Weekly Roundup: Straights Only at the Hair Salon + White Nationalists in the Military
Brad and Dan begin by discussing the fallout from the 303 Creative SCOTUS case in the form of a hair stylists who claims they will not serve anyone who introduces themselves using pronouns. This follows on a predication made when the ruling came down: Bigots will use the licence of "expression" to justify turning away people on the basis of sex, gender, and so on.
In the second segment they discuss an academic article that shows the long term effects of protest movements - and how they shift the needle in political discourse over generations.
Finally, the hosts analyze the shocking comments made by Sen. Tommy Tuberville on White nationalists in the military.
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Welcome to Straight White American Jesus.
My name is Brad Onishi, faculty at the University of San Francisco, and back after globe-trotting, cosmopolitan, jet-setting weeks of travel and glamour, Dan Miller.
Yeah, back from most recently Puerto Rico, and if anybody's watching anything, they would see just how dark and swarthy I am.
I continue to look like my Northern European ancestry is.
Front and center is I'm like a pale ghost back from the beach, but I am glad to be back.
Not glad to be talking about the things we have to talk about because there's always plenty of like crappy stuff going on to have to address, but good to be back.
You know, just to flex for a moment and really show off what SPF kind of man are you?
So I feel like I should preface this by saying I can, I can get tan.
When I was in like high school, I mowed lawns for a living and stuff and I would be out in the sun, but I'm now a reclusive academic who spends my time indoors.
So I've given up on even trying.
So I'm like a straight up like 50.
Just give me the 50.
I will put it on.
If I take my, I'm not going to take my shirt off, but if I did, I basically look like I have a white t-shirt on underneath my shirt.
That's, that's, that's how I look.
So, uh, I've just, I've given up on, on trying to, you know, not just reflect light, like the pale moon that I am.
I like how that, I like how that answer started with, and I can get tan and in high school, like it was a... In high school, I could get tan.
When I was with football practice out for hours a day for like 90, 100 degree heat, I was... The problem with football though is like your tan from like your ankle to your knee.
And then that's kind of it.
So, uh, yeah, yeah.
I had nice calves.
So that's, that's there.
Yeah.
We're learning a lot.
Yeah.
We are learning a lot.
Okay.
All right, friends.
So today we're going to talk about, we're going to have an installment of one of our segments called Tubbies Flubbies.
So we'll talk about Senator Tuberville, what he's doing with the military and white nationalists.
Talk about an article that I think Somewhat hopeful, Dan, and something that I think will be interesting to people about the long-lasting impacts of protests and protest movements and so on.
So I think that'll be really interesting to see and encouraging for those of you who are engaged in political action.
And then we're going to start today, Dan, with something that is a direct fallout, I think, and I'm happy for you to tell me more and correct me, but It is really a direct fallout of the recent Supreme Court case on 303 Creative, which came out of Colorado.
I did a whole episode on this in talking about the dynamics of the case, but just to remind everybody, The Supreme Court ruled on a supposedly web design company's instance where they were asked to create a website for a gay wedding.
So there was a woman in Colorado who claims that somebody reached out, somebody named Stewart, and said, hey, I'm getting married, blah, blah, blah, and I might need a website.
And the person said, well, I can't serve you because to create things depicting gay weddings would go against my religion, so we can't do that.
That was the basis of the case.
If you listen to the episode, there's a lot involved there.
One of the things, though, that I highlighted, Dan, is that This is a case about free speech, not religion.
And I think you're going to tell us about that and remind us of those dynamics.
So that's important.
But one of the predictions I made, and I like to be right in terms of my predictions, but I don't like to be right when it means that it's stuff like this, was that you're going to get people Who are going to take this idea of expression and they're going to use it in a very expansive way in order to be prejudiced against other people.
So like the literal example I used, Dan, in the episode.
And I mean, people can come look at my notes or my archives, which are really like scribbles on a Google Doc, but I'll send them to you.
I did not have any indication that this was happening in real life.
My example in the episode a week and a half ago was, what if I'm a barber?
What if I'm a hairstylist who turns people away because a man comes in and is like, I'd like this haircut?
And I say, well, That's a gay haircut.
And if I give you that haircut, people are going to think you're gay and they're going to think I'm a gay hairstylist who does expressive work for gay people.
So I'm not going to do that.
Sorry, you can get out now.
So with all that said, Dan, I'm just going to throw it to you.
What happened this week regarding 303 Creative and prejudice against the LGBTQ community and hairstylists in the United States?
Well, I think, Brad, you owe us all an apology because clearly a hairstylist was listening, was like, oh, that's a great idea.
I should make that argument.
No, that's not what happened.
So the story that kind of made news, this is not in the courts.
This is not a legal action, right?
It was somebody on Facebook.
I think maybe Instagram, Facebook, Instagram, social media, hairdresser.
I think in out of Kansas City or the Kansas City area.
It was a Kansas City newspaper that covered the story.
This hairdresser said on Facebook that she won't serve people who specify their pronouns, right?
So, first of all, that is code, as we know, for trans or gender non-conforming people.
People listened a few weeks ago.
We talked about what are things you can do to support that community.
One thing I said is we can all specify our pronouns, right?
Even if we use the pronouns that one might assume we use based on our appearance or something like that.
But clearly, Especially when it comes from the right.
This is code for trans people.
And what she said was this, and this is an awful quote.
She said, If a human identifies as anything other than a man or woman, please seek services at a local pet groomer.
And that was the end of her quote.
So a few things about this, and all the things you mentioned.
I also, a couple weeks ago, talked about when we were discussing affirmative action.
That sometimes what the people on the right say, it gives you like this window into the kind of fever dream reality that they perceive.
And this is one of those times.
So first of all, Brad, I have a shaved head.
I don't go to a hairdresser, but when I did, You call, you make an appointment, you say, yeah, it's for Brad at four o'clock.
You show up, you go in and you say, yeah, my name is Brad, it's for four o'clock.
I don't imagine like, hi, my name is Brad, it's for four o'clock.
I use he, him pronouns, or I use they, them pronouns or whatever.
Like, the pronoun, that's not how it works, but there's this sense, right?
This fear that people are just walking around policing pronouns everywhere when that's not how it actually works.
Number two, there are genderfluid people, there are genderqueer people, there are people who don't identify with a fixed gender.
But the majority of people who use pronouns or specify pronouns also identify as male or female.
So again, it's just this weird notion that everybody who would specify pronouns doesn't identify as male or female.
Affirmative, I don't care if anybody identifies as male, female.
Affirm you fully if you are genderfluid, genderqueer, just don't want to talk about gender, whatever.
But again, it just gives voice to the fear and the anxiety that drives this on the right.
So that's just sort of a background thing.
But here's the other interesting thing, right?
And this is where you're getting into.
And people need to understand this.
I doubt that this hairdresser understands this, right?
The cake designer, people remember the famous baker who won narrowly in the Supreme Court and so forth.
Although I read, just fairly recently, lost another lawsuit about not making a cake to celebrate somebody's gender transition.
And an appeals court ruled that you could not discriminate on that basis.
Just ran across that in researching this.
In that case, in the case that was just decided by SCOTUS, I'm assuming in this case in Kansas City, but I don't know for sure, religion is front and center, right?
The reason that people say that they hold the views they have is because of their religious beliefs, okay?
But the Supreme Court—and this is the point you were making, Brad—didn't make their ruling based on religious freedom, right?
The First Amendment says you can—protects religious practice, religious expression.
Free exercise is the language that it uses.
But that's not how it was decided, right?
It was decided on the grounds of speech.
Why does that matter?
For two reasons for me.
Number one, they were saying that a creative expression of some sort, Piece of art, imagine an artist, a sculpture, something like that, or in this case, they were arguing somebody who creates a cake for an event, somebody who designs a website, that this is a form of expression, that expression is a form of speech, and that you can't be compelled to give speech in favor of something you don't believe in.
So, for example, I could not compel you to say that you support Donald Trump and are going to vote a straight-up Republican party ticket and so forth.
That would be compelling your speech.
They're saying it's the same thing with creative endeavors.
Okay?
That's the argument.
Why does that matter?
Again, because it's not about religion.
But it's about speech, which means that, number one, this opens the door for this discrimination, this kind of discrimination, to expand outside of religious parameters.
You don't have to say, I'm not going to make this because I've deeply held religious beliefs or it's a part of my faith.
You could just say, nobody's probably going to say this, you could just say, I just don't like black people.
So I'm not going to make a website for a business that proclaims itself as a Black-owned business or that has a Black Lives Matter banner on its header or something like that.
And I'm not a legal expert.
You're not a legal expert.
But to me, that's the risk of opening this up to speech.
That's the first thing.
And so this woman, she doesn't, in that post, highlight her Christian beliefs.
But the precedent that the Supreme Court seems to have set here is you don't have to do it because of religious beliefs, because religion wasn't the issue for them.
They decided it on speech grounds.
But here's the other one, and this is the point that you're getting at, is it opens that question of, in an economy like ours, where we don't just produce goods, we're not all just clerks, say at Walmart, checking things out or something like that, but we produce things, what counts as speech?
And that's the piece that I think is sort of hovering here, the piece that you're highlighting.
Is a haircut a creative expression in the same way that the Supreme Court has said a wedding cake is or a website?
I think back to the famous civil rights examples of people protesting at food counters and demanding service.
What happens if the cook behind the counter says, this is my artistic expression and I don't support you protesters sitting on my counter, white or black or whomever you are.
Therefore, I'm not going to serve you.
Would that have worked?
I know some people are going to have the knee-jerk reaction and say, of course, that wouldn't work.
And the right does this too.
They always say, this isn't about race.
Of course, that's settled law.
You can't discriminate.
But for me, is it settled law, right?
How long is it before somebody just bites the bullet and says, you know what?
I don't want to serve black people.
I don't want to make a website, as I say, for black people.
Or I'm really uncomfortable around people who are missing limbs.
And this person came in, they got a wheelchair.
I don't like it.
I don't like them.
I think I don't want to create something for them.
That's the first side.
Is that the slope that we're on?
And someday when this comes to the courts, and it will, what are those conservative justices going to do?
The Clarence Thomases and the Samuel Alitos who are convinced that racism isn't a thing and that it never happens.
How are they going to rule?
And then number two, what is the line between expression going to be and providing a good or service that isn't part of your creative expression?
Brad, let's say that, I don't know, your water heater crashes.
You've got to call somebody to come in and fix it.
They come in and you're Asian American, Brad, and they just don't really like that.
Are they going to decide they don't have to fix your water heater?
Because that's somehow their expression of who they are.
It's a form of speech.
You see where we're going.
So these are the things, the chilling effects that I think arise from these.
This is why, for me, it's really significant that it wasn't argued on religious grounds.
It was argued on speech grounds.
Because religion, you can at least try to quibble about whether or not this is really a part of somebody's faith, the historical component, etc., etc.
Speech, it's a lot harder to do that.
And I think The final piece I'll throw in this, we've talked about this for years, you and I have, and other people have, is I think there's also the dimension that these are for-profit enterprises, right?
This isn't somebody's private speech.
It's not something they're just doing because it matters to them.
The Facebook post is, I think, clearly just posting stuff on Facebook.
This person can say whatever they want.
They're entitled to say whatever they want, no matter how horrific or whatever.
I think that's the other piece that SCOTUS has sort of set aside that lots of people have brought up is that these are for-profit businesses.
They're in the public marketplace, which does involve a state interest.
It is a regulated marketplace.
It's not just the Wild West where you get to do whatever you want.
There are rules about commerce and so forth.
All kinds of things open up about that.
So you were prescient in looking at this.
The Daily Beast, which is where I first read about this, sort of picked up on it as well.
Other thoughts that you have about this?
As we're sort of opening up questions here, I know we don't have answers because these are going to play out over time, but these are the directions I think that these Supreme Court cases take us.
So I want to focus in on what you just said at the end there, because when I did the episode on this, I still got folks who were really, I think, not clear on this point.
And I understand why.
It's a little bit complex, but I think it's worth trying to elucidate.
So one of the things that is supposed to be true in the United States, now let's just say supposed to be true is this.
If I walk into a business, I cannot be refused a business on the basis of my race, on my religion, on my national origin, my gender, right?
And in many states, okay, and not all, but many, my sexual orientation, my identity as somebody who has a sex and a gender.
So if I walk into a business and let's just take expression out of it.
So let's just start with step one, right?
I go to the food counter or I go to get my oil changed and I walk in and I am Asian American.
I am a woman.
I am somebody who is wearing a hijab, right?
We are not supposed to live in a country where one can be refused service based on any of those characteristics of their identity.
Okay?
So, if you're going to turn away somebody because they are gay or because they are gender non-conforming, in many states that is not supposed to be the case because you're not supposed to be able to turn them away on the basis of that aspect of who they are.
Okay?
So let's just start there.
Now, What happened when I did the episode is a lot of people like tweeted at me and wrote things that said, well, so you're saying, what if I create websites, but instead of somebody saying, please create for me a website for a gay wedding, they say, please create for me a website for, uh, glamorizing Hitler.
Will you do that please?
And I say, no, no, no, I'm not going to do that.
And then I get sued because what are you going to, you're turning people and here's my response.
Okay.
Here's the difference.
There's a protected class of people.
A protected identity component is sexual identity or sexual orientation in a place like Colorado, a place like California.
That is different than me saying I will not create something because it is objectionable such as a white supremacist I'm not rejecting that business based on the identity of one of the people who's asking to do business with me.
It's not a class action.
I'm not making an action based on a class, whether that's a racial class, a religious class, a sexual class, a gender class.
I'm making a rejection of business based on the specific instance of business is one that I don't want to engage in.
I hope everyone can see the difference there.
Now, what I think this case opens up is saying, well, gender and sexual identity are not protected.
So if I want to reject business based on that class or that classification or that component of one's identity, then that is allowed because of my free speech.
The fallout, okay, is something like we're seeing with this post about a salon, which is basically And this is what I said on the episode, and I'll say it again.
This is one instance, I think, of many where you're going to see, and I'm not kidding.
I've lived in the small towns in America where I think this will happen.
You're going to walk by salons and barbershops that just simply say, no gays.
I really do.
And when they're called on it, when they're told what is this about, they're sued, they're going to say it's my expression.
This is my expression.
I'm not going to serve people who are wanting to have this kind of work done or have this kind of identity.
On what grounds?
Well, they asked me to create for them a haircut that is clearly a gay haircut.
And that's my artistic expression.
And I am free to say I don't want to do that.
No, I want everyone to see what's happening there.
They're not saying, hey, you walked into my salon and I'm not going to serve you because you're not wearing clothes.
I just think we're at a place where what this opens the door, and you've sort of mentioned this, what this opens the door to is rejecting people based on aspects of their identity in ways that Are no longer supposed to happen in this country.
Okay.
Now, let me give you an example.
I think it's easy to say, and I said this on my episode, like, Oh, are people going to just put up signs that say we have a diner, no blacks, right?
No Asians.
Now they might, I'm not ruling that out.
And all the people of color listening know that, yes, that's a possibility because that's America.
That's what happens here.
What about this?
Let me, let me give you a more, a slightly more subtle example.
What if I have a diner and I say, You speak only English in this building or you're out.
So if you walk in, you sit at my diner, I walk by and I hear you speaking Spanish, I hear you speaking Korean, I hear you speaking Chinese, I'm just going to tell you to get out.
And so I'm going to put a sign on the door or the window that says, only English spoken here.
Otherwise, you're not welcome.
I can see that happening, Dan.
And that's, I mean, that's a slightly more subtle, slightly more subtle than the no Asians, no blacks sign.
It's not that much more subtle, but I think it's much more plausible in a lot more places in this country, that you could see something.
And then someone's like, well, what's this about?
You're just turning people away because of, and you're like, hey, it's my free speech.
It's my artistic expression.
I'm not going to serve you my artistic expressions, my Denver omelet and hash browns, if you're not going to speak English.
There it is, right?
So final thoughts on this before we jump to a break.
Yeah, so a couple that I think relate to what you're bringing up.
The first is, I'll remind everybody about the Supreme Court decision a couple years back that surprised everybody, right, penned by Neil Gorsuch, that said that sexuality was in fact a protected class in like sort of federal employment law and so forth.
Why do I bring that up?
Because everybody, right, left, center, thinks it's only a matter of time before that precedent Bleeds into other areas, right?
Somebody's going to sue in, say, a state where it's completely legal to say, nope, I'm not going to rent you this apartment because you're trans.
I know that you're trans, or you're two women and you have a child, you're together, not going to rent it.
It's completely legal in lots and lots of states.
It's only a matter of time before that gets challenged.
And on the same now conservative basis, at least for Gorsuch, to say, because his rationale, and I completely agree with this, his rationale was, That's a form of sex discrimination.
That is basically, discriminating against people because they're queer, basically, is you're not being masculine in the right way.
You're not being feminine in the right way.
You can make the same argument about trans individuals, right?
You're just not, you're a person with a penis, that means you have to dress a certain way, act a certain way, have certain feelings, and if you don't, we're gonna, you know, discriminate against you.
So I'm interested to see where that comes when the collision between those comes this notion of expression and unprotected classes when at least we're talking about gender and sexuality there's a more than a small argument to be made that in fact the precedent has been set that that is in fact a class that's wrapped up in um in in on the basis of gender right that gender identity and sexuality are covered.
The other thing I would just kind of point out um That I think relates to your example, the white supremacist things.
I think there's also a difference between not doing something because you're sort of, you have animus toward others, you're targeting others, and not doing it because you think the work you're being asked to do targets others, right?
Like, that's what I would look at if I was, you know, looking at the white supremacist thing and saying, this is aimed at targeting others, some of whom are protected classes, right?
Like, like on the basis of religion, race, ethnicity, what have you.
Versus, I just don't like you and who you are, so I'm not going to do this.
And I think that's a key thing as well.
What is the aim of the actor here?
And I would throw that out there for anybody who wants to talk to the Uncle Rons of the world and say, Oh, it's just about what my religion teaches.
What is your religion about?
Is it about targeting others?
For the sake of targeting others, or is it about protecting others?
Protecting the vulnerable, protecting the oppressed, protecting the marginalized, and yes, countering those who would do damage to those communities, those individuals.
I think that's a whole nother piece of this that's different from this kind of individual who's like, I don't like queer people, and I don't care if it's because of their religion or not.
I don't like queer people.
I shouldn't have to make a cake.
Versus your example or the counterexamples that people give of, if I were to make this website, I'm harming an entire community of people.
You can make a strong argument that religious people are not harmed by two people who decide to get married and want to have a cake or a website or whatever.
Nobody's making those religious people tune into that.
They don't have to go there.
They don't have to support it.
They don't have to buy presents, what have you.
So I think that's another really important distinction in the example that you give.
I think you really I'll make a point here.
I've not heard other places and I think this is really insightful because what you're getting at is the crux of the whole thing, which is one group is saying, so here's the barber or the salon person or the website designer.
It comes down to this idea, which we hear all the time, Dan, which is two people who are women, two people who are men getting married somehow cheapens heterosexual marriage.
Like Robert Jeffress says that, like there's, I can show you all the clips of like pastors and others being like, well, if two men can get married, that means my marriage to a woman as a man is somehow less.
And it's like, really?
What?
Okay.
Uh, and I showed those clips to my students and they laughed because they just could not believe it was real.
You're really telling me.
If you're a man married to a woman, two men getting married somehow lessens your marriage.
What's my point?
My point is, is the argument is somehow that you by being human and doing human things is hurting me.
And most of us are like, no, it's not.
I'm just trying to get married.
I'm just trying to get my hair cut.
I'm just trying to get a website made.
I'm not trying to hurt anyone.
You're okay.
Your religion is your religion.
You may not think that Whatever, but you're in business in the United States.
So you need to know that you're going to have to like enter into a public market that like works this way.
The example of like, well, aren't you going to create a website for Hitler lovers?
What are you going to reject people?
You said that's not okay.
And you hit it on the head.
It's like, you're asking me to create things that are targeting others.
And it's really just comes down to targeting others and being targeted.
And the claim by these people, the salon person, the cake person, the diner person we're talking about today.
Anyway, I just, I think that was a brilliant line of thinking.
All right, let's take a break.
We'll come back and talk about something a little more hopeful, I think.
Be right back.
All right, Dan, I want to highlight an article that I actually learned about through Sam Perry on social media and just really spent some time digging into the other day and wanted to share and talk about with you, and that is a piece called The Persistent Effect of U.S.
Civil Rights Protests on Political Attitudes.
This is in the American Journal of Political Science.
So this is a super academic, wonky paper.
This is not a piece in a wild poet.
This is not an op-ed.
It's by Sumijit Mazumdar from Harvard University.
And here is the argument, Dan.
And I wanna preface this, y'all, by saying, you're like, what is this about?
What are these guys talking about here?
Am I bored?
Am I gonna turn this off?
The argument is basically about how protests and political protests actually have a long-term effect on things.
So if you're somebody who's ever gone to a protest and you've wondered like, what's the point of this?
If you are somebody who's tired and you're like, I've been to protests and I'm tired.
If you're somebody who's like, I often go to rallies and I often participate in things and I'm tired or so on and so forth.
Let's take a look at this paper by Mazumder at Harvard University.
Here's one of the first lines talking about civil rights protests and protests in general.
Counties that experienced protests have had higher vote shares for the Democratic Party over the past 40 years.
These results cannot be explained by differential whiteout migration or increases in black turnout following the passage of the Voting Rights Act.
As a whole, the results suggest that civil rights protests seem to have left a deep political legacy in the United States beyond its institutions.
So the argument is, is that if you look at counties, especially in the South, where there were protests during the civil rights movement, that 40 years later, those counties have a higher vote turnout or vote share for the Democratic Party.
And what the author is saying there is like, and this cannot be, some of you are thinking this, like, well, all the white people moved out of the county.
And it's like, nope, they controlled for that.
And then someone else is thinking, well, maybe a lot of black folks moved in or other minority folk, minority racial groups filled in some of the population.
And again, they're saying, nope, that's not it.
What they're saying is, the argument, and this is what the data seems to show, is that those protests changed the attitudes of many people in those counties to the point that it changed the voting patterns in those counties.
So let me read a little bit more.
I argue that the ways in which protests prime identities beyond race, such as being American, can help to reduce prejudice against blacks.
Several studies find evidence consistent with this psychological model.
So again, the argument is that the protests have a psychological effect.
And Dan, I would gander to say that you and I would call this something beyond psychology.
It's an embodied effect, and it's a nervous system situation.
But the idea here is that protests have a transformative effect such that they change the idea of the in-group, out-group.
And the protest changes people from seeing it as us, them, and it really becomes about we.
So there are people who are not Black, who are not BIPOC, who might be seeing protests, say, for the Civil Rights Movement, or more recently for standing up to police brutality in the wake of George Floyd's murder.
The idea here is that in some of those cases, it's not about simply there are black people here and there are white people there.
It is about being human, about being American, about being somebody who is just wanting to live their life.
Like I think in the case of George Floyd, so many people saw a man on a videotape who was just had a knee on his neck.
And what that did and what the protest cultivated was a feeling of like, Whether you are black or white, you should not have to live in a situation where you could have a knee on your neck for like a minor infraction or a minor something or a suspicion of a crime or whatever to the point that you die.
I think the same thing happened in the civil rights movement when people saw folks getting hosed down and dogs turned on them.
The author here calls it a psychological effect.
I would call it an affective turn, that your body starts to feel empathy and it starts to say, that's not okay.
It's not okay for this to happen.
All right.
Now, by transforming from us versus them to we relationships, the idea here is that prejudice is reduced.
I think there's a lot to say here, Dan.
We could go on and on.
I'll just summarize by saying, I think this is hopeful in one sense.
It's hopeful in the sense that this, if you are listening and you are engaged in political action, or you're thinking about getting involved and you can easily get to a place where you're like, what's the point?
There is a point.
There's a way that these actions, that these movements have a lasting effect on our public square.
And they can be intergenerational.
I get asked a lot when I give talks and speeches around the country, like, oh, don't you think Gen Z is going to save us?
Right?
And people have been asking that since the dawn of time.
Oh, the new generation gets it.
They're not going to be racist like their parents.
They're not going to be homophobic like their parents.
Right.
And they are.
A lot of them are, not all.
And there are, there are changes and there are, you know, aberrations, but We often, and you know just get on Facebook and look up your friends from high school to prove this, people just often replicate what they've been taught, how they grew up, and so on and so forth.
So when you have an injection of protest and rally that says this is not okay, We are not going to allow for this.
We're going to stand up and say, this is not going to be permitted where we live.
We're not going to have white only counters.
We're not going to have salons that say no gays.
We're not going to do that.
We're going to stand up and say, we don't accept this.
Right.
We're going to go to a protest.
Like I was at the, the Woman's March in 2017.
And I remember that feeling still today.
Now I know some people are like, Oh, what did that do?
And that was, and there's a lot of issues with it.
And okay.
I'm totally here for that.
But I know that there are people over the last five or six years whose lives have been shaped by these kinds of movements and they are now teaching their kids different things.
I'll give you one more example, Dan, and then I'll throw it to you.
I know from my former evangelical days, I have people who I've known.
who are white people, and they have adopted black children.
And I can already hear the emails about all the issues and all the things.
So I'm aware of the macro issues involved with white Christians adopting folks from other parts of the world or white Christians adopting black children, thinking this and that.
Okay, let's leave all that aside just for now.
What happened in both of these families of people who I know is that during the protests against police brutality in the wake of George Floyd's murder, they were asked by their kids who were 6 or 8 or 10 or 12, can we go to a protest?
Because I'd really like to do that.
And these parents, these adoptive parents said, yes, of course, let's go.
And when they went there, Dan, They saw that protests against police brutality, protests led by the Movement for Black Lives, protests led by folks who they had been told most of their lives were evil and hated America, what they found were people With a profound, profound love for humanity and who wanted the best for everyone involved.
And it changed their lives.
I mean, some of them ended up leaving their churches, leaving their ways of life because of what?
Because they saw in those protests, okay, something.
And saw is the wrong word.
They felt and embodied something in those protests that changed their view of the world.
And they went back to their communities and were like, Hey, we should actually be paying attention to this.
And they had people say, no, I'm no longer going to speak to you because you're associated with Black Lives Matter.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
I'm on a kind of rant here.
What I'm trying to sum up is this.
This paper shows us that there are reasons To think that none of this is in vain.
And if you're wondering if it is, take heart.
Now, I'll say this quickly.
I think one of the sad things about this country is that it often takes people getting hosed down or attacked by dogs or a video of police brutality or something else for people to feel that in their body and to care.
So, right.
And I, I know this and I think, you know, black indigenous people of color are going to say, and they're going to know in their bodies, It often takes too much to get white people to go to a protest, to feel these things.
That is the downfall.
Yes, the good news here, these things have long lasting effects.
The bad news is just how much it takes for the white person to look up and care and to get into that kind of space.
And so I don't want to overlook that.
So anyway, thoughts on this article from American Journal of Political Science? - Yes, it's a good article.
As you say, it's written for academics like us, so geeks like us are like, what a great article!
Could be tough sledding for others, but I invite people to try it out.
Two broad points.
First, to just pick up on the points that you made, right?
I think what the protests and the kinds of things do is They increase visibility.
They normalize the presence of these people, right?
Oftentimes, people who think that there's no such thing as racism or don't see the harm in saying, I'm not going to share my pronouns, I'm going to oppose people who do, and so forth, they don't encounter.
The people who are harmed by this.
And so that's another piece of it.
It normalizes it.
It shows them that they're there.
You have those encounters.
It humanizes them.
I think all of those are the effects that have that psychological, and as you say, that affective kind of embodied response where we just feel differently toward those people than we might have when they were just abstractions, or worse yet, when we were just hearing disinformation about them.
But there's another flip side to the article that I want to talk about for a minute.
I'll try not to get too wonky.
Everybody knows I'm very wonky, but I will try to tone it down.
But one of the lines in the article is that these protests also create institutional change, but it's talking about how it creates long-term change, psychological change, and so forth.
I want to bring those two things together and just point out that what we could call very broadly social structures, social institutions, those are what shape us as the individuals we are.
Those are the things that make it so that we feel the way that we feel towards certain things.
What do I mean?
I'm not talking about just things like Government policies.
That's part of it.
Government agencies.
But I'm talking about patterns of speech, just the way that we talk.
I'm talking about educational institutions.
I'm talking about family structures.
I mean, Brad, you just talked about that, right?
Of people carrying on their family structures.
I think you said that you had a great phrase.
I think you described families as a site of replication, replicating certain attitudes.
All of those are social structures.
All of those are social institutions.
Those are the things that live on Beyond the protesters in a given time and place.
Those are the things that, as we become more aware of difference, as we become more aware of the threat to other real humans walking among us, keep those things moving and keep those things alive.
And so some points to that is, number one, I think you're absolutely right.
People should get involved wherever and however they can in protesting and marching and things like that, but they should also be getting involved in those institutions.
Volunteer at your local library so that when somebody comes along and says, we need to pull all the books about race, you can give voice to a different attitude to that.
Run for the local school district.
Attend those school district meetings.
Attend your town council meetings.
Attend those things.
Make your voice heard.
Run for city council or whatever it is, right?
Whether it, you know, maybe it's the PTA at your school, your kid's school.
Whatever it is, because those institutional patterns are what also map this out.
And of course, for all of us, with kids, with relatives, with other young people in our lives, that's where those intimate relationships of parents and friends and relatives also play such a role.
And I think that that's really central.
And it's another piece in this article that I think is sort of there.
Is that that's why institutions matter, these long-lasting structures.
Before any of us ever emerges, the individuals will be in society voicing our opinions and so on.
We've been shaped by all kinds of institutions that supersede us, that shape us in so many ways.
And the last point I'm going to think is to make, and this is why it's so important to get involved in this, is the right knows this, right?
That's why they are currently targeting institutions.
There are some marches for white pride and so forth, but there's nothing on the scale of what there is.
Say, you mentioned the protests in the wake of Floyd and so forth, right?
Those have a critical mass that the right can't match right now.
So what do they do?
They target the school boards.
Let's target the school boards and change this institution so it can't teach about race anymore, so it can't teach about gender equality anymore.
Let's sidestep the medical institutions.
That's a whole other set of institutions and structures we haven't talked about, the medical and mental health institutions.
And like you, I'm aware of the meta issues with those institutions and the problems with them.
But we talked about this before, if we're talking about queer issues, they are all affirmative of things like gender affirmative care and so forth.
So what does the right do?
They just legislate right around it.
I could be wrong, but if you go and you read the debates on the floor of these things, there's not a lot of engagement with the science behind this.
Because they would have to take on every major medical institution.
So what do they do?
They just bypass them.
We'll just ban doing these things.
That's how important the sort of institutional side of this is.
So we as individuals need to focus on ourselves as individuals, obviously, people in our circles of influence, But we also need to be participating in those institutions and the structures and pay attention to those things that aren't always exciting to pay attention to.
I don't know if anybody's ever tuned in to like, especially in the COVID times, to some zoomed version of a school district meeting or something.
Not exciting.
Probably not most people's idea of a fun Thursday night, but really, really vital and important.
So I think that was another piece of this that came out as well.
How do these have lasting impacts?
They have lasting impacts because they change individuals and communities, but also because they form these institutional structures that can keep them moving.
I'm hopeful about that.
Like you, though, on the flip side, if those institutions are taken backwards, that also has a lasting effect.
And that's what we're seeing around the country in various places as well.
Well, and it shows you why those institutions can be places where the minority can institute their vision for the country without getting the votes, without having, right?
I mean, let's just take abortion, right?
Abortion is, in terms of people's feelings about it, has stayed relatively At stable levels for the last couple of years.
There's about two-thirds of Americans that are in favor of abortion of some kind and yet we have a situation where the Supreme Court ruled how it ruled and states are putting into place, Iowa just put into place this week, a six-week ban on abortion.
It shows you, when you talk about institutions, how the minority can strategize and maneuver in order to take control, even when they don't have the votes.
They don't have, you know, 50% of the people in the country wanting what they want.
So, protest, institutions, get involved with all of it.
Especially if you're a white person who's listening, I would say this is one of those moments of asking yourself, what does it take for you to really activate on these issues?
All right.
Let's take a break, come back and talk about Tubbies Flubbies.
See you in a minute.
All right, Dan, I want to go to, to talk about Senator Tuberville.
Okay.
But I'm going to do something I normally don't do on this show.
Are you ready, Dan?
I'm going to do something I normally don't do.
I am going to read a review of our show.
Okay.
And I know whoever left this review probably no longer listens to the old Straight White American Jesus podcast.
So, you ready for this?
Dan, back a couple months ago, well, a month and a half ago, you talked about Tommy Tuberville and the military.
And I'm going to quote exactly what happened there in a second, but here's the review.
I'm a leftist and a recovering fundamentalist and relate to a lot of what you cover on this podcast, but I'd like to point out what I think is an example of a liberal blind spot.
When Tuberville tried to clarify what he meant when he answered the question about white supremacists in the military, he basically said it was a defensive response based on his assumption that the reporter was overstating the situation and baiting him.
You thought this was BS, and here is the blind spot.
You ASSUME, all caps, you know his thoughts.
You have boiled down conservatism to bigotry.
You fail to account for the POWER, all caps, of your HATE for him and his kind.
You fail to account for the wave of leftist totalitarianism in this country that he has braced against.
This comes again from somebody who says that they are, I'm going to quote, a very progressive liberal.
And I'll just leave it there.
So that was the response from one person to what we talked about with what happened with Tommy Tuberville a while back now.
What happened a while back?
Okay.
What happened a while back is that Tommy Tuberville was talking about the military.
Okay.
And, uh, he talked about how that, well, here's Caitlin Collins at CNN.
All right, y'all, let me just read Caitlin Collins.
Here's what she said.
Speaking of the military, I do want to give you a chance to clarify some comments you made recently on white nationalists serving in the military.
For those who are watching, if they hadn't heard your remarks, this is what you said.
And what he did say was that when asked about white nationalists in the military, he said, and I quote, I just call them Americans.
Okay?
And Dan, this is what you and I reacted to, and this is what that review was all about.
We criticized him for that.
Okay?
So, Caitlin Collins goes on.
Now, why was she even talking to Tommy Tuberville?
Many of you will know that Tommy Tuberville is holding up all military promotions.
Because the military is allowing service people to travel to get reproductive care.
In essence, there are women in the military who are getting leave and traveling to get abortions.
And there's more nuance to it than that, but that's what Tommy Tuberville is protesting.
So now, for the first time on 164 years, the United States Marine Corps does not have an overseeing commander because these promotions have been held up.
So if you're just sort of becoming aware of this, It is a one-man protest by Coach Tommy Tumberville, who I'm sure is imagining himself in a Friday Night Lights montage, standing up for what's right and telling his players in an impassioned speech that he doesn't back down.
And what he's really doing is acting like a 14-year-old who is holding up every military appointment and also putting the lives of thousands of military service people on hold in terms of where they will be for their next deployment, where their kids will go to school, and so on.
So that is the context.
But Dan, this is what I really want to go to.
After Caitlin Collins is basically like, Hey, you want to clarify that?
It's a softball.
It's like, yeah, actually, Caitlin, here's what I meant.
Okay.
So I'm going to read the exchange.
Do you want to explain those comments, Senator?
Yes.
First of all, I'm totally against any type of racism.
Okay.
Dan, I'm going to make a little, can I just, all right, everybody, you ready for a sidebar?
Here's a sidebar.
I like to write.
Okay.
And there's a lot of editors out there.
If you read, if you take a class on writing, Dan, a lot of, you're going to hear a lot.
Get rid of your adverbs, right?
The L-Y, the totallys, the absolutelys, the uniquelys, because you don't need them if you're a writer.
Let what you're saying stand on its own.
You don't need to go to these words that are supposed to bolster your verbs.
Use verbs that will communicate what you want.
Okay, writing teacher, thanks for your advice.
Let me give you all a hint, okay?
If you ask someone about racism and they respond with an expression that includes an adverb, they're in trouble.
And so are you.
So Dan, if you're like, Hey Brad, how do you feel about racism?
My response is going to be, I condemn racism.
There it is.
Three words.
I might also say racism is a tragedy.
Also three words, no adverbs.
I might also say racism hurts the racist and their victim.
You see what I'm doing here, Dan?
What did Tommy Tuberville say?
I'm totally against any type of racism.
If I have to add totally, I'm trying really hard.
And it shows to me that you're really kind of like, I got to make this very clear that I'm not racist.
Okay.
All right.
I was a football coach for 40 years and I've dealt and had opportunity to be around more minorities than anybody up here on this hill.
Well, first of all, thanks for dealing with the minorities.
We appreciate that as minorities.
We're just so glad you'll deal with us.
Thank you so much there, coach.
Second, because you were the coach of 18-year-old black men, that means that what?
I'm supposed to think that you see them as equal?
You see them as completely deserving of all kinds of equal rights and representation in our public square?
In an inherently inequitable system.
And I don't mean to say it as a criticism.
A team is not a democracy.
A coach is not like... It's an inherently hierarchical system where players are below the coach.
They compete with each other in a hierarchy.
It's completely competitive.
It's not in any way a microcosm of American society and how we want it to work.
Just throw that out there.
You hear sports people say this all the time, and got no problem with a coach being a coach.
Like, that's part of the game you're playing, but it's not social reality.
No.
So let me just break it down.
Hey, Tommy Tupperville, thanks for dealing with us minorities while you're a man in power making millions of dollars and you have all of the determining control over the lives of those that you're dealing with.
Meaning like, will they be successful?
Will they play?
Will they blah, blah.
I mean, come on.
All right.
All right.
Let's read some more of what he said to Caitlin Collins.
But the thing about being a white nationalist is just a cover word for the Democrats now where they can use it to try to make people mad across the country.
Identity politics.
I'm totally against that.
So he says, I'm quoting him, white nationalists is just a cover word, okay?
And it's just Democrats who use that to make people mad.
That's the only reason you'd bring up white nationalists.
He says, I'm for the American people.
I'm for military.
I'm for Christian conservatives, Democrats, whoever wants to be in the military to fight for this country, to protect this country.
If you're for the military, why are you the one man holding up everything going on in the military based on a protest about a military policy?
It's one of those things where you're saying you're the one who's for the military while you're the only one holding up important functions of our military.
So Caitlin Collins is actually like befuddled if you watch the clip and she says this, but just to be clear, you agree that white nationalists should not be serving in the US military.
Is that what you're saying?
Here's Tuberville.
If people think that a white nationalist is racist, I agree with that.
They shouldn't.
Collins.
But white nationalist is someone who believes that the white race is superior to other races.
Tuberville.
Well, that's some people's opinion.
And I don't think, and at this point, if you watch the clip, Caitlin Collins is about to faint.
And she just jumps in and is like, she says this, it's not an opinion.
And then clearly she thought better of it and knew that it would be better for her to draw this out.
So she then asks Tuberville, what's your opinion on white nationalists?
And here's what he says.
My opinion of a white nationalist, if somebody wants to call them that, is an American.
It's an American.
Now, if that person is racist, I'm against that because I'm 110% against racism.
All right.
I'm going to give you another freebie, everybody who's listening.
Okay.
I want everyone to stop.
Stop doing the dishes for a minute.
Stop driving.
Don't stop driving to work, but at least just pull over maybe.
Okay.
If you use an adverb to describe how against racism you are, You're telling on yourself.
If you say that you are more than 100% against racism, if you have to give a percentage of your resistance or adamancy against racism, and if that percentage is over 100%, you're in trouble.
If somebody says to you at a barbecue, I'm 110% against racism, You know who you're talking to, because people who are against racism don't say that.
They don't say that, Dan.
That's not how.
Anyway, we can just, you know, like, does your spouse ever ask you, do you love me?
And you're like, yeah, 85 percent, 85 percent.
Right.
You know, now, if I ask my spouse, do you love me?
And they're like 110 percent, I'd be like, why?
Why are you overcompensating?
What was that tone in your voice?
So when someone says they're one hundred and ten percent against racism, Ooh, doggie.
I know where I am.
Okay.
So he says, just to recap here, my opinion of a white nationalist is somebody, if somebody wants to call them that, is an American.
And I'm totally against identity politics.
I think it's ruining the country.
Okay.
And Colin says, but that's not identity politics.
You said white nationalists is an American.
Tuberville, it is identity politics.
Collins?
You said a white nationalist isn't American, but a white nationalist is someone who believes horrific things.
Tupperville?
Well, that's just the name that's been given.
And Collins, again, is at a point where she's about to faint.
And she's like, it's, it's, it's a real, like, she's trying to say something.
And Tupperville says, look, I mean, listen to this.
If you're, this is the, I'll stop right here, Dan, okay?
If you're going to do away with most white people in this country out of the military, we got huge problems.
Dan, I've been thinking about this exchange since it happened.
Couple days ago.
And I've really come down on the side that Tommy Tuberville is so uninformed and ignorant that he thinks a white nationalist is somebody, and I know I'm going to get the emails going to be like, no, no, no, no.
You're falling for the trap of the white man playing dumb.
And I might be okay.
So I'm willing for, for everybody to email me and say, come on, get it together Onishi.
That's fine.
But as I've watched the clip, I really think that he does not associate white nationalists with the KKK or the Aryan Brotherhood or any other form of white terrorism.
I think he thinks it's a white person who loves their country.
I really do.
It's a white patriot.
Maybe he thinks it's a white patriot.
Somebody who's patriotic and happens to be white.
And so, I'm totally happy to be wrong about this.
If you want to email me and say you're horrifically wrong about it, that's fine.
The more I watch the clip, the more I think that if you're saying white nationalist, you're like, what?
I'm white and I love my country.
And he doesn't know the history behind being a white nationalist.
Now, I'll stop here.
That is horrific in itself because it shows you the white racial ignorance.
Right?
Of America's history.
It shows you the history that they don't want to be taught in Florida schools.
It shows you the ways that if you are a white person, you can be willfully ignorant, to use the phrasing of my former colleague Jenny Mueller, the sociologist.
And know nothing about whiteness, know nothing about race relations, and just say, I'm colorblind.
I don't know.
White nationalism?
I'm just a guy who's white and loves the America.
What do you think?
What's the problem?
I really think that's what he's saying.
And Kaitlin Collins is trying to tell him white nationalism has a deep history and it means something actual in the world.
And he's like, no, it doesn't.
That's just Chuck Schumer trying to be mean and get people upset.
All right.
What do you think?
We gotta go.
So what do you think on this before we get out of here?
Yeah, so just quickly, I wasn't reading Thurville's mind, right?
We're just looking at what he says.
White nationalists, I call them Americans, right?
And you're right, if people want to exonerate him and he's an idiot, doesn't know any better, whatever.
Cool, but this is what he says.
I just want to point this out.
I just, while you were talking, pulled it up.
Military Times from, I think, February 2020.
Hardly an anti-military publication, right?
And a survey found that more than one-third of all active duty troops and more than half of minority service members say they have personally witnessed examples of white nationalism or ideological-driven racism within the ranks in recent months, right?
People can google that, and Military Times will come up a lot.
They do these surveys and see this, The Pentagon has studied it.
Everybody has seen there are inroads of white nationalism in the military.
And when you have somebody who says, as the right-wing trick is now, let's just not talk about that.
What did he say?
It's just a name that's been given.
Let's not use that word anymore.
And then we'll have all the qualifications.
The other thing, when somebody says, I'm absolutely opposed to racism, just put a marker right there because they're about to say something racist, right?
Or it's like when the person says, I don't want to sound like a racist, but, and you know that they're going to say, so it's, it's that the 110%, everything you're saying, Brad, I agree with you 120%.
It's just, that's, that's, it's the silliest thing.
So All that to say that I think whether it's ignorance, whether it's white guy playing dumb, the effect is the same.
Let's stop talking about it.
Let's get incensed that somebody would suggest that something's going on.
Let's not look at evidence.
Let's not look at data.
Let's not even agree to use terms, right?
Okay, if you want to define it this way, then maybe let's talk about this because this is what I think we both oppose or whatever.
It's the knee-jerk defense of anything critical of anything with the word white in it.
That's the piece that stands out to me.
Two points here.
One is, innocence is not exoneration here.
If you're Tommy Tuberville, you're a senator.
You're a white man in his 60s, I believe.
You have lived in the South almost your entire life.
For you to not know what white nationalism is, if that's the case, is not exoneration.
That is deeply irresponsible to the point of having really harmful effects on a lot of Americans.
Two, I agree with one point, Dan, based on your quote there from the Military Times.
I do agree with Senator Chappellville that, yeah, we have a lot of white nationalists in the military and it's a problem.
He says we got huge problems.
I think the huge problems are the fact that we have a lot of white nationalists in the military.
So there are seemingly quite a lot of white nationalists in the military.
That's a problem.
So I will agree with him that that's something that should be addressed.
And I'll point out that neither you nor I or anybody else is saying everybody who's white in the military is a white nationalist.
That's not the claim at all.
Got no problem with somebody who's white, who loves their country, friends, relatives, others who've served in the military and did it proudly.
None of them are white nationalists.
So just to head off that Stream this is not a totalizing statement that everybody in the military who's white is a white nationalist.
Well now I'm feeling feisty and I'm just going to tell you if that's what you heard if that's what you heard If you think that what I just said equates to thinking that all white people in the military are white nationalists, I'm pretty sure you've said at a barbecue in the last month, you're 110% against racism.
I'm just going to put it out there.
And if you want to write to me and tell me that's true or not, you know, DM's open, my guy.
All right?
Dan, reasons for hope.
You got one today?
I do.
Out of Southern California, a school district that narrowly elected three members, very conservative members, in the midst of COVID outrage and so forth.
These members are now facing backlash.
There's a recall vote, like something like six months into their tenure, because of opposing critical race theory, because of removing social studies materials, I think talked about Harvey Milk, LGBTQ kind of icon.
The point is, we hear all the media things and get the sense that the right is on the march everywhere and that everything is downward, but you see these places where people, and this is not a liberal bastion kind of place, they elected these people because they were upset about COVID and so forth.
I just took hope in the fact that we talk about institutions and things.
These are parents and educators and others who are concerned about their kids trying to retake an institution that's important and push back on this kind of right-wing effort.
It's a silenced discussion of diversity, of decency, and so on.
So I took a lot of hope from that and hope to see more of that in different places moving forward.
You took my reason for hope.
That was mine too.
It's from fairly close to where I grew up, and I think it's showing the growing movement against the school board draconian measures.
So I hope we see more of this, especially in Southern California, where I'm from, and places where I have loved ones who are Fighting these fights and, and forging ahead.
So, all right, as always friends, we're an indie show.
If you can help us out, PayPal, Patreon, Venmo.
That's all in the show notes.
We appreciate all of you who have, uh, supported us and helped make this show happen like it does for the last four and a half years.
Find us at Straight White JC.
Find me at Bradley Onishi.
And other than that, we'll be back next week with the weekly roundup with It's In The Code with a great interview.
But for now, we'll just say, thanks for listening.
