, brown people -- and we've seen that radicalized for the reasons we've all talked about now.

So I believe, James, what has to happen is that there has to be a change in process.

I’ve talked about data a lot on this on my show and you probably heard us talk about how algorithms can be racist and... -- I’ll connect to the point in a second.

Microsoft created a racist bot -- sort of. What they did is they drew data from Twitter, listening to how people were talking to each other. And it was accurate. But what they didn't build in was that people were obviously bias and racist. So this bot would spit out racist and biased things.

So we, in technology, have created these biases processes. But the processes became bias because people are bias instead of on the front end, making sure you address the bias.
So what we should be doing is making sure that we are looking to see if people are bias -- because they are. We know that -- but then play out the process to introduce bias to make sure that people address it and deal with it on the front end so they can, as law enforcement, be better.

But we often don't want to do that. It has to be put in the front end as part of the process so on the back end, you don't get these type of tragic results.

People see when they think about bias and diversity and inclusion, it's like a side conversation. It's like, "We have a diversity and inclusion department once a month. We talk about stuff." No. It has to be integrated into how you make decisions for law enforcement -- how you address threats in order to prevent things like this from happening -- because if you have bias, you're going to expose yourself to more threats. That's what I hope the lesson is. I don't know if that's the lesson they're going to get. That's what I think at least on this.

When you think about the narrative being said out there, right now if you go to right-wing news, you go to FOX, you even go to some mainstream news, they've tried to correct on this because people have pushed back hard. But you've noticed there's been this intent to want to go back to frame the terrorists that attacked the Capitol in the most sympathetic terms -- to call them "Protesters," to say, "Well they're just frustrated" to say, "Well how can we figure out how to understand these folks?" What do you think about that narrative? I think in creating this... and even trying to compare them to be legitimate protesters. Is that off? Am I being not empathetic enough? What?

JAMES
Well no. I think that that is, at its root, oftentimes about... I view that as the whole concept of for-profit media. Framing things in both sides type of way is two sides going back and forth battling has demonstrated to be a profitable way to present issues whether or not both sides have a legitimate point, whether both sides are even coming in good faith.

ROB
Yeah.

JAMES
I see that often where issues are like... There'll be something that happened and then it'll be one person arguing one side and one person arguing on the other side as if both sides are coming from... Like I said both sides are coming from a place of legitimacy and a place of good faith.

So some of that is, I think, the limitations of our media in that they are beholden to the dollar. We can extrapolate this out when you get into media that is targeted to serve a particular audience or particular taste or particular bias -- if your media is targeted to serve those things. That's what I think that comes back to because--
You see ridiculous arguments and presentations all the time where people will, again, try to both sides things because that's been shown to get people to watch more.

ROB
I want to get to you, Nathan. But I think it's deeper than that, too. It's also how we view politics. I’m going to go back to a Dr. King quote. I’m going to paraphrase him but he pretty closely said this. He didn't just criticize republicans, conservatives, Dixiecrats, he also criticized liberals. And his criticism of liberals was that... Liberal's problem is that it’s not true liberalism. They try to see all sides equally. They try to see so sides equally that they fail to take any real side. And this is especially true when it came to racial equity. That was his point.

I also think there is this... even when you look at... People say, wherever progressive media, their goal is to figure out how to see all sides equally. And sometimes, there's not an equal side. Sometimes, there's just right and wrong when it comes to these things. -- Nathan.

NATHAN
Yeah, that's the bullshit to put it roughly. That's the bullshit.

ROB
Get right to it. [Laughter]

NATHAN
Just get straight to it -- that white washing. That's why it's so important for us to have independent media so we can control our narratives because if not… Like you said, progressive media wants to be nice and see all sides. Right-wing media got an inherent bias. They want to play it down. People just need the straight up truth, just like the straight-up truth about Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King. For me, he's like stuck in amber at the "I Have a Dream" speech. And anyone who's done any reading about him realizes that after going up north--

He said he dealt with a strain of racism that was far virulent in the south. But we are comfortable with thinking about white southern racism as being the most virulent.

So I just wish that, as we celebrate his birthday, that we would get to a point where we can celebrate the totality of the man, the complexity of the man, including his pivot -- his pivot -- when he started to realize like, "Wait a minute. Maybe our approach should be differently than thinking that if I’m just a good guy and I turn the other cheek then white supremacy will realize that and stop being afraid of us."

JAMES
Well the ultimate place that he ended up… and also as far as with the focus on economics and economic equity, I mean that's... There are many people that say that once he went there is when he really put a target on his back because he started talking about dollars.

Even in the book I referenced before which... I mean it's an excellent book. It was his fourth book. One on our sister podcasts called... Like I said, we did an entire deep dive on it last year for his birthday and one of the things he talked about there, he raised the idea of universal basic income. Like, "Whoa. Whoa. Whoa." Andrew Yang is talking about that last year and so forth. But yeah, he pivoted there, ultimately.

But back to the point at hand, I think that actually... And Nate, you talked about this and I think you're really onto something. The way things are presented in the media actually determine a lot as far as how it's received in society and certain people understand that power.

So by presenting issues a certain way, if you're always trying to find both sides then yes, you basically abdicate your moral authority, your ability to call out right from wrong.

Sometimes, the guy with his foot on somebody's neck and the guy who has somebody standing on their neck are not coming from a similar position where you can see both sides. Sometimes, the one guy just attacked the other guy and you have to call that out. So you have that limitation.

And then also, again, when you're catering to a bias, when you set out to say, "Hey, we want to feed confirmation bias. We want to make certain people feel good with our message" then you tie one or you tie both hands behind your back as far being able to provide truth. We've seen that play out.

One of the things I think that's really overlooked here and that is not given its proper due, because I think this is actually the real problem here, is that there were many people who stormed the Capitol who believed, in their minds, that the election was stolen.

Now someone who wants to believe that, it's not difficult to convince them. We know how the human mind works with these biases -- confirmation bias being one of the most powerful ones. So if you want to believe that and you're told that by people you trust then you can walk away believing that.

And I think that the ability to put forth lies with no accountability from both a leadership standpoint and in the media is a problem that we're going to have to figure out a way to address it.

The whole idea of election being stolen, being put forth so many times… But no evidence ever been... This claim never being substantiated is jarring to me. I’m an attorney so I look at that and I’m just like, "Well hold on." Okay, you make an allegation and then you're like, "Okay, so tell me why. Give me your facts." And that part, nobody is even concerned. [Crosstalk]
ROB
Not only that, James. They walk into court and admit that we don't really have anything.

JAMES
And then they walk out of court with a loss.

ROB
That's what I'm saying.

JAMES
67 times and it's like, "Whoa." But none of it matters because their people are still told that over and over and over again. And they're not telling that to me -- somebody who is trying to look at things objectively. They're telling it to people who want to believe that, who want to be told something to make them feel better about what happened. So in a way, it's taking advantage of those people but it's radicalizing them as well and making them a threat to all of us. So to me, that part about it is something... Until we get a handle on it, we're going to continue this to see this type of a spiral.

ROB
Yep. -- Nathan.

NATHAN
Part of me feels like... Again, that's some more of that bullshit. I think there's some people that genuinely believe that but I feel like--

You know, if you look at the history of this country, man, people have used whatever excuses, whatever lies they needed to do exactly what they wanted to do. So let's go to Black Wall Street. For a long time, it was the popular historical belief that it was a white female and a black female that was in an elevator and that the black male tried to attack the white female. Well currently, forensic investigators have found out that probably what happened was that the black male tripped, and look what happened. So those that want to do some evil, those that want to do something, they want to tear shit up, any old excuse will do, right?

These are some of the same people who believed in birtherism. And really, the birtherism was just a not-so-clever facade for their own racism because a black man had been elevated to the highest public office.

JAMES
But see, stuff like that comes up all the time though. And unless you give it oxygen and legitimize it then it goes away. There's a lot more of these conspiracy theories that we're not really aware of because they're not given oxygen in the mainstream. They are shunned by the mainstream. And when I say the "mainstream," even the mainstream conservative stuff, they're like, "Oh this is too much for us to even touch."

So the point that I’m making is those type of things are going to pop up always anyway. The issue is that once they're legitimized, once they're repeated by people in power, once they're repeated by people in media, that some people... You might not trust those people but some people do trust those people and then that's giving it oxygen. That allows them to strike.

ROB
I want to bring these points together. This is how I see it. Nathan, you're still responsible for the evil acts that you did, right, no matter what. However -- however -- we cannot deny human nature. We can't deny that people are tribal. We can't deny that propaganda is powerful. So to your point, Nathan, things that were done for--

If you look at Black Wall Street, if you look at a lot of other similar incidents... That's obviously one of the most famous. But if you look at how Jim Crow even gained power in prominence, it was because there was a repetitive propaganda against black people all the time.

Efforts were done all over the nation particularly in the south again and again to talk about, "These people don't have any morals. They're going to come. They're going to rape your babies, kids."

So there was something that planted in your mind. Yes, people had that bias built in but… That bias was always there. But these people in power were able to disseminate this and get people riled up and get the masses riled up to be on their side.

JAMES
That's the point of propaganda. The point of propaganda is to put people's mind in a place where you can control it. You can get them to do what you want to do. You can get them to commit atrocities and so forth. So that I’m saying is the issue now. You might think it's some bullshit but I'm telling you--

ROB
Germany is also the example of that--

JAMES
That's the [crosstalk - 45:01]--

ROB
A whole nation of people aren't all that way. So we do want to get to the point. And the only point of this is not to... This is not absolving people of the things they did because they should still be held accountable. [Crosstalk - 45:12].

JAMES
Correct.

ROB
What we are trying to do is understand the conditions to make sure that the shit--

JAMES
Exactly.

ROB
Yeah. What we have to do is make sure these leaders are held... That's why we have to go after these leaders so hard when they perpetuate this bullshit and this talk. Bringing these two points together, I think, that's where I would say there's agreement there.

JAMES
Rob, let me reiterate that because the point of identifying this is not to absolve anyone, like “You do what you do.” It doesn't matter what you thought. But at the same time, if we're going to address it, if we're going to be able to cut out the root then we have to figure out where the root is.

This stuff happens sometimes and then other times, it doesn't happen. So what's the difference on the times when it really happens versus the times that it doesn't happen?

And that's really what I’m trying to get at here is that, "Okay, well if we're going to address this, if we're going to look forward and try to figure out how to make it so that people aren't this lathered up to want to do this type of stuff constantly then what are the things we can do to try to address that?"

ROB
Yep. So addressing that, it looks like the big tech industry really went after a lot of right-wing crazy leaders, I should say this, and took away... Like Parler got kicked off of Google and a lot of other platforms. And Amazon, Facebook, Twitter took Donald Trump down and quite a few others.

So my question to you is, "Was that the right call? Is that what they should have done?" What did you think of that?

And then by the way, I just had to make this kind of funny point. When you have all of these conservatives that are so riled up about it, they're saying, "This is against our First Amendment rights," no, it's not, baby. It's not how the First Amendment works.

All you people that love free market say, "Government, get out of the way,” this is what it means. It means Facebook gets to determine who hears you. It means YouTube determines who hears you. That's private market. That's not the government, sorry.

JAMES
The First Amendment deals with the government criminalizing or otherwise and infringing on your ability to speak, particularly politically.
But no, I think that actually this isn't an issue of First Amendment concern. This is an issue of anti-trust concern. I am uncomfortable by this because the power that one person has to say who gets heard on Facebook or whatever is a concern of mine.

In this instance though, I think clearly, they've laid out Terms of Service and they've been violated. I think the most notable thing here is that it took this long. People have been violating this stuff for years and then all of a sudden, it's like, "Oh you've violated our service. We're taking you out." I was like, "Well hold on. I’ve been violating your service for the last eight years," you know.

So that I think is why it shocked people more so that it happened. It's not like anything that was said in the past week or two was much more heinous than anything that was said prior to that.

ROB
No, it wasn't.

JAMES
So it was shocking to people to see it. But this is what they say -- they're going to police this stuff with their Terms of Service. And they just hadn't -- at least in this instance, at least to those people.

But like I said, there are real concerns about this in terms of a CEO just saying, "Okay, you can't speak anymore on this platform." But it has nothing to do with First Amendment. That just has to do with, "Okay, if social media is going to replace our public square then are we going to allow private businesses to regulate who can speak on the public square?" And that's a totally different issue though so I apologize in some sense for bringing that up.

ROB
No, no. I mean I asked what you thought is the right move because... Honestly, I want to get to Nathan. I do think he had to be taken off but then part of me... Part of me says, "Okay.” But where do we draw the line? Are they going to say… Okay, if someone's too progressive in their talk, are they going to cut them off, too, at some point?

JAMES
Oh no. They've already drawn the line. They have the line in their Terms of Service. It's just they let them violate it over and over again.

ROB
True. I mean they make up stuff. You're right. You're right.

JAMES
Yeah. In that sense, it was just unexpected. "Oh you finally enforced that. Oh wow." But they had already said that this stuff--
ROB
It took a violent insurrection but yeah, good job. [Laughter]

JAMES
Again, the whole thing of this was everybody waking up like... Well not everybody. Some people waking up like, "Oh they really meant all that stuff they were saying." It's like, "Yeah, of course they meant it.” “Why aren't they even saying it?" But that's neither here nor there.

NATHAN
James stole my thunder there, man. Excellent points. You know, it's real simple. I know people who have 500 Facebook friends who've been blocked off of Facebook for using the N-word or posting something. So why shouldn't the President? He's got millions upon millions and millions of people that follow him. They've got Terms of Service. "You don't have a right to be on Facebook. You don't have a right to be on Twitter."

Just like if you go to Walmart. If the clerk asks you to leave for whatever reason, you're leaving. And they call the police, the police are going to ask two questions: "What happened here?” And then they're going to turn to the clerk and say, "Do you want to leave?" And at that point, you're trespassing. It is what it is.

JAMES
Hey, they're going to ask two questions if you're lucky. They might just grab--

ROB
If you don't like what Facebook is doing, if you don't like what Twitter is doing then create your own social media. It's real simple. They should have cut this clown off a long time ago...

ROB
I agree.

NATHAN
...because he was dangerous. He was using that platform, breaching their Terms of Service -- the point that James made -- and then using it in a way that was dangerous. There's a difference between... You can have your own opinion but you can't have your own facts. You [crosstalk - 50:35] Twitter or to blame because they let it go too far. They should have shut it down a long time ago.

ROB
I agree. He was telling lies, telling hate, promoting hate for a really, really long time. They only got courage when he wasn't reelected and then there was a violent insurrection, like "Okay, let's cut him off." It's not a profiling courage. It’s profiling comments at this point.

JAMES
They use the violent insurrection as cover, basically.

ROB
Exactly.

JAMES
They thought that people were less inclined to loudly object at that time because... You know, that's a strategic play.

NATHAN
I think they wanted to cut him off. They should have cut him off. By "him," I mean Donald Trump. They should have cut Donald Trump off when he was candidate Trump and he was using Facebook and Twitter to project birtherism. It was harmful to black people. It was wrong. It was dangerous. It was bad then and now we're seeing what's happening, what is it, so many years later.

ROB
Yep. I agree with that. Yeah, they didn't. You're right. So you think about the climate as it is, and my understanding from some research, is that this was more than just a spontaneous attack. There was coordination done. There were some congress people that actually had their panic buttons torn out. There were tours given to people in advance and there were plans to really commit assault, kidnapping.

Apparently, from the reports we're seeing now, it wasn't spontaneous. It wasn't just done over the internet, organically. There was some strategy. There was planning and there was some real effort put behind this and it could go pretty deep. So is it worse than we actually think or am I being a conspiracy theorist here? What do you guys think? Nathan, you can go first.

NATHAN
When you say "worse," was it worse--

ROB
Worse than just, "Oh these people just got riled up by Donald Trump saying some words and then they just went to the [Capitol - 52:37].”

NATHAN
I’ll be honest with you. I’m not surprised. As this information comes trickling out and we find out that it was coordination, maybe from even elected officials, I’m not surprised about any of it -- not one bit. Now some may be but I am not. So I’m not surprised -- not one bit. I got to be real with you.

ROB
Yeah. Are... -- [Crosstalk] Go ahead.
JAMES
I think it was worse than what we know. Most things are. It's kind of like the iceberg type of an effect where what we see, it doesn't really show the depth of it.

The objective here was to think through the show of force and through taking over the Capitol building to somehow allow Donald Trump to subvert the election, to somehow allow Donald Trump to remain in power. I don't know how much more serious you needed to be. I mean that's about as serious as it gets.

So from that alone, that that was the objective, that steps were taken that involve violent acts and a siege of the Capitol building in order to accomplish that goal. That's about as bad as it gets.

ROB
Yeah.

JAMES
I don't know what else... Even when people would try to do the BLM comparisons, like "Oh well, there were windows broken in stores" and all this other stuff, it's like, “Well this was a...” If another country attacks you, they move on your--

The last time the Capitol was breached was by the British in 1814 when we were at war. The last time a store's window got broken, that's not the same scale of something like that.

ROB
[Laughter]

JAMES
I mean this was an attack on the government of the United States -- the government of the people by the people and for the people -- in attempt to [throw - 54:13] a government as a different government.

So it's more serious than what we think because, to Nathan's point, people aren't talking about this in terms of what it actually was. This was an attack by an entity. This is the Confederacy, basically. These guys made it further than the Confederacy did. They flew a Confederate flag in the U.S. Capitol building.

Our guy, Tunde Ogunlana with Disruption Now, he's like, "Jefferson Davis wanted to do that. He never could. These guys did."

ROB
Yeah.

JAMES
Yeah, this is as real as it gets.

ROB
Yeah. I think it's serious because... Look at it this way. If someone wanted to attack us, clearly the way to go is you just make sure you get some conservative white guys to come up and infiltrate and pretend like they're with you and then they can go and do anything. They could have gone in there... They're lucky they didn't blow up the Capitol.

JAMES
You know what's interesting about that, by the way? There's been a lot of reporting on Russia trying to infiltrate the NRA and actually accomplishing it -- infiltrating the NRA.

ROB
Yeah. That's the way to do it. That's it.

JAMES
Yeah, in order to infiltrate the government, get their tentacles in the government, you do so through the NRA. Everybody knows that's a vulnerability. You can appeal--

ROB
Everybody doesn't acknowledge it. I want to get ready to wrap up on a couple of things. I want to end with Dr. King. He has some words about what you guys think is legacy at this moment. But before we get to that, do you think this could end up helping in terms of where the country goes? Do you think we could have this moment and pivot towards a point where people actually understand where America is? They can see America because it's--

There's just no denying where we're at right now. There's no denying that if you look at how these... not these protesters... these terrorists were treated and how protesters were treated in this country.--

People have a clear distinction of how people have privilege and opportunities that others don't. They have a clear picture of the problem we have. And there's a clear blind spot... It's not a blind spot for us but it's clearly a blind spot in some. It's a willfully blind spot when it comes to racism; when it comes to white supremacy in the issue. Do you think people now might understand this and there's an opportunity to do something substantively from here that this may actually help?

JAMES
Can -- definitely, it can help. The people who are on the front lines pushing for equality for America to live up to its promise, that it laid out all these grand ideas of a society of the people by the people and for the people, it can. Will it? We don't know because that struggle is ongoing and has remained ongoing. But seeing this, many people just aren't able--
Through the rhetoric, we see it. When people talk like this for whatever reason, many Americans are just not able to conceive the fact that they really mean it. But when they see it happen then that does click in for some people, like "Oh wow, there is a strain here that is--"

They're dead serious about this stuff and so it can help. It's something to point to and saying, "Look, if you want to sit on the sidelines then people like this will take over because they want it." If you don't match their energy, match their intensity then they're going to make gains.

So I think that it's a reminder in the same way that the George Floyd tragedy was a reminder, that, "Hey, if we sit by and don't stand up for what we believe in then people who believe in things that you don't believe in or that you may abhor, they are going to keep going."

ROB
Yeah. Nathan, what do you think?

NATHAN
I think the smartest way to answer it, obviously, is "Yeah." I can't speak on the future. I want to believe that there are people out there who... This may open their eyes. But you know what? America has a reflex, to underplay the impact, when white people behave badly. So those who are narrative builders, media builders, we got to make sure that we use our platforms to keep the truth out there and to focus on the real because if not, it'll go from a reminder just being a distant memory, right?

And we've been talking about a whole bunch of distant memories, the things that have happened that America have forgotten because it comes back to the control of that narrative.

To our allies, to our non-black allies, they were already with us. We might got a few more to the folks who really sympathize with the crowd. My fear is that all this is going to do is make them double-down on their conspiracy theories and their belief that somehow they're being persecuted.

ROB
Yeah.

JAMES
But see, that part that misses out on most of the people. Our allies might be 20%. The people that are really committed on this other side, maybe 20%. But there's 60%, they can kind of go either way. And when they see a dog [sick - 59:10] on a young boy, they're like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa." By and large, not totally, but these are the moderates that Dr. King talked about.

So whose message is more compelling to them? Which side do they start leaning towards? Do they start leaning towards the side of people that are trying to take over and blow up the Capitol building or execute the vice president or the people that are saying, "Look, we need to establish a more fair, a more just society." So I don't think you can look at it as a "both sides" thing. Those are "two sides" things because most people aren't committed to either, really.

ROB
Yeah. I tend to agree with that point. So let's actually go with Dr. King. I’ll let Nathan just close up about where you think we need to reflect with the legacy of Dr. King in this moment and where we are as a country. What do you think?

NATHAN
Well number one, I think, just be a... Too many people in this country have been mis-educated -- black, white, whoever. I think we need to get deep in the books and get a better understanding of who Dr. King is, who he was, including his transformation near the end of his life. It's that latter part that we don't really give a lot of attention to which I think is the most important element.

But in terms of what I think we should do with his legacy, I think it's all about equity policy intangibles. I think that anyone who is watching this stream, if you are black or whatever your color may be, you can make a difference. No matter what happened at the Capitol, I think the legacy of King is starting at home. All politics are local. That's where you can have the biggest impact. Start in your city. Start in your county. Start in your state.

Stacey Abrams has shown us the blueprint. Sis has shown us the blueprint. So if you're really concerned about equity, policy, intangibles for black folks, Stacey Abrams has shown us the blueprint. We should engage. We should learn it.

Number one, educate ourselves and absorb it and then put it in action where you live. I live in Cincinnati. I live in Hamilton County. That's where I’m working. Wherever you might be viewing this stream from, that's where you should do with the legacy of Dr. King because the worst thing in the world we can do is to let another year lapse and nobody's done a damn thing. That would be the biggest travesty.

ROB
Yeah.

JAMES
Stacey Abrams is very instructive on this as well because if you jump back two years, Stacy Abrams did all this work. In 2018, she lost the election for the governor of Georgia -- you know, barely. She lost to the person that was charged with counting the votes. So that's one of those. And people asked a lot of questions about that.

But instead of taking that loss and sulking and throwing her hands up and says, "See none of this matters," she doubled down and she... I mean what she pulled off and.. or what she and the people she's working with and other... people, her allies and so forth, the people that are just working to get people to be able to vote, what they've been able to accomplish... I mean it was jarring to see what happened in November of 2020 in Georgia and then in January in 2021.

So to see that level of effort pay off after a setback is something I think we all have to keep in mind. Dr. King spent nights in jail. Dr. King experienced setbacks but he kept pushing. I think that, ultimately, is the lesson that we always have to keep in mind is that through the ups and downs, we have to believe in what we're trying to do. And we have to keep pushing because--

And we can't let the fact that there are people who don't believe in the things that we believe in, discourage us or make us want to give up, because those people are always going to be there. There's nothing that they're going to see that's going to make them say, "You know what? Maybe you were right."

But again, my point is that that's not 50% of the people. That is a relatively smaller amount that are committed to that. And what we need to do is continue to move forward because we can move the mass with us because our cause is righteous -- equality, justice. Those are the things that we're fighting for and those are the things that are worth fighting for.

ROB
Yeah. I would end with a quote that you don't hear very often from Dr. King. I’m like Nathan. I don't spend a lot of time quoting from his "I Have a Dream" speech because that doesn't do the essence and justice to what the man actually stood for overall. Those are beautiful words. They're eloquent. They're great words but we get lost in the eloquence of his word and his ability to move the crowd. Those are great things but that doesn't really speak to what Dr. King was doing. There were years -- years -- of just setbacks.

Actually, I would argue that there were a lot more setbacks than there were actual results. If you look at what happened, he was questioned by black leadership. He was questioned by the NAACP. He was questioned by people that were seen as more progressive than him. He was called an "Uncle Tom" by them. He was called too forward, too bold, by people who are in the NAACP and some people in the establishment. That is what it was to be Dr. King.

When we celebrate a leader like him, it's so easy to just assume that they just pushed through and those were the results. I always say disrupters and innovators are usually celebrated after the fact. During the work, usually, people don't like them.

The FBI saw him as an enemy to the United States. Ronald Reagan even said, "Well I’m not sure if he's a traitor or not" -- I’m paraphrasing. But he came pretty close to saying this, that history will judge who Dr. King really was. And he was thinking about vetoing Dr. King Day. He ultimately didn't.

I’m just telling you that the story that you hear from people, when they talk about Dr. King, that's not how it was when he did the work. It was a lot of hard work and it was a lot of work on the ground that wasn't rewarded. A lot of people did not like him. He was not universally loved and lionized like he is now. But he focused on the work. And the work was hard and the work created a lot of tension in this country.

And this is where I want to conclude. The quote he said that we need to hold on to, he said, "Peace is not the absence of tension. It's the presence of justice."

So we're going to have tense moments here as we should. Our country is divided specifically when it comes to issues of race and racial equity. We've been divided for a long time and there's going to be tension.

Do not shy away from the tension. Do not shy away from being uncomfortable. If you are comfortable, you are doing this wrong. You are doing this wrong because this is a hard problem. This is the most wicked problem that the United States has gone through when you deal with racial equity and having real self-awareness.

What I hope we can gain from this moment as we are swearing in a new president, the 46th president of the United States, also vice president, Kamala Harris, Joe Biden as president, is that we can move forward and actually have a truth and reconciliation commission, similar to what Nathan Ivey said. We need to really investigate. Go deep and understand our history and not just whitewash and not make ourselves feel comfortable, not tell stories that we want to hear but tell the stories as they actually happen.

And then like Germany and then like South Africa, we can move forward together, coming together around the actual common truth.

We can't tell ourselves different versions of the truth. We have to come to the actual reality of what happened in this country, embrace it, and then and only then can we grow to have that vision that Dr. King hoped, that we all like to aspire to when we hear about the dream and the speech he had. We can get to that dream but first, we have to deal here in reality.

Until next time, I’m Rob Richardson.

JAMES
I’m James Keys.

NATHAN
I’m Nathan Ivey.

ROB
We'll see you next time. I appreciate you listening.

[END OF TRANSCRIPT]